The competition is heating up over in the United States of America (and its territories). The American Song Contest has reached the semi-final stage, with half of the heat qualifiers returning to the stage for semi-final one.
As with the qualifying heats, the jury winner was given the first ticket to advance to the next round (i.e. the grand final). This was Washington’s Allen Stone with his entry “A Bit of Both”.
Note: The embedded performance is from heat four
American Song Contest semi-final one results
Five acts will ultimately qualify from semi-final one.
The professional jury selected one qualifier during the live programme. Their ranking was as follows:
- Washington: Allen Stone – “A Bit of Both”
- Kentucky: Jordan Smith – “Sparrow”
- Rhode Island: Hueston – “Held On Too Long”
- Michigan: Ada LeAnn – “Natalie”
- Oklahoma: AleXa – “Wonderland”
- Alabama: Ni/Co – “The Difference”
- Montana: Jonah Prill – “Fire It Up”
- Massachusetts: Jared Lee – “Shameless”
- New Hampshire: Mari – “Fly”
- Wyoming: Ryan Charles – “New Boot Goofin”
- Colorado: Riker Lynch – “Feel the Love”
The public vote is now open for viewers to vote for their favourites and choose four other acts to advance.
Heat five results and wildcard
During the show, we also found out who the televoters chose to qualify from last week’s heat five. It was California, American Samoa, and North Carolina who advanced.
Meanwhile, the second streaming wildcard has also been announced. Of the acts who failed to qualify from the heats, the two acts with the highest social media streams earned a lifeline and progressed to the semi-finals. Wyoming’s Ryan Charles was previously awarded the first wildcard to compete in semi-final one.
The second wildcard has been given to Enisa from New York. She finished ninth in the jury vote of heat two with her song “Green Light”. Enisa will join the remaining ten qualifiers in semi-final two next week.
What do you make of the American Song Contest semi-final one results? Are you happy to see Washington’s Allen Stone in the grand final? Share your thoughts below.
It remains to be seen how they will score the final. I assume all 56 jurors will be back. Will each of them score it on a 12-10-8-etc. basis? Or will they each have a single vote?
I sure hope they will just say who their top song is instead of reading their top 3. The finals will only consist of 10 songs. There’s no need for such suspense since most people can probably guess who will top the jury votes.
I’m more concerned with public voting because they are going to announce the winner on the night and votes from the East Coast might not be sufficient before the final tally.
The show will be live coast to coast for the final so I would assume that they could have voting begin as soon as Semi 2 wraps and closing during the final after the last performance. Since it’s gonna be a 2-hour show, they gonna need have all finalists perform in the first hour and the results on the last hour. Best way to announce the jury results would be to just divide the announcements per region: Midwest, Pacific Coast + Alaska, Hawaii+ Pacific Territories, New England, East Coast, Southeast + Puerto Rico, and Southwest. I just hope it’s not… Read more »
*Erratum: I forgot to cite US Virgin Islands. hehe
Where have you seen that it will air live coast-to-coast? West coast TV listings do not have it coming on at 5 PM PDT. That would require pre-empting local news/syndicated TV which I doubt the affiliates will want to do for ASC, given the poor ratings. I’m pretty sure they’re just going to open up the vote for everyone, but West Coast won’t be able to see the show live on their local NBC. Also, I doubt they’ll do results for a full hour…They will probably just reveal the final list in the last 10 minutes or so. I do… Read more »
If this will go like Eurovision or Melfest, they will add together all jury points and then add the points from televoting (so the max points you can get is 56×12+56×12). But since there is only one juror per state and there are only ten states compiting, they will have to alter that somehow. But I really hope they use the 1-12 point system since it’s a super important part of the original format.
Have you seen the list of songwriters for these songs? It seems as if the same set of songwriters are responsible for dozens of these songs. I would have expected that in MelFest; but for a country as big as ours (I’m from NYC), I was expecting the contenders to bring in their own team of writers. It makes it almost seem as if the writers are ASC’s own in-house crew, giving songs to a whole bunch of contenders. Am I overestimating something here? [Allen Stone co-wrote his song with someone else.]
