After 3 hours of Top 24 performances this week, there were precious few highlights. Never before as it been so easy to summarily scratch off 10 singers in one results show. Isn’t it amazing how these people stood out in Hollywood week and are so wretchedly karaoke (or worse) for their first live broadcast?
I have a couple of words of discouragement for 2 singers, in particular.
- Jordan Dorsey, Usher is looking for you. He wants to beat you to a pulp for so fully plagiarizing one of his videos that you probably saw on YouTube.
- Rachel Zevita, sex sells, but what was that? Who are you? Your family only cheered because they didn’t want to crush you.
Now that those are out of the way as the worst, I am more in the right frame of mind to elaborate on who I voted for and why, in order of talent, not necessarily popularity:
- Pia Toscano – I thought my next singer was a great performance, but Pia’s “I’ll Stand by You” was da bomb! If it had come later in the season to get the whole song, I’d buy it off of iTunes, for sure. Perfect tone, pitch, and stage presence.
- James Durbin – Wow! That reminded me of Adam without the mascara and boy toys. His highs are absolutely full voice and he exudes “rocker” in a way that has to make Steven Tyler smile on the inside, too.
- Lauren Alania – That girl is a total package combination of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. I even called it while she was singing, to have it echoed by the judges was pretty cool. She’s not only good, but a 16yr old favorite.
- Thia Megia – Pure. Solid. Beautiful. She could record or perform – today. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that she’s a perfect pitch prodigy, to be able to sing so confidently with an a cappella opening like that.
- Casey Abrams – I didn’t like his song choice, singing “I Put a Spell on You” in a pretty creepy way like that because I think he came across as an ex-loser who finally had some attention, but I can’t fault his execution of the vocals. Please work on your faces, though.
- Jacob Lusk – I agree with the judges during Hollywood that he put out the best performance ever on Idol, but he dropped down a couple of notches for me with these others being so spot-on.
- Paul McDonald – He’s got the quirkiest movements I’ve ever seen on stage that didn’t make me laugh out loud or feel bad for them, but the dude can sing. I love his tone. It’s a perfect coffee house sound, but it may be lacking for what the Idol crowd wants.
- Scotty McCreey – Pure country. I’m not an old-time country fan, but I think I could like his stuff because he doesn’t do any twang – it’s more of an accent. I do wish he’d stop leaning over to one side to sing and pulling his mouth to the side, though. I’m sure he’ll really come around when he gets behind his guitar again.
- Haley Reinhart – A good ole Mid-Western girl who can sing. She’s not the best, but I wouldn’t count her out yet to see if some more time on stage and more coaching brings her up to another level.
As for the rest, they can go home and I wouldn’t care. If any of these people go home and two other people get in from my bad list, I’ll be suspicious of America’s hearing and/or taste.
