- Our polls are up! Vote for the best and worst of tonight's performances. http://idolpundit.com/?p=10280 #idol #
- Madonna? I don't see it happening. http://bit.ly/dz2sMR #idol #
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Lee or Crystal? Crystal or Lee? Going into last night, I would have said Lee by a slim margin. After the show was over, with the corpse of U2′s wonderful “Beautiful Day” lying bloody on the ground and the strains of “Up to the Mountain” delighting the angels in heaven, I switched. Crystal deserves to win. A criticism of Crystal, delivered by me as well as many others, is that she didn’t seem to develop all that much over the course of the season. She started out great, and was good to great on nearly every episode, but she rarely took it to the stratosphere. Last night, she proved that she has developed, as a singer, as a stage presence, and as an artist. Lee, who without question has developed, choked. While his first two songs were solid, he was not up to the challenge of “Beautiful Day.” It focused all of his weaknesses into one big mess. Off-key singing, nervousness, and a lack of charisma that happens when Lee gets nervous. So Crystal deserves the win. Will she get the win? DialIdol predicts no, but DialIdol’s accuracy has gone down quite a bit since more viewers switched to texting rather than phone voting. This may be stupid, but I’m going to put myself out on a limb and predict that Crystal wins anyway. We’ll know soon enough! Live blog and spoilers, plus our final poll results of the season once the show starts at 7:00 Central. Continue reading American Idol, 2010 – Episode 43 (5/26/10): The Big Ding-Dong With the way that this season has gone, it has been difficult for me to muster up any excitement about tonight’s final round. Crystal has been solid throughout the competition, but she has seemed to be a little bit on auto-pilot for the last three weeks. Lee has been shaky and out of tune for a lot of the season, but he has shown an impressive growth in confidence and stage presence. Add to that the fact that the producers have been giving Lee the extra bump in the final weeks with some choir-heavy orchestral arrangements, and it seemed that Lee was a foregone conclusion for this season’s winner. Would the finale performances make any difference in voter opinion? Will the outcome depend on steady growth (Lee) versus inherent natural talent (Crystal)? Does anyone care anymore? Only tomorrow night’s results will tell. From my understanding of the point of these power rankings, I am supposed to base my choice on my cumulative personal enjoyment of the contestants’ performances from week to week. For most of this season, I have had Crystal in a solid first place. Last week, Lee eclipsed Crystal based on his growth and Crystal’s seeming indifference towards winning this competition. Will tonight’s performances change that perspective? Let’s go the to tale of the tape. Round 1 Lee DeWyze – Lee wisely picks Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” as his personal favorite for the season, and he knocks it out of the park, far surpassing his original performance of the song. Lee gives what is probably his most pure vocal of the season, and his confidence at this stage completely eclipses any other performance that he has given thus far. This is Lee at his best, and it was very good. Crystal Bowersox – I was disappointed that Crystal picked such an obvious choice for her favorite of the season, but, despite a fairly disappointing beginning, she really brought the emotion and power to the second half of the song that made me a Crystal fan to begin with. It was good, but not great. Round 1 winner: Lee, but just barely (I was tempted to call it a draw, but Lee’s improvement over his first performance gives him the win) Round 2 Lee DeDwyze - Lee sings REM’s “Everybody Hurts”, and I thought this was a misguided pick before he even sang a note. The whole performance required a more light and nuanced vocal than Lee’s gruff voice and limited range is capable of, and he struggled with the song throughout. It was a poor song choice for his particular singing style, and the result was a fairly mediocre performance from Lee. Crytal Bowersox - The choice of Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet” was, on a personal note, detrimental for me. I hate this song with a passion, but Crystal actually made me respect it. That is high praise considering how much this songs repulses me. Crystal managed to make me intrigued by a shitty song that I can’t stand, and her vocal was admittedly impressive. While not a slam dunk, she absolutely outshined Lee in the second round. Round 2 winner: Crystal Bowersox, and it’s not even close Round 3 Lee DeWyze - WTF? The contestants are no longer singing original compositions (from farmed-out songwriters) for their first single? That’s a shock, and Lee bears the brunt of this change by singing a big hit by a major band to which he does absolutely no justice. Lee’s performance of U2′s “Beautiful Day” is absolutely, soul-crushingly awful. The song itself does not require much range, and Lee talks his way through it. Add to that no less than TEN VIOLIN PLAYERS onstage with Lee, and he seemed absolutely lost in such a giant song. If there was ever any doubt about Lee’s strength as a performer, it has been confirmed with this mess of a performance. Crystal Bowersox – Wow. I don’t know what else to say. Crystal took a lesser known Patty Griffin song and basically delivered the most powerful performance in the history of “American Idol”. Yes, it destroyed my previous favorite, which was Bo Bice’s a capella version of “In A Dream”. Crystal demonstrated an emotional connection along with an impressive vocal range that absolutely destroyed any competition this season, including Lee’s first round triumph with “The Boxer”. Round 3 winner: Crystal Bowersox, in one of the most competition-crushing performances in the history of the show After tonight’s performances, there is no doubt in my mind that Crystal should be the next American Idol. My final power rankings are:
