Tuesday, May 20, 2008

JIM LAMPLEY, MUSICAL CONSULTANT: Lame, lame opening, and only one of the Boomtown rats (actually, crap, why didn't Cook try "I Don't Like Mondays"?) tried to win the title of American Idol tonight. And not the one we like:
  • Cook/"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For": A little inert and restrained (but not bad) vocally, but a decent performance -- why has no one else gone into the crowd this season? (Didn't David Hernandez in his one finals week?) It looked like a good performance, but I was whelmed at best. Should've used the backing singers more, I think.
  • YDA/"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me": Performed previously on the show by Clay Aiken, Bo Bice and Justin Guarini, all of whom ended up second. An omen? It's a wordy song, and he did it well.
  • Cook/Generic Inspirational Song: It was fine, but I don't want to hear it again.
  • YDA/Generic Inspiational Song: Yawn. I miss Fantasia's "I Believe".
  • Cook/"The World I Know": An odd choice, and an interesting reworking, but not a performance that wins competitions. With a live audience eager to worship, this song as a bit of a punt. It was time for an anthem, time to blow people away, and he didn't. Why's he crying?
  • YDA/"Imagine": Perfectly lovely, but exactly the same as what we heard three months ago. Where's the choir? Where's anything different?
It's all about expectations -- Young David Archuleta gave us exactly what we expected, and David Cook gave us less than what we hoped for. Based on that, bet on the one with the dead, dead eyes to win.

Fienberg concurs: "David Cook didn't phone it in tonight. He gave three good performances. But when he said at the beginning that he didn't want to complete, he just wanted to have fun making music, it was telling. He didn't try to lose, but I feel like he was willing to let David Archuleta win."

Sepinwall: "I think Cook really needed to blow the kid's doors off tonight and, though I enjoyed all three of his performances, the first was the only one that was close to showy enough to really sway people, while Archuleta belted himself silly."

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