Idol: Rank ‘Em 1-to-12
12) Paige
11) Tim
10) Mike
9) Casey
8 ) Andrew
7) Lacey
6) Siobhan
5) Lee
4) Aaron
3) Crystal
2) Katie
1) Didi
Okay, first of all a note about the judges: I think Ellen has figured out what she’s there for. She’s much funnier now and more comfortable not repeating everything the other judges say. Also, Kara looks better than ever and her comments are much better than last year. Maybe it’s her vicinity to Simon.
Now for the performances (and I’m still having trouble remembering names):
Paige was booooooring. Completely forgettable performance.
Tim went out on a limb and didn’t sound good. Even if he nailed it he still wouldn’t have made it closer than halfway down the list.
I don’t get the Mike love. He’s obviously good, but to me it’s cheesy.
Casey was flat and boring tonight. I don’t know what the judges are talking about, I really disliked this performance. And bad song choice too.
I want so bad for Andrew to do something interesting, but he took one of my all-time favorite songs (Gimme Shelter) and made it a mediocre lounge song. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good.
I liked Lacey tonight. She has a unique sexiness and tonight her performance matched it.
The judges love Siobhan, which I’m fine with, she is certainly unique and has a good voice. But her screaming is a little old now, and I don’t think it’s that good. I didn’t think her performance was as strong as the judges said.
Lee sounded great, his problem was song choice. Terrible song for him. But his actual voice, if you close your eyes, sounds not like Dave Matthews or Rob Thomas like Randy said, rather it’s almost a match for Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows. Which is a good thing, I think.
The only reason Aaron is this high up is because he picked the perfect song for him and sang it really well. Angie is another of my favorite all-time songs and I’m not a huge fan of Aaron, but tonight I thought he did pretty dang well. His hair cracked me up, too.
Crystal should have been better than she was, but she was still really good. She’ll be top 3 in the competition I think.
I don’t know if anyone can cover Wild Horses as well as The Sundays, which will forever taint any future covers of it for me. But Katie sounded really good. That girl’s got some pipes.
And last but not least, Didi takes the cake. I’ve been a fan, but tonight I thought she did awesome. And I realized tonight who she reminds me of: Kate from Lost. Mmmmm…
Paint It Black always gives me chills. Tonight it was again my favorite.
Would have loved to have seen somebody do Symphony for the Devil or Street Fighting Man.
Comment by Chris Henrichsen — March 16, 2010 @ 11:23 pm
I still love Didi and Lee. They are awesome, especially Didi tonight. I thought she could have done more with the song but I loved it as is. She just kills me, looks and voice. Love her.
I thought, as Simon said, that Lee’s song choice was very safe. He needs to go with something a little tougher and rock out. I agree with you about Duritz, but I think he also sounds a lot like Caleb Followill from Kings of Leon.
I thought Casey was good for what he did, but it was a stupid song choice. Just not a good song when you have so many good ones to choose from.
For the first time, I absolutely loved Siobhan. I thought she killed it. Amazing interpretation of that song. She kept the Stones, but gave it just enough of a personal twist. Her voice just blows the roof off the joint.
Michael just plain sucked. Talk about over-interpreting. The judges should have let him have it. They’re being nice because he was so great on the Kate Bush song, but tonight he was like a bad lounge act. There are some things you just should not do with a Stones song and he did all of them. Here’s my prediction: this is what we are going to see from him from here on out; standard overdone R&B spins on every song, along with bad dancing.
I would not rank Aaron as high as you did. Great song, but I don’t think he did anything particular
with it.
I also wasn’t that impressed with Katie, although I thought she was good. I would switch her with Siobhan in the rankings.
Crystal was excellent, as usual, but too much the same as she has done before. She got beat by Siobhan and Didi tonight in my opinion.
I liked Tim better than you or the judges. Risky interpretation, but I thought it was kinda cool and he really pulled it off. The Stones meet Jack Johnson. He deserves more credit.
I agree with everything else you said.
Chris, I think you mean Sympathy for the Devil and yes, someone really should have done that.
Comment by MCQ — March 17, 2010 @ 3:48 am
I really was hoping for some to do Paint it Black. I really hated how Siobhan started the song (she struggles withe the low end of her register) but, wow, what a finish. The Adam Lanbert comparisons are apt.
I also love The Sundays version of Wild Horses but I thought Katie just did all right. I would put her somewhere in the middle.
I also really like Didi and Lee. I think if Lee picked a song like Freshman by the Verve Pipe, he could really kill it. I was surprised Didi did as well without here guitar, but she was really good.
Crystal did well, but I agree with the judges, she’s on cruise control.
