American Idol eliminated Colton Dixon and determined its Top 6 eleventh-season finalists during Thursday night's live results show broadcast on Fox.
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Dixon, a 20-year-old from Murfreesboro, TN, became the seventh finalist sent home from American Idol's eleventh season after he received the fewest home viewer votes following Wednesday night's performance show, which featured the Top 7 finalists each performing two songs, with the first being a No.1 hit from the year 2000 to present and the second being a soul song from back in the day.
"I was originally not going to audition this season. In Vegas, my sister was sent home. I think I handled it worse than she did. I'm so glad that the judges wanted me to audition this year. I can honestly say I wouldn't be the same person if I wasn't here," Dixon said in a video montage.
Immediately following the announcement of Dixon's elimination, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest asked the young singer what he believed went wrong with America's vote.
"It's a first -- you standing up here in the bottom three and then obviously standing here at the end of the show. What do you think happened?" Seacrest asked Dixon.
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"You know, I need to apologize. I wasn't myself last night and I get it, and I appreciate what you told me last night. I'll take that when I'm making a record and I'll choose songs..." Dixon said.
"You'll make mega records!" Idol judge Jennifer Lopez interjected.
"You have a huge career ahead of you man," fellow judge Randy Jackson added.
Prior to Dixon's ouster, Hollie Cavanagh, an 18-year-old from McKinney, TX, and Elise Testone, a 28-year-old from Charleston, SC, were the other finalists still in danger of elimination and revealed by Seacrest to be the other two members of this week's bottom three vote-getters.
Dixon -- who was one of the 10 finalists voted into the season's Top 13 by home viewers -- had received positive reviews from Idol's judges following his performances of "Bad Romance" by Lady GaGa on Wednesday's performance show.
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"We were just at the Colton Dixon concert right there! Listen man, you are so in the zone right now. I think everything you do -- I don't think this was the greatest performance, because you've had so many great performances on the show. But I still loved it and I loved to see your interpretation of GaGa, which I was saying to Jennifer maybe the key fell low because your voice was so low in the verses," Jackson explained.
"Your voice was [down here] but you had it so you could have the high notes and hit the power. So that was so smart because that's the pay off point. Dude, job well done. Well done, well done."
"I agree it was a very exciting performance. There were parts of it I just loved, and then there were those those parts where it just got kind of a tiny bit low and you lost us a little bit. But again, you have so much character when you sing those parts that it just didn't matter. It was a really good performance," Lopez said.
Fellow judge Steven Tyler agreed with both judges wholeheartedly and then joked about how he liked all the theatrical aspects to Dixon's rock performance.
While the judges were quick to admit they enjoyed Dixon's first song, his subsequent performance of Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" left the judges a little confused over his song choice and dissatisfied overall. Mentor and producer Jimmy Iovine had even commented during tonight's Idol broadcast that Dixon's style, hair and song selections from that night were all wrong for the singer's age, image and vocal styling.
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"Colton man, I love your voice and you know that, but this is the part of the competition where you gotta find the just right song for your voice. I think your voice is a lot more powerful than that song," Tyler told him.
"It's really about finding the perfect song that fits into who you are. Again, you sounded really good, but I'm not sure that it was the perfect performance and everything came together in the way that it usually does for you," Lopez explained.
"I just don't think that was the perfect song to do that with because you've already done that with a bunch of other songs... You sound good, but it's not as exciting as we would have liked," Jackson said.
In addition to Testone and Cavanagh, Joshua Ledet, Skylar Laine, Jessica Sanchez, and Phillip Phillips also still remain in the running for American Idol's eleventh-season title.
Fifty-three million home-viewer votes, the highest total of the season, were cast following Wednesday night's performance show, according to Seacrest.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski