On last night's American Idol, judge Simon Cowell grudgingly admitted the controversial teen star Sanjaya Malakar wasn't that bad. He closed the Latin-themed show with a soft, simple version of "Besame Mucho" - in Spanish no less.
Cowell said, “I couldn’t understand a word of it. You sang like a 14-year-old and I’m going to hate myself for this....it wasn’t horrible.”
Randy Jackson told the improving Sanjaya: “You’re one of the smartest contestants I’ve ever met, dude. That was actually really good.”
"I can tell you he can sing," Ricky Minor, "Idol" musical director told the New York Post yesterday defending the 17-year-old against the haters. "I think there are people who are naysayers, but I've run into a lot of credible people who really enjoy his voice."
Will Sanjaya survive another week? Minor thinks so, and more.
"You know what? I think that he could win the show," Minor said. "This isn't a singing competition alone. It's for a star to emerge. Sanjaya has a huge likability factor. I think it's possible for him to win based on the way he's moving through the competition. "
Idol exec producer Nigel Lythgoe recently told TV Week that Sanjaya making it to the Idol podium may not be the disaster its proponents are hoping it to be. "Taylor Hicks won the competition, but he isn't the one selling albums at the moment. So what is the win at the end of the day?"
"I do understand why people vote for him," Lythgoe added. "I really do. I think Sanjaya is going to win in the sense that he's going to have a very interesting career. He's certainly going to have food for the rest of his life, isn't he?"
