American Idol - Season 7 (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Round 1:

David Cook - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - A solid rendition, but it didn't have the "wow" factor, and sounded okay.

David Archuleta - "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" - Vocally, he was on point a bit more than Cook, and moves into the lead.


Round 1 goes to Archuleta.


Round 2:

David Cook - "Dream Big" - A more upbeat song that Cook that would probably be representative of a typical Cook number for his next album, but not quite a winning performance.

David Archuleta - "In This Moment" - Not a great song, but it showcased his vocal range much better than Cook's performance.


Round 2 goes to Archuleta.


Round 3:

David Cook - "The World I Know" - An earnest performance, his best of the night, but it's just not good enough against the Archuletar.

David Archuleta - "Imagine" - Solid performance, did not lose any ground to Cook.


Round 3 goes to Archuleta.


-------------

I'd be surprised if Archuleta did not win this season.

 

[RAF]

I agree with most people who think that the score for this show was Archie 3 - Cookie 0. Not that DC was bad, but I've always preferred DA's voice. Especially telling was the review of the songs at the close of the show where, at least to my ears, it was no contest - vocally. DA was spot on (as Simon would say) while DC had a host of pitch problems. I'm also not a big fan of grating voices over the long haul. An occasional song or two, but not continually. Yes, DC is more mature than DA (and seemed more relaxed tonight than the youngster) but that's the difference between a 25 year old and a 17 year old. But this head to head competition really showed who has the better voice. I still maintain that, handled properly, David A. has the potential to be a major vocal talent and will not fade into obscurity. I also think enough smart folks in the industry will see the profitability of harnessing that talent.

Time will tell.

One thing that bothered me a bit was the comment by David Cook something to the effect of not wanting to sing something he had already sung before. I took this to be a little swipe at David A. because DC obviously knew that DA would be repeating an earlier performance (although I believe the arrangement was different this time IIRC). Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but it smacked of a last minute desperation move by DC who must have felt he was way behind after the first two rounds and it didn't sit well with me.

Then, of course, we have the "Simon Factor." Will his obvious preference for David A. tonight be the kiss of death? Cowell does have a way of backing the wrong horse this year.



Stay tuned....

 

[Hanson]

Every season, I have gone into the final episode with a wistful, “gosh, it’s over so quickly” kind of regret. NOT THIS SEASON. I am relieved that this is finally over and now wait in baited breath for So You Think You Can Dance, which is sooo much better than Idol at this point that it almost seems like Nigel is sabotaging AI to pump up the legitimacy of SYTYCD from bastard step-child to number one son. If you’ve never watched it, the talent level absolutely dwarfs what Idol has to offer, and the auditions are actually entertaining. All of the excitement and anticipation that Idol used to offer can be found here. And now that the other network shows have wrapped up their seasons, there’s really nothing else on to pull you away. Seriously, there is no excuse to not watch this show.

Back to the unwatchable.

The night started out with an extended boxing theme that stretched out over the course of the show. This is emblematic of the old fashioned creakiness that the producers work from – no one under the age of 60 watches boxing any more (those who want to see people getting beaten up left boxing for ultimate fighting and bumfights years ago), and the only plus to having Michael Buffer introduce the show tonight was that there was a little less Ryan to go around. Forcing the judges to work in boxing metaphors was the height of lameness. The show is really down for the count.

David – I initially though that Clive Davis’ choice of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was a mistake because it was too high for Cook considering his upper register is pretty weak. It turned out that I was half right – Cook’s upper register is weak, and the washed out, partially strained vocals were somewhere between karaoke and just okay. But it’s a great song, and you don’t have to do too much to make it work. Clive Davis, by the way, was recently demoted from his position at Sony BMG. For Clive’s sake, he won’t be demoted further and become an invisible man around the offices. And Cook’s hair was higher than Ryan’s tonight. Actually, Ryan appeared to have scaled back his fauxhawk before it reached Jimmy Neutron proportions. For Cookie, it was a bit too late.

Archie – Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me is one of those slam dunk Idol song s that, assuming you can sing, shows off range, has big, soaring notes, and is well known enough to be memorable. And Davey pulled this one off, hitting all the emotional notes and showing off all of his vocal skills. After several weeks without a real homerun, David knocked this one out of the park, delivering one of his best performances of the season. When he’s really hitting on all cylinders, Davey doesn’t need to move around or “perform” – like Jason, when he’s getting genuine emotion across, the best thing to do is to stand still, because that’s the most worthwhile thing. Cook, on the other hand, needs to pull out his rock star tics, make strained faces, and walk through the crowd and whatnot because if he just stood there and sang, it would be boring. For all of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s admonitions, Davey ended up performing with his eyes closed at times. Well, at least he doesn’t perform with his eyes closed all of the time.

