American Idol - Feb 19, 20, 21 (Open Spoilers)

Cafe Society
101

My evaluations in order of appearance:

B+ David Hernandez

A bit off-beat for part of the song, but not pitchy as Randy claimed. I thought he really took control of it quite nicely
C- Chikezie

Not very good, honestly. I thought he looked and sounded like a wedding singer. And I don’t like it when anybody acts bratty with the judges. (I also don’t like Ryan encouraging it.)
B David Cook

Modernized the song in terms of his vocal and performance, but still played it at the old tempo and with the old phrasing. Was very close to breaking out.
C- Jason Yeager

Pat Boone on Love Boat.
C+ Robbie Carrico

Didn’t really bring anything to the song. I join Simon in being dubious about his rocker creds.
A- David Archuleta

I hope I’m not seeing the beginnings of Melinda-ish aw-shucks you-don’t-really-mean-it coyness. Stop it now, David, and all will be forgiven. Great showman. Great voice. Learn to work the band.
B Danny Noriega

I disagreed with Simon and thought he did well. I enjoyed the performance. Would have given him a B+ had he not been such a diva with the judges. No one is in a position to do that.
B- Luke Menard

Decent voice, but I felt like the song swallowed him a bit. I think that if he’s going to channel John Denver, he should go ahead and belt it out.
A- Colton Berry

One surprise of the evening. I really wasn’t sure whether I like him personally, but once his performance began, I was charmed. Unfortunately, when it ended, he didn’t take the criticism (however much I might disagreed with some of it) gracefully. But for that, he would have gotten an A
C+ Garrett Haley

At least he chose the right song. Sedaka was a natural for his voice. It was also incredibly safe, however. And he sang it in a safe, old-fashioned way.
A- Jason Castro

My other surprise of the evening. Seemed incredibly well seasoned given his dearth of experience. A natural. I’ll be interested to see the personality and look develop. Will he lose the dreads eventually? They don’t seem to express anything about him. Impressive voice. Even the falsettos were strong, almost reminiscent of early Elton John.
A- Michael Johns

I’m cutting you some slack, but this is the last time I’ll do it. One more Jim Morrison or Freddie Mercury, and you’ll drop half-a-letter grade. I want to see how you do people whose voices you can’t copy. Maybe Johnny Cash. Or James Taylor.

102

That guy looks so much like John Travolta, with dreadlocks. If they ever do a remake of Grease, he’s the man for it.

I’m rooting for (Leif) Garrett. His voice doesn’t sound like an imitation of anyone. He is unique, in a good way.

103

Ding! You win! :smiley:

And Gay Danny isn’t? I see what you’re saying though - and at least Danny can, y’know, sing.

I was just thinking that the first couple of performances are cursed because people come in late (I missed the first five). Or am I the last person in America who doesn’t have DVR?

Aren’t we getting rid of four of them this week? Seacrest said something about the guys vying for six spots. Although I missed most of the first half, based on your comments and the recap I don’t think I missed much, except possibly David H. If I were voting (and I still might), I’d dial in for David A., Jason C. and Michael Johns. The rest I don’t care if they stay or not.

104

A couple people have preducted that David Hernandez will go this week. Really? I thought he had a pretty strong performance and I would be surprised to see him voted off.

Little David Archuleta is too cute for words and he is so going to be America’s Little Brother this season. The thought of anyone hurting the kid makes me want to break bones. And I do think he’s genuine.

I think this is the first season of AI where I might actually enjoy the boys’ performances more than the girls’. It’s the boys’ season, I reckon.

105

Math is hard.

But I swear I heard Ryan said something about six spots. But that would mean getting rid of half the contestants. That surely can’t be right. Paula, my color is confused. :confused:

106

Two males and two females go per week for three weeks to take us to the top twelve which will be six of each.

107

Don’t you get the sense that Robbie Carico was sitting around in thei boy-band trailer one day, and noticed that ‘Daughtry’ was the best selling Idol album in a long time, and said, “Girl, I wanna be a rocker now.”

