It’s Week Two of the American Song Contest! The second heat was tonight and 11 new states and territories competed for your votes. Who received the automatic jury qualification? We also got results for last week’s viewer voting, and three entrants from last week will move onto the semifinals. But which three? This recap will reveal the answers to all of those questions, so spoilers ahead!
At the start of the show, the jury ranking was revealed, showing us that Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico rounded out the top four for the jury. After taking into account the public votes, however, Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Puerto Rico were then revealed as the remaining three qualifiers for last week’s show. This doesn’t mean that these seven non-qualifiers are completely out though, as there are still two wildcard spots up for grabs among the 32 non-qualifying acts.
Tonight’s episode featured 11 more of the 56 acts from a selection of states and territories. The songs also continued to showcase the diverse genres featured in the contest, from funk, to dancehall, to contemporary, and to R&B. Hosts Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg also hosted the show with ease once again, reining in the chaos of live television and helping end the broadcast on time for fans of “The Endgame”.
The running order was decided prior to the episode and was as follows:
- Oregon (OR): courtship. – “Million Dollar Smoothies”
- Montana (MT): Jonah Prill – “Fire It Up”
- New York (NY): Enisa – “Green Light”
- Nebraska (NE): Jocelyn – “Never Alone”
- U.S. Virgin Islands (VI) – Cruz Rock – “Celebrando”
- Kentucky (KY): Jordan Smith – “Sparrow”
- North Dakota (ND): Chloe Fredericks – “Can’t Make You Love Me”
- Kansas (KS): Broderick Jones ft. Calio – “Tell Me”
- Virginia (VA): Almira Zaky – “Over You”
- Maine (ME): King Kyote – “Get Out Alive”
- Ohio (OH): Macy Gray ft. The California Jet Club and Maino – “Every Night”
Prior to this week’s episode Connor was able to sit down with nearly every artist for an interview which can be found here. You can also read more about the different states, territories, and artists from this week’s episode from William’s pre-episode 101 article here.
We even got to see “early voting results” starting after Oregon’s and Montana’s performances. Texas and Florida preferred Montana over Oregon after two songs. After six songs, New Jersey preferred New York the most, and after eight songs, Puerto Rico preferred Kentucky the most. It will be interesting to see the full voting breakdown after the shows are over and how this will affect the public qualifiers.
Voting and Jury Qualifier
As we’ve expressed in our master article for the American Song Contest, four qualifiers will be selected from each episode. One qualifier will be decided by a 56 part jury of music professionals (one person from every state and territory), and the remaining three qualifiers will be decided by the American public. The televote will be open until early Wednesday morning at 7 AM Eastern Daylight Time, and will be conducted across the NBC website, NBC official app, and the TikTok app. If you’re eligible to vote, get your votes in sooner rather than later.
While the voting window for the televote extends into Wednesday, the automatic jury qualifier was voted upon during the untelevised dress rehearsal and was announced during the broadcast. The act that will be automatically advancing is Kentucky‘s Jordan Smith, guaranteeing him a spot in one of the two semi-finals on April 25th or May 2nd.
This means that the following acts are relying on your votes to get them to the semi-finals:
- Almira Zaky (VA)
- Broderick Jones (KS)
- Chloe Fredericks (ND)
- courtship. (OR)
- Cruz Rock (VI)
- Enisa (NY)
- Jocelyn (NE)
- Jonah Prill (MT)
- King Kyote (ME)
- Macy Gray (OH)
Once the lines close on Wednesday morning, the final three qualifiers will be decided, but will not be revealed until the start of next week’s episode.
What to expect for next week
Next week on April 4th, eleven (or twelve?) more acts will take to the stage to compete for a spot in the semi-final rounds. While we don’t know which states and territories will participate next week, we will know more about the line-up once the rehearsal teasers are released on Saturday afternoon. As always, the new crop of songs will be released prior to next week’s show at midnight Eastern Daylight Time on the 4th.
What did #YOU think of the second episode of the American Song Contest? Let us know on social media @ESCUnited, on our discord, or on our forum page!
