“Christ”?
:smack:
The Pickler was a Snoozer for me. Bucky, Kevin, and Melissa were not so hot either.
I really liked Taylor tonight. The others were pretty decent–the ones I got to see, anyhow.
I missed Paris and Chris, dang it.
I think Pickler still has enough momentum from last week to last a while, but she’ll be on her way out soon. Tomorrow night, Melissa or Kevin will be going, and Bucky next week unless Hickler goes first.
Before I begin…okay, I’ve brought this up before, and I’m bringing it up again. Why do the women insist on wearing high freaking heels?
Look, you’re going on a stage. You have to move around at least somewhat gracefully for several minutes. There’s no avoiding this. Staying on key and remembering lyrics is tough enough; why add pain and awkwardness to the equation? I’ve seen some serious misfires on this show, but “comfortable footwear” should be a no-brainer.
Anyway…don’t really expect too much from theme nights, since it’s pretty much all about finding a song they won’t stink up the joint with (especially at this early stage). Stevie Wonder was a good choice, and I have to commend him for the remarkable grace and cheerfulness he showed all throughout.
Ace Young - Didn’t like him. Last week he had fun with the unusually-high-pitched-voice-that’s-not-falsetto thing and actually was kinda entertaining. Tonight he was just plain off.
Kellie Pickler - Not so good, although I don’t think she was the worst.
Elliott Yamin - Agree with most of the comments here. His was easily the most seamless performance of the night.
Mandisa - Personally, I found her inability to see the problem with putting that kind of weight on high heels far more disturbing than Seacrest’s antics. Still good at what she does, although there could be trouble on the horizon (see below).
Bucky Covington - He was completely out of his element, and it showed. All things considered, I think he wasn’t too bad.
Melissa McGhee - She messed up the lyrics? I didn’t even notice. Subpar, but not horribly.
Lisa Tucker - This was the kind of song that’s almost impossible to mess up (i.e. a good choice). Okay performance, and again, that’s all that’s needed.
Kevin Covais - Yeah, that was bad, but it’s pretty obvious that he knows he doesn’t have a prayer and is just having fun with his fifteen minutes.
Katherine McPhee - Another servicable effort. Agree, though, about the dress choice. (Psst…it’s called “body line”. Your body is one of your greatest advantages; no sense hiding it.)
Taylor Hicks - Well, that was…lively. Still thinks he depends a little too much on theatrics, but I certainly don’t mind having him around.
Paris Bennett - Wow. That was good. Actually, I think the only thing she really needs to do for now is distance herself from Mandisa (and ultimately outlast her), and she did a fine job of that tonight.
Chris Daughtry - Nice. Very nice. Could’ve done far worse and he’d still be a shoo-in to move on.
Elimination prospects:
I actually like the comparison of Kevin to Clay Aiken, and I actually think he might have had a chance against Reuben Studdard. Not happening with this field, though. Mandisa has too many strikes against her…already lots of divas in the market, not everyone likes divas, image took a hit with the shoe stunt…but what’s really going to doom her is her complete reliance on loud, high-energy vocals. Either her voice is going to give out just when everyone needs to pull out all the stops, or the voters will grow tired of her one dimension. Ace is just out of his league, and the teenyboppers can’t carry him forever. Kellie’s over-the-top dumb hick act reeks of desperation and is going to get really old hat before too long. Bucky’s appeal (and ability) is far too limited, and when the time comes when he has to get votes from all over the country to advance, he won’t.
Chris bores me to death. That might have run a respectable second place in a RHCP karaoke contest. Simon’s been living in somebody’s closet if he thinks Chris made that song “his own.”
Might have been interesting if he had leaped from Stevie to that, but RHCP did the leap; Chris just karaoked it.
Blah.
Lisa sucked.
Paris rocked. Taylor rocked, but too obvious a song choice. Bucky, he won’t win, but this was his best performance. Mandisa rocked.
Katherine is the real thing. Wow. She was in a class by herself tonight.
BTW, I humbly retract last week’s comment regarding the quality of this season’s contestants.
I said that nobody was that great…
Chris, Taylor, Katherine, and Paris are all pretty great IMHO.
Just as I thought I could break free of the Dope and go to bed, it occurred to me what is bothering me about Lisa.
