American Idol - Season 7 (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

I wondered if Randy's INXS gaffe was done on purpose just to make Simon feel better about Magic Man.

 

[Carl Miller]

So true!

 

[Greg_S_H]

Can we send four of the guys home this week? Seriously. That was so much better than last night it isn't even funny. There isn't a one I would get rid of, though my bet is we've seen the last of Kristy and Kady.

The only thing missing was a gold-toothed slimeball for Brooke to dance attack. It just isn't Love is a Battlefield without it.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Asia'h Epperson - I thought she provided a safe performance of a Whitney song (at least she can move better than Whitney on stage), and she ran out of gas for the big note at the end, but it was simply pleasant, but nothing all that special or original or memorable to her performance.

Kady Malloy - Not the best song choice, plus it took forever (literally) to get going, but she did get most of the big notes right (though they aren't her forte), but it left me uninspired, overall. Wasted potential on display once again, unfortunately.

Amanda Overmeyer - I'd give her the title of "Karoake Idol", and I feel she's authentically unauthentic. She sings behind the band at times, still can't carry the melody for most of the songs she sings. She'll probably go through to the final 12 but I am tired of her schtick already.

Carly Smithson - I had no idea what song she was singing until she got to the chorus, but she ran the gamut of her vocal range with it, and for the most part, it was a good display of her vocal promise, but her mic technique cheated out of her first long note. I wish she'd not go for the big notes when she is always bordering on screaming them, it's not necessary because her voice has plenty of melody and power to it, a nice combo to have.

Kristy Lee Cook - Not great on the big notes, bad mic technique (turning away in the middle of her second last note, WTH?). I think she over-shot her vocal talent with this song choice because it does demand a strong voice to make its angst work for it. On the plus side, her singing stance was much more solid and not as distracting with the fighting stance she usually undertakes while singing.

Ramiele Mulabay - She's got great pipes (and control), but she needs acting lessons (or life lessons) because she is still so far away from what she's singing about. She's like a singing robot who can really sing well but the emotional disconnect in her singing is her biggest liability.

Brooke White - She took a chance with going with just an acoustic guitar and showcased her vocals. What I liked is that she is like the antithesis of Ramiele in terms of projecting a sense of hurt when it comes to love and how it's a battlefield in the song, that's the interpretive insight that Ramiele lacks, but Brooke has and uses to great effect. It was a very solid effort, and it separates her from the pack.

Syesha Mercado - Took on a Whitney song, and was more than up to the task because her voice has melody and power to spare (probably more than even Carly at times). What she lacks is a personal style that makes her instantly recognizable when she hear her voice, and that's her main obstacle in finding commercial success in the music industry.


Rankings

Enjoyable
Brooke White
Syesha Mercado

Middling
Carly Smithson
Ramiele Malubay
Asia'h Epperson

Under-performed
Kady Malloy
Kristy Lee Cook
Amanda Overmeyer

I fear it's probably the end of the road for Kady Malloy and possibly Asia'h Epperson or Kristy Lee Cook.

 

[RickGr]

Amanda rocked tonight but I fear she may not have the fan base to keep her around for Beatle night. (she would be a natural for Helter Skelter)

IMO Kady and Asia'h should go.

 

[Yee-Ming]

I'll say it again, Danny just creeps me out. I almost expected him to replicate Marc Almond's infamous cat-food performance -- which would be somewhat ironic given that David H is the stripper, not Danny.

I thought most of the praise was overblown: many did all right, but some of the raving by the judges about perfect performances was odd to me. E.g. David H did all right, I thought, but to my ear he sure scooped a lot. Yet the judges were raving. Likewise with Jason, I thought a lot of his vocals seemed a bit reedy thin, and not quite right, yet again, rave reviews. Perhaps the only one I'd agree with was David C, turning Hello into a slow rock song rather than the sappy pop ballad it was took chutzpah, and he delivered.

Luke? Oh dear. Also, the fact that he had to dial down the really high notes, whilst making it a different arrangement from the original, also showed that he's certainly no George Michael. He's gone.

Did anyone notice how geeky Ramiele looked tucked away in the corner? Big glasses and plain tracksuit top. Makes her even more endearing, actually.

 

[Carl Miller]

Asia'h Epperson - Pretty good performance. Song is a little out of her league vocally.

Kady Malloy - I have to agree with Simon on his comment that she lacks personality. Time to go.

Amanda Overmeyer - So it was better than last week. What wouldn't have been better than last week? Should be first to go this week.

Carly Smithson - Everybody seems to like her, and some have even explained to me why. I still don't get it. This weeks performance and last weeks were virtually the same. Big vocals, can't do much with them. Boring.

Kristy Lee Cook - She sang two words with a country twang to them and now suddenly she's incorporating country into her music? Please.

Ramiele Mulabay - Rapidly turning into a disappointment.

Brooke White - Good job doing something different with that Benatar song. My favorite performance of the evening by far.

