Idol: Rank ‘Em 1-to-11
11) Paige
10) Tim
9) Andrew
8 ) Siobhan
7) Casey
6) Katie
5) Mike
4) Aaron
3) Lee
2) Didi
1) Crystal
Poor Paige. She was terrible. Probably the worst performance I’ve ever seen at this level in the show. She was like a scared little kitten or something. She MUST go after that.
Tim was so cheesy and boring. The dude has absolutely no charisma. Give him 4-5 years in college picking up some confidence and he’d be a different contestant.
Everyone wants to like Andrew. Sadly, he will never repeat his Straight Up performance, which I imagine is tough to do when the judges bring it up EVERY SINGLE WEEK!
I know there are some who like Siobhan. I don’t. She annoys me. And now that she’s including a scream at the end of ever single freaking song…come on. How are people not seeing straight through that?
Simon was exactly right about Casey. He didn’t add anything new to it, and in fact he made that song boring. Marty McFly sang it much better.
Katie did the right thing this week, like the judges said. But she needs to do better at it now.
Mike is always serviceable. This week he was good, but not great.
You have to give Aaron credit for his song choices. He’s a solid singer, especially for his age, but he’s still incredibly awkward for me. Like Archuleta, he’s way too grateful to be there.
Lee is good. Really good. But a terrible song choice keeps him from getting higher.
I completely disagree with the judges about Didi this week. Not as good as last week, but she was still really, really solid.
What more can you say about Crystal’s performance. Great groove, great work. She knows who she is and just does it. She’ll coast for a while I imagine.
Oh, and I should also mention that I’m liking Ellen more and more. I like that she’s playing the comic more than the music critic, which is exactly right for her.
Posted on March 23, 2010, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 13 Comments.
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I agree with you on a lot of this, but you need to give Katie more credit here. She was the only one who did a song from the last five years. She is the only one who didn’t just try to slide into an outdated cliche. She picked a great recent hit song that fit her like a glove and she nailed it.
Everyone else (with the possible exceptions of Lee and Aaron) picked a moldy oldy and thought the familiarity of the song would carry them. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I just cannot believe the apalling choices these guys are making.
“Heard It Through The Grapevine”? Come on, man. We need to have a new rule that when a song has been used in a national ad featuring claymation fruits singing and dancing, it needs to be retired. You are not getting anywhere with that, Andrew, especially if you do nothing new with it.
My prediction on Mike is coming true: another week, another cheesy R&B performance. And what a safe, boring song choice, too: “When a Man Loves A Woman”? Again, another song so familiar it’s better known from the ad that used it. Please wake me when it’s over.
I still absolutely love Didi, but that was also a tragic song choice. Great performance, but she should not be singing old Linda Ronstadt crap. WTF was she thinking? She was on the right track with the unknown song of Kara’s that she did, because it was fresh and it fit her. That’s her wheelhouse and she needs to go back there. She was also red hot with that Fleetwood Mac song. She should be taking rock tunes and making them sound like torch songs. She’s just so good when she does that.
Casey hasn’t made one decent song choice yet. His taste in music appears to be horrific, but if he ever picks a great song, look out. He’s got mad skillz.
Lee sounded great and, again, if he had picked a better song he would have killed. He needs to go back to using a guitar, though. He looks lost without it. He also needs to stand up and quit slouching, and maybe just smile a little more. He still doesn’t look like he’s having much fun, which is fine if he’s playing a darkish rock song, but not when he’s trying to be whatever that was tonight.
Aaron picked a decent, if sorta cheesy, Aerosmith song but it fit his act and he performed it well. He skates by another week. I still think he’s soy milk, but he keeps surprising me, mostly because the others are leaving the door wide open for him.
I like Siobhan a lot more than you do. She is crazy good, but I agree her formula is wearing thin. She should have picked a ballad and impressed us with her tenderness and range rather than just going for a familiar song and a big screamy ending again. She badly needs to throw a change-up and show that she can still get it over the plate.
Crystal gave a great performance, but I still think that song choice was lame. “Me and Bobby McGee” is as moldy as it gets. She needs to show what she can do with something less familiar and with a different tempo. She should steal a rock song and charm us with her own brand of folk magic.
Paige must go. We can deal with bad song choices if the performance is decent but she chose a cheesy 80s ballad (bad judgment) and performed it in a way that makes you wonder if she actually sings (just bad period). We can’t tolerate that level of bad.
I don’t know what to say about Tim. Didn’t he learn yet that Queen is the kiss of death? No one should ever do Queen again. It just cannot be done in any reasonable way. He would have had a better chance if he did it reggae. I hope he can redeem himself but I fear he’s gone soon.
I would put Katie first and Siobhan third after Crystal, switch Casey and Mike, and leave the rest of your order the same. I hope Paige is gone tomorrow. If she’s not, there is no justice.
I’d go something like this:
100. Paige – awful
10. Tim – bleh
9. Andrew – he should never sing without his guitar.
8. Katie – I was shocked that the judges actually liked her as much as they did. I thought she sounded terrible.
7. Casey – I agree with MCQ. When he hones his song choices, he could end up in the top 3.
6. Aaron – Can’t stand him.
5. Mike – Poor song choice. Can’t pick a song with big huge notes and then refuse to hit those notes.
4. Siobhan – I don’t really like her but I can see she has talent. I still say she struggles in her low register.
3. Lee – Really strong performance especially considering he was without his guitar. Still would have liked it had he done something current.
