Top 8: Performance Results

Another week of performances have been sung, and now it's time to lash into them with my critiques. A reminder, the theme was "Year They Were Born." Did your Idol-hopeful do well according to my harsh standards? Did I get any of my predictions right? Let's find out!

Danny Gokey - Mickey Gilley "Stand By Me"

Call me crazy, but I'm going to disagree with the judges. I did not like this performance at all. Now, it is no secret that I am not particularly fond of Danny, but I do recognize his ability to sing and give him kudos when he earns them. This week, he did not earn my kudos. Here are the problems I had with this song. 1) I absolutely hated the arrangement. "Stand By Me" has one of the most recognizable bass melodies ever written, and to not pay at least SOME homage to that was a poor mistake. If you are going to re-stylize a classic song in an attempt to make it "your own", you better make sure it's great. 2) I was not impressed by his vocals. The beginning was incredibly nasally and too straight-laced for this type of song. Once the Bridge kicked in, he sort of found his stride, but that was 3/4 of the way into the song- too late in a performance to win my approval back. The rest was just not that good, for his standards. Is it just me or is the Danny Train slowing down? Do you think the likes of a Kris Allen or Allison Iraheta can pass him? I want to know what you think.

Kris Allen - Don Henley "All She Wants To Do Is Dance"

DING DING! Correct pick! Now, when I pick a song for one of the contestants, I factor in several variables, such as what would sound good with their voice, what would relate well to the audience, what would be memorable, and in my head, I have an idea of how they SHOULD perform the song. These are just a few of the main issues I address. That being said, Kris did not perform the song how I envisioned he would or should have. Sometimes, the contestants get busy and forget to read all of the blog to see what they should do, and that is on them. I'm throwing the alley-oop and it's up to them to convert the dunk. His performance was not TERRIBLE I suppose, but it was not good either. His decision to bring out the guitar again was not the best. Again, you couldn't really hear it that well and he seemed way too preoccupied with playing it rather than singing. His singing in a crowd of girls was even worse. He is, what, 5'6"? He got swallowed up by the sea of people and looked like part of the crowd, not one performing for the crowd. I do agree with Kara here. It was like he was doing some song for Jazz homework, and let the song lead him rather than the other way around. That is not what the show is about. It will be interesting to see how the fans react this week, since I previously predicted that he would not be able to give a less-than-stellar performance and not feel the effects in one way or another.

Lil Rounds - Tina Turner "What's Love Got To Do With It"

DING DING! Correct pick! Another point to add to the rant above- it is not my fault if the contestant doesn't perform a song as well as they are capable of doing. This is the case for Lil. No matter what the judges said, this was the right song for her to sing. She, however, did not deliver on the performance. She is in a vicious cycle right now where she got reamed by the judges, then that affected her next performance, which caused her to get reamed again, which affected the next performance, so forth and so on. You could hear the nerves in her voice. Her pitch was always slightly off, she shouted the choruses, the last note was terrible, etc. I just can't pull for her anymore until she shows me something b-rilliant. She claims to be an artist, but I have seen no artistry as of yet. She escaped trouble last week. I don't think she can do the same this go-round.

Anoop Desai - Cyndi Lauper "True Colors"

I should have had another DING DING here. I had this song starred on my sheet for Anoop to sing, but I didn't follow my gut. I wanted him to do this song, but figured he would choose one of the others that I had suggested. Danny negated that, so he went with the one that I should have went with. Overall, he did very well this week. He showed off his sultry voice again rather than his pompous one and apologized for being a prick last week. This probably saved himself for another week. I don't know how much longer America will put up with him though. I'm starting to get tired of the Anoop ride. Simon hit the nail on the head when he compared Anoop to a Yo-Yo. It's so true. While this performance was good, he didn't give the type of performance that would be deemed an Idol Moment, so he is still not out of the clear. Had he gotten some pimp lighting, that would have helped his cause. The pimping of the Tar Heels might be enough though! Expect his college campus/alumni to pull him through on the wake of a National Championship. GO HEELS!

Scott MacIntyre - Air Supply "The Search is Over"

"I wanted to show you my punk side." REALLY!?!? Scott, you are hopeless. Funny, but hopeless. Right now, I'm sort of wishing that Scott had been eliminated last week. Sure, Megan was not a great singer by any stretch of the imagination, but at least she was easy on the eyes and had that quirky sense of humor that only she could pull off. Scott "worked" the stage this week with a switch from piano to guitar. I'm impressed that he would take this step, but he shouldn't have. The guitar playing was lousy as was his singing. If I recall correctly, there was one part that had me curled up in a ball cringing on my sofa. There are witnesses to this. I had never heard of the song and I don't know why he didn't have someone read him my predictions for him. He would have done much better with those, but still, not enough to sway me. I'm ready for him to go home, because no matter how versatile he thinks he is, he is one of the most boring contestants we've ever seen on that stage. Votefortheworst has now embraced him as their new golden boy, so we'll see if they can pull him out of the trench, but I doubt it. Scott should easily be bottom 3 this week with a high probability of heading back to Arizona.

