The only song that remotely interested me was Cook’s “Baba O’Reilly.”
Simon fileting Jason might ensure another week for him.
David A’s butchering of “Love Me Tender” was horrible. I can understand that he’s not all that familiar with the song. But his rendition didn’t even resemble the original, which was a lovely, understated humble song. I blame Mariah Carey.
Was Simon being nice to Syesha or was did he really love the song? I’m going with the former. His heart must have grown two sizes!
I wish I could be hearing/watching it now…but gotta wait another hour or so.
Should be interesting, at any rate.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I liked Archuleta tonight. “Love Me Tender” had a maturity beyond his years. Watching him sing a tender love song felt vaguely pervy, but if I looked away then it sounded emotional and real.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” probably would have been decent had Jason not flubbed that line.
Sometimes Ryan does come in handy. After they tore Jason apart on the first song with “What were you thinking?!” Ryan came up with “Miley Cyrus!”
It was Randy that made Syesha cry with his “It fell flat” critique. After he said it, she kept biting her lip, and I’d wondered why. Simon was nice.
I think it was Paula that made Syesha cry, with her compliments. She was fine until Paula praised her.
Yep, that’s what I saw.
Also, Paula appeared remarkably lucid this week. I have a feeling that she had a “come to Jesus” meeting with the Fox execs.
Oh, man, where to start.
Duran Duran. The band so nice they named it twice. I HATE Duran Duran. I have a little black pit in my heart that opens up and turns me into a raving lunatic on very special occasions. Hearing Duran Duran is one of those occasions.
First, it’s a tragedy that Duran Duran is even IN the Hall of Fame, when bands they couldn’t string guitars for are still waiting. Do not reward this gross failure of taste by actually performing one of their songs on TV, Mr. Cook. And you really should have tested the ‘do do do do’ line before trying to sing it. It sucks when Duran Duran sings it, but it sucks even more when you sing it by yourself on a stage. Especially when it’s a known fact that American Idol’s sound technicians are morons. You looked stupid every time you tried it.
Lesson for Jason Castro: Do not attempt to sing reggae when backed by a bloated showtunes band. There was something wrong with the song, but I don’t think it was you - I suspect there was a disparity in the amount of Ganja injested by you, and the amount injested by the band. Everyone knows that reggae works best when everyone is ‘experienced’. Next time you sing reggae, pass around one of those big Bob Marley joints before the song.
It was actually a reasonably decent performance from Castro - certainly not the kind of trainwreck the judges were claiming. But I think they have their marching orders and were trying to torpedo him.
However, maximum cool points are awarded to Jason Castro. I loved his intro speech. “I picked Bob Marley. I mean, DUH.” Or something like that. And afterwards - “What was I thinking? I was thinking… Hey, Bob Marley!” You go, little rasta-man. And extra points for deflating the pompousness of this show just a bit. If I were in the U.S., I’d fire a few votes your way just for pissing off the judges.
Syesha - whatever. We get it - now you’re a big broadway star, so you’re going to show us all your moves. The singing was okay. Not great. It looked like a second-rate showtune you might see at a dinner theater. And yeah, that whole civil rights thing was neato, but the real meaning of this song can only be found by those who make it to the quarter finals of American Idol. It’s all about priorities, really.
David Archuleta - I recognize that my annoyance with you has probably passed any reasonable, logical level. But I don’t care. You bother me, son. You’ve got the instrument, you just don’t quite know how to use it yet.
Second songs…
David Cook - Well, this is better than the first one. At least you get points for taste this time. But that was a really butchered version of Baba O’Reilly. I agree with whoever said that you just can’t chop this song and get away with it. In any event, this is the song you should have sung straight up, and the Duran Duran crap is the song you should have twisted the hell out of. You’ve got the voice to sing The Who, so why tone it down and make it mellow? You should have sung it angry. And maybe wrecked your guitar afterwards.
Jason Castro - Whoa, dude. You forgot about the short-term memory loss side-effect, didn’t you? How do you forget the lyrics to Mr. freakin’ Tambourine Man? It’s not like this is a challenging song. You should be able to play that in your sleep. Other than that, the performance wasn’t bad.
Syesha - Sorry, didn’t like it. Sam Cooke was the anti-diva. He’s the pre-eminent example of how you extract soul and beauty from a song without the glory notes and jazz runs. It was just ai’ight for me, dawg.
David Archuleta - Did you know that that song has its own melody? It’s a pretty famous one, too. And it’s… tender. Hence the title. I thought this song actually showed exactly what’s wrong with DA - he inserts power notes and octave changes and runs into songs without any taste or understanding of why they should or shouldn’t be there. It’s like he took ‘Love Me Tender’ and ran it through a power-pop randomizer or something. Totally ruined the song.
