Michael Johns finally does a tolerable performance, so they vote him off

[koganbot]

andthatisthat beat me to the punch, and we have near identical opinions, and we're equally losing our passion, but anyhow, in ascending order:

Carly Smithson "The Show Must Go On": She didn't oversing, but the warmth of last week was gone, now that she was doing another Big Song, so she was just an anyone with a rigid voice being so what. Background singers were best.

David Cook "Innocent": Voice sounded so constrained I wondered if he had a throat virus.

Syesha Mercado "I Believe": Her tossing in high notes made the start of this nice; the nothingness in her voice was a problem, of course, but as a nondistinctive singer hitting her notes she wasn't bad.

Michael Johns "Dream On": I love this song, his voice wasn't any more nonengaging than usual, and the force of the music clicked for me. Not that I think this guy has much as a singer, but compared to last week's highly praised train-wreck of a blues extravaganza, this was an enjoyable number.

David Archuleta "Angels": Nice feeling in bits of the low section, then when he goes high he reminds me for the first time in weeks of why I ever liked him in the first place. Sweet and powerful, and the vocal wiggles at the end were constrained just the right amount. Still, this was only halfway there (thank you Simon for being willing to "nitpick").

Jason Castro "Somewhere Over The Rainbow": Warm in the deep register, sweet in the high, singing softly against the string accompaniment (kudos to the orchestra for not overswelling). And just when the sketchiness of his voice made this about to dribble away, he added falsetto and revivified it. Pretty good (though he's always pretty good, and whether the judges like him week in and week out seems random).

Kristy Lee Cook "Anyway": Covered a country hit by Martina "God Made Cripples So We Could Sing Mawkish Songs About Them" McBride.* Bits were off-pitch, and her voice will never shimmy and soar, but this did carry warmth and conviction. There's not enough character in her pipes to make her a star, but I'm glad she had a nice moment.

(*To be fair, Martina is also on occasion Martina "God Made Desperation And Spousal Abuse So We Can Sing Great, Passionate, Confused Songs" McBride)

Brooke White "You've Got A Friend": The sort of song you expect her to lap up like there's nothing to it, and she was strong at the start. Strings and background singers entered unnecessarily and, while they didn't muffle her as much as the arrangements did the previous two weeks, they did smooth things out too much. But Simon, who's pretty frequently on the mark, was wrong in thinking this was merely pleasant. Or anyway, there's a richness to this basic pleasantness, an achievement that isn't flashy so people don't appreciate it.

Also, there's something interesting going on with Brooke as a human being. Many and varied uncertainties seem to ripple through her frame, yet she's determined to say the right thing, and by "right" I don't mean the proper thing but the morally correct thing. Of course, the result is often platitudes, but she's not a platitude. My guess is that her shouting her thanks to family and friends and piano teacher came from thinking that they deserved the recognition and in case she got voted off this week she wanted to make sure they got it.

Comments

[andthatisthat.livejournal.com]

I'm so on board with you for all of this. I think Brooke is unfortunate, in the way that she is a woman and therefore everything she says/does/implies is under far more scrutiny in the public consciousness that that of the male contestants. I've seen several people commenting that they find her "fake", when I can't help thinking that her problem is she isn't really fake enough. Her feelings about everything are always right there in her body language, and written all over her face.

Also, the fact that she's missing her sister's wedding is inviting scorn, because "it's not like she's going to win anyway!" and "she should go, and then we could have Michael Johns back in her place" and suchlike. Which is odd, because the internet as a whole didn't seem to give a toss about Michael Johns until he got voted off.

I might've swapped the order of your bottom three very slightly (put Carly a bit higher, David and possibly Syesha a bit lower), but otherwise I'm very much in agreement.

[koganbot]

Yeah, I don't agree at all with the claim that she's fake. Interestingly, justfanoe said it as something of a compliment over on Rolling Teenpop, where he called her performance of "Let It Be" one of the greatest Idol performances ever (and "Let It Be" one of his least favorite Beatles songs; it is one of mine too): "I felt manipulated afterwards, with her crying and what not but for a few minutes she let me really understand the emotion of this song, and that's something special. Like Holly Golightly, she's a phony but she's a genuine phony."

My interpretation of the crying was that she was scared.