MANDISA
Still just almost there. I wish you would take an afternoon and scrutinize some of the great singers in your style because you have the potential to join them. Notice that it isn’t always smiles and hip shifts. You perform like a backup singer. Put a couple gals on either side of you, and you will disappear among them. Like I said last week, it’s time for you to pull something out of your gut with a grimmace.
BUCKY COVINGTON
I’m afraid the Bucky stops here. Bad song choice. Badly executed. Horribly sung.
PARIS BENNETT
Speaking of shtick, you can forget about the whole “wait till they hear what I sound like when I sing” thing. You can’t surprise people anymore. They’ve all seen you and know how you can sing. That’s why you’re such a disappointment. Maybe it’s age, but you’re another one who mouths the words without any feeling. Stop staring at the camera. Start singing from inside yourself.
CHRIS DAUGHTRY
Surprising. Original. Smoking. Yet another of your great performances that leave me feeling like I cheated you. I should have paid to see it. I really expected something more like Shout. This caught me off guard, and I got to hear the really beautiful timbre of your voice in the lower registers. Best of the night.
KATHARINE MCPHEE
Gah. Another one of those perma-smiles painted on the face during a song that isn’t about lollipops and fairy tales. What the hell is it with you people? Haven’t you ever actually seen Ella? Her face contorted and her eyes squinted when she sang this song. It’s supposed to be sultry, with an almost drug induced helplessness about it. You stole the heart right out of it.
TAYLOR HICKS
Somehow, you made the song boring, and I think it was because you sang it four whole steps too low. And after Barry bragged on your tenor range. There was something almost East German about it. It was well conceived but lifeless despite your dancing and strolling all about the stage. There was no gestalt. All the pieces — dancing, singing, walking — stayed separate. Mechanical. Yawn.
LISA TUCKER
You remind me of Microsoft help documentation: technically accurate but practically useless. You’re just another in a long line of camera muggers but without the personality that some of the others have. I think you should be put in a head cage and forced to watch Janis Joplin, Sinead O’Conner, and Sarah McLachlan so you can learn that songs are half sound and half heart. Everything you do seems like it’s under construction.
KEVIN COVAIS
You do suck, but you almost got close to being nearly good this time. The whole idea of adding vulnerability to the song was brilliantly conceived, and you executed it quite well for a time. Then you lost it. Then you got it back again before the end. Still, I’m firmly convinced that you’re a lost cause, and you’re just damn lucky that Bucky screwed up.
ELLIOTT YAMIN
You’re the male Lisa Tucker. Nice voice but damn. Could we possibly get a facial expression out of you? How about an intonation? What Barry told you about the beginning of the song — and which you executed well for about four notes — is meant to be applied to the whole of your performance. You Vulcanize songs. You make them emotionless. Stop it.
KELLIE PICKLER
Gotta admit it. That’s a trick I never thought of — turn off your mike after your performance is over. Great idea. I liked the fact that you didn’t kill the song with kindness. You didn’t put enough pain into it, but at least you didn’t make it shiny smiley. In general, I’d like for all you people to take Barry’s advice to heart about actually reading and interpreting the song, and then singing it that way.
ACE YOUNG
Lordy. You’ve gone from annoying to pathetic. You’re a gimmick without a purpose. You’re like one of those birthday candles that just won’t go out no matter how much we blow and spit on it. Pretty soon, if you hang around, you’re going to be knocking out people who are much much better than you. That’s when you’ll move from pathetic to despised.