Idol Chatter & Voice Views

If perseverance counts for anything, Jessica Cunningham of Portland, Maine, should have a leg up on other contestants in American Idol season 10.

If experience counts for anything … well, ditto. I mean, by now, Jessica should have this Idol audition routine down pat.

This is her seventh … yes, seventh … year auditioning for the show. The last two years, she made it to Hollywood before being cut.

You might remember her from last year’s group round. (If not, there’s a video below to remind you.) She was part of a group named Team Neopolitan that sang Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” while a quartet of crybabies known as Destiny’s Wild sat in the audience sulking, thinking their routine had been stolen.

Jessica demonstrated a big bluesy voice that night. And you can hear it again if you visit her MySpace. Unfortunately, there’s only a snippet of one song there.

Last year, Idol’s blue bar identified Jessica as a makeup artist/hair stylist.

But she’s thejesscunning on Twitter, where she displays quite a bit of attitude and describes herself as a bartender and professional show singer.

One recent tweet: “Laundryday for a wannabe rockstar sucks. all i can afford is pleather and it’s handwash only. Boooohhhhh.”

And in her Idol video, she says it’s time for a female rocker to be the American Idol. And she wants to be that rocker.