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Given the inevitable finale placement of season 11 shoe-in winner Phillip Phillips, the top-3 performance show is basically a contest between Jessica Sanchez and Joshua Ledet.
We get 9 songs this week, the first set was chosen by the Idol judges, the second was chosen by the contestants, and the third was chosen by music giant and weekly Idol voice of reason Jimmy Iovine.
Joshua Ledet
I’d Rather Go Blind, by Etta James
Grade: A-
Let’s get something out of the way right now: there’s absolutely no way Joshua is topping his closing performance of “It’s a Man’s World” from last week. It’s just not happening. And that makes judging his future performances a bit challenging.
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It’s no secret that with 4 consecutive male winners, Idol has become a a less-than-friendly place for women hoping to gain the title last held by a female in 2007 (by Jordin Sparks). And with two men dominating the vote this season, the window is quickly closing on the 2 remaining female hopefuls.
This week, each contestant performed one song from any California native musician, as well as an inspiring song (officially dubbed “songs I wish I’d written”).
Phillip Phillips
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Grade: B-
Coming off last week’s three-part vocal disaster, Phillip settles back into, well, old Phillip. And that’s not necessarily a compliment. There were the usual missed notes and general vocal laziness. There were a few nice moments where he syncopated the rhythm a bit. But looming over it all (for me) was the fact that Casey Abrams and his upright bass did a much more interesting version of this same song last season.
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Tonight each contestant will be tackling a Motown era hit, plus a British pop hit.
The performances…
Hollie picked the pay-fect (British pronunciation) time to start wowing the Idol audience.
Hollie Cavanagh
River Deep, Mountain High, by Ike and Tina Turner
Grade: A-
This song may forever be remembered in Idol lore as the one that got front-runner Pia Toscano eliminated in a top-9 shocker last season.
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Leave it to Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and Steven Tyler to take one of the highest possible honors a live performer can receive, then hammer that gesture mercilessly into the ground, rendering it meaningless. Because that’s exactly what the esteemed (notice I didn’t say ‘highly esteemed’) panel of judges has done with the standing ovation concept this season. Last season, they nailed their choices- including Pia Toscano’s rafter-shaking “I’ll Stand By You,” Casey Abrams’ daring jazz update of “Nature Boy,” and of course Haley Reinhart’s scorching covers of “House of the Rising Sun” and “I Who Have Nothing,” among several others.
Elise missed out on the standing ovation game Wednesday night, but was she really missing much?
Due to their infrequent nature, each of those felt like a significant honor at the time. Well…the Tumultuous Trio was determined not to let that be the case this season, in which they’ve given out 6,712 standing ovations (all numbers approximate), ranging from the well-deserved (Joshua Ledet’s “When a Man Loves a Woman”), to the not-quite-so-deserved (Deandre Branckensick’s “Sometimes I Cry”), to the all-out charity (Heejun Han’s “Song For You”).
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I get to watch this week’s episode of Idol in front of a tiny laptop screen on americanidol.com, thanks to a minor sprinkling of rain that rendered every local satellite dish useless Wednesday night.
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Right off the bat, I can spot 3 things that stand in the way of tonight’s American Idol being entertaining/watchable:
1) The theme is “songs released in the last 3 years.” Continue reading »
That wouldn’t be a problem if not for the fact that the decline of music over the last 20 years has turned into an all-out freefall recently, especially with the advent of things like “auto-tune,” “dubstep,” and “Justin Bieber.” Speaking of which….
What were you guys more concerned about coming into this week- the fact that the “Songbook of Billy Joel” theme might not fit this exceptionally young Idol top-10 crew? Or the increasing creepiness of the fact that my predicted order-of-finish is already 3-for-3 (with Jeremy Rosado’s inevitable top-13 axing, and Shannon Magrane falling last week after the uncomfortable on-screen, sit-down disqualification of Jermaine Jones)?
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Welcome back to my weekly recap/scattered thoughts on American Idol. The live shows are upon us once again, which means time for more great singing, awful judging, and completely nonsensical voting results. But hey, I’ll be here! So at least you’ve got that going for you.
First off, the Idol judges decided to spare me the weekly “Haley Reinhart being in the bottom-3 AGAIN” pain that I endured last season by getting rid of my season 11 favorite right off the bat, as the phenomenal Jen Hirsh was denied a wild-card spot and sent home last week. So all these remaining people have yet to win my loyalty. In the meantime, maybe I’ll be even meaner and more cynical, so Continue reading »
everybody wins!
With tonight’s annual epic 2-hour finale, we put the lid on what was a thoroughly enjoyable 10th season of American Idol. I’d need like 3 quarts of 5-Hour Energy to actually recap this whole freaking thing, so I’ll just hit the high’s and low’s.
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What I especially liked
The smile that won it all
6. Steven Tyler
Unfortunately due to time constraints, he could only give us a condensed version of Dream On, but it was every bit as excellent as you could ask from the now-63-year-old rocker. And he hit the final scream full-strength. If only his judging this season had been half that ferocious.
5. Kirk Franklin and Jacob Lusk
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Instead of its rock-solid reliable 8 pm ET slot, tonight’s top-2 performance episode of Idol Season 10 began a little before 7 pm. That’s when rumors hit Twitter courtesy of a story from TMZ (who’s NEVER wrong, ever) reporting that Lauren Alaina’s voice was utterly shot, she would not be competing in tonight’s show, and that producers were “looking for Haley Reinhart,” presumably so she could throw together a few songs and compete in Lauren’s place.
Minutes into the show, Ryan Seacrest identifies the rumors, confirms that they’re half-true (not the part about Haley), then calls what appeared to be an actual doctor out to explain that Lauren “blew out a vocal cord” in rehearsal, but that she will indeed be performing tonight. The doctor looks a bit like Karl Rove (who ironically served as senior adviser to Former President George Scotty W. Bush-McCreery). Dr. Rove’s outlook is anything but conservative: “We’ve got Lauren on a lot of medicine, and she’s gonna do GREAT tonight!”
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