I’m totally not buying the wallet chain and headband thing.

David Cook wins the award for ‘worst combover by a man under 40’. He better change his look fast before he loses any more of that hair, because that combover is going to get worse before it goes away. And I thought the song was horrible, and the performance rather skeevy. He didn’t look like he was making love to the camera - he looked like he was trying to take an upskirt photo of it. Yech.

Do none of these people know how to actually interpret a song? Do they spend so much time with their vocal coaches working on their vibrato that they forget the song is actually supposed to mean something?

Most of the performers were technically good, but sucked the life out of the songs, then kept prodding the carcasses until they ran out of ways to be boring. Then it was over.

Michael Johns - I really liked him in the first audition, and loved his Bohemian Rhapsody during hollywood week, but man, I went off the bandwagon fast. He just gave off a strong poser scent. Like he was trying to be act humble, while inside thinking, “Just give me the damned trophy already so I can stop wasting my time with these losers.” The scarf was horrible. The performance was about as boring as Jim Morrison when he was sober. I will hold out that maybe I’m wrong about him, because I’m going on pretty thin evidence, but that’s my initial vibe.

I liked David Archuleta, Jason Castro, David Hernandez, and that’s about it. They were the only ones who actually brought something to the song that made it different and interesting.

108

Not to derail the thread, but I just have to step up ever so slightly in defense of Josiah.

We did a phone interview with him last week, and I had a chance to speak with this kid at length. I don’t buy the “mentally-unstable” bit for a second, especially given television’s knack to over-simplify people. He admitted to being a bit full of himself, and even overly emotional at times, but from what I understand, that’s the only footage they chose to use. I can’t say I know him inside and out from a five minute conversation, but I think he’s pretty well adjusted. He has his shit together and knows what he wants to do and how to get there. I think he was mostly just victimized by the cut-and-paste-pick-and-choose directing style of AI.

That said, I can’t get over how dreamy Danny Noriega is. This year’s Sanjaya? Please. Anyone who says that must have missed his auditions, and the Hollywood round. He’s got the voice, and the looks, and the only thing keeping me from swooning over this kid is his… ah… well, see for yourself.

Anyone that lists themselves as one of their favorite male pop artists deserves a big slap in the face.

… … … this seems like something that you would know, yes?

Regardless, I voted for him.

Anyway. Not a bad week. I’m not falling for this David Archuleta fever just yet… he’s good, but he has some stiff competition in the coming months.

I’m hoping for greater things to come from David Hernandez. He’s proven that he has the talent… where did it go?

109

DialIdol Spoilers for the guys…keep in mind that DI is pretty inaccurate this early when fewer people are using it.

Top 4 were David Archuleta, Michael Johns, Jason Castro, and Danny Noriega. Bottom 4 were David Cook (!), Colton Berry, Chikezie Eze, and Garrett Haley.

It was so close that only the top 3 were considered “safe,” though, so take from that what you will.

110

How so? Are you saying they manufactured the whole refusal to practice incident followed by his dissing of the band? Unless they deliberately deceived us, with the cooperation of the voice coach and drummer, he spent the whole night stewing in his own self-pity. He didn’t go back to the band even after the voice coach came out to get him. All the while, he is a nervous wreck and admits to getting no sleep.

I can understand unfavorable editing, but to create a whole 12-hour story like this, you’d need some massive computer graphic enhancements or something to simulate the conversations and band member reactions unless most of it happened the way it was presented. He may have his shit together now, but he didn’t seem to on that day, and he knew or should have known that that was the day that counted.

I hate to find myself defending a reality show’s editing, but I think it applies to things like Kelly Pickler’s naive persona or even Melinda’s ingratiating humility. Those things can be coached and promoted via editing. But a night-long saga and tear-drenched face cannot. I appreciate that he charmed you during the five minute conversation. He obviously can be a charming guy. (Funny how there’s no accusation that the producers manufactured his more endearing images.) But I just don’t like blaming Paul for Peter’s mistakes.

