Article first published as American Idol: The Top 7 Performance Recap on Technorati.
There’s just something about that guy Ryan Seacrest. I think he’s really going places. Kidding of course – King Seacrest is by far the biggest star Idol has ever produced….and had the best line of the night, and possibly the season, but we’ll get to that later. The show opens up tonight with this season’s Idol castoff’s doing a group number and reminding us exactly why they were the ones to go. I’m glad to see that Paul is continuing to rock the rose-embroidered suit. I love that guy.
Scotty’s kicking things off for us tonight with “Swinging,” the Leann Rimes tune. He’s really cheesing it up tonight with the facial expressions and the performance. I don’t think it’s his best work, and surprisingly the judges (AKA the “Pep Squad”) do call him out a bit on song choice. Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come? Maybe the judges will actually judge this week instead of just cheerleading for everyone? Such high drama!
So James is up next with Muse’s “The Uprising” but in typical Idol style, the arrangement inexplicably includes a marching band drum corp. There’s that, and James is wielding the mic stand around like a cattle prod or riding crop and wearing what looks like some sort of post-Apocalyptic soldier’s outfit. Oh, the theatrics. JLo loves it, or at least loves the theatrics and the screeching. Randy gives him nothing but love. Tyler loves the get up and calls it “Mad Max meets Storm Troopers on Melrose.” Where does he get this stuff? Admittedly, he does sound good if oyu like that kind of music and he’ll be 100% safe.
Haley is up next with Adele’s “Rolling In the Deep” and has decided to do it dressed like Betty Boop. Ok. She sounds good and even manages to work in a bit of her signature growling and yodeling, and while I think her performance is a bit stiff, her vocals were some of her strongest. The judges are dying to keep at least one female in the hunt, so they are very complimentary of her all around.
Fourth at bat tonight is Jacob. I’m guessing he’ll do something mellow and really subdued tonight. NOT. Not surprisingly, he goes with the Luther Vandross song, “Dance With My Father.” The judges ramble on about how great and emotional his performance was, but then Randy actually offers some criticism. Pray tell? Did the Pep Squad drink some grumpy juice today? They think he should have brought more to the party. I couldn’t agree more.
Casey is next; I’m not sure that landing the 5th slot bodes well for him but we’ll see. He does Maroon 5’s “Harder To Breath.” So, I am an unabashed Casey fan and that is one of my favorite 21st century tunes, and I did not love it. I’m guessing that means a lot of others didn’t either. He seems to scare JLo little bit by walking right up to her singing in her face, and then he kisses her. For real. So naturally, she loved it. Randy gives him mad props. Tyler says something really profound, but we cannot hear it because the decency police bleep it out. Interesting. Even Ryan gets onboard the Casey train and (briefly) sports an Amish beard to look like Case. And then, he utters Idol’s best line EVER, “Is this what it feels like to be a man?” Clearly the producers have decided that since they’ve used their one-and-only save on Casey, they need to keep him around for a while and make it count. I totally love that Ryan throws himself under the bus to boost Casey’s street cred. Nice work.
Stefano is our penultimate performer tonight and chooses Ne-Yo’s hit, “Closer” with a fair amount of swagger. The judges all eat him up. I didn’t love it, but I don’t get his whole Boy Band appeal at all. Enough about him, I’m bored already.
Finally, Lauren closes out the evening with Sarah Evan’s “Born To Fly,” and a fiddler. It’s ok, but she seems overwhelmed on the stage and under-confident. The judges give her a good pep talk instead of actually critiquing her, but I think she lost a bit of her luster tonight .
Predictions are going to be tough this week, but here goes. I think James and Lauren are totally safe. I’m going out on a limb and guessing that Casey and Haley could both be safe too, which would give us an intriguing bottom 3 of Stefano, Scotty, and Jacob. If that is how it plays out, then I think Jacob will have hammed it up through his last song on Idol. I’d be totally happy with that result. I could also see Casey, Haley and Stefano bringing up the rear, with Casey going home. Or even Stefano going home. What do you think? I’d honestly be fine if any of those singers departed us at this point. Tonight should be interesting! Stay tuned to FOX to see what happens: http://www.americanidol.com/.
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