American Idol
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Aww, everyone got at least one vote. That makes me so happy With the exception of Chris Richardson tying with Sundance, I can pretty much agree with these results.

Who had the best performance tonight?
Phil Stacey: 8% (9)
Jared Cotter: 3% (3)
A.J. Tabaldo: 4% (5)
Sanjaya Malakar: 3% (3)
Chris Sligh: 12% (13)
Nick Pedro: 1% (1)
Blake Lewis: 26% (29)
Brandon Rogers: 1% (1)
Chris Richardson: 21% (24)
Sundance Head: 21% (24)

Total Votes : 112

So, if I got to personally choose the top 12, this is who I would handpick, based on the performances so far.

1. Blake Lewis
2. Chris Sligh
3. Sundance Head
4. Jared Cotter
5. Phil Stacey
6. Brandon Rogers

1. Lakesha Jones
2. Melinda Doolittle
3. Jordin Sparks
4. Sabrina Sloan
5. Gina Gershon
6. Stephanie Edwards

Unfortunately, this is who I would predict will actually be in the Top 12, at this point in time:

1. Blake Lewis
2. Chris Sligh
3. Sundance Head
4. Jared Cotter
5. Phil Stacey
6. Sanjaya Malakar

1. Lakesha Jones
2. Melinda Doolittle
3. Jordin Sparks
4. Sabrina Sloan
5. Gina Gershon
6. Antonella Barba

I forgot to give my ranking of the guys tonight, so here it is. The first three could really go in any order.

1. Blake Lewis
2. Chris Sligh
3. Sundance Head

4. Jared Cotter
5. Chris Richardson
6. Phil Stacey
7. Nick Pedro
8. Brandon Rogers
9. A.J. Tabaldo
10. Sanjaya Malakar

The guys did MUCH better this week than last week, although I don’t think many of them came close to the girls’ performances from last week. I think there could definitely be six contenders among them, though. Tonight the singers were supposed to dedicate their performances to someone, so there was a nice little sentimental moment when they talked about their dedications before each song was performed.

Phil Stacey dedicated his performance to the Navy Band SouthEast, the outfit he is stationed with. I was surprised he didn’t dedicate a song to his wife and daughters, but perhaps that would have been too predictable. He sang “Ain’t Missing You”, a song popularized in the 80s by Tom Waits. I’m not sure this was the best song choice. He did the best performance possible of that song, but it’s just not a song you could do a lot with. Randy and Paula liked it. Simon wasn’t jumping out of his chair, as he put it. He feels that Phil is not unique and that he is a “very, very good karaoke singer” (well, at least he’s not a mediocre karaoke singer, as so many are called). But Simon does think Phil will be back next week, as he has the likeability factor going for him.

The second performer tonight was Jared Cotter, singing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On”, which he dedicated to his parents. I’m not sure this was the most unique vocal performance of this song, but he did put a lot of himself into the onstage performance. Randy thought the performance was pitchy, but liked the presentation. Paula was at a loss as to what to say. Simon said “it reminded me of the Love Boat” to which Jared replied, “That would have been a great Love Boat, man”. Too funny.

AJ Tabaldo had an odd song choice, in my opinion, singing The Pussycat Dolls’ “Feelin’ Good”. He dedicated the performance to his parents (a popular dedication tonight). I thought he sounded good, vocally, but his performances remind me a bit of Will and Grace’s “Just Jack”. They’re a bit femme for me. Randy said it was kind of nice. Paula said he has a really good voice. Simon said it was “nearly very good”.

Poor, poor Sanjaya Malakar. He just can’t catch a break. Dedicating Irving Berlin’s “Stepping Out With My Baby” to his grandfather, Sanjaya simply didn’t have a good night. This is a case where he is evidently too inexperienced to pick songs that work for his voice. I feel like he needs to embrace the softness of his voice and pick songs, accordingly. Or he needs to add power to his voice, as he did at the end of the song. But mostly his performances just come across as confused. And I’m afraid the criticism is really harming him. If he’s back next week, I hope he chooses a better song. Randy said the performance didn’t work for him. Paula said he needs to pick younger songs. Simon said it was “very weak” and “a little weird”.

Halfway through, we heard Chris Sligh sing Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble” to his wife. He made a really very touching dedication to her and sang the song well, too. I kept thinking of Taylor singing the song last year, but Chris approached the song in a completely different way, so it wasn’t a disturbing comparison (kind of an apples and oranges kind of thing). Randy thought it was a good choice. Paula thought it was awesome. Simon said “tonight you were a very good singer”.

