WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL: It's Sing Whatever The Hell You Want Week (again) on Idol, limited only by The Songs Of This Century. Will everyone stay in their boxes? Of course, as Kim and I review...
Adam: Well, that's a new place to start American Idol -- it's the Redemption Island singers! Oh, I miss Naima. And Smiling, Twitchy Paul doesn't belong within 200 yards of a Pink song. (Also, I completely forgot that Karen Rodriguez existed.)
Kim: Karen who?? It must be strange to be Paul and come back on the show the week after you get booted.
Adam: It's all (I assume) in reaction to the story that Pia's going to sing for DWTS soon; time to remind these kids who made them stars. Anyway, Scotty's batting leadoff, and ... does it matter what he does, or what we think of it? I found it boring even by I'm City Folk And I Don't Much Cotton To Country Music standards, but perhaps your ear is more subtle.
Kim: The thing that bothers me the most about Scotty McCreery is the wiggly eyebrows.I stopped caring about Scotty weeks ago. James, on the other hand, is in it to win it. I love the snare drum guys and everything about this performance. James is a wall of sound guy, and I love when they arrange him that way.
Adam: Really? It felt like watered-down Adam Lambert to me and I couldn't help but experience it in that light. On its own merits, it's fine, but I couldn't love it. Similarly, that Adele song is so ubiquitous right now that Haley felt tepid in comparison. It's a great, great song and I've love to have heard Siobhan Magnus sing it. Or Carly Smithson. But not Haley Reinhart.
Kim: I find James more genuine and less contrived than Lambert. (And I loved Lambert.) I might be the only person watching AI who doesn't know who Adele is, so I liked what the song did for her voice. (I know none of these songs. And here I was thinking that I was starting to get back up to speed on popular music courtesy of a second grade daughter.
The fact that Luther Vandross is alive and well and making music surprises me. That's really all I have to say about Jacob.
Adam: [First: here's the Adele song.]
I hate to break it to you, Kim: "Dance With My Father" was released in 2003; Luther died in 2005. It was a restrained performance ... too restrained. He should have done The Song Occasionally Referred To As "Forget You" instead. Casey, however, did perform a song by a judge on The Voice, and "Harder to Breathe" is the best he's been since "I Put A Spell On You." Intense enough, and then with such a sweet ending.
Kim: Well, that explains why I was surprised to find Luther still alive. What's the opposite of premorse?
I did love Casey, and was tickled by the fact that both he and JLo were blushing. Upbeat Casey is a lot of fun.
Can Stefano please go home now? He's cheesy in any decade.
Adam: Oh, hush. That wasn't much of a singing demonstration, but it was a fun performance. It was contemporary. There was a dance move or two involved. It's one of the best things they've done this season -- which isn't to say that Crystal Bowersox didn't have six or seven performances better than anything else we've seen in 2011. (And she did.)
And then came Lauren, I guess. It was spunky. I was not impressed, not that there was anything bad about it.
Kim: I think it's sweet that Lauren has all this insecurity this far into the competition. She looks exceptionally pretty tonight. The song was cute and fun, and she sang it well.
So for me, the remaining tiers go like this. Top three: James, Lauren, Casey. Floating around in the middle: Hailey. Get them off my stage: Scotty, Jacob, Stephano. I realize that I am disaggregated from the voters at this point, but these are my views.
Adam: Jacob, Haley and Scotty were the weakest for me tonight, and I'm guessing the Pagonging of all women continues tomorrow with Haley's ouster. We're still looking at a final with James v. Last Country Standing, which'll probably be Scotty.
Scotty's song choice was one of the more blatant cheats of the season. The most popular version of "Swingin'" was released by John Anderson in 1983. LeAnn Rimes did a remake of it last year, but her version tanked (according to Wikipedia, it peaked at No. 57 on the Billboard country chart). This was the equivalent of if Casey had performed American Pie by citing the lousy Madonna remake.
ReplyDeleteI'm not with y'all on Casey. I enjoyed the first part of his performance, but once he started yelling and then stomping around the stage, he totally lost me. I recognize that Adam Lambert has a better voice than James does, but I find James' voice to be warmer, so I enjoy it more, in a way. I agree that it was hard not to compare Haley to Adele, and Haley loses that comparison. But she was still good.
