I'd better get this in before thread #2 is locked. :)
Before I get into it, did everyone else hear audio problems during the show, or was it just either DirecTV or my local FOX affiliate? It didn't really affect much, but the sound dropped out a few times.
Ok, on to the review and rankings. I'm going to review each performance separately, and then do overalls for the night this week.
First Number (From The Year You Were Born):
- Elliott - Great way to start the show. I thought he sang well, looked good, and showed a lot of energy and personality. I really like that he seems to be improving week to week.
- Taylor - A toss-up at #2 and #3, I'll give Taylor the edge because it was more fun to watch. I'll risk drawing some ire of the Taylor fans and say that I don't think he's got a great voice, but I do thing he's a very good singer, if you get what I mean. Numbers like this are where Taylor excels.
- Chris - No real complaints about this, except that I could probably walk into any bar or club on a Friday night and hear the house band do at least as good of a cover of "Renegade" as this. Solid, but not special.
- Paris - Once again, she picks a song that's "too old" for her, this time based on the lyrics. This song is too "sexy" for a 17 year old, it's like she's a girl dressing up to pretend she's older. Paris' problem isn't the technical side of things, it's that she's picking songs she likes rather than songs that suit her.
- Katharine - This has to be Kat's worst performance to date. She spent the first third of the song trying to find the key, and even then, she had a pretty loose grip on it. A pity, because I kind of like what she did on the arrangement side toward the end, but the execution was awful. Good thing for her she got a second chance tonight.
Second Number (Current Billboard Hits, Any Chart)
- Katharine - This number was as good as the first one was bad. Excellent technical execution (no pitch problems I could hear, and good diction through a song with a pretty rapid pace) was paired with fun, energy, and nice style. Kat needs to remember to do a number like this every night from here on out, especially as they get to do multiple numbers per night.
- Chris - I really don't care for this style of music, but I think Chris sold it well.
- Elliott - Well-performed, pleasant, but a little forgettable. There wasn't much "star" quality to the performance, although it was nice to hear. It was a good song to pad out an album, not to showcase Elliott.
- Paris - See previous comments about Paris. I should just make a keyboard macro (though I probably won't need it after this week).
- Taylor - I had several problems with this. 1) Taylor doesn't seem to deliver good performances on slower songs on this stage, and this was no exception. 2) There were technical issues uncommon for Taylor (pitch, swallowing words, etc.) 3) This choice really felt like an "end-run" around the theme, though considering what the producers did to Taylor last week, I guess this can be just called payback. Note that despite this #5 ranking, this was still much better than Kat's first number.
Rankings for the night:
- Elliott - Two solid performances, including the best of the night. He has the best voice of any of the contestants, and he's improving on the performance aspects every week. If he can survive a late start building a fan base, he may make a dark horse run at winning this competition. He is the only contestant showing improvement at this point.
- Chris - Two good performances, just not quite up to "star" quality.
- Taylor - One good performance, one iffy one. Still enough for a decent night.
- Katharine - The second best performance of the night wasn't enough to save her from the worst of the night.
- Paris - "One of these things is not like the others..." She performs well (though at a single speed), but she always comes off as a copy of something else and not an artist in her own right.
Overall rankings:
- Elliott Yamin (NC)
- Chris Daughtry (NC)
- Katharine McPhee (NC)
- Taylor Hicks (+1)
- Paris Bennett (-1)
Paris will be going home, but I'm not sure who will join her in the bottom two. Kat should be there based solely on tonight, but she has all of Kellie's fans, and voters may forget her first number in favor of the second.