Cookie – I couldn’t figure out exactly how the songs were chosen for the second round, but I assume that the singers got to pick one out of the bunch of retarded dreck that made it into the Idol songwriting contest. In a case like that, Archuleta has a distinct advantage because he needs to select something that shows off his voice whereas Cook needs something to hide his vocal weaknesses. Since most of the shit is greeting card level inspirational pabulum with frequent big notes, Archuleta has a large pool to work with – anything resembling rock and roll doesn’t make it through this vetting process, and so Cookie choice dwindled down to a leftover track from the Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers CD. It’s the kind of song you hear at the end of some tweener movie when the nice girl triumphs over the queen bee and snags her guy and they go to the “rock and roll” concert, complete with the light show and randomly sweeping camera work. It’s bubblegum pop with electric guitars and loud drums. That said, Cook did that thing where he mumbled and growled to the point of incomprehension, and if he happened to be screwing up all the words I don’t think anyone noticed.

Porkchop – This is the kind of song that the Idol songwriting contest attracts like flies, and is for what it’s worth, it was one of the better performances of this type of crap song. The beginning was shaky, what with the stupid lyrics that Davey seemed to struggle with. But when it got to the point where he had to sing the chorus over and over again, David hit those notes and did a little something different with each pass to the point where it was almost worth listening to.

Porky – The World That I Knowstarted off with some bad, arrhythmic guitar playing and the typical mumbling and growling that David does to cover the deficiencies in his voice (the other trick is to have the band play really loud so he can strain for notes he can barely reach without hearing him veer off key). For this song, Cook also dusted off the bad falsetto he’s attempted a couple of times this season. I believe that Cook has the worst falsetto in the history of Idol, a strangled, washed out whisper that sounds like a high pitched, tightly clenched fart. And then he ended the song with another one! Again, I could not make out a single word he sang. Is the song happy? Sad? Is it about getting hit in the crotch? I have no idea. Cook definitely peaked with I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. From certain angles, David looked like Richard Chamberlain. So not all of my David Cook separated at birth collages need to end up with unflattering comparisons to orangutans. Like this one, for example.

David – For all of the criticism that Simon had or Cook not replaying one of his greatest hits, Archuleta showed why this strategy isn’t a lock – sometimes lightning doesn’t strike twice. Lost in the judges’ Porkchop coronation was the fact that this version of Imagine simply did not live up to the first version – it seemed a bit more draggy and had less of the emotion and purity of tone that he delivered in week two. It was good, but it lacked that extra oomph that made the first time such an eye-opener. On the other hand, Davey’s had such a hard time delivering a solid performance in the past couple of months that maybe this was his best play. What he didn’t need to repeat from a previous show were cameltoe pants. And yet, he did. Not a good look – especially for a dude.

So, the big question is, who's going to win? Who will take the crown? Who will be the next American Idol?

Who cares. Bring on the Dance!


sc_project=3619250;sc_invisible=1;sc_partition=42; sc_security="927498aa";[url=https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/f/f0/htf_imgcache_30592.gif] [/url]

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Allow me to repeat a few negative points already brought up here...

Firstly, the boxing theme was absolutely lame. I felt really
bad that after both Davids had to do all those silly "tough guy"
poses for all those promo videos that they had to come out on
stage in boxing robes and gloves. Must Idol make fools out of
these very talented contestants?

Count me in as another who is awfully annoyed by Randy Jackson
and his "you can sing the phone book" comments for the
third time in two weeks. I wanted to discuss this problem last week
and forgot. Thank goodness Randy managed to jar my memory on
this one. For an Idol judge he has the shortest vocabulary. After
all these years we are still hearing the same "Yo Yo Yo" and "the
pitch was this and that" commentary. Thankfully he put the "Dog
Pound" comments to rest this season.

I was also surprised to see the singers working off of a teleprompter.
I am not criticizing this practice for a night where there are three
songs to be sung -- but I sure hope this wasn't standard practice
throughout the season. I am guessing it was not as this was the first
time I ever noticed it.

Moving on to the competition....

What makes me very happy is that for the first time in memory
we have two highly talented people competing here. When it
becomes difficult to judge the better talent, you know that there's
a real competition going on here.

As has been noted in previous posts, David A had the best
vocals of the night. It was a wise choice to repeat Imagine as
most feel that to be his trademark song. That being said, his rendition
of Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me (my favorite EJ song of
all time) deserved a standing ovation. It was done remarkably well.

I wasn't overly pleased with the song choices by David Cook,
though (as cited by Randy) he did sing his ass off all night. I just felt
that David had the opportunity to bring something brilliant to the table
here --- and didn't.

The one thing that happened for me tonight is to change my opinion
on who I feel deserves (and will) win American Idol. For weeks
I was giving this competition to David Cook. I now feel that David
Archuleta will walk away with the honor.

 

[Brett_M]

Round 1:

David Cook - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - I thought his voice sounded pretty good. Didn't have the right emotion -- didn't feel like a "Cook Concert" like his previous performances. Overall, an okay song choice sung pretty well.

David Archuleta - "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" - Better song choice, great performance.

