american idol talk's blog

the finals -- top 7

 abuse

This week we go to the movies with songs from the cinema. Lots of great tunes to choose from even when stepping out of the strict musical genre. So how did they do?

1. Allison Iraheta: From Armageddon - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing by Arrowsmith. I'm thinking, oops, very bad choice, but the girl nailed it to the wall. She showed her ability on the lower alto as well as the high end. And her bridges were simply perfect. She solidly put her stamp on that song. A couple of pitch problems, but the performance covered them up well.

2. Anoop Desai. From Robin Hood - Everything I Do I Do For You by Bryan Adams. Excellent performance, but he has one problem. He changes his vocal style to fit the song rather than imposing his own style upon the song. From week to week, we have no idea who he really is. And maybe that's the problem. He is great at imitating a number of different styles and singers, but he has no actual style of his own. That goes over well on variety shows from the 1960s; it will not cut it in today's music market.

3. Adam Lambert: From Easy Rider - Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf. Wow. If you saw it, that's all that needs to be said. If you missed it, you missed one of the best performances in the history of American Idol. The only other thing I can say is to note the similarities between Adam and Richard O'Brien. And if you don't know Richard O'Brien, you are not familiar with one of the greatest rock tenors of all time.

4. Matt Giraud: From Don Juan DeMarco - Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman by Bryan Adams. If you saw him glancing around while sitting at the piano it was because he was looking for some correct notes. The slurring was way overboard and he squeaked the falsetto. Bad arrangement and bad interpretation. He must have read a book on how to screw up a beautiful song with irrelevant runs.

5. Danny Gokey: From Endless Love - Endless Love by Lionel Richey and Dianna Ross. Terrible, Pitiful. Pathetic. Pitchy. Boring. He sounded like Johnny Mathis with a sinus infection. Very poor breath control. Whereas Allison nailed her performance to the wall, the only thing Danny was trying to nail to a wall was a blob of quivering Jello. And he missed the wall entirely.

6. Kris Allen: From Once - Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Good, solid vocal for what it was worth. But the song just didn't do anything. Unless you are very familiar with the movie and could visualize the context in which the song was performed, it just doesn't stand on its own. And there were moments where he was being out sung by the backup singers. Fair, but eh.

7. Lil Rounds: From The Rose - The Rose by Bette Midler. Take it to church, woman, just watch out for those whole notes. You missed just enough of them for it to be noticeable. Nice performance this week. She finally let her accent work for her instead of fighting it. Still not Idol caliber, though.

Hmmmm...who shall we send home?

We are down to a few weeks of expected attrition here, where four just need to be eliminated in whatever order is considered appropriate week by week. But for now (tossing a coin)...

Bye bye Matt Giraud.

Filed under: Music