So before I start on tonight's Recap, I'd like to apologize to our loyal six readers for the dearth of original posts the last few days, especially what with the NCAAs going on. You see... Maryland's performance this season pretty much rendered us joyless when it comes to college basketball. Further, J-Red, Brien, Russell, and myself actually also have day jobs. ECB doesn't pay the bills. So the four of us have been consumed with menial tasks like writing papers, drafting motions, and a few other things that we do just to pay the bills and to feed our sports habits. Stick with us oh ye loyal six readers... we'll be here for at least a little while longer.
Now, on to the Recap... last week's performance featured a picture of a horrifying trainwreck. Nice to see that some of the Idol contestants rebounded in a HUGE way this week.
David Cook - One of the absolute ballsiest performances I have ever seen on Idol. Performing Billie Jean in a hard rock arrangement. One of the most famous songs of all time thoroughly associated with Michael that even though had the alternate arrangement David played was never known in that particular version. And David's was phenomenal. I wouldn't spend the 99 cents on iTunes for any of these 1:45 performances, but this is the closest any performer has come so far to making me want to load up my iPod with his track.
Kristy Lee Cook -
"That was the most clever song choice I have heard in years" - Simon (post-performance)
"This is fucking brilliant! She's playing up to all the people in middle America who would never vote against the flag and is practically screaming 'Vote the Nigerian boy or the Irish girl off!!!!! Don't vote the pretty blonde American girl who rides horses off!' She's awesome! - Jeremy (laughing, during performance).
I said to the wife that Kristy Lee proved herself to be the most genius Idol contestant ever with this song choice of God Bless the USA. Talk about knowing how the game is played. Nicely done Kristy, nicely done. And you did actually sing it pretty well too.
David Archuleta - I don't know the song, but as usual, he sang it well. But Simon was spot on that this could've been out of "It's a Small World" themepark-like ride. And he got in a little dig at David's dad too. Nicely done Cowell. David can sing well but I'm not sure he has the charisma to win. See Melinda Doolittle last year. David will get the teenybopper vote more than Melinda did, but Melinda's "aww shucks" act wore thin by the final three when she lost out to two performers who brought more personality to the table.
Michael Johns - Given that his best two performances to date were Bohemian Rhapsody during Hollywood Week and We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions tonight, maybe he should just join a Queen cover band. I really would like to hear him take on Somebody to Love. But anyway, tonight's performance was excellent. Lots of energy, looked like he was loving life up on stage, and we FINALLY saw the Michael who showed up during Hollywood Week. Hopefully he'll use this week as a springboard because putting aside the fact that he used to work as a mascot for an Aussie football team, I really, really like him.
Jason Castro - He'll skate by because of the blue eyes, big eyelashes, girlish cheekbones, and goofy grin. But unless he branches out soon, his shelf life is limited to about three more weeks. He's got talent but he's become apathetic.
Syesha Mercado - I watch the show on DVR about 40 minutes before it starts. When I check my e-mail just before turning the show on and see an e-mail from J-Red warning me to watch for Syesha, I know I'm probably in for something good because that's a first from J-Red. Syesha is back people. She was Mariah Carey-esque in her performance tonight. Simon was right, she did stretch her vocal range to the limits. But my understanding is that's what the performers are supposed to do. Syesha is likeable and the girl can flat-out sing.
Brooke White - This could have been fabulous. But we all get protective of our favorite songs. Every Breath You Take just happens to be one of my favorite songs. Hence me being very upset when P-Diddy did his own little take to mourn Biggie. And hence me being upset when the band came up and Brooke tried to take on the original version of the song. Agree with the judges... I could totally tolerate her doing her own solo slowed down version with just the piano. It was nice. It was pretty. But she's not big enough to take on the original arrangement. She'll survive I think though. She had good stage presence to march on after flubbing the first note and starting over. Honestly, I didn't know that's what it was. I thought she just missed her cue. She's in danger of being in the bottom three this week if we go just by this week's performances.
JEREMY'S PROJECTED BOTTOM THREE
Ramiele Mulabay - Better than last week and that's not saying much. Alone by Heart was not a good song because everybody automatically compared her to Carly who has the voice to sing a far superior version, and who did sing a far superior version in Hollywood Week. Plus, she was born in Saudi Arabia. With that in mind, going up against Kristy Lee's performance, Ramiele must be a terrorist who any good red-blooded American Idol voters would never support. But of course that's not what Kristy Lee Cook was thinking, right????
Eze - Nice job buddy. You're not going to listen to judges who praised you for singing up tempo songs the past few weeks and blasted you for ballads? You're going to listen to the bandleader?!?! His job is to play your background music and to get it right. That's it. I'll give you credit for at least singing the song well and showing some range and depth to your voice. Your performance though was catatonic and sleep-inducing and you put yourself squarely in danger. Especially with Kristy Lee Cook's song choice which could make middle America harken back to the days of segregated schools. But of course that's not what Kristy Lee Cook was thinking, right????
Carly Smithson - Simon was actually very poignantly accurate tonight. I was super excited for Carly to follow up Michael's awesome performance, especially when I heard the first few bars of Total Eclipse of the Heart, again, awesome song, and a great song for somebody like Carly with a big voice. However, last week's bottom three performance scared the shit out of Carly who was clearly feeling the pressure tonight and it showed in her performance. She was ahead of the backup singers, then behind them, and all over the place when it came to pace. She didn't show much stage presence. She looked like she wanted to just pound out the song. She's going to need just a kick-ass performance to get her footing back. She's safe for now, but I still think in this week's Bottom 3. America might be ready to get rid of the tattoed, Irish girl with the scary looking boyfriend who has 95% of his body covered in ink. But of course that's not what Kristy Lee Cook was thinking, right????
The big shocks start a little further down when you don't see UNC until number 28. That's absolutely crazy. Carolina girls are way hotter than Wisconsin chicks. The horrible rankings only get worse when you get to Duke at #30. WHAT? Duke girls are universally mocked for being ugly, annoying nerds. I'm sure that's just a horrible stereotype, but seriously? Number 30? The pictures they had of Duke students aren't even very good. They couldn't find even a few pictures of hot Dookies, but somehow they're ranked 30th?
Maryland women checked in at #47, which I think is a bit low, but probably pretty fair. I'm sure the Terps would have ranked higher if Popcrunch had met my beautiful wife, but Maryland isn't going to jump past the southern and west coast schools that fill out the top slots. I would rank Maryland ahead of some of the Midwestern schools from the middle ranks (Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin).
