Every night, the Fox Reality Channel is re-running the entire season of American Idol Season 7, up until the start of Season 8 on Tuesday. Tonight’s episodes featured Top 9, Dolly Parton week.
I have one thing to say before I add a few thoughts in a bit… Simon desperately needed to lose that stick he had shoved up his ass.
And another thing. WTF is up with FOX and the relentless “male enhancement” commercials?
Retread recap:
- Although her vocals were solid, albeit a bit rushed and nervous, Brooke White kept her sunny disposition firmly in place as she song “Jolene”–never tapping into the desperation of a woman afraid she’s going to lose the only man she’ll ever love. She even smiled in a couple of spots. Not one of my favorite Brooke performances. Paula’s line, “You are Brooke White,” cracked me right up. Simon calling the violin player weird was really rude. His mean streak would continue for the rest of the night, unfortunately.
- David Cook–I love, love, love, love LOVE this performance. One of his best, I think and a little underrated. This week, TPTB were frantically trying to quell “covergate”. By this time, it was getting pretty ridiculous. In a sit down with Ryan, Cook ticks off all the artists he “borrowed” from, including Doxology, who had been very publicly agitating for an acknowledgment. TPTB should have know better after Season 5’s covergate not to leave the attributions on the cutting room floor. David said he arranged “Little Sparrow” himself, and proceeded to prove he can, indeed, arrange his own music. David’s vocal range, his lovely falsetto, his vulnerability were all on display. Just a gorgeous version of this song. I really like the recorded version, too.
- Ramile Malubay proved once again that she was in over her head on the big stage. She goes for the uptempo “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” and looks totally awkward bouncing around the stage. Plus, her vocals continued to be weak, breathy and out-of-tune. This HAD to be the end of the line for Ramiele, and thank Jeebus, it was.
- Another underrated performance was Jason Castro’s “Travelin’ Thru’”. Again, Simon completely misses the mark in his critique, comparing it to Jason’s rather lackluster performance the week before. On the contrary, I thought Jason sang with heart, conviction, and absolutely beautiful phrasing. One of his best of the entire competition, in my opinion.
- Simon went totally off the rails with his critique of Carly Smithson’s “Here You Come Again.” This was a much better performance than the week before, a lovely (if a bit too AC for my tastes) performance of this song. It was re-worked to play to her vocal strengths. The only criticism I have is that the song arrangement was a bit old-fashioned. Carly still wasn’t picking songs that showed what kind of a recording artist she’d be. Simon blowing her performance off was one thing, but his criticizing her clothes and the way she looked was way out of line. What an ass.
- Ok, this is where I’m a little embarrassed. In my original re-cap I go on a long rant about how I could not imagine David Archuleta succeeding on pop radio, and that he had a voice only a granny could love. My bad. In my defense, the ballads he was singing weren’t exactly showcasing his ability to perform current music. But, yeah, I was wrong. His performance of “Smokey Mountain Memories” was lovely and very heartfelt.
- Kristy Lee Cook was pretty good this week too, much better than Simon gave her credit for. I would have rather Brooke sung “Coat of Many Colors” (with Kristy Lee tackling “Jolene”) and although Kristy could have poured a little more emotion into it, I though it was still a solid performance.
- Syesha Mercado choose to take on Whitney–sort of–by taking on “I Will Always Love You”. She hedges her bets, attempting to weld Dolly and Whitney’s versions together, with uneven results. It was decent in spots, but when she busted out the glory note at the end, the unfavorable comparisons to Whitney were inevitable. She shouldn’t have touched this song with a ten-foot pole.
- Michael Johns finally found his niche in this competition. His blusey, sexed up version of “It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right” was all kinds of hot, and showed off his vocals in all the right ways. Too bad he went back to singing bland arena rock the following week…
Amid tears, Ramiele finally went home. Finally.
“It’s all wrong but it’s all right….”
My favorite Michael Johns performance to date. That song, for him, was just…right.
Yes, I love “Little Sparrow” and the haircut, and stuff.
I did have to LOL at Syesha’s predictability. Everyone had been calling it all day long. “Oh, a Whitney song! I’m Whitney!!!”
Overall, I think this was a pretty decent night for everyone, Simon behaving like a petulant child aside. Ugh…
I rather thought that it was mean that they didn’t bring DC out sooner to send him to the safety of the couches. They knew that he was not feeling well, and making him hang out in the room of stress for half of the time was pretty crappy on their part. I mean, I know that they want to build suspense and such, and yes, LS was enough of a departure for him that they may have thought that people would say, hmm, he’s not automatically safe. But not well done on their part.