I like Nick Pedro. I’m pulling for him to go far. But tonight’s performance of Peggy Lee’s “Fever” (dedicated to his girlfriend) didn’t give me fever— more like a lukewarm kind of feeling. I thought it was okay vocally. I just felt like he needed to go farther with the song and give it more intensity. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I just saw a really great performance of this song Sunday night when I was flipping by the Grease reality show. Randy liked that Nick returned to his vibe (I did like that). Paula thought he needed to let go and go for it. Simon thought the performance was good but that it lacked charisma.

Blake Lewis also returned to his original audition style, dedicating Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” to his parents. There was scatting, there was beatboxing… I found the whole thing thoroughly enjoyable. I didn’t even write notes, as I was too busy watching his performance. Randy loved it, giving Blake extra points for the high degree of difficulty (high degree of difficulty? Is this diving?). Paula liked it. Simon thought the first part was a copycat of the original (since very few of us have heard the original, it’s kind of hard to argue with that). He thought the middle was good and that the end was out of tune. Overall, he didn’t care for it.

I think Brandon Rogers is capable of such greatness. Go back and watch his original audition if you can’t take my word for it. He dedicated Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” to his grandmother, who is no longer living. It was, well, a bit boring. I get that he was feeling the song, and that did come across, but perhaps he could feel the song AND sing it in an interesting way. Fantasia was definitely feeling her song last week, and it definitely wasn’t boring. Randy was bored. Paula felt his heart coming through in the song. Simon said Brandon needs to make a wow impact with each performance, and this didn’t.

And now for this year’s “I don’t get the fascination” performer. Each year there is a performer that the judges just ooh and aah over that I feel just ho-hum about. Chris Richardson is that person for me this year. I don’t dislike Chris. I don’t even dislike his singing. I just feel like he’s average and so-so. I’ve felt this way since his first audition. I just don’t get it. They keep comparing him to Justin Timberlake, but he reminds me more of one of the New Kids on the Block. Anyway, on to tonight. Chris sang Jason Mraz’s “Geek In The Pink” and dedicated it to his grandmother, which I thought was cute and very sweet. I thought he sounded much better than last week, and he didn’t flap his arms like a chicken, so that was better, but I didn’t think it was anything standout. Clearly, I was mistaken. Randy said Chris was “in it to win it”. Paula fawned about it. Simon thought it was the best tonight. Um, okay. Like I said, “I don’t get it”.

When Sundance Head was asked about the feedback he’d been getting since last week, he said mostly his friends and family told him “don’t be so crappy”. In an effort to comply, he sang “Mustang Sally” like I’ve been expecting him to sing since his first audition. He dedicated the song to his 2 month old son, whom he’s clearly missing. I hope tonight’s performance is one of many more like it for Sundance. Randy said, “welcome back, Sundance”. Paula thought it was awesome. Simon thought it was good, but still thinks Sundance can do better.

That was it for tonight. Tomorrow night the girls sing. Thursday night, four more go home. Make sure to take our poll and let us know who you liked.

Hmmm. Interesting show tonight. As I told my husband, I felt like there was one person who was clearly the best, several fighting it out for second, a large pack in the middle and a few subpar performances. More on that at the end. For now, here’s the play by play.

Rudy Cardenas started the night off with “Free Ride”. Rudy is very cute and personable. I thought it was a good performance, good energy, good vocals, but something just seemed disconnected. I couldn’t really put my finger on it. Randy hand no problem stating his issue with the performance. He felt it was corny. Paula, predictably, loved it. Simon finds Rudy utterly unremarkable.

Brandon Rogers turned in a solid performance of “Rock With You”. He was a bit stiff to me— maybe it was nerves. Other than that, I thought he was a strong contender. Randy felt like it was “pitchy”. Paula said he needs to step up as a lead singer. Simon thought the performance was safe and predictable and then he gave the first of several complidisses for the night (Ryan’s phrase, not mine), saying that Brandon was “much better than that”.

My husband and I were both really excited to hear Sundance Head. We both really liked him in the initial auditions, and he’s from Texas, so we were pretty sure we’d be voting for him for quite some time. Tonight he sang “Nights In White Satin”. It was, um, interesting. Okay, here’s the truth. It just wasn’t very good. He was very humble in his pre-interview, saying that he made it to the top 24 on the strength of his first audition. He’s right. It’s been pretty much downhill ever since. I hope that he makes it past tonight and that he can dust himself off and be the singer that he obviously CAN be. Randy, Paula and Simon all had varying degrees of dislike for his performance but all agreed he needs to go back to the bluesy guy they saw in the initial auditions.

