american idol: top 20, guys night

Interesting little switcheroo with the boys singing Tuesday night, but we can cope. The added pressure/twist might show us budding promise in unlikely places.


Big Mike picked an older song--I'm not sure I'd ever heard the original, though James Brown is pretty legendary. Mike's vocals were incredible, but as the opening number, I hope people remembered him by the end. I certainly did; I'd put his performance as one of the top two of the night. The song showed off his flexibility and ornamentation, but the phrasing was a bit broken up (by design, mind you). Crossing my fingers for him. 


John Park doing John Mayer. I suppose knowing he spent a large chunk of childhood in Korea excuses his gobbledegook last week (sort of). Nervousness probably brought it out of him. This week he brought a bit more smokiness to his voice, but sacrificed vowel shape for style, so held notes sounded awkward (and flat) more often than not. In the end, the vocals were alright, but the song never took off. It was boring and forgettable for me, and I think he's in danger. Simon's prediction about his group getting their lead back might be spot on.


Hrm, Casey. I'm still not jumping on the Casey bandwagon. He pulled off Gavin DeGraw alright, but he didn't really bring anything new, and he didn't dig in enough to match the instrumentation. At least he can pull off the guitar, but if you're going to shred, your vocals should do some shredding, too. I don't think it's entirely fair for Simon and Kara to say that he didn't have grit in his voice (although the grit vs. sand vs. dirt bit was amusing). The grit was there, he just didn't dig in. Wihle I don't really care for Casey, his was one of the better performances of the night.


Poor awkward Alex. I loved his voice last week and only actually watched (visually, I was still listening) part of his performance, so I missed the awkwardness. I love the timbre of his voice, and the endings of his words. The closure of his vowels sets him apart. I really liked his interpretation of John Legend today. Now we just need to ditch the mullet. Alex's performance was the other best song of the night for me. I hope that Kara's obvious pandering for him as the underdog story doesn't shoot him in the foot. There are still too many competitors to have a real underdog yet. I liked Simon's quip, "The only time you should be nervous is when you're useless." That rings fairly true, but it begs the question: should Paula Abdul have been nervous for the past few years? (I loves me some Paula, but she wasn't really doing much judging.)


Todrick didn't ever really solidly set his pitch, and the first part of the refrain really suffered for it. I liked the interpretation, and he's constantly showing his guts in that department. And once the song got moving so did he, but unfortunately once he got moving, the approach came across as more karaoke to me. Maybe he should just be consulting other artists on interpretation. :/ I'm not sure he'll ever be able to win over the judges. If he plays it straight, they'll tell him he played it too safe.


"Them judges was cutthroat." "They know what they's talkin' about." Really?! Oi. Jermaine. He's far and away my least favorite male contestant. I hated the synth. I almost fell asleep during the intro, even though his voice was more tolerable than last week. His pitch was better, but he still doesn't have the high strength he thinks he has. Yeah, I still don't like him. However, HOLY CRAP I figured it out. The widening eyes, the "definitely", asking questions over and over....He's Darrell from MadTV. Also, I'd TOTALLY watch Sunday School the New Docuseries with Simon going to church. But, Simon, you realize you're the antichrist, right? Either you or the church would burst into flames the moment you walked in. (justkiddingsimoniloveyou)


Andrew was doing some funky things with his vowels, and it wasn't working out for his pitch. The song didn't take off until about 70% through, and he'd almost completely lost me by then. He's one of my favorites, but between last week and this week, I'm losing a bit of my faith in him. It was weird, it was pitchy, and he didn't rock it. Ellen was completely right: we're still holding him to the high bar he set with "Straight Up", and he just hasn't been able to show the same brilliance.


Yikes, Aaron tried WAY too hard. Over-embellished, too many runs, you shouldn't match cute with cute, he couldn't really pull off the falsetto with his nervous shake, he pushed to try to come across as confident, and the last notes were blech. As much as he impressed me vocally last week, he really disappointed me this week. Apparently the sound in the studio came across differently than over the television, because the judges didn't lambast him the way I would have. We'll see if they amend anything once they watch back.


Tim Urban pulled off a too-smooth version of "Come On Get Higher". He didn't really break any new ground in his interpretation, and his voice lacked a lot of the break that makes the original powerful. It was an okay but forgettable performance. Ellen's right, though, he'd fit well on Glee. Maybe he'll get booted in time for the open auditions they're supposedly going to hold online.


Lee actually did well, in my mind. Good song choice, he didn't do a whole lot with it and had some weird vowel choices (faith-full doesn't rhyme with an-jell. match them, dangit!), but overall it was good. His tone overshadows a lot of his pitch problems. I don't think he has any chance to win (at least, he'd better not), but he's decent filler.


My projections: John Park is gone. I'd like for Jermaine to go, too, but Tim might be in danger instead.