111

The ones I liked last night were David Hernandez, Robbie Carrico, David Archuleta, Jason Castro, and Michael Johns.

The worst, IMO, were Jason Yeager and Garrett Haley. Garrett really creeps me out for some reason. I don’t think I could stand to watch him all season. He’d definitely be my new Sanjaya. Luke should be on the “worst” list too, but he’s all kinds of hot so I’m going to give him a pass this week.

112

They did it with “One”, too. An exact clone of the original arrangement and vocal, and they lavished it with praise.

Judges are getting on my nerves. Randy & Pauler get to babble incoherently, then when Simon actually gets two brain cells to rub together & make a spark, Paula gets time for a rebuttal. :rolleyes:

113

I liked Johns, Archuleta, Castro, and one of the earlier rocker fellows --blanking out on his name.

 Gay Danny is bugging me.  I hate pouting.

  Chikezie was just plain bad.  Some of the others were dull, smarmy, and unmemorable.

I’m sure Chik and Leif G. will be leaving, though Jason Y. could also be on the way out.

114

Oddly, I thought he was a dead ringer for Dr Cuddy on House.

115

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was primarily defending him against the “emotionally unstable” accusation; I didn’t find him unstable at all. I wasn’t trying to say that he didn’t make any mistakes that night (he did; and he’ll own up to them), or that bad editing drew that scene. From both my casual conversation and from the various tv and radio interviews he’s done since, he’s not shy about admitting that he screwed up that night. What I’m saying is, the cameras only seemed to be rolling when he was crying or when he was nervous or when he was stressed, what have you. Why is this easy for me to believe? Because of his set up situation – poor kid, has nothing, it seems easy to want to show him as appealing to our hearts. Weeks of footage was shot, but had to be edited down to minutes. I don’t like to judge Idol contestants based on what’s shown on tv for this reason; otherwise, yeah, I’d say Josiah’s a whiny, emotionally unstable brat; Danny’s a flaming, airheaded queen; David Archuleta is the ever so sweet and cute version of Jesus himself, etc.

YMMV, of course. I’m just saying that, anecdotally, I don’t think Josiah has emotional problems. And I think he’s admitted his failures from the show, and is on the right track now to getting where he wants to be.

116

Hopefully tonight they’ll show the video clip of the top 12 women dancing (shown last night, and last week on the Reveal Show). Watch how many of them make the same face while dancing – making a fish face with their lips.

It appears to be the young female equivalent of the White Man’s Overbite.

117

This is the only meaningful comment I wanted to make, and KSO beat me to it (though I was going to substitute “fucking Howdy Doody” for “douche”.)

Leif and Dreadlocked Travolta are awfully easy on the eyes…how far can they ride it? No one is really making me want to see this season, though if I watch I’m going to have to root for Bitch Fairy a little bit. The 'tude makes me laugh.

118

Oh, okay. Thanks for clearling that up. For what it’s worth, he really didn’t come across to me as unstable. Just a bit immature and maybe naive. He could come back in a year and be a whole new man. It happens all the time.

119

Back on tonight’s show … I’m hoping to see Amanda (Rocker Chick) do a soft 60s ballad. Maybe a Motown Supremes thing or something. There’s a risk when that happens, of course. If you bomb, they’ll say “bad song choice”. But if you make it great, they’ll say they’re glad to see you branch out. “You made it your own”.

But… clearly, what she will do is the Stone’s Satisfaction, and Simon will ream her out for it.

120

My order of preference:

  1. David Cook
  2. Jason Castro
  3. Michael Johns
  4. Robbie Carrico
  5. David Archuletta
  6. Jason Yeager
  7. Luke Menard
  8. David Hernandez
  9. Colton Berry
  10. Danny Noriega
  11. Garrett Haley
  12. Chikezie

Luke and Jason Y. will be shown the door this week.