American Song Contest: The Live Qualifiers, Part 3

April 4, 2022 10:10 AM - Season 1, Episode 3

In week three of the qualifiers, three artists from week two are revealed as advancing to the semifinals; 12 artists from across the country perform an original song to earn America's vote.

Per wikipedia, tonight's contestants are:

Alabama - Ni/Co - "The Difference"
Alaska - Jewel - "The Story"
Colorado - Riker Lynch - "Feel the Love"
Delaware - Nitro Nitra - "Train"
Florida - Ale Zabala - "Flirt"
Louisiana - Brittany Pfantz - "Now You Do"
New Jersey - Brooke Alexx - "I Don't Take Pictures Anymore"
Northern Mariana Islands - Sabyu -"Sunsets and Seaturtles"
South Carolina - Jesse LeProtti - "Not Alone"
South Dakota - Judd Hoos - "Bad Girl"
Tennessee - Tyler Braden - "Seventeen"
Texas - Grant Knoche - "Mr. Independent"

The YouTube playlist has been updated with (most of) tonight's songs. (When I checked the link, I saw all of tonight's entries in the list except Delaware's entry "Train" by Nitro Nitro.)

posted by the primroses were over (8 comments total)

At the one-hour mark, we were trying to figure out why this one was so consistently better than the previous two. And then Jewel came on, and, oh, okay, they had to stack this week so it wasn't quite so obvious that she's working on an entirely different level. And that was a second-tier Jewel song.
posted by Etrigan at 6:43 PM on April 4, 2022

And now that we've seen the rest... you will never convince me they didn't stack this entire episode. Even the chill beach song from the commonwealth of 40K people was a goddamn banger.
posted by Etrigan at 7:17 PM on April 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ni/Co from Alabama were my favorite. They said they were going to be surprising, and I was definitely surprised when he started singing in the same register that she did. Then they started harmonizing, and really I don't remember any other songs from the rest of the night. Their voices were really beautiful, and I hope they go far.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:09 AM on April 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

This group of songs was fun, though personally I liked last week's better. The Alabama duo did have great voices, and I thought the performer from Delaware did too.

I have nothing against Michael Bolton, but if Michael Bolton is the only one of Michael Bolton, Macy Gray and Jewel to make it to the semifinals (as is looking likely) I am going to be somewhat disappointed in America.

I did think it was interesting that the guy from Texas performed with Kidz Bop - I'm only vaguely aware of that phenomenon, being an old, but I guess it makes sense that would be a place for kids with entertainment ambitions to get their start, along with the Disney channel pipeline. Anyway, googling "kidz bop alumni" turned up Zendaya, along with some other names that are probably recognizable to people younger than me. That is as far down the Kidz Bop rabbit hole as I was willing to go.

Top of the show, they announced who got through from last week - the top jury selections (after #1 Kentucky) were Kansas, Montana and Maine. Once the popular vote was added, the states that got through were North Dakota, Kansas and Montana.

I thought it was interesting that they decided to give us the full jury rankings this week - not sure if they were getting bad feedback about the state trivia and other filler bits, and decided to mix it up, or if they think this will encourage more voting/engagement. Either way, this week we know that Tennessee got through - the rest, in descending order by jury preference, were Florida, Alabama, Texas, New Jersey, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Alaska, Northern Mariana Islands, South Dakota and South Carolina.
posted by the primroses were over at 3:06 PM on April 5, 2022

America stole Eurovision? 😯
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 2:57 AM on April 6, 2022

It's positioned by Eurovision as more of a sister competition than a rip off, but yeah, sort of. :)

I expected it to have more advertising for Eurovision, since this competition is scheduled to wrap up the day before the first Eurovision semi-final, but maybe they're waiting til the finale to try to convince everyone to stream Eurovision on Peacock.
posted by the primroses were over at 7:54 AM on April 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Judging from the ratings, Eurovision might have asked ASC not to mention them.
posted by Etrigan at 8:07 AM on April 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wow, they really managed to pick the mediocrest white dudes outta this week, didn't they.
posted by Etrigan at 6:02 PM on April 11, 2022