American Idol puts out a confining, strange range of songs

I was tortured with 20 minutes of Glee Tuesday night. But it set me up with familiarity which came in handy for this episode of American Idol. With that 20 minutes under my belt, I was able to better look at one particular duet with a more discerning eye — the one committed by Elise Testone and Phillip Phillips. And, honestly, there was more positive than negative in so doing because the background staging that verged on causing an epileptic seizure would have otherwise overshadowed my ability to concentrate on what the two were singing.

Skylar Laine “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You”
Really … there’s no better way to start off the evening than with a Pickler song for Skylar. This tune fell comfortably into her range and she performed it exceptionally well. No need for her to be nervous over beginning the show when she effortlessly belted out something like this.

Colton Dixon “Love The Way You Lie”
Wow. Nice rendition. Dude can emote when he needs to … not that he needed to at all. But he brought something extra this time around. Not the most dynamic of songs, but Colton nailed it well.

Idol’s doing duets again this week. First up? “Somebody That I Used To Know” with Elise and Phillip. The highly distracting backgrounds fit perfectly with this awkward, raspy and off-kilter back and forth effort from the two. Pretty worthy effort for the Goyte piece. (This same piece was featured on the “Big Brother” episode of Glee Tuesday evening.)

Jessica Sanchez “Stuttering”
Hated the Jazmine Sullivan song. Appreciated the performance Jessica gave.

Joshua Ledet “Runaway Baby”
I’ve never understood the attraction of Bruno Mars, but I finally got my mind changed for just a moment with this one tune. Or maybe it wasn’t the tune itself, but the manner in which Joshua put it out there. My critique focused on the camera work during his performance: The people running the cameras were just as annoying as the background to Elise and Phillip’s duet that had come before. All those pull outs and zoom ins were annoying as hell.

A better duet, I thought, was the one Skylar and Colton performed on “Don’t You Want To Stay.” My immediate thought was “Are Skylar and Phillip going to get paired up if Idol is going to continue to do this?

Hollie Cavanagh “Perfect”
The judges really dislike Hollie. There haven’t been too many performances where they’re not jumping down her throat about something. Either she’s not putting enough *umph* into them or her efforts are off or some other excuse. There have been plenty of times she’s risen to the occasion regardless of not being quite perfect, but she’s being picked on time and time again. This performance? It wasn’t bad at all … but the influence of what Steven, JLo and Randy had to say will sway voters away the positives she has to offer and will result in her elimination.

Phillip Phillips “Give A Little More”
Interesting that Jimmy Iovine pushed Phillip about whether he wanted to win Idol or not during his rehearsal. His “I just want to play music” stance is all well and fine, but it really is time for him to stand up and do something out of the box to showcase a little versatility. Sure, I loved the way he offered up this song from start to finish, building it along the way, but I really want to see something different from Phillip. Good as he is, it’s the same old same old at this point.

Trio time: Hollie, Jessica and Joshua cranked out Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger” … and it gave us a chance at real-time comparison between the three. Surprise: The weakest link in the chain was Jessica. The duetting Hollie and Joshua was ten times better than the duetting Jessica and Joshua. And Hollie gave a pretty nice performance … making what the judges say about her than much more perplexing.

Elise Testone “You And I”
There’s something about what Elise does that makes her crank on performances one week and drag her down the next. The consistency just isn’t there. This, however, was another spiffy outting for her.

I hate to say it, but again — based on the leverage the judges’ words can sometimes hold — Hollie will be the ousted during elimination.

Notes:

• What was the theme on Idol Wednesday? Farrah Fawcett Hair Night?
• Why did JLo feel the need to “pet” herself prior to critiquing Joshua’s performance?
• Another JLo moment: She’s getting $12 million for this season of Idol. (You knew that, right?) So here’s the deal: For that amount of cash, you’d think she could pull a critique out her ass when called on to do so by my little buddy Seacrest. Am I right?
• Featured songs on this Idol edition included those from the years 2010 and up. What next? Compositions pigeon-holed between the years 1975-1978? Seriously … tell me that wasn’t a weird category …
• I do love me an animated Jimmy Iovine … especially when he gets all feisty.
• Good gordness. What was with all the filler questions at the end of the show? That dragged things down so much it about put me to sleep. The director was snoozing at the wheel.

Quotes:

“The crows may crow, but the hens deliver the goods.” — Steven Tyler of Skylar’s performance

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Apr 12, 2012 @ 10:53 EST5EDT