Beatles x2: American Idol

This is the first time I’ve actually seen any of the top twelve performances, so I thought I’d take the liberty and do a little review of the performers and their songs on this, the Beatles night. Acts one and two, like the judges rightly said were forgettable; I don’t even care enough to look up their names. Off melody, some pitch problems, off tempo, just bad (5/10 and 4/10 respectively). Act three: David Archuleta, I saw clips of his ‘performance’ last week and laughed; I was, truthfully, expecting much the same this week, but he really did his song (‘the Long and Winding Road’) proud, good job (8.5/10). [Side note: really Seacrest? iphone and AT&T plug, lol…and coke]. Act four: Michael Johns, love this song (‘A Day in the Life’), there’s something wrong with the performance, I don’t know what it is, good but not great (7/10). Act five: Brooke White, (I wish I saw last week’s performance) she did it good (‘Here Comes the Sun’) adding her own little touches to it, disagreeing with the judges a bit (8/10). Act six: David Cook, I like this guy’s voice, good rendition of the song (‘Day Tripper’) that really matches him as a performer, solid performance, though not sure about the voice-box thingy (8.5/10). Act seven: Carly Smithson (she’s Irish?), probably my favorite Beatles song (‘Blackbird’), she was pretty good but she tried to do a bit too much and lost the song in places (7/10). [Side note: cooliocious? ©Randy Jackson]. Act eight: Jason Castro (‘Michelle’), good voice, but looked, at times when he was singing French that he didn’t know exactly what he was saying, Paula’s got it right, a “distinct charm”, again good but not great (7/10). Act nine: Syesha Mercado, she sung it well; the song (‘Yesterday’) is well suited for acoustic accompaniment, very good performance (9/10). Act ten: Chikezie, suitable song to begin with, then it got kind of weird, cant say I liked the harmonica, but he’s got a lot of character (6.5/10). Act 11: Ramiele Malubay, not great at the beginning but got better towards the end (6.5/10). Looking back at tonight’s performances, I hope Simon was right about the boat of performers picking the wrong songs, because otherwise I’m not entirely impressed by this year’s contestants; this weeks winners: David Archuleta and Syesha Mercado.