Syesha Mercado - Next best of the evening and significantly better than Asia'h was with the Whitney tune. Syesha gets my vote as the early leader in the most marketable department.

Time to go: Amanda and Kady
Might go: Kristy or Ramiele

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Gotta love those minor "most embarrassing moments" compared to what we know about them, like Amanda's DUI.


> There isn't a one I would get rid of, though my bet is we've seen the last of Kristy and Kady.

Did you catch when Ryan said something about snagging an interview with Kady, like that was some kind of scoop?

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I picked Brooke to go all the way in the HTF Challenge essentially by randomly selecting someone non-sucky other than David "Picked By Nearly Everyone" A.

Suddenly I'm feeling kinda confident.

On the other hand, I agree with Paula that it would have been cooler had the arrangement built from acoustic to rockin', but the vocals were great.

As for the others. . .the Whitney girls were passable (Syesha better). Carly sang well, although that song nearly put me to sleep. IMO Kady and either Kristy or Amanda are likely goners.

 

[Greg_S_H]

You admit to this tonight, when she was even less coherent than usual?

 

[Jed M]

You and me both. I thought she is going to really appeal to middle America and David is just too obvious. The show never goes like that. He will be the major upset of the season. I picked him for 2 or 3, I can't remember.

 

[Hanson]

After three rather uneventful Idols in a row, we finally get multiple fashion disasters in one show. It looks like the wardrobe people are mainly to blame, because many of the outfits had a hideous 80’s sensibility to them. Whoever designed these duds (indeed!) should have their fashion licenses revoked.

Asia’h Epperson – I don’t know how the pants were paradoxically form fitting and wrinkly at the same time, and yet they were exactly that. It looked as if she was wearing an elephant’s crotch for pants, and I could barely concentrate on her performance. It sounded fine, except for those inevitable notes that Asia’h drops. I think she has a permanent case of laryngitis or something. It was a high energy performance and she nailed most of it, but I can’t stand it when they start their performance by walking down the stairs. Simon was off the mark here about comparisons to Whitney since this is one of those lesser Whitney songs and nowhere near as big as her prototypical ballads. I Wanna Dance With Somebody is no I Will Always Love You.

Kady Malloy – The beginning of the song was so amorphous and amelodic that I had no idea what she was singing – like, I didn’t recognize the song and I couldn’t even make out the words. Then she missed her first big note, unable to scoop up to it. Again, there were some well sung notes here and there, but it was overall a big mess and it doesn’t look like Kady is ever going to get it together for Idol. Kady sported what appeared to be 3-inch heels stolen from a hooker (or perhaps Danny’s closet). I had never noticed before how ginormous her boobs were – or should I say boob, as the red bandeau under her blue top smooshed her cleavage together, making it look like she had one wide mono-breast.

Amanda Overmyer – This was another high energy, amped up performance (undoubtedly aided by the hyperactive camera work), and while Amanda was able to keep the slurring and gargling noises down to a minimum (and actually sounded less drunk than Paula this time) , she has to work on her mic technique. She kept putting it too close then pulling out too far, and her voice cut in and out so much I thought Asia’h was singing. Amanda ended the song ready to fly off and fight crime. And sorry girls (and some guys, I guess), Amanda’s taken.

Carly Smithson – Carly’s claimed her most embarrassing moment was getting her leg stuck in a railing, ignoring the fact that her former record company sunk $2 million into her first album and it racked up sales of 400 units. That is not a typo – it’s not 400K units, it’s just 400 units, or an investment of $5,000 per album sold. Now that’s embarrassing. Carly’s lower and middle registers are very good, with a rich, fat sound that is dead on pitch-wise. But when she starts to climb up, she begins straining and yelling and getting very, very shrill in the process (it reminds me of a referee whistle). I find it uncomfortable to listen to, and I haven’t found any of her performances better than uneven considering she always picks a song that goes up and big. I am mystified how she gets so much praise from the judges – can they not hear this glaring (and blaring) problem? Carly’s hairstyle was a welcome change from the Cher inspired straight, long, and black look, but someone should get fired for hooking her up with Mom Jeans.

Kristy Lee Cook – Apparently, to make a song “country” means to yodel a few notes here and there. When I close my eyes, Kristy is boring to listen to. There is no charisma or distinctiveness to her voice, and even if she hits 90% of her notes, none of them are of any value. When I watch Kristy, I’m put off by her sizable collection of facial deformations and her proclivity towards singing with her eyes closed, not as if she were concentrating, but as if she were asleep. I guess that makes the two of us. The constant fluttering and twitching of her eyelids makes it look like she’s in REM state. Perhaps she is dreaming that she is Chinese?

