Here we are - a new month and a new week, which means another American Idol review. It's hard to believe we are in the month of April and at least where I live, it STILL looks like winter outside. AMAZING! That's after nearly 25 inches of snow fell from our latest end-of-winter storm. As depressing as that is, at least we have American Idol to lift up our spirits as we try to cope with another blast of winter. This week it was "songs of Dolly Parton," with Dolly herself being the mentor. I've never been a big follower of Dolly and of country music for that matter, so this week was going to be a bit of a challenge for me to stay interested. All in all, I think I did a good job of keeping it together and staying focused at what I do best - giving you guys a review of last night's performances. And off we go!
Brooke White - singing "Jolene": She is on the guitar for this week's performance and she's battling pitch problems right from the start. I think it had a nice country vibe with it; something we hadn't seen from Brooke yet this season. It was a bit different from her usual routine yet she managed to stay pretty consistent with her singing and performing style. I thought the last half of the song was much stronger than the first as she was much more in tune and got rid of any pre-performance jitters that she had out of her system as the song concluded. Overall, a nice job from Brook this week.
David Cook - singing "Little Sparrow": I thought it was great that the first thing David did was address the arrangement controversy that he had gotten himself into the past three weeks or so. He gave the individual singers and groups their proper credit for him using their arrangements and hopefully David was able to put this whole deal past him. I think the criticism against him was unjust as it was. Tonight he mixed things up and put together his OWN arrangement of a song and I thought it was superb. Last week I was not jumping out of my seat over his rendition of "Billy Jean" like most people, so I thought this week was much better for him. He put his own twist on the song and made it very interesting to listen to. He was great with his falsetto notes and continued to shine with his originality.
Ramiele Malubay - singing "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind": It was a pretty nice, upbeat song for Ramiele this week. I think she is trying to stay upbeat with her songs rather than going to ballads which tend to make her seem boring. She injected some personality into the song and was overall a decent performance for her. But probably the biggest obstacle Ramiele faces this week is whether or not that was a performance to remember. For me personally, I didn't think so. I think she is quickly becoming forgettable and she really hasn't done anything to get excited over since she's been in the top 12. I think the end of the road is coming up very soon for Ramiele.
Jason Castro - singing "Travelin' Thru": Jason seems to be staying with the guitar a lot more lately which is probably a good move since he tends to seem awkward without it in his hands. Another thing I've noticed with Jason is that he picks songs that have more of an upbeat flair to them which seems to work the best for him. I really enjoyed Jason's performance this week and I thought it was a great song that he picked. He definitely seemed more serious about being in the competition this week as opposed to the last couple of weeks where it looked like he was just breezing through. For me, he stepped it up with this performance and seemed very confident in his singing abilities.
Carly Smithson - singing "Here You Come Again": Carly picked a very slow song to sing with little, if any tempo to it. It was kind of boring at times but Carly displayed her amazing vocal skills with this performance. Her singing was definitely on-par with no pitch irregularities at all. She is certainly no amateur when it comes to singing as she's able to hold notes for a long period of time with such relative ease. She also looked much more comfortable on stage and a lot more confident than she's been. Certainly another solid performance from Carly this week.
David Archuleta - singing "Smoky Mountain Memories": David is back with a vengeance this week as he puts together a very solid performance with a ballad that suits him nicely. After a questionable song choice a week ago, he picked a perfect song this week and you could definitely tell he felt a connection with it. He sang it with such conviction and emotion and did a marvelous job with the runs throughout the song. It seems like when he's not feeling any pressure and can go up on stage and sing with his heart, he does the absolute best. And seeing that last week David didn't appear to be as comfortable up on that stage singing "You're the Voice," it was completely the opposite this week. He owned the stage and was in his element.
Kristy Lee Cook - singing "Coat of Many Colors": This is definitely the right genre of music for Kristy and if she doesn't do well this week, then there's no hope for her at all. Overall, I thought she was pretty solid this week. No obvious pitch problems like there were last week. However, I didn't think she did anything truly exciting with the song and it was probably quite similiar to Dolly's version. This could've been her week to shine and be the top performer of the night, but she lags back towards the bottom of the barel. Again as I've said before, her time on the American Idol stage will soon be coming to an end.
Syesha Mercado - singing "I Will Always Love You": So Syesha takes on the biggest challenge of the night, that being the song made most famous by Whitney Houston. Usually those who take on Whitney fair quite poorly in the competition but Syesha did a very smart thing, at least in the first half of the song anyways. She kind of mixed things up for awhile, mostly using Dolly's version of the song in the beginning but then in the last half, she switched it over to Whitney's version and how can you not compare it to Whitney? Syesha is definitely no Whitney Houston. Overall I thought it was a decent performance from her but not spectacular - especially considering she encountered a few pitch problems towards the end of the song.
Michael Johns - singing "It's All Wrong, but It's All Right": Michael experienced a major boost in motivation last week after a stellar performance of a Queen medley. It was a very nice, soulful performance this week which he seemed to build upon last week's success. Obviously this song was more laid back than the rock tunes of Queen, but this is the Michael Johns we've been waiting for to show up during most of the top 12. He is definitely back in contention to be the American Idol champ and if he keeps it up, he'll definitely stay until at least the top three. It proved to be the perfect way to end tonight's show and seemed very into the performance from the beginning to the end.
Overall, I'd have to say that after last week's sub-par "year you were born" week, this week was a lot better. I'd give last night's show a rating of 8.5 out of 10. Like I stated earlier, I am no expert on Dolly Parton songs but it ended up being a very enjoyable night of performances. Nothing that was terribly bad, yet a few that will end up being quite forgettable. I will say this, I believe we have three of four singers left that have average singing talent. Once we whittle those people out of this competition, things look to get very interesting as we close in on the top five. With that being said, here are tonight's rankings:
#1: David Archuleta
#2: Michael Johns
#3: David Cook
#4: Carly Smithson
#5: Jason Castro
#6: Syesha Mercado - bottom three
#7: Brooke White (actual bottom three - 4/2/08)
#8: Kristy Lee Cook - bottom three (actual bottom three - 4/2/08)
#9: Ramiele Malubay - eliminated (officially eliminated - 4/2/08)
I do genuinely believe that Ramiele will be voted off this week. But I do not remember a week where she's been in the bottom three (okay, maybe one week she was), so her fan base might keep her in this another week. But the usual bottom dwellers of Kristy Lee and Syesha should wind up there again and quite possibly one of them may be out. As I've found this year, it's really difficult to pick who exactly is being sent home week after week. It's all in the hands of the voters!
YES! Finally predicted the right person to be eliminated for a change. -4/2/08
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