Alesia Michelle interviewed some of the contestants in her Youtube livestream and they said they only submitted demos to the producers for their consideration. Perhaps the reason why the same songwriters’ names crop up is because they are the ones help to produce the songs to their final versions.
Big mistake here. The distribution of the contenders is off-balance, because they put 4 of the 5 jury winners in this semi, leaving one for the second semi. I would have expected a 3-2 split here, and a 2-3-public vote split, assuming one or more of the jury winners didn’t also win the public vote.
Why does the jury dislike Colorado so much? I don’t get it, it’s such a good song!
Agreed. And when they were showing how the voters were voting around the US, Colorado was usually at the very top. Could be like results we see at Eurovision where the jury doesn’t support a song but viewers love it. Makes he not understand why there’s such a disconnect between the public and the jury.
Well the jury tends to like ballads, while the public prefers more danceable or positive songs, like Colorado and New Hampshire. At least this round, the jury can only pick the automatic qualifier, the other 4 to the final are public voting exclusive!
I don’t like the voting system. Imagine the jury winner get last place with Televote but still qualify due to being first with jury.
The jury needs less power for sure, but I don’t think they would be too out of touch with the public’s preferences. Hope they will be transparent and release the breakdown of televoting results soon though.
For the first semifinal, the jury chooses one to move on and the public chooses four. The public has more power. What was interesting is that they had four jury winners from their heats in the first semifinal and only one in next week’s second semifinal.
My favorite currently is Michigan. 2. Texas, 3. Georgia, 4. Puerto Rico, 5. California
OMG I just found out Enisa – New York is the 2nd redemption, YESSSS! If they didn’t select her, I would have been sooooo annoyed! SO EXCITED!!!
Ok, I seriously cannot get what’s so good about North Carolina’s song! Sorry for sounding rude, but it’s way too middle of the road for me. Full Circle is actually a nice song, and there was no way California wouldn’t have qualified! It’s amazing. Though I’m sad that we’ll never get to see Nevada’s masterpiece or even Minnesota (I thought Ready To Go had racked up a lot of streams, why didn’t it qualify as second redemption??)And even Sisqo, that was a really catchy song! I’m happy Washington is going to the final, it was the only deserved jury qualifier… Read more »
I’m completely the opposite to you. North Carolina is my second favourite song overall and, for me, clearly the best country song in the entire competition. American Samoa on the otherhand is painfully repetitive and annoying in places. I’d have been happy enough if it hadn’t qualified. I do agree with you about the juries though. Their results are too similar to what they voted in the heats. Are they the same exact jurors. If they are, that’s an incredibly stupid decision. Luckily, their votes only affected the automatic qualifier this time, so that’s good. In semi final 2, I… Read more »
This is definitely 1 of my faves.. Soulfully sung, great RnB vibe.. Catchy, it could and, well should win.. Like Sparrow too and Mr Independent also..
Alexa’s performance had less of an impact. They toned down the backing vocals, and that’s fine, but the music was WAY too quiet, to the point where I had to strain to hear it sometimes.
I voted for my faves, which are Oklahoma (such a good song), Colorado (so positive, and ROSS LYNCH’s brother!), Massachusetts (good vocals), New Hampshire (this puts a smile on my face) 🙂
Im not loving these voting system at all
I agree, the voting system is confusing.
The latest surprise change is the voting window went down from 3 days to 12 hours, or 10 hours if you expect people to watch the 2 hour show before voting. Some of us don’t have access to the live broadcast and also we need to sleep.
In their defense, it is a lot to organize and many stakeholders to keep happy. Hopefully they learned from this and will do better next year, if there is a next year of this show.
It’s a bit sad. There’s no all-in-one act. Rhode Island and Kentucky have the best vocals. The best stage show is Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming. Michigan and Alabama have the best song content, but shaky vocals. I wish there was someone who brought it all together.
So….safe to say now that AleXa can actually sing, right? I’m betting on either Oklahoma or Washington for the win, and both imo would be the most deserved of who is left. I’m hoping Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado, and Massachusetts advance to the final personally since they’re my favorites of the semi (aside from Washington who made it), …but all four is probably wishful thinking. Colorado is being done ridiculously dirty by juries as he’s a clear public favorite. It’s ridiculous really. I’ve got a feeling though the public vote counts more now because of the amount of complaining lol. …I… Read more »
Haters: AleXa is lip-syncing, she should be disqualified.
