Not a fan of bluegrass, country, or religious music, but I absolutely loved the Clark Brothers - unbelievable musicians, and Ashley Clark is a brilliant singer. Just infuses everything he sings with emotion. Glad to see Idol giving them a little time in the sun, given the poor ratings of NGAB.

Awesome.

I'm still waiting for K's spoilers with what everyone is going to perform this week. That was my favorite feature from this thread last year.

Problem is, they went to live performances starting last week (coincidentally after they canned the long-time producer of the show). I believe someone posts spoilers at some point around 5-6pm, at least they did last week. They are probably doing the dress rehearsal shortly.

Oooooooh so close!

Ditto on Bluegrass and Country, but I also loved them.

Interestingly, I was watching SNL a few weeks after that show ended and I saw Ashley Clark singing and playing backup to Carrie Underwood on there, so he has some history with the producers as well, I suspect.

From MJ's blog:


Mar 18th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Where are the spoilers?

Soon, my peeps soon. :).

It's Austin who is supposed to be on. They're saying tonight, but given that Pickles is performing tomorrow, maybe that's when he'll perform. Seems like if he's in any way noticeable during a contestant's performance, that might give that person an unfair edge?

Do you think that would necessarily stop the producers from doing it?

My speculation was maybe a boost for KLC so they can try and get the "country girl" in the top 10 at least.

I think Idol has proven that it's not that hard to make money off of a country act (and this is from a big country fan) and would hate to see a top 10 at this point without one.

As good a guess as any.

Definitive spoilers end up on TMZ around 7 EST. The dress rehearsal probably hasn't happened yet. Right now, here are 3 rumors (1 supposedly is definite):

I'm annoyed about that first spoiler.. one of my favorites and not who I wanted to see get that song. The performer better not ruin it.

Two of those 3 spoilers are wrong. Syesha is correct. TMZ has the list up. Several possible homeruns in the bunch, if they can pull them off.

Archuleta hit another one out of the park finally. He was a little flat (meaning under-pitch) on the high note in the last phrase, but that was the only real technical flaw. Beautiful singer.

At least Archuleta was good, because if it wasn't for him I would have turned this off already.

Johns should have stayed away from A Day In the Life.

That was indeed brutal.

My wife thinks I have a crush on Brooke. I complimented her performance several times in the past. That combined with "she is right up my alley" means I have a crush on her according to my wife. Whatever. Maybe I do.

:D :)

Syesha performed that really solidly, but my wife and I both are agreed that her voice seems to be missing some frequencies or something. Very thin sound. I have wanted to like her pretty much every time, but something about the quality of her voice seems very lacking.

AI is butchering the greatest band of all time (again) arggggg

I actually really liked Michael Johns performance.

I was really disappointed in their critique of Brooke's performance. I mean, I've dug her songs so far, but this was the first time I watched her and went, "Wow. She's really hot."

And I don't mean that in a hot/sexy way necessarily, just that her performance just really made a connection with me. She had a whole Carly Simon vibe going on that was just really appealing and fun to watch.

Austin with Chikeze, didn't see that coming. And Syesha brought out the girls tonight!

I wonder if we can finally get rid of Amanda. I don't
Carly - Her best, the best tonight. A memorable performance. She followed up very good with better.
DavidA - welcome back my friend to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.
Syesha - She channelled Natalie Cole and Dolly Parton.
Brooke - She sung this one well. I think she needs performance help. But she can sing.
DavidC - decent followup from his strong performance last week. He's fun and he's not going anywhere. Hopefully the vocalizer does tho.
Chikeze - Upside: he can sing any style. Downside: he does.
MikeJ - good in bits and pieces but in total not a top notch job. I still expect more from this guy.
JasonC - This one was fair to middlin. More middlin than fair.
Ramiele - that outfit came out of paula's 1984 closet. I kept expecting prince to ask her to play drums.
Kristy - bad beginning but she rallied bigtime. it didn't sound beatleesque or kristy esque
Amanda - SUCKS

I know I do.

Interesting that they were deliberate in the camera angles to never show Austin's face. He was never in the wide angle shots, and the close shots only showed his hands playing.

