ikwonic

Ugh first poll was impossible. I chose Matthew, but wanted to vote for Monique, Judith, Sarah, or Tessanne. Bria was my clear personal favorite out of the second half, but I love Christina's audition too.

They both chose an amazing audition song and both got robbed

Some other underrated performances: Caity Peters (Leave Your Lover) Ugh Caity was so good. I wasn't a fan of her when she was on the show, but she's one of my favorites in retrospect. This was definitely my favorite performance from her. Mike Parker (Breakeven) It's hard to remember this performance since Makenzie ate him alive and literally murdered him on the stage, and there were definitely some rough moments, but I also think he had some really nice moments in this performance and really pushed himself more than in his audition or battle. Anthony Arya (Operator) On the topic of S15 contestants who lost their KOs, Anthony also really improved in his KO. I know a lot of people thought he was better than Kennedy, which I don't necessarily agree with, but I think he did a really good job. Oliv Blu (Smooth Operator and On and On) On the topic of operators, I loved Oliv's performance of Smooth Operator, but I unfortunately couldn't find it anywhere online I loved the shortclip we got of her audition though and I'm still pissed they decided to give her the montage treatment even though she made it to the lives. I think Oliv being a massive underdog and still shining in the Cross Battles and moving on was one of the only good moments of S16. Elliemae (Merry Go Round) On the topic of shortclips, Elliemae also got robbed by getting shortclipped and montaged. Her audition was lowkey so beautiful and I loved her tone.

The fact that Natasia lost her KO is insane, and the fact that that decision was probably justified is even more insane. S15's KOs were crazy good, but Zaxai, Kymberli, and Natasia were in a completely different league. I still have no idea which 2 I would've picked had I been in Kelly's position.

Good ole S9 where everyone got 4 chairs. It was a stacked season but that was so overboard. I chose Krista for the first poll. I really wanted to vote for Andi and Alex for the second one, but you can’t not pick Alisan.

Not gonna lie, I barely remember anyone in the first half. S6-8 was a blur to me. I picked India for the second poll, but I liked Sawyer and Blessing too.

Have any brave IDF members tried to harass any of them into sending a rehearsal video and/or recording of any of these unseen performances? I know RADHA has a random personal recording of her KO, so I wouldn't find it unfathomable for any of them to have footage from their battles in some form

Arei

My life won't be complete until I get to hear Foushee's battle. She was so underrated and I was so mad she got sent home so early without even being able to see her battle :(

I miss when the teams were big and literally everyone got 4 chairs Khalea was the clear best 4 chair turn that season IMO. I've listened to that one at least 100 times, such a beautiful performance. Preston and Mendeleyev were great too! The only one I didn't really like was Brennan's audition. I still have no idea why the coaches always eat up that terrible cheesy version of You Are My Sunshine that she and Ashland auditioned with.

Ethan, Emma, and Aaron all have criminally underrated auditions IMO. I voted for Emma just because her tone is so pretty, but I almost voted for Aaron. I love Cam, but his audition wasn't one of my favorite performances from him.

I liked Team Legend this year, but I think a lot of them went a bit overboard in the auditions and were doing too much, if that makes any sense? My top 2, Zania and Denisha, both gave really subtle but still impressive performances, so that's why I ranked them so high. S Tier: Denisha Dalton Zania Alake A Tier: Victor Solomon Pia Renee Deion Warren B Tier: Rio Doyle Christine Cain C Tier: Durrell Anthony Ciana Pelekai Carolina Rial

Team Nick was so good this season!! I can't rank them, but I'll put them in tiers. S Tier: Raine Stern Jose Figueroa Jr. Dana Monique Lindsay Joan A Tier: Zae Romeo Andrew Marshall (underrated audition!) Awari (also underrated) B Tier: Bradley Sinclair Devan Blake Jones C Tier: Rachel Mac I ended up throwing a vote to Jose just because his audition is probably the one I've listened to the most.

So many underwhelming 4 chair turns from S18 and S20. DeSz, Tamara, and Cami were the top 3 in my eyes.

I was going to say this too! It's insane they decided to give that amazing battle the montage treatment. Some other ones that I encourage everyone to listen to: Moushumi (Wicked Game) Her tone is out of this world. She deserved to go so much farther that season. Whitney and Shannon vs. Gabriel Violett (More Than Words) I still think Gabriel was the clear winner and Whitney and Shannon only won due to being a duo and a 4 chair turn, but they both did great. Halle Tomlinson (New York State of Mind) She deserved to go so much farther. I especially love the studio version, although she sounded good live too. Her battle against Belle Jewel also sounded good in the studio (got montaged so we didn't hear it live). Maye Thomas (Roses) I've never seen her mentioned here, but she's so different from everyone else that's been on the show. Katriz Trinidad vs. Blessing Offer (Do I Do) One of the warmest and happiest battles from this show. The fact that Katriz was able to outshine someone with so much more experience was super impressive. Katriz should've gone SO much farther. Courtney Harrell (River Deep Mountain High) Literally one of the most impressive performances I've ever seen. I have no idea why I've never seen it mentioned here, unless I'm just not looking hard enough, which is definitely fathomable.

