Randy Jackson Catches Heat After Haley Reinhart Drama on “American Idol” Wednesday

When “American Idol” topics have generated vast online buzz following the weekly performance shows, they have almost always concerned the contestants and their song selections.

This time, however, the most-buzzed about subject is judge Randy Jackson, who caught heat for a variety of developments on Wednesday’s intriguing Final Four performance show. As of 10:30PM, Jackson leads the Google Trends chart as the most popular search term online.

Notably fueling online buzz for Jackson is the fact that contestant James Durbin performed Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”, making multiple mentions of the fact that Jackson used to play bass for the band. While discussing the performance, Jackson said that Journey, along with fellow judge Steven Tyler’s band Aerosmith, ranks as one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. He also said that lead singer Steve Perry, like Steven Tyler, is one of the all-time great rock vocalists. Journey had climbed to number two on the Trends chart.

(Update: In a very rapid change, Jackson and Journey appeared to be off the Trends chart by 11:10PM)
But the buzz was not all for Randy Jackson and James Durbin bonding over the influential Journey song. Another element of interest in Jackson comes from his heated exchanges with Haley Reinhart, who was the only contestant to receive negative feedback after the first round of songs Wednesday.

Reinhart’s take on “Earth Song” garnered criticism from both Jennifer Lopez and Jackson, with Lopez focusing on the ill-advised song selection and Jackson bringing attention to things like Reinhart’s “screaming” throughout the song. The interaction between Jackson and Reinhart escalated, with the two (along with J-Lo, at times) entering into something of a brief, heated, back-and-forth discussion about the performance and song selection.

Later, when asked by Ryan Seacrest who won the first round, Jackson said that it was a tie between Durbin, Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina, delivering a biting blow to Reinhart, the only other singer left in the competition.

Though Reinhart is perceived to have the smallest overall fanbase of the remaining contestants, she is very popular with critics and online commenters, and there was a big degree of outcry over what Haley fans felt was biased judging in that first round.

As with last week, however, the first round criticism built into something positive for round two–all three judges gave Haley a standing ovation for her “I Who Have Nothing.”
Headline Planet’s full review of Wednesday’s performances is due Thursday.