2. Didi – I have no idea what the judges were talking about. I think she suffers from “Jason Castro Syndrome”. She performs well but, for whatever reason, the judges just don’t get it. I also thought they complained about a performance that was fairly similar to what she did last week. I want to read a few other recaps to see what others thought. Maybe she sounded different live than on TV.
1. Crystal – Probably the only contestant that would be a serious contender in other seasons.
Oh, and Miley Cyrus might have been the worst guest mentor ever. I’m trying to think of someone who was worse.
Didi’s song choice was all wrong. She has a quirky voice and she needs songs that’ll work with it. Linda Ronstadt is a huge favorite of mine and she could not pull it off.
Siobhan needs to quit it with the shrieking. It seems so contrived.
Katie was not very good. Off key. I didn’t think it was too painful but my husband (who is a huge Fergie fan) couldn’t stand it.
I was really disappointed when I found out Crystal was doing a Janis song (which I just have to point out was written by Kris Kristofferson)—it’s just too obvious. I thought she should stay away from Janis because she sounds too much like her. But I thought she did it well, which is crazy because there is no one who can touch Janis.
Tim is getting the Vote For the Worst endorsement so he might stick around for awhile.
I still have hope that Andrew has it in him to get it together.
I actually liked Casey doing Huey, but I love Huey.
One of the worst nights in Idol history. Song choice was abysmal from start to finish. How bad was it? The best performance of the night was a Huey Lewis song. And not a particularly good Huey Lewis song at that! Last night was a complete waste of time.
Also, I wish they could just jump to the final three. There are three obvious front-runners (Crystal, Casey, and Siobhan), so why go through the charade of listening to the rest of them week in and week out? Yeah Didi and Lee are nice, but neither has a chance of winning the thing. At least vote off two at a time for the next few weeks and thin out the herd.
11.) Paige – Worst performance in idol history.
10.) Andrew – Heard it Through the Grapevine… really? And the Idol judges f’ing referenced Straight Up again. Enough with comparisons to Straight Up!!
9.) Tim -He was bad, yes. But the judges seem to really want to twist the knife when they criticize Tim. I’m always left feeling the need to defend the guy… “It wasn’t that bad, judges.”
8.) Katie – Sorry, she bores me. Way too fresh-scrubbed to get me attention. Also thought she was pitchy, dog.
7.) Aaron – Zzzzzzz…
6.) Lee – Sounded fine, but a really lame song. Couldn’t make it through to the end of the song without hitting fast-forward.
5.) Mike – I hammered him last week, but thought he was pretty decent this week. Lame song, but Mike sings the words like he really means what he is saying. Counts for something.
4.) Didi – Agree with others above. I thought she had a nice stage presence and sounded fine. Bad song, but she sang and performed it just fine. Judges unduly harsh.
3.) Siobhan – Sounded good, but she seemed a little stiff. It’s Stevie Wonder… loosen up! I’d way rather listen to Siobhan scream than Adam Lambert scream.
2.) Crystal – Sounded fine, but the song bored me.
1.) Casey – In case you missed the memo, Huey Lewis, like Hall & Oates, is cool again. I thought Casey sounded great, and the song choice had a cool, geeky-hip logic to it, in my opinion. I can see Weezer or Fountains of Wayne performing the same song. Skirts the line between being ironic and earnest. Yeah, on any other night this would have been a middling performance, but on a night filled with historically bad decisions and performances, I gotta say that Casey’s “Huey tribute” took the cake.
Rarely does the favorite ever win Idol. I think Lee has as good a shot as anyone of winning.
Amen, Tim.
Matt, I agree with almost everything you say, but I do think Lee or Didi have a chance to break through and win, and even if they don’t I want to see them perform a lot more.
So glad Paige went home. And now i need to listen to some Free…
Not much of a surprise. At this point, I am not sure if they will keep watching for much longer.
Siobhan, Crystal, and Casey are all so polished. All three are ready to cut an album right now.
Lee is still finding himself. Can he get to the level of S, C, and C in the next 8-9 weeks? Maybe, but he has a strange knack for being underwhelming week after week. His “song choice” record has also been suspect. Finally, he lacks confidence and any discernible stage presence. S, C, and C all have polished acts, more or less. I don’t see Lee as anything other than a dark horse.
Same with Didi. But she’s an even longer shot. Didi’s problem is she doesn’t have the judges on her side. Even when Lee underwhelms, week after week, the judges still give him props, still say they like him. For some reason the judges don’t have much faith or interest in Didi. And I’m not sure why? That will be a difficult hurdle for her to overcome.
More on Didi…
Didi does have stage presence and confidence. (Maybe even more than Crystal.) Her problem, unlike Lee, is that she doesn’t have a strong voice. She’ll always have to fight being pitchy. And she’s gotta find songs in her wheelhouse. Crystal and Siobhan can probably sing anything and sound good. Didi’s gotta find her niche, or she’ll end up looking bad. And MCQ is right, her niche is torch songs. Take a grunge song (like Burden in My Hand by Soundgarden) and make vulnerable and a little sexy.
I think she has a strong voice, she just hasn’t established who she is as an artist yet. I think that’s what the judges are having a problem with: she’s kinda all over the place. Whereas with Crystal, Siobhan and (to some extent) Casey, you already know exactly who they are and what you’re getting. All they need to do now is show some versatility.
Didi still needs to show some consistency within one particular musical style. I think once she does that she will look as good as any of them. And she can sing to her strength by taking almost any good song and doing her thing with it.
11. Paige
10. Andrew
9. Lee
8. Tim
7. Didi
6. Mike
5. Katie
4. Aaron
3. Casey
2.Siobhan
1. Crystal