"That's how we talk around here. If Simon comes here he'd talk like us too." (smile)
About Kellie's performances: "I tell her just be herself."
Uh-huh.
Chris: He gets total props from me for doing a smooth, easy-listening type of song purely, the way it should be sung. He has a better voice than I thought until now. Also, now that he's loosening up and smiling more, I'm warming up to him. My only mild criticism is that his was the easiest song to sing of those done tonight. But what Chris did, he did very, very nicely indeed.
Paris: A little rough in a spot or two, but overall she gave a wonderful jazz performance of a great song written by Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey. 'These Foolish Things' has been performed by virtually every great name in jazz. Paris gets props for singing probably the most difficult song of the night and doing an excellent job, especially considering she's just 17. This girl is gifted, but like Elliott, she doesn't have much charisma. Still, in my opinion, she should be the last girl to go home in this competition. Probably won't happen that way, though.
Taylor: Easily the best performance of the night by far. This tune actually would have been the easiest to sing of the night if Taylor hadn't done what he did with it. Taylor turned a simple 1957 doo-wap/early soul tune with the plain, repetitive lyrical style of that period into something modern and absolutely spectacular. A number of articles appeared this week talking about how Simon is often contradictory in what he says to and about AI contestants. The prevailing opinion is that he does not want Taylor to win because he, Simon, wouldn't know how to market him. Taylor doesn't easily fit any of today's biggest selling genres. I suspect that's why Simon over-praised Katharine's performance (more about this below). How is it that Simon could say Taylor's performance was magic, then tell Katharine she made everyone else look like amateurs. Amateurs don't take doo-wap songs and turn them into magic, which Taylor sure as heck did.
(BTW, I'm absolutely delighted someone of Rod Stewart's stature in the business basically told Taylor to ignore what Simon says about what Taylor does on stage.)
Elliott: I really like this guy. He did a very, very nice rendition of another jazz classic. Elliott has a smooth, effortless style that tends to hide the difficulty of his wonderful key changes and phrasing. You're right, Jonny. If Elliott goes tomorrow night, it would be a true injustice. I think the two things that hurt Elliott, despite his obvious talent, are his looks and his low-wattage personality. I just wish this guy had more charisma to go with his vocal talent. Sigh.
Kellie: Speaking of who should go tomorrow night, this is the person who should. Tonight Pickle showed about as clearly as possible her limitations as a singer. I've been saying for weeks that she tends to go flat in her songs. She loses the melody. She also has a very limited range and not much power to her vocals. She's been able to disguise her weaknesses by choosing fun, mostly novelty songs that don't require serious vocal chops to pull off.
This time Pickle picked a song that is WAY too ambitious for her small talent. Written for the musical "Pal Joey" (Joey in the 1940 original was none other than Gene Kelly), the Rogers and Hart classic "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" has been sung by a whose who of American pop music. Pickle, who I firmly believe does not have much of a musical ear, totally lost the melody and rythmn of the song early in her performance and never got it back. If this mess tonight doesn't at least get her a trip to the bottom 3, I will be very disappointed. It should get her tossed out of the competition, because everyone else -- yes, including Ace -- is more talented than she is.
Ace: So there I was, actually enjoying his mellow and really quite good rendition of "That's All," when he slipped into that awful falsetto. The judges keep telling him that's what he does best, but I couldn't disagree more. I think doing so much falsetto is actually ruining a pretty decent voice. I know falsetto has been popular in male pop vocals for a long time, but I hate it. Simon mentioned the nasal quality Ace gets when he's singing in his normal register. I think that comes from his doing so much falsetto.
Katharine: OK, what did the judges see that I missed? I played her performance back a few times just to try to be fair. But I still came away HATING her performance of one of the top 10 or 20 greatest pop songs of the 20th Century. A classic torch song, 'Someone to Watch Over Me' has been the favorite anthem of lonely people everywhere since it was written by the Gershwin brothers nearly 80 years ago. It was the 4th most popular song of the 1920's according to ASCAP's historical records, and it's never gone out of style or importance since.
Katharine could not get on either the melody or the lyrics for the first couple of bars, and her phrasing was so-so (for a song which demands impeccable phrasing). She also failed to carry through on her notes in a number of places, leading to rather abrupt stops and starts in the flow of the song. Totally failing to convey the torchy quality and meaning of the song, she alternately sang like she was about to get a Christmas present, and like she had heartburn. Although it wasn't as obvious tonight as it is in some of her performances, she also has a nasal quality which I heard in spots tonight. She threw in some modern runs and melody changes, but it was like meaningless window dressing. It brought absolutely nothing to the song other than to show she could do melody changes and runs. Whoop-de-do.
Taylor changed up on his song, making a simple song much more complex. In contrast to Katharine's changes, Taylor brought a whole new sense of drive and urgency and feeling to his song: Girl, I REALLY, REALLY want to marry you and take you home, like right now, honey. Versus Katharine's hear me do a run because I can. Hear me change the melody because I can. Aren't I great.
To me, based solely on tonight's performances, the bottom three are Katharine, Ace and Pickle, and if it were up to me, Pickle would be going back in her jar tomorrow.