American idol 4/6

It was Elton John night. I think that tonight really separated the singers from the rest of the pack.

George - Took us to church!!! Great job.
Jennifer - "The Circle of Life" the first time that I have enjoyed her. Very commanding performance.
Fantasia - was Fanatasia
La Toya - not as good as previous nights but stilll soooooo much better than the bottom five.




The rest were all pretty bad tonight.


Jasmine - not her night

Diana-or hers

Camille-or hers

JP -looks so clumsy when he moves

John - of all of the EJ songs attempted "Croc Rock".......BIG MISTAKE

Wow, I have the singers ranked a bit differently...

1. George- Finally has come into his own style and looks comfortible and relaxed on stage. Now if he can not pump up and down so much.........getting seasick here.
2. LaToya....beautiful interpretation of the Elton song, strong performance from her.
3.Jasmine-I thought she was great, and what Paula and Randy keep calling "pitchy" is just the way her voice sounds when she sings, simple as that (the way Fantasia keeps starting "s" sounding words with "sh"....her style of singing).
4. Fantasia....Another good performance, not great...her attitude and the repeated way she ends her songs....yeah, yeah yeah....is getting to me.
5.Jennifer....Good, but I felt I was sitting in a church pew and she was part of the choir.....strong voice, though...
6. Diana.....Like her spunk, not her best, but she's still got a star quality voice....

And the rest (there were other singers you say?)

Last comment....you gotta take your hat off to Ryan Seacrest for jumping in there to soothe a few rumpled feathers and to kindly remind the voting audience to vote for THEIR favorites.....42

oooooo I am totally disagreeing with you two


First of all... no one overly impressed me. Second of all Jasmine was a very stupid girl... no matter how she performed DLTSGDOM there are going to be a lot of Clay fans upset LOL and the fact that she was under pitch just sucked majorly.

anywho...

1. George -- ok if he doesn't win the whole dang thing I will be surprised and it'll be a tradgedy... unless John steps it up a notch

2. Latoya -- powerful... but sounds too staged.

3. John -- Yeah it was corny... but it was a risk and it was so much better than last week... and besides George, Elton's songs were just too hard for this group. So really it's all about grabbing my attention

4. JPL -- I'm also getting the nervous vibe... but I loved his version... beautiful voice.

5. Diana -- really after my top four I don't remember anyone's songs but she was ok, I guess

6. Jennifer -- I just don't see what's so great, I thought it was a blah performance

7. Fantasia -- at least she was in tune... her mouthy attitude is getting annoying

8. Jasmine -- see above comment... completely flat

9. Camille -- she's been needing to go for a while... she just can not ennunciate!

bottom 3:
Camille, Jasmine, John

and what Paula and Randy keep calling "pitchy" is just the way her voice sounds when she sings

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Then lets not critisize any of the singers! let all crappy singers have a record deal... if you're out of tune, you're out of tune... it's not a style... it's a problem... she was completely flat during her song... it was pathetic and did not do the song justice

and as for Fantasia... sometimes the way she pronounces things makes her sound "unpolished/educated" and I'm not being a racist white person... here in Alaska we have white people that do the same thing and it drives me nuts!

and if Fantasia ends one more song with "ya ya, ya ya" I'm going to fly down there and smack her! >(

I have a problem with both Jennifer and Fantasia's personalities. Jennifer seems like she is p***** most of the time and Fantasia jsut seems to like herselfa little too much. Both come across to me as "I dare you not to like me". I just can't picture Jennifer or John as pop singers. Their styles are just too distinctive (not the right word but you get my point)to blend into pop. Fantasia's voice is very distinctive too but it worked for Macy Gray. Latoya and George have the best chance of making it IMO. I agree Show, that George needs to lose the buoy dance.

Piel

So much for big band night. You know it's a pretty bad evening of performance when Paula actually comes up with negative things to say - she didn't even tell anyone they were beautiful!

Fantasia Her performance was very up and down for me. It takes confidence to start your song in the audience and walk to the stage, and Fantasia has no shortage of confidence, but I think it was over-ambitious. She seemed distracted from the song while she was walking, but I really liked it once she got on the stage and let loose. But then she ended with the tired "yeh yeh yeh" refrain. And then she sassed Simon back after he said he wasn't as thrilled as the others. Two things that leave a bad final impression of her performance.

JPL Another interesting ccase. In someways this was a good performance for JP - he hit all the notes and the tone of his voice was ok - but he looked like he was totally phoning it in, and his back-and-forth steps took away with the 'sweeping' feeling that "Rocket Man" ought to have. Personally, I think JPL would have done a bang-up job with "Honky Cat". Of all the finalists, he could probably pull off a 'gimmicky' song pretty well, because he can get into it. Missed opportunity, sigh.

