The Top 10 Perform - 3/25/09

[The4thJudge]

Lil' Dawg

Matt Giraud: Not enough soul! Too Justin Timberlake . . . but I think other people will like it.

Kris Allen: Good vocal, good song choice and a great job changing up the song to make it his own. But, I think he could have put more UMPH into it.

Scott MacIntyre: Awkward. I don't know, it didn't do it for me.

Megan Joy: OY FREAKIN' VEY. I have no idea what that was. Sometimes I wonder why I watch this show.

Anoop Desai: I completely agree with Simon. It was a great vocal but he looked half-asleep during the performance.

Michael Sarver: He was doing pretty well until the end . . . then it died.

Lil Rounds: I wouldn't recognize her anywhere else with those new extensions! Anyway . . . the singing was good, but the song was one that I feel like everyone tries to sing and it always sounds the same. She didn't really change it up much.

Adam Lambert: Wow . . . this is the first week that I've liked him. Maybe not as much falsetto, but it was actually really, really good.

Danny Gokey: Everything is so rushed tonight! Great vocal and performance as always, but a little slower would have been nice.

Allison Iraheta: AHHHMAZING . . . as always. There is no way she's gonna be in the bottom three again this week.

Goodbye . . . Megan.

Tight Black T

Let me start out by saying that I was exhausted when I sat down to watch last night's show. I was finally able to sit down and watch off the DVR at about 8:50, and I seriously wish I had been a little more liberal with the fast-forward button. Two observations right off the top: 1) every single performance, except Adam's, was rushed; and 2) the judges are getting an excessive amount of face time and time to screw around. Observation 2 is probably the reason for observation 1. They are already seem to be building in time for the over-long critiques, the fake arguments and the ridiculous interaction between Paula and Simon. People, you can't draw on someone's face with a black crayon. So, all that is my way of saying, Tight Black T is a little cranky.

My expectations for Motown week were as high as my expectations for Grand Ole Opry week were low. In my estimation, Grand Old Opry week turned out much better than expected. You can guess what I'm going to say about Motown week.

Matt Giraud took on one of my favorite songs of all time, "Let's Get it On." Taylor has tagged this song many times, but if he ever did this entire song . . .

. . . Oh, right, I was reviewing Matt's performance. The performance was too Justin Timberlake for me and not sexy or soulful enough. It left me wanting . . . well you already know what I want.

Kris Allen did "How Sweet it Is," which leaned more towards James Taylor's version than it did the Marvin Gaye version. It was a good vocal, and as always, he showed much more confidence on stage having his guitar. I like this kid, I really do, but he is never memorable.

Poor Scott MacIntyre. You would think that by this point, AI would have gotten the hang of having a blind singer on the show. This week, we learned that he didn't know until shortly before his performance, that the pants he was wearing were pink. Nice. He listened to the judges comments from the previous week and tried something a bit more upbeat, the Supremes "Can't Hurry Love." He failed miserably on so many levels. And, surprise, surprise was given the opposite advice he had been given the week before.

Megan Joy, Megan Joy, Megan Joy. If I say her name three times, will she disappear? Please.

Anoop Desai showed us his very nice vocals again by singing "Ooh Baby, Baby." But the performance put me to sleep, right beside Anoop.

I'm glad Michael Sarver "Ain't to Proud to Beg," because he may need to if he wants to stay on the show. I think he should be thankful that Megan Joy is still in the competition, because that may hold off his elimination for another week.

Lil Rounds was stunning with her throwback look. But the vocals on "Heat Wave" were too forced. The whole song was rushed and she was very flat in spots. The judges encouraged her to go back to the ballads where she can show her power. But doesn't that make her a one-trick pony? Just wondering.

Okay, so onto the shocker of the night. OMFG, Adam Lambert just blew me away. As Lil' Dawg mentioned, I think he could have pulled back a little bit on the falsetto, but damn if that wasn't a tender and sensitive performance of Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears."

I still love Danny, but "Get Ready" was not one of his best performances. The rush factor of the night was soooo evident in his performance. Dancing with the backup singers was cute. I'm surprised Simon didn't comment that it was something Taylor would have done. Oh yeah, they were pressed for time.

The pimp spot of the night went to Allison Iraheta. She gave another kick ass performance, singing The Temptations "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." It was a hot performance and if this kid is in the bottom three again I might throw something at my TV.

Who goes home tonight? Megan Joy, Megan Joy, Megan Joy.


Seacrest's Hair

We continue to battle the VCR... this time it was set to the wrong year. Anyway, we're grateful to MJ again this week, and we love Motown. We're also saving up for a DVR.