This was kind of the beginning of the end for Brooke. She just seemed more and more like she was having a breakdown as time went on, so even though I liked her voice and her style of music, I ended up wanting her gone anyway. Plus, as news got out about her essentially sobbing her eyes out throughout the end of this episode, and needing to be comforted by a fleet of people, including DC, whom everyone knew was ill and trying to hide it, it kind of hurt her in terms of people’s perception of her.
I don’t know if it hurt Brooke in the eyes of the general public so much as I’m not sure the average at home viewer follows the show enough to read all the behind the scenes accounts and what not. But I love Brooke and she’s overall just a genuine emotional person, but this was around the time when I started getting annoyed with her as well.
Looking back I realize she’s just a person who will always act exactly as they are feeling, but I just had a hard time in general with people who acted like they were being sent to their death everytime they were in the B3. Even though KLC and Syesha weren’t my favorite people, I could respect them for the fact that they managed to hold themselves together as many times as they were in the bottom grouping.
This night was the biggest disappointment of all for me. All of the incredible Dolly Parton songs and only two of the contestants picked the right ones.
Michael Johns stole the night and this is still my favorite performance of the whole season. What I truly appreciatiated about Michael Johns is he chose music all over the spectrum and did not sound the same week after week.
Jason Castro, contrary to the judges’ opinions, also picked the perfect song.
David Cook — emos up a song again. My favorite performance of David Cook’s is coming up soon — Music of the Night.
I was really hoping that Carly would sing Jolene, but it was not to be.
And can we just send Kristy Lee home already.
“And another thing. WTF is up with FOX and the relentless à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“male enhancementà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ commercials?”
LMAO. And last night there were two different competitor brands featured. Seriously, WTF?!
“David Cook à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’ emos up a song again.”
LOL^^ Not sure how you define emo, but maybe emo means something different for you. Randy Jackson’s definition perhaps? LMAO. Cuz I don’t know how anyone could describe that performance as emo, especially if you listen to the studio version of LilSparrow.
Anyhow, what lovely performances from the Davids – first time that both brought tears to my eyes on the same night. Archie sang one of my all time favorite Dolly songs. And the beauty and sensitivity that DC sang LilSparrow was just awesome. The others were just too karoake or just okay for me.
By now, the Davids are so clearly head and shoulders above the competition that I could understand why people were getting frustrated about Season 7. I mean, who other than the Davids were even in contention as a possible winner by the end of Top 9 results show? It really was the inevitable march of the Davids to the top 2.
How was that emo? I have a hard time picturing any punk band singing Little Sparrow in that style. It actually seemed kind of folk to me.
Sma11ie wrote:
Sma11ie, thanks for the laugh today, because I actually did try to picture the punk/emo approach to “Little Sparrow”. Mercy!
I have to agree, that wasn’t even ‘Country’, it was ‘Folk’, and one more genre that the general audience would never have imagined DC singing in…WTF!Cook, again…kinda sorta like next week will be.
ETA: I guess Ford wasn’t paying again for another round of their commercials to be shown…but please? Couldn’t AI have found a different sponsor for the rerun of their ‘Family’ show? All kinds of awkward.
Since “save comment failed”
here’s the ETA:
ETA: I guess Ford wasn’t paying again for another round of their commercials to be shown…but please? Couldn’t AI have found a different sponsor for the rerun of their ‘Family’ show? All kinds of awkward.
This was my favorite of all the theme nights. As many have said, nearly everyone performed well. Dolly is an amazing, versatile songwriter, and everyone seemed to choose pretty well.
This song is so beautiful. When I heard David was singing it my first thought was, PERFECT! My second thought was, oh no. No one can sing it like Dolly (her version will break.your.heart). I just loved David’s performance. It was clear during the intro package and through his performance that he must have been feeling really homesick that week, and the emotion came through – AND his vocals were virtually impeccable. One of my favorite Archie performances, for sure.
This was one of my favorite weeks and itunes got my moolah that week as well. I loved David A, Smokey Mountain Memories is probably when he solidified it for me. I mean I had loved him all along, but this song still just makes me feel the sentiment of the song. The way he enunciates, and emotes the word snowflakes, had me actually seeing the damn things. That’s some serious emoting. I loved it.