Jasmine I think the arrangement would have been stronger if she had saved the power vocals for the chorus, Paula was right on when she said that powering all the way through the song was a mistake. But I thought it was a good "big & girly" rendition, ho hum, until....CLUNKER NOTE ALERT!. Oooh, that was bad. Jasmine finished up with a couple more clunkers in the end, but that first, sustained one was abysmal. No turning back from that one.

John S I thought that, for John, this wasn't bad. He did try to liven it up, and his voice sounded on key until that disastrous first falsetto note. After that, I could just feel the confidence run out of him, and more pitch problems ensued. It's not his fault that he's stuck up there because idiots keep voting for him, and he gets extra credit for trying something daring.

Camille Whoever scheduled these two together must have wanted a big bathroom break. This was god-awful. The low notes were too low for her, and she couldn't hit the higher notes. She sounded like she was in pain on the high "aah-aah-aah"s - but maybe I'm just projecting there. This girl has never found her footing since the Top 12 began, and now I think that her audition round was the fluke.

George Elton John got it wrong - I think George had an advantage singing a song that fewer people know, because most people were not comparing his rendition to the original. I LOVED THIS PERFORMANCE. I've been a fan of George's all along, but I felt this was absolutely his best performance, and tonight he convinced me he could win.

Diana Diana clearly didn't listen to a thing she was told last week, because this is exactly the kind of song she needs to avoid. Another state fair performance, unflattering ironed hair, hideous shirt.

LaToya It took me a while for me to recognize this song - she made it sound totally new to me (my goodness, I seem to be agreeing with Paula an awful lot tonight!). I had goosebumps throughout the whole song. Go LaToya!!

Jennifer I didn't think it could get better after George and LaToya, but Jennifer was also phenomenal! Facial expressions were under control, suit looked good, and my complaint last week that Jennifer always sings like it's hard work was nowhere to be seen tonight. She was 'in the zone'! Didn't have goosebumps the whole time as with LaToya, but got them at the end!

My rankings:

1-3: It's hard to choose, because these 3 were very close, but I'll call it George, Jennifer, then LaToya.

BIG GAP

4. Fantasia

smaller gap

5. Jasmine
6. JPL

regular sized GAP

7. Diana (gotta give he the edge for actually being able to sing, even if her performance is bad)
8. John
9. Camille

I'm going to reverse what I said last week - although I think Camille was the worst by a mile, I am begging the teenybops of the world to release John Stevens from this competition. It's cruel to keep him there. John seems like a very nice young man, and I just can't stand seeing him get ripped to shreds up there every week, however deservedly. YOU ARE NOT DOING HIM ANY FAVORS BY KEEPING HIM THERE.

guinevere

I think the problem with John is that he needs to grow into his voice. He is so fresh faced, young and innocent looking but his voice/singing style is older.

RealtorGal - JPL looked so uninspired up there tonight, I was reminded of Simon's initial Pen Salesman comment (which I haven't thought of since the first time we saw JPL). It's kind of weird to me that JP seems to be either way over the top into a song, or completely removed from it.

Maybe he should read Sasha's online journal, so he can remember to have FUN!



guinevere

My rankings for this rather erratic go-round:

1. George -- Absolutely terrific.

2. Fantasia -- Tho I agree with Simon that she was a little shrieky tonight, and I also agree with the posters who are tired of the yeah-yeah-yeah routine. Still, I think Fantasia on an off-night is still tons better than most of the others left.

3. LaToya -- I would have given her 1st for a fantastic performance -- except she did my #1 vocal pet peeve, which is dragging out notes much longer than they need to be dragged out. Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean you always should. Less is more.

4. Jennifer -- Best I've heard out of her by far; vocally she was actually arguably the best IMO, but her voice doesn't really do a lot for me. Tonight she actually picked a good song to showcase it, for the first time.

5. Dianna -- I liked it. Spunky and fun.

6. Jasmine -- She should have gotten a lot more credit for taking a very difficult song and doing a credible job with it. She's getting better every week IMO.

7. John Stevens -- I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it. Actually, I found his interpretation rather interesting, but in a good way.

8. Camille -- Yeah, I should have known that THIS would have been the one to pick "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", my all time favorite Elton John song. And as I expected, she absolutely MASSACRED it. Where's a gong when you need one? However -- she was still marginally better than --

9. JPL -- This, IMO, was the absolute WORST AI performance, outside of the "Really Bad Auditions Show" I have ever seen. This wasn't even bad karaoke, it was like DRUNK bad karaoke To make it worse, "Rocket Man" is my 2nd favorite Elton John song, so I personally go a double whammy tonight! He may be adorable, but I don't think ANYONE ON EARTH is adorable enough to get away with a rendition this bad!!! The judges, especially Simon, were WAY too kind here.

