Nigel Lythgoe’s Weekly Interview with TVweek.com
The interviewer said that he got quite a few emails accusing him of favoring Chris Daughtry over Elliott Yamin. For that reason, he decided to start the interview with Elliott:
Elliott Yamin – Nigel said, “I think he sang two great songs last night. I must say during rehearsal I was worried about him singing ‘Trouble’. ‘Trouble’ is done with such a sort of curled lip as Elvis used to do it and it wasn’t sung quite as much as Elliott used to sing it. But on the night, I thought he really came forward, he didn’t oversing it, he sold it. He was up for it last night. He’s a scrapper, that boy, and I think he did his best night of the competition.”
Taylor Hicks – About “Jailhouse Rock”, and Simon not liking it, “I thought it was an audience’s performance, I thought, when you’re in the audience and someone’s coming through and having fun like that, it just captures you. Simon tries to alienate himself from an audience and I just loved the argument last night where he said, ‘I’m going to take you into the real world, ‘ and Ryan said to him, ‘What do you know about the real world, you’ve got a Rolls Royce you’ve got stuff in your houses…'”
Chris Daughtry – About “Suspicious Minds”, Nigel said that this was one of Elvis’s great songs, but then moved on without talking about Chris’s performance. He went on to say, “We’re doing a medley tonight of other great songs…I was quite surprised at some of the songs that were chosen because there are so many good ones, and so many that may have suited their voices a little better…Katharine’s choices were not as strong as they could have been.” The interviewer mentioned “A Little Less Conversation” as an Elvis tune he wasn’t familiar with, and Nigel said, “JPL [Jon Peter Lewis] did it on the series a while ago, and I thought JPL actually did it better, and I’m a Chris fan. But somehow, again, when it got to the end of the song, I thought…we’re getting into Chris’s register…before that I thought it was very sort of…average.”
Katharine McPhee – About Katharine missing the lyric in Hound Dog/All shook up, “…there’s an awful lot to remember and it’s getting tougher, and Elvis with Katharine might be difficult. However, this is the whole thing, we’re trying to put challenges together. If I were Katharine, I would have done ‘Trouble’. I would have stolen it from Elliott, or maybe done it along side Elliott [both of them doing the same song] because she could have smoldered during that song.”
Taylor Hicks – About “In the Ghetto”, “I think this genre of music was perfect for him…he’s the closest to Elvis’s home town I guess, and not dissimilar with those sort of white soulful voices.”
Katharine McPhee – About “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, “I don’t disagree with the judges. Maybe she did–we call it over-egging the pudding…too much in there and the kitchen sink too. And I thought at the end of the song she tried to go for too many bluesy notes…and it’s a great song…no question about that.”
Nigel went on to say, “‘In the Ghetto’, I think was possibly my favorite performance from Taylor last night, and Elliott’s performances.”
Nigel said that whoever goes tonight will be somebody “we don’t want to lose”. There will be no special boot-off gimmicks tonight. Except he said, “The Top Two will be pointed out tonight, but the third person has now got to squeeze in between those two if they want to be in the finale.”
Next week each contestant will sing 3 songs which will be the Judges choice, the contestants choice, and one from Clive Davis, who will be a guest on the show.
Hmmm. I smell a Chris Daughtry/Katharine McPhee bottom 2 kids.
But you never know…
And maybe with tonight’s Elvis medley (YAY!) we’ll get a genuine Pointy Pose…