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American Idol contestant Lauren Alaina created something of a buzz in last night's show with her emotional performance - setting her up as a frontrunner to win the show.
The 15-year-old blew the judges away with her stunning performance of Faith Hill's Like We Never Loved At All, with Jennifer Lopez dissolving into tears afterwards.
Already she is being compared to country singer Carrie Underwood on chat forums and blogs. Underwood won six years ago and is the most successful act to have come out of the talent show to date.
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Lauren, from Georgia, dedicated her performance to her cancer-survivor cousin Holly, who joined her, as she stunned the panel at the Nashville auditions which were screened in the U.S. last night in the second part of this week's shows.
Afterwards, Steven Tyler remarked that he believed they had found 'the one'.
Following her audition piece, Lauren performed Don't Want To Miss a Thing with a little help from Aerosmith's Tyler, having ushered her family in to watch.
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Randy Jackson told her: 'Best we've seen today ... I'm blown away.'
'I think you should cry,' Tyler added as Lauren began to get tearful, promoting J.LO to well up.
'You're going to make 40 million people cry tears of joy, baby,' Tyler finished, while somewhat exaggerating Idol's 20million-something viewing figures.
Kicking off proceedings last night was Christine McCaffrey, who entered the audition room singing abysmally.
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'You should do voice overs for cartoons,' Randy Jackson told her.
As she left the audition room she said: 'I got one yes and two nos,' mistakenly thinking Tyler had said yes when in fact he had given her a no.
Nashville ex couple Rob Bolin and Chelsee Oaks sing a Bee Gees song with their tuneful audition seeing them through to Hollywood week.
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Miss Teen USA 2009 Stormi Henley was up next and managed to impress the male judges - but not Lopez.
Lacking the pizazz in the voice department, J.LO tells her: 'The voice is not strong enough,' before giving her a no vote.
Steven and Randy say yes, however, promoting Lopez to say afterwards: 'Seriously you two? That may be the smallest voice we’ve ever heard!'
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A confident Latoya 'Younique' Moore was in for a shock when she was sent packing by the judges, despite turning up with one of her CDs in hand.
'They see a glow about me,' she said. But her nasal sound did not go down well with the panel.
'Your sound, your tone is not good. It’s like annoying,' Randy said. She left the audition room singing
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'Still no,' Randy added.
Country boy Matt Dillard managed to scape through, performing a Josh Grobin track.
'You need to have a better audition,' Jennifer told him, giving him a no. Randy gives him a 'small yes', adding that he is concerned he might get 'swallowed up in the process', as does Tyler.
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source: dailymail