I liked Cook’s interpretation, even if it wasn’t his interpretation. It was angry and creepy and sad and I’d buy it.
Unbelievable – the judges’ reaction to Kristy and that awful, awful song. “Just” my children and my wife? “At least” I know I’m free? The “men” who died? I never realized how bad those lyrics really are. Kristy brought it home. 
Especially after dissing a number of Beatles songs the last few weeks. Fuck you, Simon.
To me, it would have made more sense to do Billie Jean straight up, and it would have been a hell of a lot braver!
Too early to view it here yet, but I’m not surprised by the comments on Rami.
She’ll be departing soon.
It’s hard to pick a best from tonight, or a worst… yeah, maybe the Asian girl. She’s just really not much of a vocalist and doesn’t have much stage presence. She doesn’t feel like an American Idol. She feels like a store manager at Old Navy.
Yes, but my point was that David Cook has been or will be under similar pressure and should also own up to it.
Simon probably didn’t want to be labeled an evil-doer by giving an honest reaction to that majestic red, white, and blue crap-fest.
He didn’t do it tonight but Ryan did it for him. In his video, David didn’t announce what song he’d be doing. I remember him giving credit in an earlier performance, but I don’t recall which one.
They’re saying on TWOP that Ryan introduced the song as "Chris Cornell’s vesrion of “Billy Jean.” I didn’t hear him say that bbut I wasn’t paying all that much attention either. I’ll take their word for it. The judges still shouldn’t have acted like it was such an original, daring choice. I agree with Cricetus that doing the song straight would have taken more balls.
Oh crap, I was wrong. It was karaoke. The thing is, he sold it. If he had said he’d be doing X person’s version of the song and still managed to sell it as his own, I think people still would have praised him for it. Instead, by not mentioning it when the judges praised him, people get pissed. (And feel annoyed for thinking it was so original.)
I heard Ryan say that about “Chris Cornell’s version of Billie Jean” and wondered if he meant the Billie Jean song I knew. Wow that blew me away! Best of the night, IMO. I also liked Syesha and little David. I still love Jason even if he was just middle of the pack tonight. They others went from meh all the way down to Kristy Lee & poor Ramiele.
I don’t get people getting angry about the lack of originality. This whole show is just covers anyway!
Or is the point that the judges gave false credit?
It seems like everyone’s getting mad at David Cook for how people reacted to him.
Edit:
Oh! Did anyone else notice Simon’s comment about how David Archuleta probably didn’t choose the song himself? Could that have been a veiled reference to his allegedly stage-y dad?
In retrospect, I think that Simon’s reaction was, ahem, clever, in calling her song choice clever. Presumably the type of person who would like Kristy Lee Cook (who has been decidedly going in the country direction) would not be too dissimilar from the type of people who would like Lee Greenwood or that song. And I suppose it was clever of her to appeal to that kind of voter, since they are the kind who would keep her on the show for a longer period of time. Me, I still think gah, but then I suppose I’m not her target audience.
Yeah, I don’t get the criticism of not acknowledging which cover version of a song you’re doing. Singers do various covers of songs, and covers of covers, without acknowledging it. So long as he didn’t say, “yeah, I came up with this arrangement last week” or something, it’s okay.
And that was the best performance of the night, by a mile.
Syesha’s version of "If You were the Woman and I was the Man " was technically good, but I hate that version of the song. If you want to hear it done right, listen to the Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins sing that song as a duet with John Prine. It’s haunting and beautiful.
I hate the song Kristy sang, but she did it quite well. I hate ‘modern country’ as well, and Lee Greenwood’s sappy songs are exactly what’s wrong with it. But not letting my biases affect my judgement, she did pretty well on it. I’d never buy her albums, but she can sing reasonably well.
David Archuleta was again technically good, but for no good reason. He just can’t sell a song. Not to me, anyway.
Michael Johns is still doing the same schtick - grab the mike with two hands and bellow out a song. But he was okay with it tonight.
I thought the judge’s comments about Brooke were spot on. Aside from the flub at the beginning, the song opened really strong, with lots of emotion. Then when the band kicked in, it turned into a singalong.
I also thought the judges were right about Jason - he’s not really moving himself up the ladder, is he? He comes out, sings a song fairly well, and then goes away. He doesn’t have the vocal power of the other contestants, but his strength is that he can sing a song in an extremely emotional way - sad, happy, whatever. He just hasn’t done that for the last couple of weeks. If he doesn’t come up with something that blows everyone away again like “Hallelujah” did, he’s going to be on the bubble soon.
Ramiele was horrible.
Best of the night: David Cook, by a mile
Next Tier: Brooke White, Carly Smithson, Michael Johns, Syesha
Meh: David Archuleta, Jason Castro, Kristy, Chikeze
Needs to go home tomorrow: Ramiele
I’m still recovering from the shots of Carly’s husband… I’m an open-minded guy, but was shocked that she would want him seen with tats all over his face… not sure that is the image which will endear her voting public. A quick search turned up this discussion on an Idol MB.
Oh, come on!
She’s WAY too skinny for Old Navy! 
I actually think that’s the perfect strategy for him. Play “decent” until he feels he’s on the bubble (maybe a bottom three to warn him) and then cut loose. If he does it now, it’ll get forgotten and/or used against him unless he can repeat it every week (which, let’s face it, none of them can). So, he skates to the Final Five or so, then comes on strong, at which point it’ll be a novelty and he gets through another round or two.
That’s assuming he has another ‘cut loose’ performance in him.
I hope so, because I like the guy. But he’s been underwhelming for a few weeks now.
We ran out of DVR time, and had to watch Kristy Lee live. I blocked it out by making Wookie noises through the whole song.
Clever describes both the song choice and Simon’s word choice. She sang a song that will make morons vote for her, just because she gave them an America boner.
I did hear Ryan say that Combover’s song was Chris Cornell’s version; all that made me want to do is go listen to Chris Cornell’s version. I’m glad that AI is finally giving credit where it’s due, but I’m a little bored with David C. I’m probably still bitter that they didn’t credit Me First and the Gimme Gimmes for the arrangement of “Hello” and the song he sang the week before that.
I seem to recall that you have an extensive knowledge of music - are you being funny here? 
I loved Chikezie tonight - I finally heard what his voice can do. If you have to do a note perfect cover of someone, you can pick worse than Luther Vandross.
Carly Smithson kinda scared me. She did not look like she was having fun - she looked like she was looking for a baby to dine on.
David Archuleta - Jim figures that his weakness that is starting to show is simply his age. He is not a mature singer or performer.
Kristy Lee Cook - Jim and I sat and waved our middle fingers at the tv in time to her song. Oh my god that was obnoxious. Randy and Paula sucked all kinds of American dick, and even Simon felt he could only take a sideways shot at it. Bleah.
David Cook - Holy shit. I stopped and paid attention when I saw his audition way back when, and he has knocked my socks off every week. In my opinion, he is head and shoulders above the rest - he looks like he’s performing at a concert that everyone came to just to see him every week.