The past couple of weeks, including tonight, it has struck me that any time the camera catches Lisa unaware, she looks completely miserable. She is all smiles and charm for her interviews and performances, but at all other times she looks either glum, bored, or pissed off. Everyone else seems to be having a great time, more or less. It’s nerve-wracking, sure, but they’re totally up for it. Lisa just looks like she wants to go home.
This is exactly what you’d expect from someone who is used to doing theater. I don’t know much about Lisa’s history, but with her youth and the emphasis that she did “Lion King,” it is feasable that she may have spent more time auditioning for and performing in musical theater rather than strictly music performances. Thus, the process she’s used to would be an audition, then callback, then thumbs-up or thumbs-down from the director.
American Idol, on the other hand, is like auditioning for the same role every week for three months (or however long), then being judged in the harshest, most public light. Even if you nail it one week, one blown note the next can be the end. In the end, it’s not the professionals - who have probably always been good at recognizing and rewarding her talent - who get to decide her fate. It is the fickle and arbitrary public that gets to decide. Her talent alone won’t be enough for this audition; she has to be charming and gracious and poised and loved by her fellow contestants and adored by the judges every single minute. No actor I know would be able to stand this.
I get the sense from Lisa that she can’t hold up that level of sustained energy through all these weeks. She’s starting to flag.
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Ace: I think he mostly suffered from going first; having to adjust to the band and the new stage. Otherwise, I think he was trying too hard to sound like Stevie.
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Kellie: Not bad singing, but otherwise, just shut it, okay?!
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Elliot: Okay, but see last comment on Ace.
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Mandisa: Girl can sang. And she’s much more naturally charming than Pickler.
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Bucky: Now, I liked it, although I can see why others wouldn’t, but the main thing is, something was seriously wrong with the sound mix.
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Melissa: I’ll forgive the babbling afterwards, because it was clearly done out of sheer nervousness. I just think she’s out of her league, because she has such a smoky, sultry, vampy voice, and yet she’s either compelled, or told, to make it yelly, which ruins the effect. She would be great in a small jazz club.
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Kevin: Look, I love my little bug, but I couldn’t not compare him to Nikko, who kicked off last season’s semis with this, and sang it like he had several part-time lovers. Kev, I could see was trying to get in character, but how can you sell this song when you’ve never even kissed with tongues? That said, I give him props for his retort to Simon, and his suddenly growly voice when he did so.
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Lisa: Just a relief to hear someone not embarrass themselves.
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Katherine: She’s sweet. Only thing is, I don’t like sweet.
10: Taylor: I knew this theme was tailor-made for him! Oops, that was a pun, wasn’t it?
11: Paris: Awesome! But her antics during the Ryan-chat were just grandstanding.
12: Chris: I agree that there’s a definite danger of a backlash. And it worries me too, because I think he can, and deserves to, win this, and I’d hate to see him boned out of it!
ACE YOUNG
Two things I always fast forward: Paula’s comments and your act. Would you please just go home?
BUCKY COVINGTON
You surprised me last week. You surprised me this week. If you surprise me next week, I’m gonna have to move you up a notch or two. If you could learn how to be less yuck-yuck during your interviews, you could rise above Pickler’s status. Work on it.
CHRIS DAUGHTRY
I feel like you got a pass this time. You were good, yes, but you were good at a rock adaptation of a ballad. Even rockers sing a delicate song delicately from time to time. I’m a big fan of yours, but I want to hear you and a guitar. Acoustic. Or maybe even a quiet piano.
ELLIOTT YAMIN
Big boys don’t cry. Please stop with the “I can’t believe I’m here” crap. Once is okay. But this is the fourth week in a row of some variation of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Have some confidence.
KATHARINE MCPHEE
What the hell? Your eyes looked like a mortician did your make-up with shoe polish. At least you were a little less mousey this time. Your voice is good, but singing isn’t just about the voice. Being the female Constantine is going to be your downfall.
KELLIE PICKLER
This time, you stepped over the line. Do not apologize when you’re criticized. I’ve defended your naivity in the past, but when you make people feel like they’re abusive just because you yourself didn’t measure up, you’ve gone too far. Just stop talking. The after-song time with the judges isn’t supposed to be a conversation; it’s three monologues. Mono-what? Monologues.
KEVIN COVAIS
I count myself among those who would like to pinch your cheeks. Except that I’d like to do it with a pair of pliers. Sex symbol? Holy friggin’ cow. I’d just like to remind people wooed by your charms that boys like you grow up. What is now cute will then be a major annoyance. My hope is that your fanbase is now too thin to sustain you over the others.
