Lennon/McCartney Night on Idol
Dissecting the Performances of the American Idol Top 12
Tuesday, March 11 was Beatles night on American Idol. The theme provided a shocking turn of events in the competition.
With the vast and various choices of the Lennon-McCartney songbook at hand, tonight’s episode should’ve knocked our socks off and it did, but not for the reasons we expected.
Syesha was fairly middle-of-the-road tonight. She put her own spin on Got to Get You Into My Life and her performance was definitely decent, but she can do better. She looked polished and fantastic though!
A too close for comfort brush with elimination last week inspired Chikezie to bring out the big guns for Beatles night. His completely unexpected take on She’s a Woman wowed the crowd, the judges and, if the AI forum posts are any indication, the television audience as well. He probably should’ve left the sweater vest backstage though, since it really didn’t suit the vibe he was going for.
Ramiele offered a completely forgettable version of In My Life. She has a pretty voice, but she’s not doing anything special with it. Her very pronounced pout was all the response she had to the decidedly negative feedback from the judges. On a positive note, she looked every bit the trendy pop idol.
Jason provided a rather underwhelming rendition of If I Fell. The sensitive songwriter with a guitar thing probably works well for more intimate gigs, but the giant AI stage swallowed up his breathy vocals.
Simon said Carly finally picked the right song and the audience agreed. In the video preamble to her performance, she said she performs Come Together every Saturday night at the bar she works in back home. The practice obviously paid off. She looked amazing in shiny satin and her vocals were killer.
Another stellar performance from David Cook with Eleanor Rigby. He is already better than most of the hard rock singers topping the charts these days. He’s got amazing stage presence and his outfit for the night perfectly portrayed his personality. He’s showing real potential to take it all the way to the finals.
Barefoot Brook showed her really, really sensitive side at the piano with Let It Be. Her connection with the audience was palpable. A few tears during Randy’s critique were tears of joy and she deserved all the praise. Ryan retrieved her spectacular shoes from under the piano for her, completing her great outfit.
Was David Hernandez’s adaptation of I Saw Her Standing There supposed to be a nod to musical theatre? Ryan promised rock n’ roll in David’s song before the commercial break, but all we saw was corny, over the top karaoke. He’s looking at a place in the bottom 3.
Amanda is no Janis Joplin. She can’t just depend on her unique, bluesy voice to carry her through every time. She’s got to start doing something original and amazing with that special voice or she’ll be going back to flogging medical equipment. At least she looked great while singing You Can’t Do That.
The judges claimed Michael’s Across the Universe was boring, but he was engaging as always. It helped that he explained in his video that the song had helped him through some tough times in his life. He’s a pro and his vocals were super smooth. Some fans are worried, but Michael is likely in very little danger of going home this week.
In her pre-song video, Kristy revealed that she was going to change 8 Days a Week into a country song and millions of viewers groaned with disbelief. Minutes later, the result was even more shockingly bad than expected. In her silver sequined tank and ripped up jeans, she spewed out a ridiculous hyper-country version of the song. There are many, many more suitable Beatles songs to convert to country, if that’s your goal. It just does not work with 8 Days a Week, especially when you increase the tempo to a frenetic pace. She should be heading home this week.
Cutie David Archuleta was the only contestant of the night who didn’t have a story about listening to the Beatles as a child. In fact, he knew so little about the Fab Four’s repertoire that he only recognized We Can Work It Out because of Stevie Wonder’s version. This was a bad week for poor David. He started off nervous and fumbled some of the lyrics (an AI sin). The Beatles was simply not the right theme for him. His performance was surprisingly awful, but his large legion of fans will save him.