Barefoot Paul Kim attempted “Careless Whisper”. This is another guy that I really wanted to like. He seems very sweet. His initial audition was not my favorite kind of singing, but it was alright for that type of music. But tonight— ugh. It was not good. There were some really rough notes, and his energy was very low. Randy still holds out future hope for Paul, though. Simon’s advice was that he put his shoes on next week. In a show of solidarity, Ryan then appeared without his shoes.

Upfront I want to say that I find something about Chris Richardson unappealing (not on a personal level, but as a performer). He seems like a really nice guy, but I think his voice, performance style, the whole package, really, is just not my cup of tea. Tonight he sang Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Want to Be”, which makes me think of One Tree Hill, but that’s another story altogether. I know a lot of people probably loved his performance. My husband really liked it, but I just didn’t care for it. I thought he sounded young and immature, and I didn’t care for all the chicken wing flapping that he did with his arms. Randy and Paula, on the other hand, really liked the performance. Simon said he “sounded small”— whatever that means.

Nick Pedro has such a mellow, pleasant voice. This was really showcased tonight when he sang “Now and Forever”. However, I did have to agree with Simon that he had lost some of his sparkle tonight. He could have had a bit more energy, and he needs to stand up straight. Randy and Paula just didn’t like it at all.

I had never heard Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” before tonight. I thought it was a really nice song. And I thought Blake Lewis did a great job of singing and ballad with energy. Even though he was sitting for the song, he wasn’t at all boring. There was no beat boxing tonight, but he promises we’ll hear more of that in the weeks ahead. Randy dug the performance. Paula thought it was a surprising song choice but with a contemporary vibe. Simon thought he was the first person tonight who sounded like a singer singing in 2007. He named this the best performance of the night.

In his initial audition, Sanjaya Malakar had great fortune with a Stevie Wonder song. He tried to repeat that tonight with “Knocks Me Off My Feet”. Unfortunately, this time it didn’t go as well. He has such a nice smile and is so soft spoken. He just seems a bit overwhelmed. He picked a difficult song, and he just never really dug into it and let go. The judges were not kind. Randy said it was really bad, Paula opted to just call it a hesitant performance, and Simon referred to it as dreary and dull.

Before he took his blog down, Chris Sligh had a list of his top 100 favorite songs. Number 9 was MuteMath’s “Typical”. And that’s what he chose to sing tonight. It’s definitely a song that fit Chris. He’s certainly not a “typical” American Idol contestant. All in all, it was a good, solid performance. Randy said, “I’m a Chris fan”, Paula said everyone had a great time. Simon was having a hard time coming up with exactly what to say when things got kind of weird. Chris insulted Simon and then I couldn’t tell whether Simon was mad at Chris or Ryan. Either way, it was momentarily very uncomfortable.

Shayne Ward’s “Back to One” is a bit gimmicky for my tastes, but Jared Cotter did a good job with it tonight. He has a cute smile and makes you want to like what he’s singing. Randy felt like it wasn’t his best performance, and Simon felt it was unadventurous.

A.J. Tabaldo is definitely the most persistent of this year’s contestants, since this was his fifth time to audition. He turned in a decent performance of “1000 Kisses”. Personally, I found the performance a bit cheesey. But Randy and Paula liked it. Simon felt it was a bit like a theme park performance (hey, at least he dodged the karaoke bullet). But then said, “Maybe you’re better than I thought”. Boy, he sure knows how to pour on the sweetness, doesn’t he?

The final performance of the night was Phil Stacy. His wife was in the audience, and he was clearly nervous. He chose a song that was clearly meant for his wife— “I Could Not Ask For More”. It started off “monstrously”, as Simon said, but after the first couple of lines, he relaxed and gave a really lovely performance. It was definitely an “awww” song. Randy said it was the best vocal performance of the night. I’m not sure if I agree with that, but it was really good.

So, here’s how I would rank tonight’s performances.

1. Blake Lewis

2. Phil Stacy
2. Chris Sligh
2. Brandon Rogers

(in no particular order)
5. Rudy Cardenas
6. Nick Pedro
7. AJ Tabaldo
8. Jared Cotter

(bringing up the rear)
9. Sanjaya Malakar (he almost made it into the middle group for me)
10. Sundance Head
11. Chris Richardson
12. Paul Kim

I don’t necessarily think that Chris Richardson will actually be in the bottom two, as I’ve already admitted my bias there. And I’m not sure that either A.J. Tabaldo or Jared Cotter won’t join Paul Kim in the bottom two, since tonight was the first time we’ve really seen a great deal of either one of them. If I were guessing, I’d guess A.J. would be in the bottom two out of those two.

