I wish you’d all watch it on tape. I’m always two hours late to this party. 
Ok, done watching the replay so here is my take on the rest:
Tim - well that could have been worse I suppose. I guess I give him points for trying something different. I would still have rather seen what Alex Lambert/Mulletboy could’ve done this week.
Siobhan - Yow! Geeky cute girl blows away the competition.
Lee - I really liked this. He may be my favorite of the guys at this point. I agree with the judges he needs to loosen up and let himself go more. BTW, I don’t at all get the Gokey comparisons a few posters have made. Gokey came across as a smug,smarmy tool. I don’t get that at all with Lee.
Paige - well I didn’t expect that to be so good. It will be interesting to see how she does in future weeks. Good for her.
Aaron - this was my favorite performance from him yet. Seems like a sweet kid and he can sing. Every time I see him I’m amazed at how gigantic he makes Ryan look. Would someone please feed this kid?
Crystal - Well, I am definitely a fan. But I do find the hipster, “I’m so cool”, Wicker Park/Bucktown attitude tiresome. Still, I think she really did well.
So, from best to worst for me tonight:
Siobhan
Lee
Aaron
Crystal
Michael
Casey
Didi
Paige
Lacey
Tim, Katie and Andrew tied for worst.
No—as someone mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, it’s the cover art of The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey.
‘de-nutted’, yes. I was going to come here and say Tim took that song and cut its balls off and used them as christmas ornaments.
Total awful.
Sioban was the best. She scared me with that yell-I almost ran to the back of the room to hide. But good.
No clue who leaves tomorrow. But i don’t care, i will be there to see David Cook.
Lacey was doing the Melanie(Safka) version of “Ruby Tuesday.”
While her voice is quite similar to M, she is not as strong.
A question and a prediction:
Is this the weakest Top 12 in AI history?
Top 6: Crystal, Siobhan, Casey, Lee, Didi, Michael–the other six are just unlistenable. If any of these go home before Top 8… :mad:
DialIdol has Andrew going home. Let it be so.
Overall, I got the impression that almost none of the contestants understood the songs they were singing. Beauty-pageant smiling through Ruby Tuesday? Reggae, upbeat Under My Thumb?
Michael - The goofy dancing ruined it. He’s very likable and will stay, but that wasn’t very good.
Didi - Too slow, no edge at all. Fi-Err?
Casey - Not bad. I enjoyed the bluesy take on the song, but he was holding back with the vocals and it could have been better.
Lacey - See above. Ugh.
Andrew - I would have been interested in an acoustic guitar version of this, but he went away from his routine and failed.
Katie - I actually like her voice quite a bit, and any Stones song would be tough for a 16-year old girl. Not awful, just blah.
Tim - Go home please, and take your helmet with you.
Siobhan - Started a little boring, but I liked it in the end. She’s quirky and fun, but she can sing for real.
Lee - Not terrible, but should have been more powerful. Seemed slightly emo to me.
Paige - Hated it. Couldn’t care less about her laryngitis. Don’t change the pronouns or lyrics!
Aaron - Surprisingly, not terrible. I wouldn’t pay to hear him, but he can sing, and actually seemed to get the emotion of the song, somewhat anyway.
Crystal - She’s just very talented. She should win. She needs to stretch more though. Do something uncomfortable.
American Idol: Brought to you this season by Coca-Cola, the Ford Motor Company and Fender Spring Capos.
I feel like Lee and Crystal are both sandbagging a little bit. They’re both good enough to stick around until the chaff gets voted off, then will probably step it up quite a bit come week 6 or 7.
Siobhan is good, but is definitely throwing everything she’s got in to this. I really like her, but doubt she can win because of the high likelihood of another good contestant having a “wow, they can do THAT?” moment, which I doubt we’d see from Siobhan. I’d love to be wrong about that, though.
Comments from a Newsweek panel. I really like the comments by Ken Jennings.
My take…
Green Mile - “Miss You” - Well sung, but smarmily danced and his three-sizes-too-small clothes reminded me of one of The Storms from Big Trouble in Little China when he puffed up and exploded.
Didi - “Playing With Fire” - Big points for not doing her Lily Allen impression, showed she has some versatility.
Bucky 2.0 - “It’s All Over Now” - The only contestant that can really look comfortable with an instrument, and very well sung. He leers just like Kip Winger, though, and it squicks me out.
Chiani - “Ruby Tuesday” - Ugh, and I normally like quirky. My fillings hurt.
Andrew - “Gimme Shelter” - Never have I seen someone progressively tumble from audition to final week after week. One trick pony.
Milk Carton - “Wild Horses” - Missing and lost.
Tim - "Under My Thumb " - On paper it sounds cool, a creepy oppressive song given an ironic smiling reggae treatment. But the result was pure Don “No Soul” Simmons.
