Thoughts and Impressions from American Idol, Week 7

In this seventh week of American Idol, a few ongoing ideas were turned upside down while others proved to be dead-on accurate.

For example, the plugs they had this week were mostly for Habitat for Humanity. Yes, they were actually doing something good with that added air time. It got a little sappy at times, but hey, what do you expect? It’s better than watching them drink a Coke while driving a Ford to go buy something with their MasterCard.

Anyway, before we get to my thoughts on the singers, let me update you on a piece of American Idol news. Simon has indicated that he will have the winner’s new single out within weeks of the final vote. How? Because he will have the final three all record the song ahead of time. Smart thinking. As soon as it’s available, you can of course buy it on Amazon.com through RealityNewsOnline.

Now, on to the shows! We begin with somebody who I do not think will be one of those final three. RJ has his fans, and they showed up at the taping, but I agree with Simon that he is just not giving us American Idol winning performances. Good, yes, but not winner-good. I did think this one was better than the previous week, though.

Then Tamyra came up and blew him away. She also got the audience into it right away, which is a good way to get more votes, I think. Indeed, when I called in to vote for her, I actually got a number of busy signals – which has not happened to me since the very first time there was a call-in.

Nikki was better than before, but still shouting. Following Tamyra she just didn’t have what it took.

AJ had a good song selection, but his voice was not up to the task. Recently I’ve heard the expression that somebody has a “thin voice.” I didn’t really know what it meant until I heard AJ singing this song. Compared to the version we all know, his performance was weak. His vocals did not fill in what was needed.

Kelly did a good job, but she hit a high note there that was simply too much. Ouch.

Christina did a decent job, but that vibrato – ugh! I’m not sure what Simon was hearing when he gave her good comments. Perhaps he had drifted off for a few minutes and was dreaming about Tamyra.

Justin was next. As usual, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, and he was playing to his female fans. Then, it happened. When Simon dared to suggest that it wasn’t his best performance (which it wasn’t), Justin took matters into his own hand and tried to one-up Simon by calling on the fans. Bad move, Justin. You dropped several notches in my book, but even worse, Dana has disowned you! He is no longer “My Justin” to her. He should have just accepted the criticism, especially since it was entirely warranted. On the results show he tried to make amends a little, but it wasn’t enough.

Ryan was, well, definitely not her best. Her voice is not meant for that song, “You Really Got Me.” She didn’t show much range and, frankly, much talent. I’ve sung (metaphorically) her praises before, but this time, I just can’t. It was a nice outfit, though. Then she made the same bad mistake Justin had made by arguing with Simon. Why didn’t she argue with the other two, who had essentially made the same comments? Simon isn’t against rock music; he is, however, against poor performances, and that was one. Hopefully she’ll be back in form for the next show.

In the results show, we found out how they would stretch out a single result for an entire half hour. I guess they can’t just do 10-minute TV shows. One bit that I thought was pretty good was the group song. It would have been great except for one thing: AJ. Sorry, but everybody else seemed to be in harmony and filling their role. But whenever I could hear his voice, it just was not up to par with the others. More importantly, it was a clip with them singing rather than running around, shopping, or doing something else entirely unrelated to the point of this competition.

As the results show went on, I thought poor Ryan was going to have a stroke (that would be Ryan the contestant, not the host, who I don’t even usually bother to mention in these articles). She was sure she was gone. She knew she had not done a good job at all – despite her remarks to Simon the night before.

But it was not her time – it was AJ’s. This tells me that people are not voting solely on the basis of the most recent performance, but on the whole story up to that point. I think the voters made a good call. But Ryan had better get with it this time or she may be on the way out.

Moving on to the judges, at one point Paula said she likes to look at the glass as half full. No, Paula, you like to look at it as 99% full, even if there really is only a drop of water in it. Sometimes Simon is too blunt, but Paula is almost never blunt enough.

Then she went on to completely misunderstand something Simon was saying and launch into an attack on him about it. After AJ was booted, Simon said that talk is cheap – the hosts and other judges talk about how great he is but what are they going to do for him? This was where Simon was going when he mentioned that Paula is a choreographer. She seemed to take offense at this, as if he was insinuating that this was all she did, and jumped in about being a Grammy winner and all that. A little defensive there, Paula? Simon made it clear when he moved on to one of the hosts who has his own radio show. And he’s right. It’s all well and good for them to go on about how great each contestant is, but that’s all it is – talk. Simon shoots, Simon scores.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline, and can be reached at rno@pobox.com.

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