Whoa. I don’t think many people saw this one coming. Tonight on American Idol the Australian native Michael Johns was the one voted off out of the eight remaining contestants. This announcement comes as a surprise to many American Idol fans as Michael was not a regular in the bottom three contestants during the previous weeks.

This result is a classic example of what it means when Simon continues to say that performances are not memorable. Michael Johns is a good performer and we’re pretty comfortable with saying that he is better than at least a couple of the remaining seven contestants, but he plays it safe too often and doesn’t stand out from the crowd to get votes. Keep in mind that the performers are not actually voted off, but are just not voted on as much as the others. Michael did not necessarily do poorly, but also did nothing to warrant enough votes this week to stay in the competition this week. (more…)