This week’s theme is Elvis, and Adam Lambert is the mentor. With two going home tomorrow night, this will be bloody.
The singers, the songs-
Crystal, “Saved”
Crystal sang like, well, Crystal, but she was noticeably sharp on her late glory run. The arrangement was way too busy and the whole thing seemed under-rehearsed. No A for Mamasox this week, but she would have to do something much more horrible than this to get less than a B+
Andrew, “Hound Dog”
The rehearsal wasn’t promising. Adam was trying to get Andrew to open it up and make it more interesting. Andrew did change it up, giving it a bluesy 4/4 rock beat. Overall I kind of liked it, but he was pretty pitchy at times and his phrasing was weird. When he would say “mine” he would say “ma-een”. It didn’t sound right to me, and he wasn’t able to nail any of his melody changes very well. Worst of all the song just never got going. Andrew is in serious trouble. C
Tim, “I Can’t Help Falling in Love”
At times he sounded pretty good, especially when he was up in his higher range, but his low range was pretty bad. He hit every note separated from the last one, almost breathing in between every word. By now I am done predicting what will happen to Teflon Tim, but this wasn’t a very strong performance even by his own Tim-id standards. C
Lee, “A Little Less Conversation”
Cool song. Lee did it well, solid performance. I liked the little breakdown with the bass player. I didn’t LOVE it, it wasn’t as hot as it could have been, but it was very good. B+
Aaron, “Blue Suede Shoes”
His vocal sounded fine, but it was really weird to see him bouncing around, almost like he was doing a show by the numbers. Slap this hand, raise an arm here, go out on the floor here, come back to the stage here, everything carefully staged and very wooden. The whole thing was pretty much a karaoke performance. Again Aaron seemed to be more of an impersonator than a singer. C+
Siobhan, “Suspicious Minds”
She started the song up on the stairs with her back to the audience. The first half of the song was restrained, and it looked like she was going to keep it tamped down again this week. Then the bridge came, and she took off and soared. She showed off her vocal chops, but I didn’t really like the arrangement. She should have gone back to tempo and blew out the ending. B
Mike, “In the Ghetto”
Mike sang with a lot of emotion, and his voice sounded terrific. I liked how he changed it up, and stripped it down. That said, where the heck was the melody? I know this song, and if I didn’t know in advance what he was singing I don’t know that I would have recognized it. Voters have been historically very mean to contestants that don’t hit the signature parts of the song, and Mike never did sing the “in the get- toe….” passage as it was originally sung. B
Katie, “Baby, what do you want me to do?”
This performance was like Tina Turner on thorazine or something. Katie hit most of her notes and her voice sounded pretty good, but she looked almost like she was stoned. B-
Casey, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”
I really liked his arrangement. He took it to the swamp, doing it the way that somebody like Doctor John would do it. Casey doesn’t hold notes very well and that was noticeable, but overall I enjoyed the performance. I am looking forward to the studio version. It will be good enough to be a cut on his album, and original enough that he just might do it. B+
Safe to in Danger-
Andrew is almost certainly gone, but the other spot is going to be tough to figure:
Locks–
Crystal
Lee
Casey
Probably Safe–
Mike
Siobhan
Nail Biting–
Aaron
Katie
Tim
Gone–
Andrew
My guess is that they will dismiss Andrew early in the show and then build a bottom three of Aaron, Katie and Tim.
