Contestants that suffered/benefited the most from song choices throughout their run.

[VintageVoice]

Holly is the most recent example of someone who got song choices that didn’t quite work for her. While I’m mostly referring to “Last Dance” here, continuously genre-switching didn’t help her case, as it made it feel like her musical identity wasn’t super clear-cut & may have impacted her voting potential with the audience.

 

Meanwhile, also on Team Ariana, I’d argue that Jim & Sasha benefitted from song choices more than most on the show do. Despite the questionable vocals due to Sasha’s laryngitis, “Hey Jude” as a playoffs song pick was arguably the smartest pick of the night since it’s a song just about everyone knows and likes + that choice likely netted them a PV. Granted, given the offerings of Team Ariana as a whole, it’s not hard to see how they got it that week, but continuing in that classic old-school soft-rock-ish lane with songs that have wide appeal (Elton John + CCR) instead of picking more modern songs likely helped keep them safer on the show than other acts this season.