The Shiv - “Paint It Black” - She has it nailed with the anime lolita-goth look. At the end of the song when she showed off her leveled-up “Blade Roll” mystic arte, the 3 mini-bosses were insta-wiped and the Simon-boss staggered. She wisely retained enough in her power meter to follow-up with an immediate “Aqua Laser” that the Simon-boss didn’t expect and totally S-rated the battle for her.
DeWyze - “B o’ Burden” - This is what results if you put Danny Gokey into the Skeksis’ podling-essense extractor.
Paige - "Honky Tonk Woman " - Strangely good, the most convincing country that anyone has done yet.
Scrappy Doo - “Angie” - The kid has chops, but no confidence or stage presence. Stick him back in the oven for a few years.
Rowsdower - “You Can’t Always Get…” - Best she’s done yet, but I’m bored with her niche and she’s still just resting on her dreads.
Crystal has more innate talent than Siobahn, but Siobahn shows a lot more effort, and just flat outworked her last night. Siobahn also does have enough talent to be able to hit those tough glory notes when she needs to. She’s also more likeable than Crystal, and she could potentially pull an upset if she keeps working hard. I think she’s a little like Lambert was, in that regard. She’s putting some though and effort into how she’s going to do the songs. Crystal is just picking the busker songs that she knows she can do, but she doesn’t really do anything with them but stand there with the acoustic (which she kind of fakes it on, by the way. Her playing is very rudimentary, just like Cook’s was. I think that’s why she always picks such simple songs. She’s picking songs she knows she can handle on guitar) and just let her natural voice (which is adnittedly very good, very polished, very professional sounding) do all the work.
I think she’s going to start becoming very same-old, and predictable after a few more weeks, and Siobahn might start to be the one (like Adam Lambert) who people tune in just to see what the hell she’ll do this week.
The thing is, I’m not sure if Crystal really could do anything that different. She could certainly pick songs that are more vocally challnging, and I think she could handle them pretty easily, but I think she’d have to put down the guitar for that, because she can’t really play anything too complex, and I don’t know if she’d be willing to do that. Plus, she’s not going to put on eyeliner and do elaborate, theatrical numbers or dance around the stage. That’s not who she is. I think what we’re seeing is pretty much all there IS to see, at least as far as basic, musical chops. I get the feeling she’d rather be doing her own songs, and maybe they’re good, but in terms of stage presentation – she’s a girl who stands there with the acoustic and sings, and she isn’t going to be anything else. There’s nothing wrong with hat. That’s what Joni Mitchell is, that’s what Sheryl Crow is (substitute bass for guitar), that’s what Neil Young is. But it’s not what American Idol is. The show can be kind of a drag in that it doesn’t appeciate or reward pure muscianship without theater, but it is what it is. It’s a TV show. Most of the audience is not sophisticated enough to know what’s really musically good and what isn’t. They judge on the visuals as much or more than anything else.
I think this is a fact, and it will be why she won’t win. People who go deep into this competition usually reveal different aspects of their talents week by week, and I don’t think Crystal is going to do that. I have a hard time imagining what she would do if they had Andrew Lloyd Webber night again. I’m not sure what Casey would do with that either, but he at least has revealed different sides of his talents week after week. Siobhan appears to me to be the contestant who will do the best with the various genres that will be imposed on her over the next couple of months.
I don’t think Crystal will win anyway, because eventually the people who actually vote – little girls and hillbillies – will be a factor. The people who vote the most generally don’t like hippies or gays, so it’s unlikely either will ever win it all, even if one makes it to second place.
That was hilarious! Thanks for sharing. My favorite was this, regarding Aaron Kelly’s “Angie”:
Tim was just horrible. He has no clue what the song is about and then tries to make it some upbeat reggae tune.
Siobhan is a bit scary and weird but in the best possible ways. She and Mike were the best.
Andrew took a strong song and made it dull and weak.
Send Tim and Andrew home–this week and next.
Perhaps the wildcard in Siobhan’s favour is that she seems really likeable - maybe enough to get more tween girl votes than other female performers would get.
Agreed completely that this is half singing competition, half popularity contest, and half spectacle (my math is based on the judges’ logic 
). Crystal is a complete zero in two of the three.
Yeah. I was just thinking how very Adam Lambert her rendition of Paint it Black was, to the styling to the use of the stairs to the build up and the screech. And it worked. Last week, she had me wondering where she would go from the glory note in “Think”. This week she extended that to into something else and I’m really intrigued in seeing what else she can do. I think all eyes are on her now.
Watching Aaron made me miss Alex Lambert.
On the other hand, if Shiv’s gimmick every week is to end on a scream, that’ll get old fast.