Okay, so nobody took my advice on song selection, overall, decent night.
With a songwriter the caliber of Carole King and her massive collection of songs from which to choose, there were some very odd song choices.
I'll start with the good: James and Scotty.
Again, I'm not a big country music fan but Scotty's voice is just so pure and perfect for the genre I've got to tip my hat to him. But the Idol judges are a little more critical due to what I've said in the past; he's been playing it safe. Week to week.
Tonight he took "You've Got a Friend" and totally wasted it. Knocked it out of the park. That version needs to be on his first album. Seriously, it was a show-stopper, but the judges, although complimentary, were underwhelmed it seemed. Sure, it could have been more powerful or whatever, but playing in his genre, it was just perfect.
James Durbin's intimate intro and mild take on ”Will You Still Love Me?” was an awesome take by him. We've seen James slow it down before and he does it well. Only problem is that he tries to shoehorn the signature scream in frequently where it's unnecessary just to make it more "rock". But Randy gave James the biggest plug of the evening saying he's a possible winner. I don't know if that's true but I don't see this any other way than coming down to a Scotty vs. James slugfest. In a pure singing competition James would win hands down but Scotty is such an amazing young country talent that it could easily go either way. I think Scotty has a lot more pure commercial potential and he'll be around forever. Not so sure about what James Durbin will do post-Idol.
Lauren Alaina took on the King song "Where You Lead" which I thought was a rather odd choice. Don't get me wrong, she slayed it and she's such a natural at only sixteen that it's plain scary but, come on. Of all the brilliant songs Carole King's written was this really the best choice? Anyway, it was good enough and good enough is okay this week.
Your bottom three, I predict, will be Jacob Lusk joined by lovebirds Casey and Haley.
Finally, this was Jacob's last dance. ”Oh No Not My Baby” was a silly song choice on a week where Jacob needed to take it all to a totally bigger place. His performance came off as camp and old-timey. Top that off with the fact that he opened the show and it's bye bye Jacob. Again, don't get me wrong, that kid's got vocal talent and showmanship to spare. This week, however, he needed to take a song and make it into a MOMENT and it wasn't even close.
Haley is in the bottom three just because there's no room left with the top three being so solid. This girl is amazing and sexy as hell and has a huge career ahead of her but the season ten line-up just doesn't give her anywhere to go. ”Beautiful” was a decent song selection but she needed to go Carole King number one not Carole King top forty.
Casey Abrams, sorry to say, is starting to bore me. Yeah, his performances are generally off the Idol radar, but, Casey always sounds the same. And with the catalog of Carole King with which to work, did he really need to dig out her twelve bar blues song? I mean, really, the song could have been written by Muddy Waters. ”Hi-De-Ho” is one of those songs a writer writes to take a stab at a certain kind of traditional songwriting and Casey's performance, for all the work that went into staging it, fell flat for me. When you're presented with a list of songs with amazing melody and lyrical twists you pick the standard blues song? Dud. I really could have used a quiet moment from Casey this week to show some dynamic.
New to the show this week was duets on performance night. Horrible idea. I guess it gives the Idol folks more material to make money on iTunes but god it was rough. I'm sure it's a distraction for the performers and it was a definite distraction from the show. Hopefully it won't last.
No comments:
Post a Comment