Everything’s Coming Up ‘Roses’ at Yahoo for MacKenzie Bourg
MacKenzie Bourg may have only placed fourth on this past, final season of American Idol, but in his own way, he emerged a Season 15 winner. Shortly after the 23-year-old Louisiana singer-songwriter left Idol in one of the series’ all-time classiest exits, in-house mentor Scott Borchetta offered to release MacKenzie’s original ballad “Roses” (which he performed twice on the show) via Big Machine Records. And with very little fanfare, the song hit iTunes’s top five during Idol’s finale week – the same position that the coronation single by winner Trent Harmon reached, just to put it all in perspective. Now MacKenzie is talking to labels and working on his (no pun intended) blossoming career.
It may seem like an overnight success story, but longtime Reality Rocks readers know MacKenzie has been working towards this goal for a while now: Four years ago, he competed on The Voice (or, as he jokingly puts it, “The Show That Shall Not Be Named”), and while he stalled in the top 20 week of that competition, Adam Levine prophetically referred to MacKenzie as “an American idol” back then, indicating that better things lay ahead.
When MacKenzie recently stopped by Yahoo Music to perform a lovely, acoustic, one-take rendition of “Roses,” he also sat down to chat in-depth about his time on “that other show”; some of his more baffling Idol critiques; comparisons to Kris Allen and Rivers Cuomo; what Cheap Trick really thought of his “I Want You to Want Me” cover; if he was disappointed that the Season 15 contestants didn’t get more screentime on the nostalgic Idol series finale; how it felt for be the last Idol contestant to sing “Hallelujah”; if he thinks Idol will ever return; and what’s next for him.
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