SiftPop

Well, that was an interesting evening of Idol fun now wasn’t it? Aside from Ryan running around the stage like some sort of charismatic evangelist (I’ve always appreciated Seacrest’s fearlessness, but sometime the risk just doesn’t pay off, or as Abdul said last night, the reward doesn’t pay off.) the night was filled with 4 good performances, 4 mediocre ones, and 4 “Did that just really happen?” bad ones. Instead of chronological let’s go in order from good to bad.

Carly Smithson – “Come Together.” Best performance of the evening and I think now that Carly is on the big stage her experience will start to play a larger role. It certainly felt like she owned the place when she was singing. (A)

David Cook – “Eleanor Rigby.” Slowly becoming my favorite of the bunch, each performance just feels perfect for him. I don’t think he is quite as good as Daughtry but he is following the same path. (A-)

Brooke White – “Let It Be.” Interestingly, I think this performance would have been even better without the piano. The piano almost detracted from our ability (and certainly the crowd’s) to see how much she felt this song. Still a very powerful performance and it emphasizes once again the need in Idol to find the zone between over singing and just being boring. She nailed it with this understated beauty. (A-)

Chikezie – “She’s A Woman.” The surprise of the night for me. I’ve not liked Cha-cheesy since the get go. But sometimes you have to drop your pride and admit when you are wrong. Maybe it was just a one night thing, but I thought he did great. (B+)

Jason Castro – “If I Fell.” Now we start to get into those who missed the balance on either the oversinging or boring sides of the equation. For our little Travolta look a like he erred to the boring side. Even though some of the vocals were pretty nice, I found myself drifting. (B-)

Amanda Overmyer – “You Can’t Do That.” And now we are erring to the over singing side (or over intensely mumbling incoherent utterances side in this case) Amanda seems like she should be good at this, but I just haven’t seen it yet. (C+)

Michael Johns – “Across The Universe.” And back to the boring. Seriously, do you remember anything about this? (C+)

Syesha Mercado – “Got To Get You Into My Life.” The definition of mediocre. (C)

Ramiele Malubay – “In My Life.” And now we begin the long dark descent into really really badness. Ramiele seems like a sweet girl but she struggled to find her footing through this entire number. And the cheese factor was off the charts, (D+)

David Hernandez – “I Saw Her Standing There.” Randy said ” overdone.” The echoing Paula said, “you overdid it a little bit.” Simon said, “it was corny, verging on desperate” I say, “here, here.”(D)

David Archuleta – “We Can Work It Out.” The fact that this train wreck of a performance wasn’t the worst of the show is astonishing. He forgot the words maybe three times, couldn’t find the rhythm or the melody, and stumbled around the stage looking like a poisoned man with 2 minutes to find the antidote. What’s amazing is I can almost guarantee you he had the most votes of the night, and will sail through easily. He’s the only one that people seemed to latch on to through the early rounds and that will pay dividends for him through at least the final 4. (F)

Kristy Lee Cook – “Eight Days A Week.” When this song started I swear I thought I had entered some parallel universe where American Idol was about picking songs and finding the worst possible genre to morph it in to. “Next week on Idol, Chikezie does Pearl Jam’s “Last Kiss” Big Band style!” Poor Kristy has had some great nights, but she might as well tucked her thumbs under her overalls and put a piece of straw in her mouth and it wouldn’t have come off any more cheesy and backwoods. I’m assuming Randy Minor was out of washboards and blow jugs cause they would have been perfect. Yikes. (F-)

Predictions:

Who’s going home?

One of these three; Ramiele, David Hernandez, Syesha. It’s never the worst (they get sympathy bumps, and the first performance (if not memorable) always suffers. I’m going with Syesha.

Who’s winning this thing?

One of these four; Archuletta, Brooke, David Cook, or Carly. Right now (just on gut) I’m picking Brooke.

See ya’ next week!