American Idol Season 10 Top 24 Pre-Results

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

American Idol Top 3 Pre-Results Predictions

Last night was the night of Lee Dewyze. Hands down, he owned the stage. That’s not to say Crystal wasn’t on, but Dewyze put out possibly the best Idol performance ever with Simon’s selection for his second song: Hallelujah. I’m man enough to say I got verkelmpt after this song. I got goosebumps twice (hey, I’m a band/choir geek).

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Casey James bored the heck out of me with the first song and didn’t impress me with his second song. Bye-bye, Casey.

Next week had better be Lee vs. Crystal. As much as I’ve liked Crystal all year, Lee is the David Cook of this season – come on strong at the end and utterly dominate his performances.

American Idol Season 9 – Top 9 Pre-results

Was it just me or was last night overwhelmingly boring? I was pretty annoyed that it was a 2-hour show for 9 singers.

I really liked Lee’s song AND performance. The bagpipes rocked! Katie had her best performance ever, matching song, attitude, and clothes just right. Michael Lynch and Crystal both did fine jobs, but that leaves 5 others who didn’t impress me. That’s like 75-80 minutes of not being impressed. I’m far too busy to watch TV and not be entertained doing it.

Siobhan started my sleeping spell. She broke my cardinal rule about slow songs. It was after 9pm, for crying out loud. I love her to death, but that was boring. She may be in danger.

Ok, so it’s time to eat dessert; here’s the Bottom 3:

Casey James, Tim Urban, and Siobhan Magnus.

Here’s to Tim Urban going home. If everyone’s thing about you in the preview video segment is that you smile too much, it’s time to go home. Oh, and I still don’t care if you had fun singing your song. I have to have fun listening.

American Idol Season 9 – Top 10 Pre-results

I was right, I was right. Paige Miles was indeed bad enough to go home last week, and I’m forever grateful that she chose to sing a different song to go out with on the results show.

This week had some terrific performances from Andrew Garcia, Lee Dewyze, Aaron Kelly, and I thought Katie Stevens did great even though her voice and songs don’t match her age — I just try to forget how young she is.

Tonight’s Bottom Three:

Didi Benami – She just didn’t deliver.

Siobhan Magnus – The screeching didn’t work this time.

Tim Urban – I don’t even remember it.