The two worst auditions IMO were Alex Kandel and Shilo Gold. Both were more or less trainwrecks, although Shilo did sound a bit better in her battle. I know that Nick Hagelin and Rebecca Brunner got pretty bad feedback on their auditions, but I kinda liked both of them. Some other auditions that were pretty disliked/rough around the edges were Bree Fondacaro, JD Caspar, Paula Deanda, Talon Cardon (his audition sounded OK in the final cut, but I think that was mostly the autotune talking), Worth The Wait, and DOMO. I also wasn't a big fan of Ria Eaton, Sophia Bollman, and Davina Leone's auditions, but I think I'm the only one that wasn't a fan of them.

No, I agree that Ainae should've gone through. She did better than Anna in that battle IMO. It felt like Anna was trying to do too much by making everything into a forced run while Ainae was a lot more subtle. Their voices didn't really mesh well though IMO and I don't think either of them did Amy justice like Loren Allred or Taylor Beckham and Jess Kellner did

Savanna said that lol

I only hate Pete and Savanna's battle because they apparently cut out all of Savanna's good parts

S9, S13, and S15 are my three favorite seasons (with S11 being somewhere near the top of my list as well), so I personally prefer the fall seasons. The only spring seasons that stood out to me were S10 and S12.

S18: Very easily Levi vs. Jamal, but purely because of Jamal. Levi wasn't bad. Second place would probably be CammWess and Mandi Castillo's "Senorita" or Mandi Thomas vs. Sara Collins's "My Baby Loves Me". The rest of the battles were pretty okay that season. S19: JusJon and Payton's battle was a terrible pairing with a terrible song choice/arrangement, which sucks because Payton deserved so much better. However, I think from the video we've seen on Tori's Instagram, Tori Miller and Van Andrew's performance of "Exile" was definitely the worst battle that season. I also can't imagine Ben Allen and Sam Stacy's battle being anything but terrible from the clip we saw. S20: The majority of S20's battles were bad IMO, but I didn't hate Christine and Pia's battle which somehow is winning the poll? I think that Kenzie/JD, Anna Grace/Ainae, and Pete/Savannah had worse battles than Christine and Pia. Still, Andrew and Raine easily took the cake as the worst battle we've had in the last 3 seasons IMO. Edit: I think Dana and Devan's battle was also terrible and deserves mentioning. Nick's song choice was atrocious this season.

Agreed! I loved her audition, it was one of my favorites that season.

I think realistically, even if there is an influx of old contestants, only an extremely small portion will actually get any airtime or make it far. It seems like Idol/the producers usually pick one or two returners (Laine, Margie, Genevieve, etc.) to give a spotlight to, while the majority get little to no airtime at all (Drake McCain, Ren Patrick, Kay Kay, Payton Taylor, Laila Spring, etc.). I'm expecting there to be maybe 1 returnee from ABC Idol and 2 from new Idol to get any airtime, and the rest will get covered up and hidden.

So excited for JHud to come back and whoop the asses of absolutely everyone in the competition, Katy, Lionel, and Luke included This is obvious sarcasm and I know that she is obviously over the age limit, but one can dream....

My favorites got robbed on both shows so.... AI had more interesting live shows and gave the contestants more of a chance to shine. The Voice's lives have always been a lot more boring to me and with them being so short now, it's hard to really get attached to anyone. On the other hand though, a lot of my favorites on Idol got screwed over by an unfair lack of pre-live show screen time (Anilee, Alanis, Alana, etc.), which wasn't an issue with The Voice. I also liked Idol's lives a bit more, since the judges actually gave criticism every now and then and there were tons of turns and twists. With that being said, The Voice's pre-live rounds will always be superior to Idol's in my eyes. The fact that The Voice shows at the very least a clip of every single pre-live performance (with the exception of a few of S7's battles for some reason) makes it so much better. I hate growing attached to people on Idol like Heather, Ash, Liv, Xavier, Benson, etc. only for them to randomly disappear and never be seen again. But at the end of the day, Casey should've won Idol and Dana should've won The Voice, but it is what it is.