On a night when the final four "American Idol" contestants were required to sing songs from the cinema, our mentor, Jamie Fox, handed out lots of advice and a few T-shirts. But even his energetic cheerleading failed to bring much fire to a season that is sure to go down as "Idol"'s most lackluster ever. If this was a movie, we'd be stuffing popcorn in our ears.
Fortunately, the contestants teamed up for a couple of duets that got the attention of Simon Cowell and company. As for our Readers Panel, well they were a disparate bunch once again. Check out what they had to say and, by all means, join the discussion at http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/category/tv.
MITCH GREEN: I didn't expect Jaime Foxx to bring out anything special in the cast this week and he didn't. It's not his fault they chose the wrong songs and have little idea of who they are as artists, with the exception of Crystal Bowersox. He tried, and they resisted.
The best vocal sounds of the season came from both duets as each pair sounded better than any of the solos. The sum is greater than the parts, especially with Crystal and Lee Dewyze. Their duet was one of the better performances of the season, but still lacked as a concert piece and would be more effective if used as originally intended as background music for a movie. I kept waiting for the song to take off and realized I needed the visual stimulation of a movie for the Advertisement
song to reach a higher level.
Crystal also gave the best solo performance. Even with her brittle sounding top voice, she added some excitement to the evening. She is far superior to the other three, but would be fighting for her life if this were even an average "Idol" cast. She deserves to win.
Perhaps Casey James wants to make sure he gets the full support of, "Vote For The Worst," a website that encourages voters to vote for the worst contestant. They've been showcasing Casey as their "Worst" singer the last few weeks and bragged that he didn't get in the Bottom 2 last week in spite of his horrible performance. His song choice makes no sense. How can he expect to impress an audience with that rendition of, "Mrs. Robinson?" Slow tempo and lazy vocal make for a sleepy performance. His duet with Michael Lynche was his best performance of the season.
Michael made the same mistake he's made most of the season. He chooses songs that are too big for his medium-sized voice and then pushes the emotion, creating a performance that does not ring true. He tries hard and gives a lot, but it's just not enough to fill out the songs that require full-blown star voices like Michael Jackson or Michael Bolton. He needs to stay
mellow and not go for the big dramatic songs. He's a singles and doubles hitter, not a home run hitter.
Lee's performance was basically an inferior copycat version of the original with a few flat notes in his bottom range. As Simon said, "Karaoke."
Casey and Lee deserve to be in the Bottom 2.
TAMI OLSEN: Half the battle of making a good impression on an audience can be won in the choosing of a song. Pick something too overdone and you better blow the top off of it. Choose something only vaguely familiar and you will lose them. It's a fine line to successfully walk, and one that Casey succeeded in traveling tonight. Casey gave us a different take on "Mrs. Robinson," with a mandolin accompaniment that let it hover ever so close to country, and laced it with a poignancy that brought back the angst of the movie, "The Graduate." He was my favorite performance, singing the only song I will seek out to listen to again.
You have to admire Crystal's chutzpah, but as high energy as her performance was, I was relatively unmoved. The word "screeching" came to mind a few times. With her incredible voice, and all the great movie songs out there, I felt this was a missed opportunity.
Lee's interpretation of "Kiss from a Rose" sounded like it never planned on giving us anything more or different than the original recording, and in that way, he succeeded. Michael gave it his all on "Will You Be There," but I wasn't feeling his song choice, or his rendition. To answer your question Mike, no, unfortunately you probably won't be there next week.
I'm calling it for Mrs. Robinson and the man who knew exactly how to play her tonight.
TIMOTHY STELLY: I wondered beforehand if Michael would get the Tamyra Gray treatment. This is the week where A.I.'s second-most famous also-ran (behind Clay Aiken) was eliminated in 2002, despite a string of solid performances. Of course it was the one bad one she had that cost her. But it's Casey who should consider himself lucky after his third consecutive lackluster performance. He performed well on his duet with Michael, which was the best duet of the night, but I was stunned when Simon and Garfunkel weren't waiting for him offstage with baseball bats for the hatchet job he did on "Mrs. Robinson." It was one of the worst performances of the past couple months.
Kara DioGuardi was right about Big Mike: What he did he could have done in his sleep, and the reason I know this is because he nearly put me into the land of nod. Why would he sing a song by a legend, knowing that a comparison to the original is inevitable?