AleXa: and I took that personally.
In a serious note, the fact we all saw Alexa singing and clearly having the best performance that night proves that haters are all bark and no bite and was rightfully proven wrong.
Do we all see AleXa ‘singing’ with full on playback? not a single note came out of her mouth.
Massachusetts, Alabama and Rhode Island are my favorites!
The backtrack volume was clearly toned down on the semifinal. Unless you are having ears issues, you can clearly hear her live vocals.
My bet is on ear problems, same with people who think Subwoolfer don’t sing any of their performances live.
AleXa was amazing, I really hope she wins!
There were more of them this time but there’s still *a lot* of help going on there. I still find it a distraction, and honestly, from what I’m hearing of her voice, I don’t think she needs that level of help. Girl can sing.
Still rooting for my hometown hero Ada but AleXa is my fav overall
So, here is some fresh RuZZian propaganda from Serbia’s entry.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/ucbi1b/official_promo_image_for_the_serbian_eurosong/
Huh….
I kinda agree on the fact that Allen Stone is the best vocalist in the competition and I see him in the top 3. But I really prefer AleXa’s song. Not a fan of this musical genre but it is actually pretty good and would be a contender for the win in ESC.
YEEEEEES, I DON’T KNOW HOW IT’S POSSIBLE BUT MY FAVORITE ADVANCED TO THE FINAL! 😀
Go, Allent Stone!
Rooting for New Boot Goofin’ and Cowboy Richard Gere “How Bout We Fire It Up”. Easily the most memorable line for me.
I mean Henry Cavill + Richard Gere = Jonah Prill
i really hate the asc juries. their podium is three of the most flavorless songs ever.
I suspect the producers put all those “boring white guy” acts in the same semi to squeeze a couple of them out. Which was a smart move. This jury really is an obstacle – way too many executives from the same national radio chain (I Heart Radio). They may have been picked to give more promotion for the first season, but I’d say that strategy backfired because their taste is so laughably predictable. I expect a very different looking jury next year that will better reflect current tastes, not just “classy” (i.e., boring, acceptable to middle-aged straight white guys) songs.
AleXa was phenomenal!!! I’m so happy we got to hear her this time! : )
I hope she wins ASC
Well the good news is that the majority of the ‘jury bait’ songs are in the first semi-final, so all the poppy songs that the got through (many of them didn’t) that the televote really like are in the second semi-final, which could easily all go through. I don’t always understand the jury’s decisions when there are so many similar songs. Like, one of the judging factors is if the song could be a ‘hit potential’ and many of these slower songs would not be these days. It’s no suprise New Boot Goofin came tenth with the juries (it also… Read more »
They did announce that the other four qualifiers for the final will come from the televote only. That is, for the semi-finals the jury picks their one favorite, then the jury scores are tossed out and the other four are picked purely based on televote. So you get your wish! (And Riker Lynch will survive the jury hate!)
The semi finals are really not balanced. Clearly, the majority of the best songs were placed in the first semi final. I don’t know why that choice was made exactly.
Results-wise, wtf are the juries hearing in Jordan Smith’s song? 2nd? In this field? Get out.
Quite interested to see just how much of a public vote Ryan Charles needs to get through to the final.
I’m happy to see who got through from Week 5.
Seeing the producer decided to put 4 jury qualifiers in the same semifinal, I was expecting the jury to put other songs ahead of some of them but surprisingly they were steadfast with their choices with all them occupying the Top 4 spots.
Semifinal one is going to be a bloodbath. I’m happy with Allen Stone qualifying but I have no idea who the rest of the qualifiers will be.
If I understand it right, the other finalists will be determined by sole public vote alone.
I can see Oklahoma’s “Wonderland” making it through smoothly, with New Hampshire going either way.
If that’s the case, that would be awesome! The juries are kinda predictable at this point and we need something to shake things up.
So 4 of jury qualifiers were all in semi 1 and were placed 1st-4th with the jury followed by AleXa? Huh. Well I hope as many of the jury qualifiers don’t make the final so AleXa’s chances of winning this thing grow.