AMERICAN IDOL Top 12 Performances

I’m going to need a little AMERICAN IDOL uplifting from you all today. Maybe I’m still feeling the effects of last Thursday’s elimination of Alex Lambert and Katelyn Epperly (who yes, I miss more than Lilly Scott), but I just wasn’t in the IDOL groove last night.  It took two hours and 12 performances to get to Crystal Bowersox, the only contestant last night that really captured my full attention.

Based on my overly chatty Twitter friends, I was expecting big things from Siobhan Magnus last night, and while I can say that she took the biggest risk with her arrangement of ‘Paint it Black’, it really wasn’t all that good.  Please don’t  go the way of the judges and encourage her to go for those big notes every week, because she proved last night that she can’t always reach them.  She had some pitch problems throughout the entire performance that the judges either didn’t hear or chose to ignore.  I will, however,  give her a golf clap for really turning on the drama and at going out of her way to try to entertain us.  Siobhan has really grown on me and I definitely think she’s a front runner, but the performance didn’t fully work for me. I have a feeling you all are going to tell me differently and that’s ok, I can take it.

While Crystal was the only true standout performance for me last night, there were a few IDOL wannabes who kept me interested.  I saw a new confidence in Didi Benami this week.  Looks like she finally realized that she’s in a competition.  You guys know how much I love her voice, but she was giving me heart palpitations with her shaky performance.  If you’re forgetting the words you either don’t know the song well enough and shouldn’t have picked it, or you’re heads not in the game.  Either way, it’s really not ok.  But she pulled through, and while I can’t say this was my favorite performance of hers (still ‘Terrified’ from Hollywood Week) I think she did enough to live to sing another week.

Someone else that showed me something last night was Andrew Garcia. Much like Didi, I think that Andrew upped his game when he took to the new stage.  Simon thought perhaps his nerves held him back, but I didn’t see it.  There was a new kind of energy from him this week. Randy pointed out that he was a little flat throughout the song, but I honestly think that’s just how Andrew sings.  He comes at each note from underneath rather than on top, and that often leads to notes that might sound flatter than they really are.  Short of the judges picking the perfect song for him, I’m not sure what Andrew can do to break out his ‘Straight Up’ rut.  Maybe more of these themes nights will help.  FYI – even though he was pitted against my boy Alex Lambert last week, I don’t hold Andrew responsible for Alex’s ousting, that blame lies with the tweens that voted for Tim Urban and Aaron Kelly.

I have no doubt that Casey James will walk away with a recording contract from a country label (if 19 records doesn’t tether him). He’s got the voice, the look and really knows how to tell a story through his songs.  He could be one of the breakout stars of this season.  Do I see him winning the whole show?  Nah. There’s something about his personality that’s holding him back from really connecting with the audience. No reason he won’t succeed outside of IDOL, but I’m not sure he’s got IDOL winner written all over him.  Good enough performance last night. I wasn’t wow’d, but he didn’t bore me like some of the other contestants did, so there’s that.

After all these seasons Randy is sick and tired about being the only big black guy in the room.  He wants to keep Big Mike around to make himself look thinner.  Mark my words!  Ok, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit but there’s got to be some reason why Randy is so enthusiastic about Mike Lynche. Despite what he showed us last week, I don’t think he’s good enough to beat out these other contestants. He just doesn’t excite me.

I think that’s the problem I’m having with most of the IDOL contestants this season – no one is exciting me. Last year every single performance night I waited with anticipation for Adam Lambert to take the stage.  What was he going to sing?  How was he going to reinvent a song and perform it like I was hearing it for the first time?  Maybe not to the same extent, but I felt the same way about Kris Allen, and the IDOL winner before him, David Cook.  I’m just on the edge of my seat waiting to see what Aaron Kelly is going to sing.

It’s not a good sign that I kept the remote in my hand during the entirety of Aaron Kelly’s performance.  I was so tempted to just fast forward through (like I did with another contestant) and gain about a minute and a half of my life back.  Aarom didn’t slaughter the performance but that doesn’t mean it was worthy of the AMERICAN IDOL.  I grew up singing my entire life, and I can count at least a dozen guys that could have outperformed Aaron last night.  He’s just a kid with a decent voice. He’s NOT the next pop superstar.  If you’re voting for him because you think he is, please leave a comment and let me know why.

The puma in me still loves to look at Tim Urban, but it’s a shame that he’s on the stage when Alex Lambert (have I mentioned him yet?) is sitting at home crying. The reggae vibe just isn’t Tim, no matter who the artist, but it was borderline offensive with the Rolling Stones. Ellen was right, this kid belong on GLEE or at least on tour with someone from the Disney channel (btw, my prediction is that Tim is linked with a Disney princess before the end of 2o10, and I’m not talking Jasmine or Snow White…more like Selena Gomez or one of her look alike friends.)

For those of you who I pissed off with my comments about Siobhan Magnus, you’re really not going to like me after I tell you that I kind of dug Lacey Brown’s performance last night.  Now I’m not at the point where I’m going to pick up the phone and vote for her, but I really liked her take on “Ruby Tuesday”. With a few vocal touchups, I could almost hear her version on the radio. Am I crazy?

Let’s see…who is left to skewer?  I guess it’s not fair for me to properly critique Katie Stevens because I didn’t listen to her entire performance.  I listened to the first minute or so and then I had to fast forward through the rest.  I’m sorry, but I’d rather listen to Susan Boyle sing her horrific version of “Wild Horses” for the next 2 years straight rather than listen to Katie sing it again.  I even had to mute it during the playback at the end.  She’s just awful.  Why is she on this show?

Maybe I wasn’t floored, but I think that last night was Paige Miles’ best performance to date. It actually she seemed like she was going for it this week. I didn’t love the song, but I liked how she attacked it.

I’m not sure what’s holding Lee Dewyze back, but I’d like him to figure it out so he can start taking control of the competition on behalf of the guys. I think he’s the only one that might be able to do it.  The kid has a great voice, and a good sense of musicality, but he hasn’t come out and nailed a performance yet.  Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe he’s just not as good as I want him to be.  I don’t know, but the clock’s ticking and he needs to come out and wow us next week. I have faith he can do it.

That leaves us with Crystal Bowersox.  After watching her performance last night I tweeted the following: “How about we just crown Crystal Bowersox the winner this week & then we can move on to GLEE & SYTYCD that much quicker.” Having a night to sleep on it…I still feel exactly the same. It’s not about the other contestants not being in the same league, they aren’t even playing the same sport.  She takes to that stage with confidence, ease, and she is by far the most interesting performed in the competition.  I don’t mistake her confidence for cockiness.  I think she probably rolls her eyes at the likes of Aaron Kelly, Tim Urban and Katie Stevens, but so do we so we can’t really blame her.  Every time Crystal takes to the stage you know you are going to be entertained.  She’s never content with ever doing a karaoke performance – she respects herself to much as an artist. All I ask is that the producers don’t put her in the pimp spot next week.  I don’t want to have to watch the entire two hour show just to get to her.

Clearly I’m a little Debbie (the stage manager) Downer of IDOL this week. Tell me what I didn’t hear in each of the performances last night.The comments are open!