Like most people, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of all the top contestants in the 7th edition of Idol. While some are definately better than others, unlike the past seasons there is no one who I just can’t believe actually made it this far. So with that intro out of the way, my thoughts on tonight’s performances of Dolly Parton songs:
Brooke White opens the show with “Jolene,” one of my favorite Parton songs…sung by Dolly. Brooke is one of my top 2 favorite females this season, but this performance didn’t really stand out. She was solid, but it never really gelled into something that will be remembered.
David Cook is my favorite to win the thing. His performance of “Little Sparrow” is once again arranged nicely to fit his style, although it’s not quite up to some of the other performances he’s given in the last few weeks. Still, another solid reason to think that he’s got the most potential to be a truly original performer after he finishes out the season.
Ramiele Malubay is probably the heavy favorite to leave after tonight. To use one of Simon’s favorite criticisms, she would fit in perfectly on a cruise ship, Holiday Inn lounge or state fair.
Jason Castro sang “Traveling Thru’,” which I don’t think I’ve heard before tonight. He really needs to start stepping up his performances. The cute, goofy grin of his is not going to keep him through the elimination rounds for too many more weeks if he doesn’t get back to the form he demonstrated several weeks back on “Hallelujah”
Carly Smithson is my other favorite female performer this season - whenever she doesn’t fall into her Celine Dion wanna be mode. Tonight, she didn’t as she delivered a nice dialed down version of “Here You Come Again.” Simon may have a point about her outfits…maybe it’s because I’m not a big fan of huge tattoos and those things on her arms just completely turn me off.
David Archuleta: I’ve never really been on this kid’s bandwagon. Sure, he’s dialed in a couple of great performances, and he has an incredible voice and raw talent…but he doesn’t seem to claim anything as his own. It’s like he spits out everything that comes at him externally and doesn’t connect with anything inside. That’s the only explanation I can think of for that stupid Up With People song he sang last week. Granted, he’s only 17 with much more life to be lived and experiences to be experienced…and it will be something special to listen to when (or if) he finally, really clicks, but until then his version of “Smokey Mountain Memories” would be fine for Star Search, but I would never buy that record.
Kristy Lee Cook I’ve been wishing for her to be the next to leave for 4 weeks now. Last week she pulled out a solid performance of one of the songs I hate most (the god-awful jingoistic “God Bless the USA”, but that’s another story) and I knew that she would make it through to this week. And then this week’s performance of “Coat of Many Colors” suits her county fair country style to a T, so she’ll probably make it through again this week (sorry Ramiele), but next week she’ll be gone (if I had my way).
Syesha Mercado: I’ve always felt that she’s a little too “musical theater” in her performances, but she has been getting better. Tonight’s version of “I Will Always Love You” was one of her best this season, but I wasn’t really knocked out about the way she combined the original version and the Whitney version. It didn’t really gel all that great for me.
Michael Johns has all the rock star frontman moves down, that’s for sure. He’s got a nice voice, but it’s almost a one-trick pony from week to week - which was the fatal flaw of big southern rock voiced Amanda Overmeyer. But this week, he really changed it up on “It’s All Wrong. But It’s All Right,” which in my humble, don’t know what the hell I’m talking about opinion, was the best performance of the night.
One final thought on tonight’s show. With all the griping of the judges in the past weeks about some of the performances sounding “old-fashioned”, that comment was not uttered a single time to any of tonight’s performers, even though pretty much all of them could be categorized that way. I wonder why. Could it be that they didn’t want to give any kind of perceived slight to the “modernness” (or lack there of) of tonight’s guest? Hmmm.