AI7: Beatle Juice

We're onto the finals at American Idol ... and the long-awaited and hotly anticipated Lennon-McCartney songbook.  Well, Ryan was doing his best to try and convince us of it... my thought was that we had finally arrived at the moment when these classic songs would likely be ruined in front of approximately 30 million viewers.  As usual, it was a mix of good, bad and indifferent... but I'm guessing most would agree that last night's two hour show was "a long and winding road"...

Here's my Top Third:

Brooke ("Let It Be")
Carly ("Come Together")
David C ("Eleanor Rigby")
Michael ("Across the Universe")

Three weeks ago or so if you told me two of my favorite performers were going to be Brooke and David Cook, well I would have told you think again... but both of the certainly hit the "authenticity" bullseye last night, more so with Brooke.  Of Carly, Simon said she finally picked the right song and I have to agree, haven't quite figure out why she was the "thing" going into this, but she finally seemed to relax last night and let it flow.  While Simon rightfully compared Aussie Michael to the Irish Girl in not connecting to the right song, this was closest he got in week.   

Middle Third
Chikezie ("She's A Woman")
Amanda ("You Can't Do That")
David H ("I Saw Her Standing There")
Syesha ("Got To Get You Into My Life")

Chikezie wins this week's interesting arrangement award... while it got a bit shouty at times, it was still entertaining and, most importantly, memorable.  Hey, what about Amanda making it out of my bottom group for the first time ever.  While she is certainly not the poster child for elocution, I enjoyed her rocking at and at least last night she looked like she might have enjoyed being there... just a bit.  David H (was I only the one putting air quotes when he said he worked at a "Pizza Bistro"?  Poor David H!) and Syesha both fall into the good, but karaoke-ish, middle of the road, nothing special category... but keep in mind often it is these types of performances that get contestants the boot.

Bottom Third
David A ("We Can Work It Out")
Jason ("If I Fell")
Kristy ("Eight Days A Week")
Ramiele ("In My Life")

We all know David Archuleta ain't goin' anywhere... but after stumbling over his lyrics and an odd song choice there seems to be the slightest chink in the inevitability armor.  Ah, Jason... he has never been Mr. Consistent in my eyes and last night it was a bit too wispy for me... again, don't feel like he's in any danger but he can't string too many of these type of performances together and expect to stick around.  Kristy gets the train-wreck award of the evening... though I can only blame her if she was in any way responsible for the horribly manic "nails on the chalkboard" country-fied version of this song.  But being the only "country" person in the competition, she might just stick around.  So while I am saying everyone is seemingly safe in this bottom grouping, I don't know if Ramiele can survive as her downward trajectory continues with a barely tepid showing last night.

Comments

[jen maiser]

Ramiele's performance was the only one I fast-forwarded through.

[Jeff]

Oh David A. My love for him died just a little last night. :) Seriously, he needs to pull himself together and turn it on. Like right NOW.

My favorites last night were Brooke and Carly. Carly totally rocked it!

Kristy, sigh. She has a nice enough voice, but man, that arrangement was too much. I appreciate a new take on a song, but the main thing for me was it was too relentless, too fast. There was no room for emotion or anything. Even Paula didn't have anything good to say!