LISA TUCKER
There’s just something about you that’s so… I don’t know, me-too. You’re a lot like Diahann Carroll. You’re a lot like Doris Day. You’re a lot like Gayle King. You’re a collage of copies of copies.
MANDISA
You’re so very almost there. If only there were as much pain in your voice as joy. I want to see you bend at the knees, pull something from your gut, and let it roar out of your mouth like a volcanic eruption. Grimmace. Cry. Look pissed off.
MELISSA MCGHEE
Too bad. You had your chance and you blew it.
PARIS BENNETT
It’s so sad watching you be silly. I guess it’s to be expected from a sixteen-year-old. But not every sixteen-year-old has your gift. The sad thing is how you squander it. Anytime you turn in a performance that doesn’t knock people off their feet, you have failed. Because you can do better.
TAYLOR HICKS
For the second week in a row, you were best of the evening. Well done.
I continue to think Paris sounds like a total pro. Not an off-note. Strong nice voice.
Taylor was good.
I LIKE Melissa. She’s stunk a couple weeks, but I like that huskier sound. She needs work, but I do like her.
Covais actually sounded all right to me last night. I think that’s a tough song to pull off. If nothing else, he has a good sense of rhythm. He’s way better than that red-headed dork from last year.
Ryan’s, maybe?
And I really like the white-boy dancing. No, seriously. He’s Roger Rabbit to my Jessica: He makes me laugh. Good for him for recognizing that and running with it.
Good call. I get that from her too.
It seems I’m awfully late getting to the thread. Any comment I could have made has already been made, except perhaps for this one:
Was anyone else afraid when Ace picked that thing out of his eye during the interview? He studied it so long I thought he was going to eat it.
I do have a word of advice for you, Chris my love. There are other genres of music besides rock with very good songs in it, you should listen to some.
P.S. The Red Hot Chili Peppers didn’t do Love Rollercoaster originally either. Just so you know.
Classic Randy: Well, you had some sharp notes and some flat ones, and you forgot the words, but other than that you were pretty good!
Hrrm, you can’t just gloss over three of the essential bits of singing a song???
I think she should go just because of forgetting the words, even with the sheet music in front of her!?!? If you’re already nervous about the “genre”, why a last-minute song change??
::rant over
Actually, I think Kevin should go home. It’s kind of a fluffy song anyway but he made it a joke and a travesty. Pathetic, and Simon almost always says what I think, in this case “appalling”.
The band is the reason Simon complains about “karaoke performances”; all the arrangements are karaoke arrangements. How can the singers break out and do something original if the band is a straight jacket, slavishly reproducing the arrangement of the original hit? Also, the mixing is bad, the band drowns out the vocalist too often.
Ok, have to chime in though I don’t have much new to add. I chuckled all through Kevin’s performance- I’d like to see him in my school’s talent show, then I’d take him out for ice cream and made sure he was tucked into bed by 8:30 so he could get a good night’s rest. But OH, Part-Time Lover? I downloaded Nikko’s version because it was so yum. Kevin’s version? Do they people even have sex in his version? I think the girl is still deciding whether to circle “yes” or “no” on the note Kevin passed her.
That being said, I love Taylor and Chris in equal parts. Taylor, I’m going to buy a cd so that I can hear that delightful voice. Chris, I’m jumping on the very, very, very, very pretty bandwagon. I love your voice, and the fact that you married a woman with two kids and love being a stepdad works in your favor, too. Do you have an older brother?
Please send Ace home, America.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Many of Stevie Wonder’s songs are boring and I do love him as a marvellous and gifted talent. It’s really up to the artist interpreting the song to give it some life and ‘make it their own’ as the cliche goes.
Katherine, followed very closely by Paris were the best of the bunch last night. Of the guys maybe Taylor and Chris were decent. Chris’s growly forced vibrato bugs me and Taylor’s manic movements are distracting.
The girls won out.
Omigod, YES! What the hell was he thinking?
Mmmmmmmm…that’s a good one. 
Looks like I’m sharing a page with lissener on this one – Chris, I love ya bro, and I hope you take it all this season, but that was really, really weak.
The rankings:
Paris
Taylor
Melissa
Katherine
Lisa
Mandisa
Chris
Bucky
Elliot
Kellie
Ace
Kevin