Allison Iraheta - Bonnie Raitt "I Can't Make You Love Me"

This is another one that I'm kicking myself over, because this song was on my starred list for Allison. Granted I can't say that this was the one that I wanted her to sing the most. I still hold that "November Rain" would have been amazing. She still did well on this song though. She really does have the most unique voice in the competition, and might be the most ready to make a successful album right now. I didn't like the runs that she put in some of her phrases, but I loved her tone. She continues to impress me, but she just needs to hit a stride and stick with it. This bouncing in and out of the bottom 3 does not bode well for her chances to win the whole shebang. She is beginning to show a little bit of the quirkiness that Megan had, but with a much better voice. I expect that she will be safe this week.

Matt Giraud - Stevie Wonder - "Part-Time Lover"

Yet another song choice that I almost picked. Part of me really felt that he was going to pick this song because it was Stevie, but part of me also thought that it wouldn't pack the bang that he needed. I think I was wrong about both of those. I think he did a good job tonight, minus that switch to falsetto that made me wince. Lots of energy, lots of charisma, and lots of fun. He did over-sing it slightly, but Stevie over-sings everything he does, so it might not have been that bad. His runs seemed a little more natural and less forced tonight as well. He had a bit of swagger to him and that is a big change from the nervous Matt we've seen lately. I'd say one of the top 3 performances of the night.

Adam Lambert - Tears for Fears "Mad World"

It's starting to get ridiculous, folks. I'm not sure I've ever seen a contestant in the history of Idol who has delivered consistently week after week like Adam has. "Mad World" is my jam and when I found out he was singing it, I was sort of excited. He didn't let his fans down. Besides that last off note that eventually found it's way back to where it was supposed to be, he was pitch perfect. I've watched the show for a while now, but I don't recall Simon ever giving a contestant a standing ovation! That was big time. Don't go crowning him the automatic Idol yet, though. I am one of those skeptics who finds it hard to believe that the early front-runner in a competition like this is the one who WILL win it. Should he win? Probably. But there have been too many "come from behind" winners in the history of this show to make me think he has it locked up. That being said, he is still the best on the show right now and is running circles around even his closest competitors at this point.

In my opinion, on a stage as big as this one, you have to go out there every week and improve on what you did the previous week. Every time you sing, there has to be that feeling of "Wow, they did even better THIS week than LAST week!" That kind of consistency and building is what can lead one to winning this show, not coming out hot and cold and the audience never knowing what to expect from you. David Cook showed this last year. He had the ability to improve upon what he had already done. Adam is the only one this season who is showing me that he can do that. Danny is sounding the same on every song and is playing this competition too safe. If he wants to beat Adam, he's going to have to get creative. Shoot, if he wants to beat Allison or Kris in the long run, he needs to do something, because I feel like people are getting tired of him and changing their votes to more interesting contenders.

As for my predictions, I got 2 right this week, but should have had 4-5...I should just follow my gut. After a week where the majority of the performers did songs that sounded like they had just practiced them for the first time 20 minutes before the show started, the bottom 3 should look like this: Scott, Lil, and (dare I say) Kris. This does not mean that Anoop or Matt are completely impervious to taking Kris' spot. They both did well this week, but their fans have shown that they can be slack about phoning in the votes before. I'd say Anoop has more to worry about than Matt because, though his performance was solid, it didn't have that quality that would make me want to vote for him over someone else. Matt's did. If Kris' growing legion of fans went at it last night, expect Anoop to swap spots with him. I don't see any way around Scott not leaving this week. He's just not up to par with anyone left, and as I've said before, he has no shot of winning this show. Adios, punk rock Scott.

And now, onto the Power Rankings (number in parenthesis is previous weeks rank):

1 (1). Adam Lambert
2 (2). Danny Gokey
3 (4). Allison Iraheta
3 (3). Kris Allen
5 (5). Matt Giraud
6 (7). Anoop Desai
7 (6). Lil Rounds
8 (8). Scott MacIntyre

A little bit of switching going on this week, with one tie! I think Kris and Allison are in a dead lock in terms of how they've performed so far on the show. Anoop and Lil is a tough call, but ultimately, Anoop has had more good moments than Lil has.

Well, that's it folks. Sorry for the length, but I hope you enjoyed it. Who do you think is going home tonight? Is America going to get it right and send Scott packing, or is something dramatic going to happen and leave us wondering "Huh?!?!" Leave your comments and opinions below and let me know what you thought of their performances!

Your American Idol Junkie,

Billy