American Idol

Syesha Mercado, aside from the top 2 finalists, can be considered the biggest story of the American Idol season.  Spending all sorts of time in the bottom three and bottom two, Syesha kept fighting and improved more and more as the stakes got higher.  Syesha emerged as an artist late in the season, becoming one of the most theatrically adept performers American Idol has ever seen. While she may not have been the best pure singer this season, Syesha gained fans throughout the season.  Earlier today, Syesha held a conference call with the media to discuss her time on Idol and what she has planned for her future.

She admits that she was in a kind of negative mind-frame early in the Top 12/Top 24 and she had to eventually get back to enjoying herself on stage.  She really had to find a balance between hard work and having fun.  Syesha says that she's a mix of a lot of different things as an artist.  Christina Aguilera/Alicia Keys is the way she describes herself.  She loves pop, she loves R&B and she loves old-school musical stuff.  Clearing up the Civil Rights/”A Change is Gonna Come” comparison she made, Syesha says that it was more about what the song represented – for others, the song is synonymous with the civil rights movement, but it took on a different meaning for her when she sang it. 

On American Idol, she learned that there's a fine line between over-rehearsing and letting go and trusting herself.  Early on, she was working too hard, not able to relax and have fun.  She learned how to deal with stress and how better to perform as the season went along.  Her favorite moment was probably was Broadway week and doing the musical thing.  Her father's previous struggles made her realize that people are troubled and that you need to be forgiving and understanding with everyone.  Those family struggles also turned into a workaholic. 

Syesha has a lot of post-Idol goals.  She wants to make an album, she wants to star in a film and she wants to star on Broadway.  Syesha is engaged, but for now she's going to focus on the now.  In regards to her song choice of “Fever” she has no regrets.  She had other song choices she'd rather do, but since that didn't happen, she did “Fever.”  She's a performer, and she wanted to do something performance-centric.  Syesha made the best of the Happy Feet song that was given to her as the producers' choice on Tuesday.  She tried her very best, though she admits that it wasn't much of a singers' song.   


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)