If I had to rank them on singing ability, it’d look like this:
David Cook
Syesha Mercado
David Archuleta
Jason Castro
However, if I was ranking them in order of awesomeness, it’d be:
Jason Castro, for just being awesome tonight. (“I did Bob Dylan because, hey, two Bobs!”)
David Cook, for at least hinting at having the ability to sing Roger Daltrey and be good at it.
Syesha, for dress #2
David Archuleta, who gets some awesome points for blurting out, “hey, I liked Jason’s song” while the judges were still eviscerating him.
Unfortunately, Jason Castro is almost certainly going home. Well, unfortunate in the sense that the show will be be a lot less interesting next week. But really he picked the perfect time to leave. There’s no way in hell he was going to win, and now he’s free to go do his own thing while extracting the maximum amount of exposure from the show. In fact, part of me wonders if this wasn’t his plan all along, and he just hummed the lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man while singing them in his head. And the attitude he’s adopted throughout this episode just makes him a stoner hero. He’ll be a hero on the college circuit, and probably have a shrine erected for him in Jamaica.
All in all, this episode sucked. Which was a surprise, since there were at least two contestants on the show who should have been totally in their element. The same thing happened with the Beatles nights - with all those great songs, they managed to turn in one of the weaker weeks of the season.
Now I’ m suddenly wondering if Sysesha, being an ‘actress’ as she is, was crying to get sympathy votes.
I think of things like that.
Simon thinks I Shot The Sherrif is 'untouchable"?
I agree with Sam on this one: Jason was awesome! It was like a giant middle finger to the people in charge. I loved it for that alone.
Did anyone else notice that Cook looked completely detached tonight? It’s like he really didn’t give a crap about those songs.
Worst version of Baba O’Riley I’ve ever heard.
I just watched David’s first song and it definitely felt like a going-through-the-motions performance. Maybe he didn’t get the song he wanted, or he counted on blowing everyone away with his second song (nope) or maybe the band and/or mix just really, really sucked tonight. He seemed to want to get through it as quickly as possible. Not his best night but still good enough to win.
I would say he’s trying to get voted out now so he doesn’t get stuck with the schlock-tastic final song, or suffer the “curse of the male AI winners” but I am starting to think not only could he handle whatever shitty songs they stick him with, but he knows he can handle it. I wager that kid wants to win.
On the other hand, there’s Jason! I have to agree, he was damn fun this week. The Bobs! Woo! I will miss him. For all their talent, Syesha and David A. just make me want to take a nap.
Thanks to Sam for another vastly entertaining post. I love you now.
The sad thing is, it could have been great. That was a real missed opportunity on David Cook’s part. If he had sung that song balls-to-the wall like Daltrey, with as much noise as possible, he could have blown the roof off the place and stepped up another level over the others.
Do you know who I missed tonight? Carly. She should still be on this show. She could have seriously rocked some Jefferson Airplane - Somebody to Love, perhaps. Or some Janis Joplin. Even Brooke would have been more interesting than a couple of these, even though she already burned through her only Carole King song.
Jason is determined to suck at all costs.
Syesha was straining a bit on the first song. I’m ashamed to say I am not terribly familiar with the second one, but her vocals sounded good.
David A. was pretty good.
The songs that David C. chose are good, but he couldn’t really showcase his talents in just a couple of minutes with the pared-down versions, esp. “Baba O’Reilly.”
David Cook did seem a little tired or just not entirely into it this evening. I’m just not in synch with the judges on their DC assessments. The past two weeks, I’ve liked his louder, faster songs better, but they’ve prefered his other songs. I like his voice much better loud and growly and vaguely grungy.
I didn’t care for Syesha’s second dress. No strong feelings about either song. I would like to hear the original Sam Cooke song - anyone know where I could track that down?
I couldn’t hear Jason so well on the Marley song due to suddenly having to go prevent my 1yo from dropping more coins down the back of the piano, but what I heard wasn’t as bad as the judges made out, or so it seemed. Forgetting the Dylan lyrics? Really? He must want to go home.
I was irritated with Archuleta’s Stand by Me. Everyone sings that song. We want to sing along. Why are you f’ing with the melody? My initial impression of Love Me Tender was that it was sort of boring (don’t know the original and therefore didn’t want to sing along), but a youtube revisiting left me more impressed.
And the links in what I believe to be the order:
David Cook 1/2
Syesha 1/2
Jason 1/2
David Archuleta 1/2
David Cook 2/2
Syesha 2/2
Jason 2/2
(selections from) Mr. Tambourine Man
David Archuleta 2/2
How much of Archuleta’s “aw, shucks…” demeanor do you think is an act, incidentally? Sometimes I think he really is that innocent and shy, other times it couldn’t seem more rehearsed and affected if he started telling about the time Hillary Clinton’s grandpa taught him how to shoot.
A better video of Cook/Baba O’Riley incidentally.
My pics from Best to Worst:
That said, there were no “Wow!” performances, which was really disappointing considering the material they had to work with.
