Manny is musically experienced and rhythmically gifted, but he has a fairly pedestrian voice and a little too much dog in him to get behind his case.
I think he’s low odds to make it past the next round, but if he impresses and gets there he could last awhile. He’ll never be the one in the barrel, the worst performer, until they get down to the final ten or so.
Manny’s showcase performance:
He could be like Stefano Langone, who lasted to 7th place in season 11 despite a serious of horrible song choices, or he could be Reed Grimm, another musically talented guy who seemed a little bit too full of himself.
Manny live recording an original song:
Semifinals
Many Torres “Adventure of a Lifetime” – Coldplay: C
He was mostly in tune … ish … his tone was off, like he was hanging on the notes but not centered on the notes. I listened to it with my eyes closed and it sounded like an amateur singing with no monitors. Shelbie had trouble too, and a few of the contestants last week – I’m starting to wonder if the sound on that stage is all screwed up. These kids are good singers, and they are usually right on the tuning fork.
Manny bores me almost as much as he excites J-Lo, and he was extra boring tonight. He spent the whole song in a range of less than a half-octave.
Manny With Jordin Sparks “No Air” Jordin Sparks
The producers gave Manny a brutal pre-performance edit. The performance was good, tight – it might look easy, but it ain’t easy to cut a song meant to be sung solo into a duet like that, and probably in a single day – but the pre-performance edit pointed out Manny’s tendency to be, um… not particularly emotional.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but like Sonika last week with her ‘inexperience’ pointed out before she sang with Ruben, I ended up noticing that Manny wasn’t exactly acting like his heart was breaking. He acted more like Jordin was a stranger he was trying to score with. They sounded really good, though.
