AI8: Seminfinals Week 3

First off, hello to my Bossy traffic!  Having personally met the Boss during her Road Trip just about a year ago, I have now been enshrined as one of Bossy's Featured Gays.  As advertised, here is your American Idol post!  I do blog about other things, though it may not look like it at this very moment.  Once again, hello... feel free to poke around the site, check out the sidebar for regular fodder, etc...

Ok, onto last night's Idol...

Alas we arrive at the last week of the semifinals... with the wildcard round coming on Thursday (really can't believe in the Idol marathon / stretch-a-thon they are squeezing that all into 1 hour!) and while I have been critical of this one shot to the finals approach, I have to say my patience is waning and I am ready to move on... though I definitely don't think this process is resulting in the best 12 vocalists.

This is also the first week where I am not confident my top picks will be moving on.  I tend to express my opinion though admittedly it is influenced with who I predict will make it through.  I have been doing pretty good, this week... not so much...

Here again are my 4 groups (you'll see that lack of patience with a 50% contestant dump into that last grouping): 

TOP MALE & FEMALE

We all by now that the last slot of the evening is the "pimp" spot... more often than not, the best performance of the night or at least who the Idol powers-that-be think is the best.  I have liked Lil Rounds ("Be Without You") from the start and while I thought she was going to be a little too big (aka bombastic) after Hollywood Week, I thought she did really well last night.  My worry here is that I think folks might get tired by the manipulation as all the "pimp" spots have made it through. 

My top spot for the guys could have gone in any one of three ways, but I decided to give it to Jorge ("Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me") for a combination of good vocals, but also because there has not been a good Hispanic representation on Idol and how could you not get a little swept with his emotional journey to improve his English and be a singer.

THIRD HIGHEST VOTE GETTER

My first "group" of one... as I have little doubt that Scott ("Mandolin Rain") will make it through. I would put his chances even higher than Jorge, even though he wasn't one of those above-mentioned 3 that I thought were the best of the night with the guys (the other two are in the next group).  I was hoping Simon would tell it like it is... be that being mean, blunt, or truthful... but even he seemed to have a rare instance of being careful.  Now I don't think Scott is a bad singer, but I'm not sure he was Top 36 (let alone Top 12) material... and while I do think it is amazing what he does, I think he's getting special treatment and I really don't think anyone wants to get ahead that way.

FOR YOUR WILDCARD CONSIDERATION

All 3 of my wildcard "for you consideration" choices are a bit of a surprise.

We have not been big Von ("You're All I Need") fans here.  We saw the YouTube of him back in the day performing "And I Am Telling You" on back in the Rosie era of The View... and he was just so bombastic, it was insane.  He did this again in Hollywood Week, so I was a bit disappointed when they put him through.  So was very pleasantly surprised that he took the judges' advice and scaled it way back, but still going for some good, big notes.  I am not sure he stands a good chance to get through on a public vote, but he kind of reminded me of a Rick Astley 2.0.

Didn't know much about Ju'Not ("Hey There Delilah") going into this show and while I thought his spin on the song was a bit too snoozy, I did sense there was some good potential in his voice... and I did appreciate the spin on the song, "making a song your own" has been missing thus far.

In the battle of Alicia Keys, Felicia ("No One") certainly won the evening.  Sure it was a bit of a copy-cat performance (she even looked a bit like Ms. Keys), but there are worse people to be accused of copy-catting... even if it is right down to that funky voice cracking.  She certainly deserved to have this second chance.

CUE THE EXIT MUSIC

Again, a big dump of contestants here...

I though Kristen ("Give Me One Reason") sounded good and I liked here... but I think personality-wise she is not coming across well... and, at this stage, lacking that like-ability factor I am not sure that is something that one can overcome.  A case where her backstory/past screen will probably come to bite her on the ass.

The show is still lacking a country contestant and while I think Kendall ("This One's For the Girls) did a good job, but seemed a bit too generic for me... and lack of exposure won't serve her well either.

Nathaniel ("I Would Do Anything for Love") is the type of gay person that still scares the be-jesus out of a good portion of America.  I think this season has had the largest gay representation of any season, but Nathaniel's freak flag just is flying too high and too proud for the masses... and the vocals aren't quite there either. 

I thought Taylor ("If I Ain't Got You") had rough outing, but when Felicia surpassed her Alicia a bit later in the show, it pretty much sealed the fate of the Amazon-like Utah student.  Thought she had a good voice, but the song was too big for her and she cracked a bit under the pressure.

Alex ("I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues") was truly painful.  I am really not sure what he thought he was doing emphasizing the inner geek with the "dance" moves or doing all that unnecesary growling only because some judge made the unfortunately vocal comparison to Joe Cocker. 

And poor Arianna ("The Winner Takes It All"), the mournful ABBA song will prove to be prophetic on the "loser standing small" and "loser has to fall" lines.  The sad part was that she did truly try to do her best on it and it is always that awkward moment when told otherwise.

Comments

[Philly]

Can' believe they brought back Tatianna,,,,barf, puke, hurl.

#1

[Nate]

I can't believe how bad they overrated Lil Rounds. She was good but they acted like it was the best thing they ever saw. I guess it's because they didn't have a black person in the top 12 yet.