This year's winner of the televised talent competition "America's Got Talent" (AGT) was none other than Howie Mandell's golden buzzer pick: Grace VanderWaal. As the winner of AGT, VanderWaal will be rewarded one million dollars and the opportunity to headline a show in Las Vegas.
Early on in the competition Simon Cowell proclaimed VanderWaal "the next Taylor Swift." The 12-year-old certainly resembles a much younger version of the well-known pop star.
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VanderWaal is not the first young girl that's won the competition, but she is the first singer-songwriter and ukuleleist to win.
It's no surprise VanderWaal won; after all, she's cute as a button and America tends to gravitate toward singers. However, I'm a little disappointed that yet another singer has won (out of 11 seasons a total of seven singers have won first place).
It didn't help that this season of AGT had the strongest lineup of singers the judges have witnessed. Five out of the ten finalists were singers—all totally different genre of singers, but still singers nonetheless.
I was personally rooting for contortionist Sofie Dossi, juggler Viktor Kee or second place winners The Clairvoyants, who happen to be mentalists. All three of these acts have one thing in common: their type of act has never won in past seasons.
No shade toward VanderWaal because she's definitely a talented young girl, but can you truly picture her headlining a show in Vegas? On the other hand, Dossi, Kee and The Clairvoyants have that unique quality in their acts that Vegas desires.
There's way more shows that allow singers a chance to showcase their talent including "American Idol" and "The Voice." It may not be fair to prevent singers from auditioning since the show is open range for all talents, but if we eliminate singers it'll force America to vote for more unique acts. Or, perhaps, Cowell should produce another hit talent competition that specifically calls for dancers, magicians, comedians, danger acts and any other forms of novelty acts.