Ramiele Malubay – Ramiele and Kady must have shared the same stylist because they both wore red lycra-ish tops underneath and they both wore 3-inch hooker heels. Ramiele’s outfit was a color clashing mess, a combination of the aforementioned red top, purple dress, and a droopy, formless gray cardigan. Hey, at least no camel toe this week! For the third week in a row, I felt that she didn’t get to the big place that I thought she would go to. I’m starting to buy into Randy’s theory that she’s overthinking the performance and is too inhibited by the fear of failure to just go for it an unleash the vocal pyrotechnics. As it is, however, I’d have to say I really like Ramiele’s voice a lot, and it might be my favorite among the girls. It’s really silky and buttery, and she’s almost flawless pitch wise. If she could either find the right song or get enough confidence to knock a note or two out of the park, she will go very far in the competition.

Brooke White – Brooke sounded sick tonight, as her voice cracked frequently and sounded hoarse. Even so, I liked what she was doing with Love Is A Battlefield until I realized that it wasn’t going to any sort of climax or finish – it was like a loop that played three times over, just sitting there (much like Brooke, who didn’t move from her seat at the foot of the stage even once). By the end of the song, it just felt repetitive. There’s something about Brooke where she looks older each week (she now looks like she’s 35 or so), while Amanda actually looked younger this week.

Syesha Mercado – Frankly, I didn’t think her performance was any good. She was quite shrill with the high notes, and she yelled from the chorus until the end of the song, hitting one bum note after another. There were times when it was painful to listen to. My wife is put off by her attitude, which seems smug and self-satisfied. She is definitely not as good as she thinks she is. The only distinctive thing about Syesha is her hair, because while she has the potential to be one of the better vocalists in the competition, her performances aren’t anything special. My wife thought the outfit was ghastly – as a rule, shorts made out of fancy, shimmery fabric look stupid. There are no such things as dress shorts.

 

[Lucia Duran]

The only worth while performances of the girls night were Amanda OverMeyer, Carly Smithson and Brooke White.

Everyone else was either off key, shouting, or too boring for my taste.

 

[Josh Dial]

I would rather listen to Paula blather on for 3 minutes, than Amanda "sing" for 30 seconds. Hopefully her place on Vote for the Worst won't keep her in for much longer. To misquote Simon, I immediately know EXACTLY how every one of her songs are going to sound.

And they sound terrible.

 

[RickGr]

Yes, Amanda's style of singing with that raspy voice will never make it. That is why Melissa Etherridge, Rod Stewart and Janis Joplin were all flops.

AI needs more Whitney clones, that is what we all love.

 

[Yee-Ming]

I actually agree with Simon that Amanda's performance was brilliant. Brilliant for her, in my view. It was objectively reasonably good, but I just plain don't like her vocal quality/tone.

I now realise it's the same reason I don't get the judges gushing about Carly -- I don't like the tone. Conversely, that's why I like Ramiele -- Hanson's 'silky and buttery' comment is spot-on.

Kady is definitely gone. Queen is always tough to do, because you have to live up to the late great Freddie Mercury, and Kady wasn't even in the same city, never mind in the ballpark. I was wondering, is it her opera background that led her to choosing a dramatic Queen song? Lousy song choice, even poorer execution. Her pitch was all over the place.

Aside from Kady, it's hard to figure out who else will go. I would have said Amanda based on previous weeks, but admittedly she did well (for her) this time. Asia'h? She didn't actually do badly, I thought. Kristy should continue to skate by on her looks. Oddly I fear for Ramiele, who is capable of much better but underperformed and it was rather boring.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

The one thing that Brooke still needs to do is turn in a really high-energy performance or two. The singer-songwriter style will only carry her so far.

 

[RAF]

Hanson,

Another great summary for both nights.

 

[RAF]

As you know we are a few hours away from whittling down the Final 16 to the Final Twelve and the HTF Top Ten Challenge begins in earnest. I'm asking for scoring assistance from the AI afficianados who follow these things much, much closer than I apparently do. Here's my "problem":

When we get down to the Final Twelve, generally one contestant will leave each week so it will be quite clear who's 12th, 11th, 10th, etc.... The only rare exception to this is in an emergency or, like last year, when they hold an "America Gives Back so two people go home next week" scenario and we will deal with that (since I notice they are announcing another such event this season.) But tonight four people leave and it's quite possible that we will not be told the actual vote totals. If that's the case I'm going to assign 14.5 points for each eliminated contestant (the average of 13,14,15 and 16. This has worked in the past and it will define the HTF contest scoring process for those who have some of their selections leave tonight, if any.

However...

There is a possibility that we might actually get a bit of insight as to who received the lowest vote total of the four evictees. I seem to recall that last week when the competitors were pared from 20 to 16 it was mentioned on the show that one of the women had received "the lowest vote total" of all four going home. In that case we would know exactly what position he/she would be in and I would adjust accordingly.

So what I'm asking if for any information (real, not perceived) that might identify a definite 16th, 15th, 14th or 13th place finish as you watch tonight in case I overlook something. If there is nothing concrete then the 14.5 value for each of the four stands. If we learn more, then I can make the course correction in the scoring.

Thanks in advance for any assistance that you can provide.

Game on.

 

[Gwon Chang]

Singing raspy and singing good and raspy are two different things.