Carly and Michael were on the next rung for me. Michael hit it out of the park and made me feel that he had squandered so
many opportunities because Papa Johns did not know what to sing, this night he nailed it. Carly did it as well. This was one night that she should have been incredible proud. I know Syesha was feeling that she might as well just come on stage and break wind through her armpits because she never got any credit for the good singer she was. It must have been hard.
Frankly the only person who truly sucked was KLC, but then it goes beyond saying. When the best Miss Dolly can say is that your grandma would be proud, read between the lines. This could have been her night and she wiffed it big time.
Think I am going to go and revisit these songs on the old youtubby.
I won’t be around to watch tonight, but again, it’s weird how well the Idols all did Dolly week. Especially when so many of them dropped the ball on Idol Gives Back week, despite the fact that they had a much wider songbook to choose from. Not only were the song choices really odd for Idol Gives Back week, but the performances weren’t even all that great. Off the top of my head Carly and Cook were in particular off their game. MJ too. If anything the only ones I remember really hitting it out of the park were Jason and Archuletta. SOTR and Angels were the highlights of the night. Though maybe all the demands on the Idols for the big show were partly to blame for lackluster Idols the night before.
This was def. a Michael Johns night….WOW…. he did hit it out of the ball park, with his sexy soulful voice. After listening to Michael..everyone else was….mmmmm…. forgetable….. You would have to tell me who sang what …..and do believe me ..I love them all.
Michael Johns soared that night, along with Carly. Neither one
hardly got a mention of how they re-worked the song. To me
both their performances were perfect. I still listen to the
studio versions of them both and get chills. I always thought
they were held to a different standard, when it came to judging.
This made me chuckle, because my first thought was…Cook totally could have armpit farted and people would have dug it. Thanks to BWE, we have proof.
I admit I was not looking forward to Dolly week. I’m not a huge fan of the narrow “songs from Artist X only” themes to begin with (unless artist X is the Beatles or U2), and country week is usually another that I don’t dig, and this was a combo of both. Color me surprised when I enjoyed it. Dolly was adorably supportive of everyone, and there were quite a few good performances.
My favorites….
1) Michael… To put it simply, I always thought his voice was the sex, and it was nice that he FINALLY found a song to back that up. Loved. it. :smoke_tb: STILL can’t believe he’s going to get the boot one week later. Really, America? Really? After he’s proven he can bring the sexy? Why you do me that way?
2) Cook…Hello, Acoustic Dave. How you doin? And haircut, hey, glad you made it to the party, though I wish you were a wee bit longer. This performance clued me into Cook’s strategy in regards to song selection. Most everyone else went for either songs they loved or songs that could possibly be big moment songs. Cook, OTOH, started crafting a set list week by week, song by song, to show what he was made of, and what we could expect from a David Cook record and concert. It’s a philosophy he carried through to the end with this final three performances, much to Simon’s chagrin, and I think it was brills. Also, the studio recording of his Little Sparrow cover is so so purdy.
3) Jason…STFU, Simon. For reals. I really liked this performance, it was gorg, and you are such a tool this week.
4) Carly….see Jason.
5) Archie finally makes my top five. I’m not ever going to be gaga over his voice, but I liked this performance quite a bit.
As for the rest…. Much like Jolene, Brooke’s happy shiny-ness finally did her wrong, Rami was just lost, Syesha sang one of my least favorite songs ever, and I was so over KLC at this point. That hasn’t changed. I kind of wish Chikeze would have made it this far. CHikeze plus Dolly would have been a trip.
Favorite. Group. Performance. Ever. The Dolly shirt, the line dancing, Michael’s ass slapping and pointy pose at the end, Jason’s goofy whateverness, and the lolz of Cook serenading Paula with “you think about it, don’t you?” (cougar much?) are all made of ginormous cheesy win.
It’s okay MJ, we have all said things that in retrospect don’t seem as accurate as they did at the time to us. I remember as reader of your blog before I was a poster here, I would cringe at some of the comments you gave Archie due my inherent bias of loving his voice. But I respect different opinions. I too believe that this was a great week for Archie. Old-fashioned song, yeah, but it was one of the times we really started seeing him come alive emotionally on the stage. You could hear the cry in his voice and it brought tears to my eyes. This was a huge standout week for him IMO. I also LOVED Carly’s Here You Come Again and Jason’s Travelin’ Through, both gave me chills. Lovely.