American Idol 2012 (Season 11): Spoilers and Predictions for Colton Dixon

After getting the shaft in the last group of boys to be eliminated before the voting rounds in American Idol's Season 10, Colton Dixon has returned to the Top 42, according to TheIdolPad spoilers. Dixon was somewhat featured in the audition rounds of Season 10. While he was certainly not cast as a favorite, Dixon had some face time. He was cut along with Jacee Badeaux in the final round of three boys (Brett Loewenstern was picked) during the 2011 auditions.

My own theory is that the show was saving Colton to come back this year. While that is just a theory, the producers surely knew Brett had almost no chance of winning. My guess is the American Idol producers knew they wanted Scotty as the top male and thought Colton might mess up those plans. In fact, Colton trended worldwide on Twitter during the audition rounds last year.

So it is hardly difficult to predict that Dixon will be a favorite this year if he makes the voting rounds. Will this be based on talent? Well, we have not seen enough of him to know just how talented he is, but surely the initial trending on Twitter is more about style or looks or marketability than talent. Nonetheless, he has a lot of things going for him in the talent equation.

First, Dixon plays instruments. This seems to frequently help contestants. The reason for this is not completely clear, but playing an instrument makes someone seem genuine as a musician or just plain cool. Who doesn't think the guitar player at the party is cool? Should it be this way in a singing contest? Not in my opinion, especially when the instrument playing is pretty simplified on Idol. Only Casey James has ever actually displayed any decent instrumentalist skills (although Casey Abrams has shown songwriting skills through his instrument playing). But my opinion means nothing to some hormone-based girlie who thinks guitar or piano players are hot (especially when they look like Colton Dixon).

Second, Dixon does have a nice vocal tone. It is somewhat similar to an alt-rock voice, but Dixon seems to lean more pop than that. We don't know much about his range yet, but that is generally not very important, at least in Idol land.

Considering his marketability and talent level, it appears that Colton Dixon will come out as a strong favorite for American Idol 11 IF the producers give him a chance and put him in the voting rounds this year. Will he win? That really depends on so many factors. It helps tremendously to be cast as a favorite and given a positive edit and airtime by the producers. Until we see how he is treated, it is hard to predict an actual win. The most that can be said right now is that his style shows that he should emerge as one of the top favorites to win if given that chance.

Sources:

TheIdolPad: American Idol 11 Contestant Spoilers