What is the deal with this season of American Idol?Whenever I start to actually start to buy the hype that this might really be the most talented group ever, we get a bunch of "meh" performances like last night. And whenever a contestant surges to the front and looks like a clear front-runner, he falls on his face.
Hopefully, David Cook (pictured, right, and I wish he would "give back" those two minutes of my life when he sang last night) can pick himself up off the ground after what as, let’s face it, just a terrible performance in every way. Nobody (or maybe it was just me) knew what he was singing (Our Lady of Peace’s "Innocent"), so I thought that maybe he was supposed to sound that bad in the beginning. Later, he started jumping octaves (thanks for the right terminology Erica) and eventually wound up wandering over to the judges’ table where only Paula was into what he was doing. To cap it all off, he ended his performance by revealing that he’d written "give back" in his hand. I’m sure it seemed like a great idea at the time, and I’m probably being way too cynical, but when I saw that, I kinda wanted to insert an emoticon for *eye roll* into my notes.
So to summarize, David C. badly sang a song that nobody knew, and looked mildly ridiculous and lost while doing so. Other than that, I liked it. Either way, he’ll be back.
On the other hand, former clear cut front-runner David Archuleta smartly took on Robbie Williams’ "Angels." When I found out it was "inspirational song" week, I kinda dreaded hearing David A’s performance because, as we know, EVERY week is "inspirational song" week for him. Still, it was nice and surprising seeing him pick such a great song. The only problem was that he started off kinda rough, the first part of the chorus was slightly underwhelming, but he ended strongly. He probably should’ve hit a home run with that song, but instead came up with a nice double down the line.
Since up was down and cats and dogs were living together during last night’s wacky show, I have to say that Kristy Lee Cook (even while still robotically standing at the mic stand) delivered one of the best performances of the evening. Yes, THAT Kristy Lee Cook. Sure, she’s still not vocally in the league of most of her competitors, but she keeps confirming my theory that she’s some sort of evil genius by picking a song (Martina McBride’s "Anyway") that appeals to a large number of people and is right in her wheelhouse.
The same could be said of Jason Castro, who bounced back nicely with a very nice performance of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s (it was a bitch to spell that properly, but I do it for you, dear readers) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." (I believe, the first time a ukulele has graced the "Idol" stage.) This was actually my favorite performance of the night. I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that Jason is just going to go out there and deliver the same performance every time. Still, if he’s going to do so, he might as well sing as well as he did last night.
To a lesser extent, Brooke White also had a nice bounce back week with a performance of "You’ve got a Friend" everyone in America pretty much agreed was "pleasant and, nice". Those are words that describe Brooke perfectly, but it’s not exactly resounding praise for her vocal skills (which she needs to showcase again ala "Let it be"), so I think she’s due to a return trip to the bottom three.
This despite the fact that I would personally put Michael Johns in that spot. It was really disappointing to see him stray from his bluesy Dolly Parton success last week and fall back into doing decent-to-pale imitations of rock legends like Jim Morrison and Freddy Mercury. Last night’s pale imitation was of Steven Tyler. It wasn’t a bad performance, it was just a lesser impersonation, and he needs to go back to doing the sexy bluesy thing that works for him. Also, the leopard-y ascot he busted out — not so sexy. I get that he was trying to channel some of that ascot magic from last week, but just no.
Still, since MJ is this season’s resident sex symbol, he’s not going to be in the bottom three, so I look for Carly Smithson and Syesha Mercado to join Brooke in the bottom three.
Carly took on Queen’s "The Show Must Go On", but the way she performed it seemed like she was angry at the song, and at everyone else, instead of being embarrassing. Even her usually strong vocals were a bit off. I loved Simon’s totally insincere "You look great" comment to make up for all the flak he caught last week for dissing her looks. Still, the fact that he mentioned that she might be in some trouble is, in my opinion, a way for him to mobilize her fans and get her to stay in the competition.
Which leaves Syesha Mercado as my pick to go home. We gave Ramiele Malubay a lot of crap for picking songs that were done before (and better). Well, obviously Syesha is a much stronger singer than Ramiele, but the fact remains that she keeps taking on songs that she has no hope of reinventing or improving upon. This week it was Fantasia’s "I Believe" and, again, it was song well (maybe even REALLY well), but, since it’s so identified with Fantasia’s crowning moment, it comes up short. Syesha’s back and forth with Randy (who spoke more during the first two performances than he has the entire season) did her no favors and made her seem petulant.
So what did you think of this episode? Which song or Idol inspires you? Are you going to all, some or none of "Idol Gives Back"? Finally, who’s going home tonight?
No comments:
Post a Comment