Photo: Trae Patton/NBC via Getty Images
The “Most Hated Man in America” is pretty busy, actually. After being lugged around by JoJo Siwa on Special Forces and farting up a storm in a Scottish castle on The Traitors, Tom Sandoval has returned to our television screens once more — this time, to prove that he isn’t tone-deaf (at least musically speaking).
Sandoval’s band, aptly titled Tom Sandoval & the Most Extras, showed up for a surprise audition on season 20 of America’s Got Talent this year. For some reason, they made the cut. This week, they advanced to the live quarterfinals. To fight for their lives, they performed a melodramatic version of the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” which began with Sandoval playing a trumpet on a suspended platform in the dark.
Now, I don’t know much about the technicalities of singing. But I do know that whatever garbled sound reached my ears as Sandoval, wearing sunglasses inside, attempted to mimic Abel Tesfaye’s falsetto was not a pleasant one. Luckily, longtime judge Simon Cowell agreed, throwing an X mid-performance and looking vaguely disappointed for the remainder of the act. “Well, I like Tom, and I like the band. However, you’re judging this performance — it didn’t sound great. It didn’t,” Cowell later said during the judging panel. “Look, it might just be me from where I sat, but that did not sound good, I’m afraid. It didn’t.”
“The sound was not amazing,” fellow judge Sofia Vergara agreed, though she did enjoy Sandoval’s spirited dance moves.
Sadly for the Most Extras, and happily for me, the band did not advance to the show’s next round. Following their exit, Sandoval told the Independent that he’s been taking voice lessons and isn’t ready to give up on his music career. The results of those lessons were not immediately clear, though I encourage him to stay delusional.
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