So, what did you think of tonight’s performances? Love them? Hate them? Let me know.

Tonight was the final elimination before American takes control of who stays and who goes. The Final 40 became the Top 24. I didn’t really feel like there were any huge surprises tonight. Without further ado, here is the list of the Top 24. (I’ve included links to the videos that I’ve already posted from the group. I’ll be trying to track down the rest of the audition videos before next week.)

Girls:
Melinda Doolittle (really got some nice encouragement from Simon— even a hug)
Gina Glocksen (who didn’t make it past Hollywood last year)
Haley Scarnato
Jordin Sparks (at 17, I believe she’s the youngest)
Stephanie Edwards
Leslie Hunt
Alaina Alexander
Sabrina Sloan
Lakisha Jones (the single Mom from Birmingham)
Nicole Tranquillo
Amy Krebs
Antonella Barba

Guys:
Sanjaya Malakar
Brandon Rogers (rumors that claim American Idol is fixed state he is the winner)
Philip Stacy (who missed his daughter’s birth and will now be missing several firsts, most likely)
Chris Sligh (Jack Osbourne look-alike and music minister)
Blake Lewis (Seattle beat boxer extraordinaire)
Rudy Cardenas
Paul Kim (who will be wearing no shoes and his lucky underwear from now on)
A.J. Tabaldo
Nick Pedro (who left the auditions last year)
Chris Richardson
Jared Cotter
Sundance Head

I just have a couple of comments before I sign off. One, I really hate it when they ask the contestants how they think they did. What are they supposed to answer? You should send me home, I was horrible? I also dislike it when they try to fake them out and make them think that they haven’t made it through when they have.

I have a bit of mixed feelings about this top 24. I don’t know, something just seems off about it. I think part of it is that there’s a really high number of people that we hadn’t seen at all until tonight. So, I feel really disconnected from a number of these people. Then there are at least two people who made it through whom I had seen their audition, and I didn’t even think they would make it to Hollywood, much less to the final 24. So, that’s a bit disappointing. On the other hand, several of my favorites DID make it through. I’ll be posting my own personal “must have” top 12 in the coming week. Then we’ll see how many of them survive to that point.

What did you think?

Tonight found us back in Los Angeles— land of the bizarre (perhaps even stranger than Seattle). L.A. people simply could not take “no” for an answer. I guess they’re accustomed to begging for opportunities. Olivia Newton John joined Simon, Paula and Randy. She seems like she would be far too sweet to be a guest judge. She really seemed to not enjoy the whole experience of telling people that they were not good. Tonight’s show was only an hour and out of that hour, we only got to see three people who made it through to Hollywood, so that pretty much sums up what the show was like tonight.

Alaina Alexander is a frustrated L.A. singer who was ready to give up singing and go to school. Her American Idol audition was her last effort to make a career of singing. It looks like she’ll be sticking with the music career for the moment, since she got a ticket to Hollywood.

This seems to be the year of background singers. I don’t really remember hearing of any in past years (although certainly maybe they just didn’t make the show or get camera time). This year there have been two background singers, Melinda Doolittle and now Brandon Rogers. Simon felt like he was one of the few LA auditions who could make the finals. Olivia Newton-John said he was the best she had heard. Needless to say, he made it through.

Brian Miller became the second person who made it through to Hollywood last year to return. He and Nicholas Pedro will have to fight it out to see if either one of them will make it past Hollywood this year. I really liked his voice. Unfortunately, Simon may be right about him being forgettable.

I don’t normally post on those who don’t make it through, but I had to mention two singers tonight who didn’t stand a chance of making it through to Hollywood. The first was Sherman Pore. In spite of the fact that he was quite a bit older than the cut off (almost twice as old, actually), he successfully petitioned to be able to sing. His lady love passed away from cancer two days before the auditions. To keep her spirits up while she was ill, he came up with this idea to petition American Idol to allow him to audition. He wasn’t a bad singer, but clearly he wasn’t planning to ever make it past the initial audition. He seemed very pleased that he had been allowed to sing and honor her memory.

