American Idol – From The Year Of Your Birth Week

My own personal choice? You Spin Me Round obviously…

So on paper this week was amazing… On paper…

Ramiele Mulabay – Oh how I am loathe to agree with Randy. But he was pretty much spot on. The start wasn’t bad – quite vulnerable and emotional and pretty much in tune. And the end was alright as well, being within the same wheelhouse and all. But when it came to the part of “Alone” where belting is required Ramiele fell desperately short, both in terms of the quality of her voice and the sheer levels of emotion required to make the show work. It’s just hard to believe that Ramiele could ever quite be THIS emo. Of course part of the badness in the middle was due to her being si… I mean her voice going bye bye, but of all the people on this show who’ve never “hit the seal”, she continues to be the one whose absence most surprises me (The reasons behind Michael Johns continuing skatage are all too depressingly obvious)

Jason Castro : The poor song choice continues for Jason Castro as he chooses a boring old Sting song that nobody cares about and isn’t really suited for Idol at all. On the other hand, at least Jason Castro’s voyage around the world sttled on a language that suits his peronality this week, as the Spanish parts of the song were the best part. And his voice was the strongest it’s been in a while. It’s just… it’s a Sting song you know? I’m not entirely surprised he was Bottom 3 for all of about 10 seconds, but I do feel bad that some idiot backstage apparently told him that he should talk more and show off his awesome personality, without actually telling him to do it so it didn’t just seem like his brain literally spilling all over the stage. When the contestants are starting in with the Grassy Knoll talk it’s time for someone to get their whiphand back.

Syesha Mercado : Oh Syesha. You got away with the “ain’t I cute?” baby noises once. Don’t push it. It was kind of hilarious to see what was a fairly standard diva-belter emotional performance praised up to the hilt to the extent that Syesha suddenly became the dark horse for all of 24 hours until it was revealed that no… she’s still pretty noticably unpopular. She handled it with all the grace that somebody who knows they haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance of even making top 4 could muster though, so she can have that faint praise, because I’ve pretty much run out of any use for her as performer.

Chikezie : Oh jeez. Chikeze obviously took the theme of regression this week a little bit TOO far, as he apparently thought it’d be a good idea to revisit the horribly schmaltzy Carlton Banks cheese of wk1. It was exactly the same performance, except without the sweater, but with a whole mosh-pit of squealing over-hormonal twenty-somethings for him to look into the eyes and to hold the hands of. It was kind of skin-crawlingly embarassing and I felt for him, especially as he clearly knew he was shark-bait from the moment the judges comments came in. Ah well. Bye Chikezie. At least now I won’t have to feel bad about forgetting you were even here most weeks.

Brooke White : I must admit for a split seconds there I was hoping in the back of my mind that Brooke White had officially lost her ever-loving mind, and was going to full on beat-box her way through “Every Breath You Take” a la Blake Lewis. Sadly it was just a boring old bum note at the beginning, which she re-did hence earnnig herself some professionalims points or what not. The actual performance was a return to the white-hot heady days of Brooke White – Propaganda Machine, and this time at double strength. When Brooke Whtie sang that she was watching every move we made, she meant it. She’ll be watching it from the Zeppelins that will fly over our cities, through the CCTV cameras on every street corner, and from the network of spies and informants she’ll place at the heart of every major city. Brooke White cannot be stopped.

Although the last quarter kind of sucked.

Michael Johns : Here’s the thing. Queen are pretty much my least favourite band in the history of the world after the Stereophonics and Athlete. Along with Bohemain Rhapsody, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions” make up two of the three worst Queen songs. So of course Michael Johns decides to do them as a medley, because apparently a) he wants me to like him even less than I did yesterday, but not quite as much as tomorrow, and b) he elarnt nothing from riding a lawnmower over “A Day In The Life”. This was unmitigated crap, but these songs are impossible to do “badly” by mass opinion standards because they’re not even songs. They’re just shouting. And with the fucking stupid laser show (which was far more grotesque than anything that went down during Kristy Lee Cook’s song.) Basically, as much of a truism as it is, if you like this sort of song than you’d have liked this. I can’t stanhd it and I thought it was abysmal.

Carly Smithson : So this week was the pivotal week for Carly Smithson. She was singing my favourite song in the history of humanity. If she did it well, I’d be won over forever. If she fucked it up, I’d join the haters. And my God did she fuck it up. Weak as water vocals, straining poo faces, and wrong lyric after wrong lyric after wrong lyric. What the hell is “living like a power keg” supposed to mean? It was just dismal, and no amount of Spanx (whatever the hell they are) could justify the unholy mess this was.

David Archuleta : Seriously, how many songs this week were repping ITV’s dismal “Guilty Pleasures” show? Total Eclipse, Billie Jean and “The Voice”? What the heck America? And “Islands In The Stream” is sure to follow next week in Dolly Parton week (on which note : NEXT WEEK IS DOLLY PARTON WEEK?! AIEEEEEEEEEE!) Anyway vocally this was undoubtedly the weakest David Archuleta has been, if we’re worknig on the assumption that “We Can Work It Out” doesn’t count, because there were no vocals there. That and the revelation that he has totally kissed a girl and probably touched her boobs, as well as the fact that apparently America has no f’ing clue what this song is (he really needed to do a little speech about how it’s about the issue of people killing each other. Then it would have all made total sense) means that suddenly the race is wide open : ie David Cook is totally going to win.

Kristy Lee Cook : I’m totally with Simon on this incidentally : it was a very smart song choice and her best performance yet. And I have no problem with song choice. I don’t expect Kristy Lee Cook to be perceptive enough to understand why her singing “God Bless The USA” comes across differently from if say, Syesha or David Archuleta or heck even Brooke White sang it. She’s a blonde haired country girl who has sung in front of the Confederate flag. Everyone’s going to assume she’s a KKK racist and that this song is a vulgar call to arms against the terrorists. And maybe it was ; I have no way of knowing. But this is Idol and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, because goodness knows I’m cynical enough about the whole affair as it is. The American flag was… a bit much, but it was a not very good song sang quite well. This week of all weeks that was perfectly legitimately enough to get her what she got.

David Cook : Yes it was good. Good enough that he’s the number one contender right now. But… It really is all very one note. Every performance is some sort of angsty creepy emo vibe. David Cook is not just sat in the box of genre, he’s sat in the box of mood within genre. And good lord it’s not subtle. Angsty arrangements of angsty songs sung angstily. I think it best sums it up that I’ve read an awful lot of “wow, I never realised what Billie Jean was about before I heard this version” as though that’s a good thing, rather than an indicator that the person saying it is really f’ing stupid and that David Cook is a big ol’ ham. Which is fine, but please don’t dress hammery up as bravery or originality, because it is totally the opposite.

NEXT WEEK OMG DOLLY PARTON!