Idol Re-Cap: Finals, Week Five

Since I listed all the song choices earlier today, I won’t repeat myself – I’ll get straight to the performances.

Bucky Covington – Bucky seemed to enjoy himself, but we didn’t enjoy Bucky. David hit fast forward about 45 seconds into it. He sounded off pitch to me, but he did look comfortable. But if that’s the best I can say, that he “looked comfortable,” then PLEASE OH PLEASE let Bucky go home this week.
Ace “Cannon” Young – I’m just going to surrender to my tendency and start calling him Ace Cannon. I didn’t have a good feeling about him singing “We Will Rock You,” but I don’t usually have a good feeling about Ace singing anything, so I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t have. Reallllly bad. It sounded like karaoke…no, it sounded like a crazy uncle at a wedding reception who decided to do a number with the band while said uncle’s children hid in the back and counted the seconds until the whole wretched event was over. More or less.
Kellie Dawn Pickler – Please remember that I predicted that this would be a train wreck. It was more like a near-miss, but she came thisclose to being flattened. I think that without her personality, she could’ve never pulled off this performance…and while I didn’t necessarily like her version of the song, I can appreciate that she definitely stepped outside her comfort zone and tried something different.
Chris Daughtry – Please quit screaming at me. Please? I think he sang his song, “Innuendo,” well, but it’s such an arrythmic melody that people in the audience didn’t seem to know when to clap or what to do. There was nothing catchy about this song, so I just didn’t feel it, yo. :-)
Katharine McPhee – I love her. I do. But not so much when she’s screaming at me in words I can’t understand. I would also like to point out that, in keeping with our earlier discussion, Katharine always manages to look cute and modest at the same time. So vote for her.
Elliott Yamin – I have high hopes for this performance. I am discouraged that Elliott mentions that before this week he’d never heard his song, “Somebody To Love.” HOW CAN THAT BE? But can I just say? I loved it. He made me smile. I especially liked the way he put an R & B twist on it at the end with the music dropping out. Great fun. He was the best of the night for us.
Taylor Hicks – I am SO glad that he’s not singing “We Are The Champions.” But y’all – “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” has about 4 notes, and it just doesn’t show what Taylor can do. And the fact that he tried to kick over the microphone stand and MISSED (was that a Merritt moment or what?)…well, it just made me cringe a little bit. But I really liked the end – that was where I heard the parts of his voice that I love the most.
Paris Bennett – I think I just don’t get her, probably because of what I’ve said before: I don’t think she has any idea who she is as a singer. And the whole performance tonight was, as David said, “weird.” (Hey, Simon just said the same thing). Weird song. Weird outfit. Weird hair. I felt like I was watching a video for a parody of the “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” soundtrack. Bizarre.

David just made a good point: maybe the problem is that Queen doesn’t have that many truly good songs – at least not 8 of them – without Freddie Mercury around to pull them off.

Next week had better be big band or Broadway or something that forces these people to SING. I’m just sayin’. I have had enough of blah songs and screaming singers. It’s really a four-person competition (Chris, Elliott, Katharine, Taylor), and I’m pretty ready to get to that point.

Should go: Bucky
Will go: Ace Cannon