The second person was Eric Mueller. This was just one more bad audition UNTIL… Simon noticed that Eric had been training himself using Paula and Randy’s “Sing Like the Stars” video to train himself to sing. I’ve never seen his eyes light up so much— at least not since last year when some horrible singer said he’d been using the same video. He went chasing after Eric, who had already left. Paula and Randy went chasing after Simon. I think they actually scared the poor guy away.

In any case, that was the final audition of the evening. There were 19 singers from the Los Angeles auditions who made it through to Hollywood. Next week’s auditions are in San Antonio, in my home state. It looks like we may see some big talent. Until then, check back with us for more videos, websites and more about your favorites, thus far.

Here Nicholas Pedro explain in his own words why he left American Idol last year. Also, see his audition.

Tonight’s post may be a bit long because there were so many people to talk about. Because of that, I won’t be including a lot of extra details on the singers, but look for that in the coming days. Tonight’s show was the New York auditions. This is the first time that American Idol has been to New York since Season 3.

There was a guest judge again tonight— Carol Bayer Sager. I didn’t know who that was, but she is a really famous songwriter. Among other songs, she wrote Groovy Kind of Love and That’s What Friends Are For.

A lot of women made it through tonight, but not many men. So, even though the men weren’t anywhere near the beginning of the show, I’m going to go ahead and talk about the men that were shown who made it through first.

The first male that we saw make it to Hollywood was Jenry Bejarano. Adopted when he was one, Jenry did not look or sound 16. Simon wasn’t there when he auditioned, due to a late arrival on day 2, but Paula and Carol were swooning over him (last I checked, girls, sixteen is underage). Anyway, he was a charismatic guy with a good voice.

Chris Richardson was another guy who made it through. I’d put him in the “alright” category. But Simon said he thought he could surprise them all in the next round. I guess we’ll have to wait to Hollywood to find out.

Finally, there was Nicholas Pedro. You remember Nicholas from last year. He’s the guy who made Paula cry when he dropped out in Hollywood because he was overwhelmed and unable to learn the words to Buttercup. He said since dropping out, he has become more serious about singing, and he wants to redeem himself from dropping out last year.

That was it for the guys. From the look of things when they showed everyone who made it through from New York, they may have been the only guys who made it to Hollywood.

So, on to the women— I found the women today started to kind of blend together after a while, so I’m going to mention the ones that stood out to me first.

Porcelana Patino went through training that seemed more fitting for a boxer than a singer. She lost weight and got fit for her American Idol audition. That’s probably not a horrible plan, actually. I actually had to rewind the dvr to find out the spelling for her name because I was so sure she was going to be a loon that I didn’t pay much attention to it. She may be a loon, but she was a unique loon who had some singing talent. So, she made it through.

Rachel Zevita is studying opera. Often, this means bad things for American Idol auditions. Yes, they have great voices, but often everything sounds kind of like opera when they sing it. Not so with Rachel. Her first song didn’t sound like opera. They had her sing another song. It didn’t sound like opera, but it didn’t sound like the first song, either. The girl can definitely sing. The question is does she know herself well enough to present a musical point of view?

Best friends Antonella Barba and Amanda Coluccio were both very pretty. Simon clearly enjoyed them. They hadn’t planned to audition together, but the judges had Amanda (auditioning first) call in Antonella. First, they sang a duet together, and it was pretty horrible. Amanda was the better trained of the two, but she almost sounded “over trained”. Antonella was sure Amanda was the better singer, but the judges disagreed, and so did I. Both girls made it through to Hollywood, though, so hopefully they’ll still be best friends when it’s all over.

The first singer of the evening who made it through to Hollywood was Sarah Burgess. The 19 year old had lied to her parents about where she was going because they do not support her singing aspirations. Fortunately for Sarah, she made it through. When she called her Dad, he didn’t sound all that angry. Hopefully, they’ll be more supportive now.

Finally, there was Kia Thornton and Jory Steinberg. I thought they were both quite good, but they didn’t talk to them a whole lot, so there’s not that much to say about them. Kia did have the strongest reaction of any of the singers to the news she had made it through. As she fell on the ground screaming and crying, Simon turned to Randy and said “there’s one problem— no emotion”. Oh, that Simon.

Jory is a Canadian originally. Like I said, she sounded really good. She had a good look. She got a yes from all four judges. I don’t really know what else to say about her. She had met an awful lot of people in Canada, including the Queen when she visited Canada, so I’ll be interested to see what her story is when I have time to look into that more.

That was it for New York. A whopping 35 made it through. Next stop— Birmingham, Alabama. I guess they figured once you have two winners from a state, maybe you ought to schedule a stop there.