Miss Bowersox made the perfect song choice ("It's All Right") and delivered another "Wow!" performance, which was most needed on such an uninteresting night. You can now pencil her into the finals.
Casey's string of mediocre showings is all that saved Lee from getting TG'd (Tamyra Gray'd). Lee's performance of "Kiss From A Rose" was dreadful. "Kiss" is a complicated, stylish song that listeners can't help but compare to the original. Lee failed to deliver, but Casey served as his insurance policy. With apologies to George Burns, say goodnight, Casey.
MEGHAN MCGOVERN: I really like the idea that Jamie Foxx brought up with the T-Shirts: "Contestant" or "Artist". This really can sum up the whole season with our lackluster Idols and tonight, yet again, we didn't see a rouse of the crowd with the performances we heard. The only thing that saved the show were the duets. Opening the show with Lee singing "Kiss From a Rose" was a really dumb idea. I feel like if Lee doesn't have an outside source to help him make a smart song choice, he ends up singing something that he "likes" rather than what showcases his talent. I'd prefer to see him go (rather than Mike or Casey) this week, but I know that won't happen after his duet with Crystal, which was fantastic, but only because Crystal was there holding his hand all the way through. I don't really see Lee going anywhere because he's kind of what I would call a "dead-pan" performer. No action going on in his eyes or body movement. Very boring to watch and not all that interesting to listen to either.
As much as I love Mike's voice and I've said repeatedly that he's the best vocalist on the show, I really think he's reached his lowest point with "Will You Be There." Every week he's been told that he needs to stop doing other genres of music and "auto-pilot" karaoke renditions and I suppose he hasn't gotten the message yet. Let's hope he can stick around and try it again next week. I think he deserves another chance, but America might be over him. His duet, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" with Casey proved to be very good and I think Mike saved it from certain pitch death that Casey was heading towards.
Since Crystal's performance a few weeks ago, I've really looked at her in a different way from everyone else. She has won this competition already, to me, and she is leagues ahead of everyone. Her performance of "I'm Alright" tonight wasn't a song that proved her ability and certainly wasn't her best. However, she's come out every week and just put herself out there with no hocus-pocus and no razzle-dazzle. Crystal by far is not the best singer that "Idol" will produce, but she certainly is different and will definitely go far with her own style.
LAUREN VALLA: Did we not see both Jamie Foxx and movie night last year? None of the contestants stepped it up tonight, and they all made poor song choices. Basically all of the songs were slow ballads about women. I'm just glad Crystal didn't follow suit, that would have been awkward.
Lee started the night very poorly, but I don't think he's going home. I will indeed use the dreaded "Idol" word, and shall claim he was pitchy. Some of those notes he hit were just so odd and unlike him I didn't know what to think.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I think Casey is definitely going home. What a lousy song, it was just way too boring. A song like "Mrs. Robinson" is just not a winning song.
As for the duets, I disagree with all the judges and think they were all bad. Lee and Crystal didn't harmonize well, and once again, a love song was sung by Mike and Casey. If any of these contestants want to win, they have to change it up and blow us out of the water. If not, it might come down to who is the cutest (Oh please, Lee for sure), who needs it most (Mike), the last girl standing (Crystal), and well, Casey is just sort of just there.
KATY PERRY: Jamie Foxx did a forgettable job as a mentor, except for the shirt thing, which, quite frankly was just odd. He needs to give himself a contestant shirt.
Michael sounded like he started on the lowest end of what he is capable of singing, which is interesting for such a big guy. His performance had me snapping my fingers, but was quite reminiscent of something you might hear from a church choir. Michael is consistently good, but I question if he is good enough to make it to next week.
Crystal did her typical great performance; at the end of the song it sounded like she got in the 'Janis Joplin' zone. If she doesn't make it to the Top 2, I will be shocked. Casey James was annoying and hokey as always. I certainly hope that Casey's young fans don't ask their parents' permission to watch "The Graduate."
Lee's performance was a little weak at the beginning, but when he hit the first chorus, it felt like he got into his zone. His confidence has improved enormously from the first time we saw him onstage at the Kodak. No, Lee didn't do some crazy arrangement, but I liked it.my asp
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