ReplyDeleteVery good: James
Good: Lauren, Haley
Fair: Scotty
Poor: Jacob, Stefano, Casey
Good:
Hi Guest. "Warmer" is exactly the right way to compare James's voice to Lambert's.
ReplyDeleteWhoops. Guest is me, on my toy.
ReplyDeleteThis was the first time in a while that I wasn't thrilled with Haley (note THAT, Robin), but no one really had me, either.
ReplyDeleteScotty's mic technique bugs the crap out of me -- can we either get him a lighter mic, or tie an arm to the side, or something? It looks like he's going to start eating it when he's done, or play us some Tull -- either way, I don't want to see it.
I love me my small doses of Muse, but this seemed safe coming out of Durbin. This would have been a good week to do something more melodic (I think it's possible to stay where he wants to in terms of song choice while finding melodies).
The kiss was the best part of Casey's performance -- well, maybe the scat solo.
Lauren was fine -- I no longer have time to watch Jacob Lusk.
I think my husband and I were pretty much in agreement on our rankings:
ReplyDelete1. Haley -- If you'd told me four weeks ago she could remotely pull this off, I wouldn't have believed you. Yeah, it wasn't the right song to do given Adele's talent and the song's ubiquity (I think she should've done something like "Seven Nation Army" or "Grounds for Divorce"), and she didn't make you forget Adele, but it wasn't karaoke either. She made some nice changes to the melody. She's the closest to exemplifying Adam's Theory #2.
2. James -- I am still waiting for him to do "Through the Fire and Flames." There were a few bum notes, but again, he chose a tough song and basically pulled it off in entertaining fashion.
3. Jacob -- I wouldn't object to him going home based on body of work, but I thought this was his most restrained and believable performance by far, and a good vocal.
(big gap)
4. Lauren -- If this were diving she might have had the best execution score but this was like a 1.5 difficulty level. Way too safe and just missing oomph.
(significant gap)
t5. Casey -- Too shouty, and just a weird choice from him all around. He and Haley may have a future hosting some sort of Hipster Hee-Haw someday, though.
t5. Stefano -- Me to the Mr.: "Remember how a couple years ago I used to call Danny Gokey a douche casserole? Well, Stefano may or may not be a douche, but he is definitely a casserole." And after that intro I keep imagining him going up to random women and whispering, "Your hair smells nice! I'll watch your drink for you! Can I clip your toenails?"
7. Scotty -- The song was cheesy, the vocal was not good, and at this point the best thing I can say about him is that he's less offensive than Stefano or Jacob. Still want him to be an early shock boot but it won't happen.
I thought this was tailor-made for Jacob. The only time I care for his performances are when he completely loses himself in the emotion of a song, and I figured that this song and his memories of his father meant we were in store for a big emotional meltdown. Unfortunately, it didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteSomeone somewhere told Jacob he was too over the top, and now everything he does seems too restrained. A restrained Jacob is not an interesting Jacob.
I agree with your rankings, but mostly now I just can't wait to use the phrase "douche casserole" in a sentence.
ReplyDeleteI did a double take when I saw on Twitter that he sang Swingin'. I was living in a tiny Alabama town when that came out and at least one kid in my class wore the shirt with Swingin' spelled out in rope for our class pictures. I had no idea there had been a remake. Total cheat.
ReplyDeleteI do not like Scotty McCreary. I do not. I do not. By -I do much cotton to country music standards- I think it's even worse. It's not a contemporary song. It is a John Anderson song and I could find the date of it if I did the google work, but I loved it in around 3rd grade, so we're talking looking at the early 80s ... it bothers me when a singer ignores the rules of the week by choosing a song that (at least for country music fans) belongs in another decade from a different singer. It's different if they actually perform an arrangement similar to the remake, but Scotty did not perform Swingin' ala Leann, he just used it as a way to stay in his wheelhouse. And, also, he looks so silly.
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing it for the first time on a jukebox when we stopped for dinner on the way back from a district Latin competition my freshman year in high school. Not that I was a geek or anything :)
ReplyDelete