Johnny, do you have the feeling that JPL was a guy who thought he didn't have a ghost of a chance being picked for AI, got picked, and is so out of his element he doesn't know what to do with himself anymore?

Glad to have found someone else who liked Jasmine's performance. She has been consistently good all along, not great, but consistent, plus her personality, smiles, easy to get along attitude is a plus. She hits the right below the note of a song, but she pulls it up before the note is over.........I like her voice and don't feel it's flat....I would definitely buy her CD....42

Hey! I liked Jasmine too!

I think the worst performance last night (and several other nights for that matter) was Camille. Why in the world would she pick a song with notes she just can't hit
I think the bottom 3 should be both Johns and Camille. But since this isn't about performances, I doubt it'll end up that way. So far, my favorites are George, Latoya and Jasmine.

I'm just glad no one picked my fav EJ song: "Your Song"!
Ain't nothin worse than hearing a fav song murdered! (like Desperado)

JonnyCoop said:

[9. JPL -- This, IMO, was the absolute WORST AI performance, outside of the "Really Bad Auditions Show" I have ever seen. This wasn't even bad karaoke, it was like DRUNK bad karaoke To make it worse, "Rocket Man" is my 2nd favorite Elton John song, so I personally go a double whammy tonight! He may be adorable, but I don't think ANYONE ON EARTH is adorable enough to get away with a rendition this bad!!! The judges, especially Simon, were WAY too kind here. [/B]

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ITA

It was just plain BAD
Horrible horrible horrible

JPL should not be in the spot he is now.

He has no TALENT!

George amazed me. I love that song, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way he did it. La Toya and Jennifer were wonderful, too.
Camille needs to go, sooner rather than later. It literally hurt to hear her.
The Johns - let that sweet little red-haired boy out of this competition, willya, kids? I called up a friend in the middle of his song and said, "Beth! It's Pat Boone!" As for John Paul, I thought the song choice was poor (whoever said he could have done well with "Honky Cat" was spot-on!), but while he sang, I thought, "He should do country. He's got the look, he's got the voice, he'd be great."
As for the rest...eh! They were all right. They're still braver than I'd ever be - I wouldn't want to hum to the muzak at the grocery store if someone who looked like Simon Cowell was in the next aisle.
Rave

There's a good article on how fans with cellphones are abetting the 'untalented' on MSNBC this morning. You can read it at www.msnbc.com/id/4649112/

Hm-m, sorry, the link only gets you to the mainpage. Scroll down to 'Entertainment' to click on the article. It's a good one.

show 42 said:

Johnny, do you have the feeling that JPL was a guy who thought he didn't have a ghost of a chance being picked for AI, got picked, and is so out of his element he doesn't know what to do with himself anymore?

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He definitely seems to be losing confidence. He seems to be getting worse as time goes on; I thought his "She Believes In Me" was bad enough, but..... (I missed last week so have no idea what or how he did then). It took a serious amount of guts a few weeks ago to go out there and do "A Little Less Conversation" the way he did, and that week he was actually pretty good, so I'm rather mystified as to why he didn't gain confidence from that. I'm kind of getting the same feeling about John Stevens; I think he's getting the feeling he's in over his head, too -- but at least he keeps plugging along.

I really hope that the voters get the entire bottom 3 right tonight. It should be Camille, John, and JPL. They are so far below the others in the talent department it's not funny.

Paula is a completely useless judge. First, she tells Jasmine that she was pitchy, yet Jasmine missed only a few notes. Then John comes out, does a completely off-key and pitchy performance, and Paula says that she tries to ignore pitchiness. Can she contradict herself any more?

George, Fantasia, Jennifer, and Latoya were good.

Jasmine and Diana were average.

The other three were terrible.

JPL should listen to Jenny Gear (from Canadian Idol) to hear how to do Rocketman. He actually made my ears hurt.

It's not his fault that he's stuck up there because idiots keep voting for him, and he gets extra credit for trying something daring.

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I'm an idiot... wow haven't gotten called that in a while

Aloft, thanks for the article, it had some great suggestions, my fav being the have The People vote for their least fav singer. Now there's an idea I like!!! 42

I'm starting to think they're going about the whole voting thing the wrong way. At this point, up until Final 3, instead of voting who you like best, you should be allowed to vote for who you want OUT. That would get some of those GOTTA GO's outa there a lot quicker. Well, maybe....

Though, granted, it would be a bit rude for Ryan to have to stand there and say something along the line of "OK, if this is the person you can't stand to hear sing one more time, then dial ...." But in some cases it isn't any worse than anything Simon would say.