Anyway, my impressions:

David A - Back on top with a great performance that was technically brilliant.

Carly - Excellent performance

Syesha - I thought I would hate it, but it was good.

David C - I agree with Simon - a little predictable, but still top 5 material if his attitude doesn't get him kicked off.

Ramiele - I thought it was a decent performance.

Brooke - A big let down from last week.

Mike J - Bad song choice.

Jason C - He's regressing in my opinion.

Kristy - looked her best yet, but still not working the vocals.

Chikeze - Big let down from last week.

Amanda - Needs to go now.

Somebody kick Jim in the pants. I can't go to bed on Idol night without reading his blog.

Tonight's recap of the action is posted. I suspect a lot more disagreement than usual.

http://www.solecismic.com/frontierblog/?p=241

Overall: The judges seemed more tired of Beatles tunes than the performers, but there were trouble spots for everyone. The night was won by those who embraced the band for what it was, and brought emotion to their performances.

I'm sorry but anyone that put Michael Johns somewhere besides one of the bottom two...just, no. Those rankings are quite frankly ludicrous. I could've come closer by picking randomly. I can at least usually see what you were thinking, but that's frankly not close.

Thanks, Jim!

Agreed 100%.

Vocally, Michael Johns was absolutely horrid. The arrangement of the song be damned. He sounded horrible.

I'm going to need ear transplants after this week.

Lackluster night. My normal favs (Cook, Brooke, Johns) were all mediocre - as were Chikeze and Castro. Syesha, David A and Carly were the best. Amanda, Ramiele and Kristy were dreadful. David A again went back to the "brooding ballad" well and should probably stay there (although it will get old). Carly's probably the steadiest and Syesha MeCleavage made the biggest improvement (in many areas) - although getting the choice song helped. Overall, it was another "thank the big guy above for TIVO" night.

Angela said she saw evidence of a bag inside the Syecleavage. I wasn't getting the McPheever myself.

This was a difficult night to judge, because Archuleta and Carly had the best tone, but forgettable interpretations.

On a second look at the TiVo, I'm happier with Kristy's performance tonight. She is suffering from low expectations right now, and an easy target. They didn't do her any favors by hitting her over the head with the country recommendations.

I have no idea what to think of last night. Overall, really really bad.

-Brooke can do no wrong for me
-I did not like Blackbird, but I also can't stand Carly - why the hell does she insist on showing off her freaking tattoo every week? - and the spin she tried to put on the song's meaning as a way for people to feel sorry for her that she hasn't made it in the music industry yet? Galling.
-I really liked David Cook's performance, because he's clearly decided to screw it all and play up the rocker thing more than anyone ever has on this show, even Daughtry. Yeah, it was way overblown and he's got a serious case of Teh Smug, but I hope he does this every week. I think Simon's Alpha Male kicked in after that, and he felt the need cut the only other person with an ego even half his size down a notch.
-Michael Johns was terrible - both vocally and with an arrangement of that song that went 180 degrees against what makes the song great to begin with. Never should have done it. But his vocals were really bad to begin with.
-KLC looked great, vocally was OK I guess, but is one of the worst performers I've ever seen.
-Castro makes me really uncomfortable. He has to be the most socially awkward contestant of all time. The vocal was weak, but the facial expressions - like he was in 5th grade music class hamming it up while trying to sing in Frrench - were horrendous, and ruined any chance of the performance coming off as anything but corny and cringeworthy.
-Ramiele, Amanda, and Syesha - who cares
-Chikeze tried too hard to repeat last week. I hated the Celine Dion interpretation at the beginning, and then the second part did not flow well at all from the first part. Still a good performance, I just hated the arrangement.
-David A can do no right for me

I find it interesting on nights like last night to come to the board and read. I didn't watch last night (it's on TiVo, will watch tonight) so it's interesting to see what people thought before I watched.

It's funny that Austin was with Chikeze because I said to someone yesterday "Seems pretty stupid for someone to do that when Chikeze did it last week".

Speaking of Austin - he would kick ass on this show.

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are!!!!

