Idol 26 - Chris Richardson

26. Chris Richardson

Season 6, 5th Place

Chris is another Idol that has a very unique voice, and yet again, that makes him extremely polarizing. Most people love or hate him. Well, I don't think I'm in either category. I like him a lot, but I wouldn't say I love him. Now, I know that he didn't exactly have the best performances on the show, so let me explain what I like about Chris.

Well, he actually started out as kind of blah for me. I thought his audition was alright, but nothing too memorable. His first semifinals performance of I Don't Want To Be was just an okay performance. But next thing I knew, Chris sings Geek in the Pink and he completely won me over. Unfortunately, most of his performances after that ranged from bland to pretty good.

It didn't take too long for me to understand that Chris' unique voice doesn't work with any song. He has to chose perfect songs to fit that tone, which isn't an easy task, to be honest.

Now, some people complained about Chris singing nasally. Well, usually it would bother me, but it fit him like a glove. It gave his voice character, in my opinion. I mean, sometimes "bad" vocal techniques can be good for some artists, but for the average Idol viewer, that wasn't an easy concept to grasp. And I understand that, because it's nearly impossible to come up with a concrete list explaining what works exactly. One just got to use self discretion, I guess.

To me though, Chris' voice screamed star quality! Seriously. I honestly believe that he can and should be a HUGE recording artist. If I were to make a list of the Idol's who are most in tune with their musical identity, Chris would absolutely be in the Top 5. He has a great sense of musicality, and I bet he could pop out hits in his sleep. Haha.

Frankly, I don't think the set-up of the Idol competition could nearly give Chris the credit he deserves. Really. If it were more of a competition with original music, where one's producing skills could also be shown off, I think he would excel. But he was quite hit or miss on the show.

That said, I think he left at about the right time in the competition, even though I think he would've been good to last an extra week and break up a little bit of the monotony. But, Chris' good performances helped him make my 26th favorite contestant, because Chris showed the incredible artistic potential that he has.

Favorite performance(s): Like I said earlier, I loved Geek in the Pink. The song fit Chris' voice and style perfectly. He showed great potential as a modern recording artist that night, and it definitely caught my attention. That was my favorite from him, but I also loved Don't Speak and Change The World. He made slight changes to the song and made it very hip and cool. He turned it into a Chris Richardson joint and I thought it worked out beautifully. Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying were also pretty good.

Geek In The Pink

Don't Speak

Change The World

Don't Get Around Much Anymore

Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying

#25 - Holy Toledo