Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Mikaela Bautista sings a bit of ‘The Prayer’ with her father Vhen during Sunday’s audition episode of American Idol. (ABC Photo)

Mikaela Bautista, a 23-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., scored the most popular audition from last week’s episode of American Idol.

That’s based on YouTube views of her audition since the episode aired on Sunday. As of Friday at noon, Mikaela’s audition has been viewed more than 650,000 times, more than 200,000 more times than any other audition video from the episode.

For those who don’t recall, Mikaela impressed Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie with her performance of Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You.” Carrie Underwood was a bit more lukewarm, noting that Mikaela seemed to struggle with her nerves a bit.

But Carrie changed her mind after Mikaela’s dad Vhen joined her center stage for an emotional performance of “The Prayer.” When it ended, Carrie turned her “no” vote to a “yes.”

Mikaela, from explained that her father was a folk singer in the Philippines and that she wants to follow in his footsteps.

“I feel like my dad sort of sacrificed his career to be with our family,” she told Idol. “So this is not only my dream, but this is also his dream as well.

As of Friday noon, five other singers had topped 300,000 views with their audition videos, including former Voice standout Victor Solomon, female R&B powerhouse Lason, Isaiah Moore, Bryson Quick and Sophie Powers, a pop-punk artist who didn’t get a golden ticket, but has eight songs with more than 1 million streams on Spotify.

Here’s the complete rundown. Follow the links to learn more about each singer, including info about any music they’ve already released.

Mikaela Bautista, 664,741

Grayson Torrence, 154,697