Jason officially bores us and his remaining presence at court begins to disturb us and our entourage. If you will please see that he is removed a small ruby cocktail ring will find its way to you and no questions will be asked.
Archu is good- I won’t say he isn’t- but I don’t understand why the judges think he can cure cholera with a kind word and a lick. He’s far far far from infallible. That said, my preference is for him to win the competition and for David Cook to be either manumitted or let to buy hisself free so that he can go record an album without all the strings (and tour) attached. Syesha I hope will fill her coffers from the tour and move to NYC because I think she has a great future on Broadway. Jason will end the tour broke and owing Raziele $17 and and in two years time he’ll make Chris Sligh look like Kelly Clarkson careerwise and not even he will know whatever happened to him, but six years of strenuous study later he’ll complete his junior college Associate’s Degree.
Elvis Presley DOES NOT GET MELISMA’ED!!!1!!! Goddamn. Who let him do that? They need to be executed immediately.
I liked Syesha’s “Change is Going To Come.” I also thought she did a very respectable Tina Turner, but again, she left me cold with a performance, if done by someone with star quality, would have been show-stopping.
I agree with everyone on David Cook. Roger Daltrey’s balls-to-the-wall, indeed! That could have been so much better, but it was a’ight. If you insist on singing Duran Duran in this show, they have many, many more songs than “Hungry Like The Wolf.” Like, for example, Rio. 
Jason Castro should have been gone weeks ago. The only reason he made it this far is simply because of his looks. Bye Jason.
David Cook - I wouldn’t call either a great performance, just decent. And when you have such a short amount of time, picking a 10 minute anthem probably isn’t a great idea.
Syesha - Wasn’t thrilled with Proud Mary but really liked the second song. I really hope she is safe this week.
David Archuleta - Boy, he is really pandering to the young girl vote, isn’t he. Beautiful girls? LOL - nice and subtle there. Although, I must admit - he sang well tonight. Nothing incredible but good, solid performances.
Taking both songs into account, I would rate them -
Sam! Sam Stone! Geez, man, how the hell did I miss you all these years? I thought I was reading one of my posts! You were completely on the money, especially regarding the ridiculous sense of self-importance this whole silly spectacle has gotten.
Yeah. Well, anyway, the problem with this week is that it’s in the lull between the big later-middle stage scramble and the all-or-nothing finale. The equivalent of the NBA late regular season, if you will. Maybe a little drama here and there, maybe some personal grudges, but for the most part everything meaningful has already been decided and we just want to get to the championship battle already. I mean, what more is there to be known? Castro: Jack Johnson-esque stoner. Archie: Boy band crooner. Cook: Versatile pop-rocker, may branch out once he gets some freedom. Mercado: R&B diva. Whichever one you like, you vote for; their song choices or performances or arrangements etc. etc. etc. are totally irrelevant. The die has been cast. The machines are dialed in. There’s no movement left to be done.
I kinda feel sorry for the judges this week (well, just a little). They’re part of the system, and they gotta pretend that this is the UNBELIEVABLY INTENSE QUARTERFINALS where everyone is FIGHTING AND CLAWING AND SCRATCHING FOR THE TITLE LIKE THEIR LIVES ARE ON THE LINE and will be TURING IT UP FIFTEEN OR TWENTY NOTCHES AND SINGING THEIR HEARTS OUT. They looked like even bigger tools than usual this week.
Nowhere was this more obvious, of course, than in their Castro criticisms, to which I can only say, “What’s your goddam point?” (Oh, and Cowell, I continue to be thorougly unimpressed by your predictions…geez, Cubs eliminated in the first round would’ve been bolder.) Sam Stone encapsulated my feelings very well; suffice it to say that Castro has gone as far as he can, accomplished all he can, and built the fan base which is always the real reason for doing this. He’s not going to win, he knows he’s not going to, and nobody with any sense thinks he can. He’s stopped trying because he’s done. When you finish the race, you stop running. I mean, when you really think about it, statistically, 22 out of 24 contestants will not have the slightest possible chance of becoming American Idol, so why should that be the begin- and end-all for anyone?
Y’know what, Sampiro? Rank them 500 and 700. Or 5,000. Hell, go into six figures. We’re past the point of it making a difference. In fact, unless Archuleta gets the boot this week (and while this show has some surprises, this is a bit too much to ask for at this point), even next week isn’t going to matter much, as either Cook or Mercado is going to be an underdog against Archie. And if Castro survives this week, that just makes the semis even more anticlimactic.
No spectacular performances tonight, but again, it’s two more weeks before it matters. Disappointed at a pretty lousy choice of theme night…I know better than to expect something like Highway to Hell on this show, but can we have some themes that aren’t hopelessly restricted?
Mmm…that’s about it, I guess. Except to note that this is the first time I directly addressed two posters in an AI thread. Never saw that coming. 