I'm watching, country is so sad.
WHOA!! That was a good HANES commercial!
Glad I have my Cingular wireless phone to vote from, I can't get thru for Chris Daughtry from my land phone, no matter how late I call.
Country... yippee. At least it's an improvement over last week's songs-from-the-21st-century theme. Country music at least generally has a strong, single-singer melody. Of course, finding a song that is a) challenging, b) interesting, and c) sounds good is still not as easy as it might appear.
The good news for the contestants is that no one was really bad last night. The bad news is that the vote-off tonight will be strictly a popularity contest, and not reflect the actual performances. I'll probably take a lot of flak for my rankings this week, but let me try and deflect some of that by saying that the difference between 2nd and 9th wasn't very great.
I was going to have a lot of comments for each singer about diction, but it seems like everyone had problems being heard clearly. So I'm going to place the blame on the band and the sound crew for drowning out the singers. Hey, idiots, we're trying to hear the contestants, not the band!
- Katharine - She's back! Confident, sultry, and commanding the stage. She sang the song very well (though a little rushed/muddled in the latter third) and really, really looked the part. This was clearly the best overall performance of the night. My Grade: A
- Bucky - This was the surprise performance of the night. Ok, it's country, Bucky's "natural" style, but he showed far more expression, poise, passion, and range than I have seen from him in any other week. Nowhere near the best voice in the competition, but in this style, you can get away with that. If this were the first time I had heard him, I would have thought he was a real contender. My Grade: A-
- Ace - Just losing out to Bucky for most pleasant surprise of the week, Ace turned in a much better performance than I would have expected from him. I still don't like his voice (too breathy, no support), but I guess he's good if you like that sort of thing. One piece of advice, though, don't listen to Randy (The "Leah LaBelle Rule"): avoid the falsetto, it's getting really old, and it doesn't blend well with your natural voice. My Grade: A-
- Kellie - This was... not as good as Kellie needed to do. She sang well, for the most part, but looked dull and almost expressionless on stage. Kellie could not afford to let a female contestant beat her this week, and she left the door wide open. However, lyrics referring to herself as "white trash" are at least truth in advertising. My Grade: B+
- Paris - For the first time, this looked like something other than an impersonation, and the result was good, though not great. I think she ended the song well, but there were quite a few inconsistencies earlier, especially in the lower register. My Grade: B
- Chris - I've said all along that Chris doesn't have a great voice, and he didn't prove me wrong. The problems are mostly technical: he's dropping the ends of phrases (they're fading out in power, and the pitch goes flat because of it). If he could have fixed that particular problem, this did have the chance of being a very, very good performance. But, it wasn't. My Grade: B
- Elliott - The opening was weak, and he didn't really have much stage presence. Other than that a solid, but not spectacular performance. I also was very distracted/put off when he licked his lips in the middle of the song. My Grade: B-
- Mandisa - Jeans again? *Sigh*... Again, solid but not spectacular. There was no "wow" to this performance, and I'm starting to worry about Mandisa's ability to select songs. My Grade: C+
- Taylor - Is starting off the night the kiss of death? This could have been a fun, engaging opening number, and instead it was a pleasant but boring warm-up act. It was more "John Denver" than John Denver, if you know what I mean. I expect much, much better from Taylor. My Grade: C
Updated overall rankings:
- Katharine McPhee (+1)
- Chris Daughtry (-1)
- Paris Bennett (+1)
- Mandisa (-1)
- Elliott Yamin (NC)
- Ace Young (+1)
- Taylor Hicks (-1)
- Kellie Pickler (NC)
- Bucky Covington (NC)
It's really hard to pick the bottom three tonight, because of the whole "popularity contest" aspect and how little difference there was between most of the contestants tonight. It probably won't be them, but I'll just have to stick with my bottom-ranked for the night: Elliott, Mandisa, and Taylor. Of those, Elliott will probably be the one voted off.