We love Motown, but we don't necessarily love what the kids did with it. The weirdest thing about this night was either the outfits (very weird) or the judges. No, the judges weren't weird, they were annoying.

Our critique of the contestants' outfits begins with Matt, who was dressed like Tom Jones, at least from the hips down. Eep. He sang "Let's Get It On", and it sounded good except for the growly parts, which didn't work for some reason. He should have stayed at the piano, both because of his pants and because he had trouble singing and walking down the stairs.

Kris had a shirt straight from the "Kids, stay away from that!" bin at the Salvation Army, and sang "How Sweet It Is". The intro was stupid and wussy (sorry, Smokey) and the ending was stupid. In between he had mush-mouth. Everything Kara liked, we hated. Simon thinks he needs more "swagger" (word of the week in pop); but we think he comes across as enough of a jerk already... just a quiet one. Unlike Simon. Who thinks he is the very model of a jerk -- er, confident person.

We have no idea what Scott wore; it was brownish and unmemorable. We swore violently when he started yawnifying "You Can't Hurry Love", had a moment of hope when he proved he's capable of something resembling a tempo faster than 40 BPM, and concluded that the arrangement was crappy and he's incredibly bland. There was about five seconds of "good" in there, and they weren't consecutive. We're going to compile a list of "brave" things Scott can do once he's voted off: sit quietly while being blind; talk to people while being blind; listen to audiobooks while being blind; sleep while being blind. Because that's how hard it is for him to play the piano and sing, judges. Really.

Megan Joy... oh joy, joy, joy. Seriously, this time. She finally picked a song that fit her voice, "For Once In My Life". She either refrained from dancing too much or they cut to the backup singers and the judges when she did (they did that a lot, actually). She looked great. Yeah, it was a bit pitchy, mostly due to the fact she's a goat in human form, but this has got to be our favorite performance of hers. She still has to go, though.

Anoop is still doing his "collegiate layered" look, and somehow it works for him. He chose "Ooh Baby Baby" and Smokey explained how it was written. Like Paula said, Anoop-dawg's phrasing, tone, etc. is flawless. He could have used a bit more energy this week, though. It was indeed quite sleepy. Pleasant, though.

Smokey tells Sarver not to "sweet talk" "Ain't Too Proud To Beg"... so he spits in the mic. Eew. We hope each of the kids gets their own mic. Other than the spitting, it's a straight reading until the end, which is a horrid, horrid, horrid cheese factory and he loses it.

Why do the kids go up to Smokey and say "I'm singing ___________... by ____________"? Smokey knows who did these songs! He knows/knew the people personally! Anyway, Lil does that, then yammers on about this performance being "for" a bunch of famous people who could care less... especially Diana Ross. In fact, it's lucky Lil didn't do one of Diana's songs, or there'd be a hit out on her right now. She decided to go with "Heat Wave", complete with a 60s wig that didn't quite fit her head right (at least we hope it was a wig, if it was extensions she needs to cut them out ASAP), and a fringe-laden dress. Why can't she just let her voice do it's thing? Well, she definitely couldn't this week; she seemed overwhelmed by the song, and her enunciation was incredibly sloppy. This song has to be crisp. And the arrangement could have been a lot better; the backup singers got all the good parts.

Thank goodness for Adam. As Paula failed to say in a timely manner, he surprised us by going as vanilla as he can, with a trim ivory suit, black shirt, no nail polish, no makeup, and slicked back hair that had us thinking along the lines of Ricky Nelson or Ritchie Valens. His slowed down, heartrending version of "Tracks Of My Tears" was absolutely perfect, and we are certain the tweenies were thudding. We his falsetto sooooo much. Anyone who doesn't like falsetto has forgotten how Smokey sings.

After that, as usual, we did not want to watch Danny. Dammit. We did anyway; he chose "Get Ready", which kinda worked with his voice, but was really rushed. Okay, we know the song is supposed to be fast, but it seemed like the band was fine and Danny was the only one who had three venti lattes for lunch. He needs desperately to work on his phrasing. We thought he had some kind of musical training prior to this? Byrd needs to get out the whip; if he's sticking around, this needs to be fixed.

Finally, in the pimp spot, our girl Allison. She went dirty funky with "Papa Was A Rolling Stone", and this was really the perfect song (lyrically) for a girl her age. A love song might have been too old for her, but this is the song of a hurt child, thus, it worked. Plus, she got to sort of rap, dance around a bit, rage, and groove. Allison is the girls' last chance this year; we hope she at least makes it to the top four.

So, we think Megan's gone, although we could hope for Sarver as well. Scott or Lil should be at risk for bottom three. Our top three were the three A's, Allison, Adam and Anoop.

[keb]

Simon drawing a moustache on Paula was priceless.