So who will win? Despite my opinion of who absolutely destroyed the competition tonight (Crystal), Lee will still walk away with the win. And American Idol will continue its slide into irrelevance. Next season will probably be Idol’s last, and I will probably not tune in to see its death. Love him, hate him, or love to hate him, no one can question Nick Mitchell/Normund Gentle’s work ethic in trying to extend his fifteen minutes. Here we are folks! The dream we all dream of! Boys versus girls in the World Series of love Idol. Lee or Crystal? Crystal or Lee? I think I’ve had a favorite in every finale since I cheered on Kelly Clarkson, but I don’t think I do in this one. I’m slightly leaning Lee, because he’s developed more than Crystal has, but if Crystal brings down the house tonight, I’ll switch sides in a hurry. Our beautiful and talented occasional co-blogger Kari is actually at the finale, so I”m hoping we’ll have an in-person report a little later tonight or sometime tomorrow. As for me, I’m doing what I always do, live blogging from Austin, Texas. Live blog and spoilers below the fold, and our weekly best/worst polls at the end of the post once the show is over. [Update: polls are up!] Continue reading American Idol, 2010 – Episode 42 (5/25/10): Top Two
I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but “The Mighty K.C.” by For Squirrels got a lot of radio play in Ann Arbor in 1995. I don’t think I’ve heard it on the radio since I moved to Austin, so maybe it was a regional thing. For Squirrels was a one-hit wonder for a very sad reason–their lead vocalist and bassist were both killed in a tour van accident prior to the release of their major label debut. The album was released anyway, and thank God it was, because it contained this gem of a tribute to another musician who died too young, Kurt Cobain. “The Mighty K.C.” is the perfect Lee DeWyze song. It’s in his range, in his style, a tribute to (I’m certain) one of his heroes, and it’s a damned good piece of songwriting. It’s also a good Idol song. It will be familiar to many, but not so familiar that it induces the eyerolls too many songs induce. It’s got an intense buildup, a transcendent chorus, and a dramatic ending (DUM DUM DUUUUMMMM!) It’s also thematically appropriate for a finale: “By the grace of God go I into the great unknown.” Rough up the chorus a bit and add some Lee DeWyze vocal intensity, and it could be epic. Welcome once again to the American Idol Variety Hour and Results Show. This episode promises to be particularly painful. No one seriously expects (except for maybe Former Housemate Mike) Casey to win after getting the death slot, picking a lousy song, having the judges purposefully pick him another lousy song so that he’d lose to Lee and Crystal, and having Lee so pimped that I thought he might ascend into heaven. Suspense? Nope. Just an hour of pre-taped Justin Beiber performances. Yes, dear reader, it’s going to be a long night. So Casey’s going home, and Lee and Crystal are not. This is probably as it should be, but the manipulation sticks in my craw. Anyway, our live blog and spoilers (yeah, right!) are below the fold, along with our weekly poll results. Continue reading American Idol, 2010 – Episode 41 (5/19/10): Top Three Results *Sigh* So many things I would like to say about last night’s sad continuation of the mediocrity that is this season, but I don’t know if I can find the energy. Here’s tonight’s power rankings, with each contestant ranked from “whatever” to “who cares?”.
So whatever, basically. I really don’t care if Casey or Crystal get eliminated tonight. Can’t they just declare Lee the winner already and just save us all some time? We’re down to the Top 3 and I’m really upset Big Mike isn’t around. He would have been much better than Crystal tonight. Here’s the rankings: 1. Lee Dewyze – He’s gonna win it all. I’m done hating on Lee. He’s the best right now and it’s not close. The selection of “Simple Man” by Lynard Synard was so brilliant. And I’ve, in general, hated his song selection. Simon busted out his staple of “Hallelujah” and Lee did it justice. Lee was already on top, but he left the others in the dust tonight. 2. Casey James – Casey was the second best tonight. On both songs. And he was the best last week. The first song choice was terrible, and he was mediocre and boring. I’ve never heard the song and I don’t even remember the title. ‘Nuff said. The second song, “Daughters”, was a great choice for him and I think he nailed the vocal and the guitar solo. Some people might think it was boring, but a lot of females loved Casey tonight. Much better than Bowersox tonight. 3. Crystal Bowersox – Wow, was Crystal bad tonight. Her worst night ever. She picked another obvious song for herself, the Melissa Etheridge diddy. As soon as I heard the pick, I said that the only surprising thing about that pick is that it took this long for her to find a way to sing it. Simon defined that as “not compromising.” I say that’s “boring and lame.” And “being like Taylor Hicks.” The second song, “Baby I’m Amazed”, was so bad for so long that it didn’t remotely matter at the end when she started hitting good, but out of context notes the show hasn’t seen since Siobhan Magnus lost. Crystal struggled with the harmonica equipment on the first song, then with trying to be Siobhan in the second. Really bad. If she isn’t in the finals everyone will be shocked. Except me. |
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