It’s the Fox Reality Channel Season 7 Redux – Top 10 episodes.
- Little Ramiele Malubay continued to suck large on the big Idol stage. At that point, she was done, all you needed was to stick a fork in her. Yikes that performance was all kinds of shrieky and pitchy. And for God’s sake, and all that is good and holy, “Alone” needs to be banned permanently from Idol. Please?
- I wonder if making the Top 10, and the tour made Jason Castro a little complacent. He squandered a perfectly good opportunity with a beautiful song that was perfect for him. Performing “Fragile, ” he seemed to be going through the motions, and during the judges critiques, he admitted he hadn’t practiced much. WTF? Good thing he stepped it up the following week for Dolly.
- Loved the arrangement of Syesha Mercado’s “If I Were Your Woman” and she delivered it nicely. At the time, I agreed more with Simon. Listening to it again, my critique isn’t as harsh, but she totally needed to stop screaming at me. Loud does not = good.
- Oh, Chikezie. You dumbass. Going back to those retro old-school ballads was the death of you.
- Despite starting the song over, I still think Brooke White’s “Every Breath You Take” was a solid, if not earth-shattering performance. Ditching the band would not have made a difference, in my opinion.
- Michael Johns falls back on the old reliable Queen, singing “We Are the Champions” and gives the people, and the judges, what they want. I think I like this less than the first time I heard it. Listening to it now, it sounds generic and karaoke. Maybe I heard it too many times on the summer tour.
- Carly Smithson’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” wasn’t the wrong song. The problem was Carly’s shrill, frantic performance. This is the point where her performances began to get increasingly desperate. You could see her tense up when the judges criticized her, especially Simon. She just could not let it roll off her back.
- I may be in the minority here, but I kinda liked David Archuleta’s “You’re the Voice.” It was a bad idea to pick such an unfamiliar song, but nevertheless, I appreciated David’s earnest youthful appeal–the song suited him, and I liked that he tried for something upbeat again.
- Pandering to her country audience by singing the patriotic “God Bless the USA” at the point she was about to be eliminated showed Kristy Lee Cook to be a very smart contestant. It kept her out of the bottom three that week, and probably bought a few more weeks after that.
- Finally, David Cook. Well, yeah, Billie Jean was stunning. It was the beginning of David’s march straight to the crown.
Chikezie’s elimination was death-by-Luther. Sigh. It should not have happened. Ramiele should have been put out of her misery that week, but it was not to be. Not yet.
