March 11, 2008 8:37 PM
The frontrunner stumbles
DavidArchuleta, the 17-year-old wunderkind from Murray, Utah, who has been a judge and fan favorite, gave his worst performance of the season on American Idol Tuesday.
A clearly nervous Archuleta brought a rock sensibility to the Beatles' We Can Work It Out. He forgot some of the lyrics in the first verse, and never recovered as he blugeoned his way through the song more on personality than talent. It wasn't his night and it definitely wasn't his song.
Still, look for Archuleta to survive the vote when the elimination round takes place Wednesday.
The long march to this year's American Idol began Tuesday night, when the 12 finalists on AI squared off on a new stage with a new selections of songs.
Golden oldies, actually, since the six men and six women were tasked to choose from the John Lennon-Paul McCartney songbook. Some of their choices were surprising.
Contestants also got to perform on a new stage, a sprawling set that looks like the anteroom for the mothership. It still has curving staircases, in case a singer wants to make a Titanic entrance. And still plenty of LCD screens behind performers, in case producers want to scroll something like, I don't know, a Coca Cola screensaver. (Coke's logo ran behind Carly Smithson and Amanda Overmyer during brief interviews.)
Syesha Mercado kicked things off with an energetic version of Got to Get You into My Life. She always seems to be having fun when she sings.
Chikezie Eze sang the lesser known She's A Woman, making it a blues-rock anthem that saw Eze bouncing around the stage like a man possessed. It was a different side of him, although it prompted judge Simon Cowell to remark that it looked like was "completely drunk halfway through the song."
Ramiele Malubay was the first of several predictable performers. Her version of In My Life was heartfelt yet uninspired, leaving all of the judges (in Simon's words) "bored to tears.
Jason Castro had trouble on the high notes on If I fell. He's got a nice voice and playing his own guitar was a nice touch. But nowhere near the emotional purity of the Jeff Buckley song he covered last week.
Carly Smithson got things back on track with Come Together. Her delivery was almost visceral, as if she were tearing off chunks of steak.
David Cook, 20, was only so-so on Eleanor Rigby. He turned it into a rocker, which Simon found "brilliant" and I found mediocre.
Brooke White, 20, played her own piano on Let It Be. There aren't many songs more plaintive than this in the English language. She did fine, but not fireworks.
David Hernandez ramped things up with I Saw Her Standing There. he's got an incredible voice, yet this was far from my favorite performance of his. He tried to dress it up by roaming the stage and even running into the audience at one point. This is one Beatles' song where less would definitely havebeen more.
Amanda Overmyer gave us You Can't Do That in her intimitable hard-charging style. She's like a tiger prowling the stage, and she sang as if she had nothing to lose.
That said, her performance was still better than the song.
Australian Michael Johns displayed both a strong voice and a strong song on Across the Universe. No moving about the stage. Not heavy orchestration. Just a lot of closeups of him singing a song that clearly had meaning for him.
The judges have routinely encouraged the performers to take risks. Not all of those risks work.
Kristy Lee Cook reimagined 8 Days A Week as a country tune, although the pacing was more suitable for squaredancing.
"Horrendous . . . Dolly Parton on helium . . . brave but foolish" were just some of Simon's comments.
On the plus side, no one sang Yesterday, preventing the show from slipping into complete cliche.
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