Round 2:

David Cook - "Dream Big" - This is not David Cook. That was sappy, lame pop rather than meoldic rock. He loses because of this song. Needed a better hook. His album will not sound like this.

David Archuleta - "In This Moment" - Nice chorus but it's not a hit. Actually, I wish Cook had to sing this, too. Who knows what he could have done with it?

So far, Archie is dominating him.

Round 3:

David Cook - "The World I Know" - Tried way to hard, showing desperation. Added runs where they did not belong. Stick with the melody, Cook. Oh, yeah -- WEAK song choice.

David Archuleta - "Imagine" - Great job, but he sang this better the first time.


My prediction: Archie wins. I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF ARTIST HE IS. HE DOESN'T KNOW EITHER! He releases a a sappy pop album in the fall which gets decimated by Cook's debut. Archie follows debut with Christmas album which outsells his studio effort.

(I think Cook is smart -- he came to get second. He knows he has a solid fanbase and played the game in order to seal his fate as Daughtry: Version 2.0.)

 

[Scott-S]

I really like how all the judges and all even the two guest old men said that in order to win, the contestants need to go for it, take risks yada yada yada. Then the little porkchop does the exact same old stuff and gets praised while Cook actually tried to mix it up and got slammed.

Gee, you would think that the producers and judges would do a better job of hiding their true agenda of who they want to win. It is not really up to the voters when the show is so lop-sided.

 

[Mike Williams]

Scott, Simon has said on more than one occassion this week that he WANTED David Cook to win.

Paula made it very clear after David Cook's first song that she WANTED David Cook to win.

They simply could not deny that Archie had a GREAT night and blew David Cook out of the water.

It wasn't bias, and after the success of Chris Daughtry, I'm betting the producers would have liked David Cook to win as well. Archie was just better.

 

[Scott-S]

I do not agree that David A sounded better. People are saying his performances were better like it was a undeniable fact. Well, it is not a fact, it is an opinion.

It gets on my nerves when all this praise is posted like it is fact. It is all subjective.

 

[teapot2001]

I've never been a fan of Archie, but he was better than Cook.

~T

 

[RAF]

Scott,

You are certainly entitled to your opinion just like everyone else here. On an open forum, all discussions like this one are obviously the opinion of the writer and, as far as I perceive it, not claiming to be absolute fact. If you look closely you will see phrases like "in my opinion" and "at least to my ears" and similar peppering the dialogue. And even if someone actually states, "David A. sings better than David C." in a forum of this type most people understand that this is the opinion of the writer and not necessarily pure fact. The nature of a court of law is objective but the nature of a forum discussion - as you pointed out - is subjective.

We get it. Consider the venue before jumping down people's throats please. Thank you.

 

[Scott-S]

In my defense I live in the Salt Lake City area and have had to listen to all this "David A. is God" stuff, constantly, on every news channel, for weeks now.

Guess it has exposed some nerve endings.

Wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so creepy.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Did Randy actually go a whole hour without saying "pitchy"?

 

[MarkMel]

He is creepy and he seems, um - special.

 

[Phil Taylor]

DialIdol.com is showing Cook as the winner...

 

[Joseph Bolus]

I was really rooting for David C. last night, but it didn't appear as though he brought his "A game" for whatever reason.

His best performance of the night was his first one; after that he just appeared to go through the motions. I still think if the Cook of mid-season had shown up he would have blown David A. away. (Heck, even the Cook of "Lloyd Weber Night" would have been welcomed.)

I wonder if he "punted" his last two performances on purpose??

 

[Greg_S_H]

I think you're reading too much into it. It's certainly a valid reason to not choose to perform a song again. The first time I watched Idol was when Katharine McPhee performed Over the Rainbow and then performed it again the next week. I thought it was horribly desperate, not knowing that picking your personal best was a common thing to do. I still prefer something new, particularly in that case where it was heard the week before.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Seconded. (Actually, I don't mind Dancing With The Stars because ballroom dance is kinda fun to watch and the celebrities on the show are entertaining, but the stuff on the other dance shows does NOTHING for me.)

I liked the boxing intro, but I didn't realize they stretched it out through the whole show 'cause I was flipping back and forth with the Celtics-Pistons game. Sounds like it was a bit much.

Although I like Cook better in general, based on the songs I heard yesterday (all but The World I Know and the first half of Imagine), I would say that Archie had a better night.

 

[Hanson]

Huh? Methinks you've never watched SYTYCD, because it's all pairs dancing and mostly ballroom at that. Also, it 10,000% better dancing than that has-been/never-been show. Both the "Dancing" and "Stars" parts of the title lack truth in advertising.

 

[Phil Taylor]

The finale features a song chosen from the amateur songwriter's competition eh? Some interesting reading here --
An Expose' Of American Idol - 2007 American Idol Songwriting Contest Home Page
I didn't know of this info...

 

[Malcolm R]

No wonder we have kids shooting up schools when shy, socially awkward teenagers are being labeled as "creepy"...or worse.
:rolleyes


.