I thought Lacey did way better than the judges gave her credit for.
The rest was a whole lot of “meh”. I do think the contestants did a really good job with song choice though.
Comment by Tim J — March 17, 2010 @ 6:57 am
I thought Siobhan was great until the end. That shrieking scream was horrible.
Aaron was the biggest surprise for me. Angie is a great song and he sang it really well.
I thought Wild Horses was a good song choice for Katie.
I like Didi but I wouldn’t put her at the top of the list based on last night.
I was really disappointed with Andrew. How could he possibly think he could pull off Gimme Shelter? It was so bad.
I thought Paige should have gone home last week, so I was surprised at how well she did this week—especially considering she had laryngitis and didn’t do a single full rehearsal of the song. Pretty impressive.
I was disappointed no one did “As Tears Go By.” Maybe it wasn’t on the list of songs to choose from. But it’s an all-time fave of mine.
Comment by Susan M — March 17, 2010 @ 8:13 am
I think Lacey should have done Wild Horses ala The Sundays…
Comment by gabby — March 17, 2010 @ 8:55 am
Oh I meant to say I thought Ruby Tuesday was a good choice for Lacey.
Comment by Susan M — March 17, 2010 @ 11:46 am
I thought that was a good choice for her too, and she is beautiful and has a nice voice but I found the arrangement irritating, especially the end of the chorus where she sped up the tempo at “still I’m gonna miss you.” That really grated on me. I don’t think the arrangement was right for that song.
I wish she had stuck closer to the original tempo throughout and just made it a cool string version and used her voice to make it her own rather than playing with the tempo.
Comment by MCQ — March 17, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
Susan, when you are such a metal head, how do you not like Siobhan’s screams? I don’t think she’s that screamy, actually, but I would think someone who’s into metal would love that part of her schtick.
Personally, I thought the best part of her performance last night was after the scream where she stopped, brought it back down and gave the song a zeppelinesque ending. Very cool.
Comment by MCQ — March 17, 2010 @ 1:15 pm
I loved Adam’s screams. I didn’t mind her belting out on the Aretha song last week. But something about that scream this week seemed really contrived and just painful. Seriously, the song was giving me chills until she did that.
Comment by Susan M — March 17, 2010 @ 1:18 pm
12.) Big Mike (nice guy, below-average voice)
11.) Katie (so, so boring… please send her packing)
10.) Lacey (nice voice, but uneven and unremarkable last night)
9.) Paige (sounded pretty good, actually)
8.) Andrew (if someone references “Straight Up” again I’m gonna puke)
7.) Tim (not great, but not bad either… judges unfairly critical)
6.) Aaron (sounded good, I guess… just not a fan of pre-pubescent boy singers like Aaron or Archuleta)
5.) Casey (good, but coulda been better… we judge pros like Casey and Crystal on a different scale)
4.) Lee (solid performance, not particularly memorable though)
3.) Crystal (shoulda been better, but she can sleepwalk her way through a song and sound better than almost everyone else)
2.) Didi (dug it… one of my favorite Stones songs)
1.) Siobhan (my favorite Stones song, and she nailed it, giving it the Evanescence treatment… she’s kinda a weird chick, kinda a Ghost-World-esque nerd-goth… dig her.)
Comment by Matt Thurston — March 17, 2010 @ 8:35 pm
I think you got it exactly right Matt.
Comment by MCQ — March 17, 2010 @ 10:51 pm
I forgot about the whole “saving” thing. That’s just lame. Like they’d use the save this early in the competition.
Comment by Susan M — March 18, 2010 @ 12:22 pm
I forgot, too. I like that it allows them to go out with one of their stronger songs, rather than the one they got voted out on.
Comment by Chris Henrichsen — March 18, 2010 @ 2:08 pm
Yeah that is nice.
Comment by Susan M — March 18, 2010 @ 2:20 pm
I thnk Big Mike is quite good. I think he moves the way he does because of his size, and because he is feeling the music intensely. I don’t get a programmed cheese-bot vibe from him at all.
Most people who don’t like him don’t like or don’t get R & B. Then again, Ruben Studdard was one of my favorite idol winners…
Comment by Dancewatcha — March 19, 2010 @ 8:19 am
I may not be the biggest R&B fan, so that’s probably why I don’t like Mike that much.
But I think it’s mainly because it seems like he’s already gotten old. I don’t think you can just apply the same R&B schtick to every song. It’s like smothering every dish with melted cheese. After a couple times, you want something without the cheese. Show me you can sing some straight rock. Sing a song without doing five to ten note runs on every measure. Otherwise, it just gets to be the same old cheese every time.
Comment by MCQ — March 19, 2010 @ 7:28 pm