Kathy thought she saw a bag as well in Syecleavage.

Also, good call on the "blow your socks off" comment from Kristy. The reactions of everyone to that was funny.

As was my wife's - she hit me when I reacted positively to it.

outside of some alleged big ass tittays that was 95% dreadful last night

Kudos to the dude from EW.com for best headline summing up last night - Mersey Killing.

Also from the EW dude, a nicely-wrapped explanation of David A. At least I'm not crazy for being the only one or two who sees him this way:

First off, kudos to David Archuleta for not pretending last week's botched lyrics never happened; his interview package was charming, and goofy, and age-appropriate. Unfortunately, his cover of ''The Long and Winding Road'' was none of the above. Sure, it was completely in tune and showcased the fact that the kid can truly, madly sing (and keep the lip licking to a minimum). But there's also something slightly off-putting in listening to an exuberant 17-year-old get bogged down in the fusty orchestral stylings of a dreary adult-contemporary station. It didn't help that the insanely annoying producer plants in the Idol ''mosh pit'' swayed robotically out of rhythm through the entire performance — Nigel Lythgoe, please make them stop! — but until David cuts loose and proves he's more than a windup power vocalist whose future will involve a 12-month residency at Caesars Palace in Vegas, I'm not sure I can ever root for him with any enthusiasm.

I liked Carly's performance, and I thought Brooke wasn't bad. I thought the judges were too harsh on Brooke. I still don't like Michael Johns or David Cook nearly as much as anyone else. I also understand that David A. has a good voice, but his music always bores me. He sings everything at half speed and puts me to sleep. I don't know if i have enjoyed one performance that he has made so far. If I wanted to hear a good voice on a boring song, i could easily go to some choir concert. Kristy Lee wasn't too bad I didn't think last night. She just isn't as good as most of the others even on a good night. She'll be gone at any point from this week to the next 3 weeks and she deserves to be gone. For this week though, please someone get rid of Amanda finally to put us out of our misery?

Neat, I have learned with Fire-fox's no-script plugin, it destroys any formatting I put into my message and makes it one big block of text. Cool! :)

DialIdol:

Archuleta is Idol's answer to Miley Cyrus. I don't like him, but he's a lock top 2 finalist and an overwhelming fave to win the show.

Is it just me or do the contestants just want to talk way too much when the judges are critiquing? Eg: I really like Brooke but her constant interruptions were really irritating after a bit and same for Carly's whole explanation.

I thought most of the show was boring (but then I don't like the Beatles), and found myself routinely disagreeing with the judges. I liked David Cook's song. I get tired of all the Whitney Houston wannabes and their ballads. In general, I thought the show was unimpressive. Archuleta's performance didn't impress me, but at least it was better than the guy who looks like a girl. I guess I should note that this is only the second episode that I have ever watched more than 5 minutes of.

Yup, it was very lame. With Brooke, I just kept telling my wife, "she better shut the fuck up now, shut the fuck up now, please shut the fuck up now."

Brooke also reminds me of a chick that if you broke up with her, she'd stalk you for 4 years until late one night when she launches a shiv into your kidney (see Nately's Whore).

I have no idea how Syesha and her cleavage managed to slow down Yesterday so much.... I think she did may be a third of a two minute song in 1 and a half minutes.

Last night was the first episode of American Idol I've watched. I had no idea that an Aussie was on the show, but he completely stunk it up with a terrible song choice. When they announced "Long and Winding Road" for that 13-year old looking kid I thought it was a bad choice, but wow, he completely nailed it IMO. Maybe the most impressive singing performance I've seen on American/Australian Idol ever (not that I watch it too often).

The girls were all pretty bad IMO. Weak song choices, but even weaker singing. Here Comes the Sun in particular, that's such an upbeat and happy sounding Beatles song, and that blonde gal managed to sap all the energy out of it with some emotionless singing.

When watching Australian Idol I usually have the exact opposite opinion to the judges, who seem to give people a free pass based on their style over their singing, but what impressed me about American idol is that I agreed with pretty much everything the judges said. It's got me hooked - looking forward to the next episode.