American Idol Final 13

At the beginning of tonight’s American Idol on Fox, we learned that two finalists will be eliminated tomorrow. This will get them back on track with the episode count to finish out the season on time.

Tonight they sang the music of Michael Jackson, which gave them some good music to draw from, but I think that with as much of an iconic singer as Jackson is, they really needed to do whatever they could to make the songs their own and remove any resemblance to the original, or else they’d pale by comparison.

There is no doubt that Lil Rounds can sing really well, but her version of “The Way You Make Me Feel” just seemed to me to be the female version of a Michael Jackson song, and I didn’t really hear anything in it that made it different or better than the original. I wasn’t as amazed by it as most of the judges were but I’m sure it’ll be enough to keep her around for a while longer.


I’ve never heard “Keep the Faith” before, but I definitely loved it as sung by Scott MacIntyre. He’s definitely in his element when he can play the piano and sing—it made him so much better than he was in previous weeks. So far I’d say he’s my favorite of the season. I totally disagree with Simon who thought the contestants should pick songs more familiar to the audience. I love it when they sing more obscure songs because then we’re not comparing it so much to the original and we can just enjoy how they’re singing it.


In the beginning I thought Danny Gokey was going to change “PYT” into one of his standard, earnest ballads, but when the music picked up and he went more in tempo with the beat of the original, I was much more interested. It was good to see a more active side of him. Although the song was not as vocally a challenging as one of his ballads, but he did great with the melody that was there and he showed that he’s a very good stage performer.


I think Michael Sarver will appeal to the country fans and that might keep him in the competition longer, but I don’t think his vocals on “You Are Not Alone” were up to par with the first three contestants and I don’t think he’ll make it much longer than maybe a few more weeks at most.


Jasmine Murray sang “I’ll Be There” complete with original Jackson 5 era harpsichord, which was an element that I very much enjoyed. I liked how her version of the song harkened back to the original more than Mariah Carey’s version. Also, I thought this was a very appropriate song for her age as well.


Kris Allen’s vocals were very good, but it sounded like his guitar wasn’t plugged in properly and so there was this odd, out of tune, strumming that seemed to be creeping into his vocal mike that I found a little distracting. I thought that if he was going to play the guitar, I wish he would have done a more acoustic version of the song instead of the R&B version with an acoustic guitar along with it. I hope to see him go far because I like him, but I don’t think he was the best performer of the night.


Allison Iraheta’s version of “Give in to me” sounded absolutely nothing like a Michael Jackson song, which for me was a great thing! I absolutely loved her performance. She definitely made the song her own and in my opinion that was the stand out performance of the night. I hope to see her around for a long time.


My wife’s favorite, Anoop Desai sang a song that I was hoping nobody would attempt, “Beat It.” It’s so iconic that unless you’re totally changing it like David Cook did with “Billy Jean” last year, the best it could be is really good karaoke. It didn’t show his vocals at all. Against such strong competition, I’m afraid that this might be the last night he’s here.


I love the sound of Jorge Nuñez’s voice and the little effects that his accent gives to his pronunciations as he sang “Never Can Say Goodbye.” In my opinion this was definitely one of the strongest vocals of the night. I think he’ll be around for a while.


Probably one of the strangest song choices a contestant could have chosen to sing tonight, apart from “Ben” is “Rockin’ Robin,” but I can’t say that it didn’t fit Megan Joy Corkrey’s personality. The song only has about a 5 note range so it’s not the most vocally challenging song, but she was able to add her own trademark quirks to it. I like her a lot, but I’m afraid her fun personality probably isn’t enough to keep her in the competition.


Adam Lambert is way too glamour rock for me. Oddly enough, I thought that his version of “Black and White” with his high singing voice seemed to be the closest to Michael Jackson that we heard tonight. It was as if Michael Jackson and Axel Rose had a child and his name is Adam Lambert. I don’t know if his style just doesn’t suit me or if I just haven’t connected with him yet, but he’s not my favorite. I’m sure he’s many other people’s favorite, so he’ll be around for a while. And when Paula Abdul stands up and dances during their songs she looks like the lone drunk girl at the party.


Generally I like it when the contestants can perform with instruments. They usually seem a bit more connected to the song. Vocally Matt Giraud seemed to be singing “Human Nature” like Michael Jackson did an awful lot, but I much prefer Matt's voice to Jackson’s. I thought it was a really very good performance, but I don’t know how strong he’ll seem when compared to some of the other powerhouses who performed tonight.


Alexis Grace really took the judge’s advice from the initial tryouts literally when they told her to “dirty it up” a bit by singing “Dirty Diana.” I really like the harder, more rocking, blues version of this song. I really think—and hope—she’ll be around for a while, and I think that when comparing her to the other performers tonight, she’ll definitely be safe for another week.


One thing I just realized about American Idol is that it gives people the opportunity to be discovered who are in situations where the normal path to stardom really wouldn’t be a reasonable option. Normally people with families just trying to get by, like Lil, Megan and Alexis, wouldn’t have a chance in the world of being discovered in their normal lives. It kind of makes me respect the show a little more.

I actually think that the weakest performances of tonight all came from the 4 Wild Cards picked from last week. I think the two contestants in real danger of going home tomorrow are Megan Joy Corkrey and Anoop Desai.