American Idol Season 7 Top 7 and Top 6 ran on the Fox Reality Channel tonight.
I’ll post something up in a bit, but you guys can go first!
I think these were the last two shows of the season I really enjoyed before the final two. The next few shows had the remaining Idols looking exhausted and tense.
- Kristy Lee Cook – In hindsight, I think Simon may have been downplaying the girls’ performances so that nothing got in the way of that precious David/David final. I thought Kristy Lee’s performance was fine–in fact all the girls performances were fine–Mariah Carey week, but Simon didn’t have a kind word for any of them. Kristy Lee’s performance of “Forever” had a few rough spots, but over all it was very good. She was the best girl of the night. But, if she hadn’t been eliminated Top 6, the ax probably would have fallen the following week.
- Carly Smithson – Simon was pretty relentless in his criticisms of Carly’s performances. Her “Without You” was a bit screechy in parts, but after she sung it just to please Simon, he could have thrown her a bone. But no, he had nothing good to say about her performance. She sang “Jesus Christ Superstar” the following week, and actually I found myself liking it a lot more than I did the first time around. Ironically, Simon finally gives her a good critique, and she gets eliminated. Like Kristy, Carly would only have made it through another week if she had survived. I believe the Top 4, at that point, was carved in stone–performances really didn’t matter.
- David Archuleta – Mariah advises Archie to try his falsetto for her song “When You Believe”, and it’s really out of his range. Arch does a nice job with her song, but I found it a little dull. Re-listening to his song for Top 6 week, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Think of Me” I have to say I’ve come to appreciate it. He should have gotten more credit for re-arranging the song. Webber told David to keep his eyes open when he performs–I thought it was good advice.
- Jason Castro – I was really surprised that Simon liked Jason’s take on Mariah Carey’s “I Don’t Wanna Cry” what was so different about that performance from some of the others Simon critiqued harshly? Like the Sting song from a few weeks before? The following week, Jason sings “Memories” from Cats, and he gets his ass handed to him. He looked a little awkward singing it, but I didn’t think it was that bad. The idiot edit made the entire situation look worse than it actually was.
- Brooke White – Brooke White, at this point, was slowly losing her mind. Her performance of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” wasn’t perfect, but I thought she sang it with a lot of emotion. I liked it. The following week, she infamously stopped and re-started Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “You Must Love Me”. I think she should have muddled through it, but in a strange way, I think it helped her. Simon stuck up for her even, and I think she probably got a bunch of pity votes. The result? Bye bye Carly, you Jesus Hatah! Top 6, Brooke appeared to be falling apart at the seams. It was time for her to go.
- Syesha Mercado – Boy, was Syesha all kinds of shrieky singing Mariah’s “Vanishing”. That was not good. And the following week’s performance of “One Rock and Roll Too Many” marked the beginning of “Broadway Syesha”. From that point on, except for the Davids, she was unstoppable.
- David Cook – David’s Mariah Carey week performance of “Always Be My Baby” was not only my favorite Cook performance, but my favorite of the season, and one of my favorite Idol performances ever. I’ve gone on ad nauseum about it in other places, so I’ll leave it at that. It was a brilliant move to sing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Music of the Night” straight the following week. He showed his versatility and made some new fans to boot. I think he peaked here, until the Final Two.
