‘Idol Gives Back’ offers Bono teaser, but no Bono
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- April
- 25
During the introduction of last night’s “American Idol,” Ryan Seacrest revealed that this week’s mentor was U2’s Bono, the closest thing to a rock god on the planet right now. But unlike previous weeks, this celebrity vocal coach was nowhere to be seen, heard or found on the Tuesday episode. What a tease!
The show itself, as Howard Stern mentioned this morning, was more of a telethon than a singing contest. Don’t get me wrong, everything was handled with class and I actually thought the messages were effective. But would it be so awful for Fox’s parent company, News Corporation, to just donate the $5 million outright, instead of donating an amount directly proportional to the number of phone votes registered? Heck, the network reportedly made more than $5 million during the average commercial break of last year’s finale.
New rankings after the break.
1. Melinda Doolittle (lower left in the photo above): OK, I have a legitimate complaint about Mindy Doo for the first time: Stop picking obscure songs! I consider myself pretty knowledgeable of music across the spectrum but each week, I shake my head and wonder if Melinda realizes she’s the least marketable of the remaining contestants. She’s one recognizable song away from changing that instantly, but I wonder if that matters to her.
2. Blake Lewis (lower middle): While the judges were right to commend Lewis for the degree of sincerity with which he sang John Lennon’s “Imagine,” I disagree with their criticism of the way that he sang it. That song is classic. Had he strayed from the simple melody in even the slightest sense, it would have been construed as musical blasphemy, so he was right to stick with the melody as written. One criticism I do have, though: At the end of a song, can the guy sustain a note for more than two seconds before pulling the mic away?
3. Jordin Sparks (upper middle): She looked beautiful, and she’s likely to emerge from the show with a multi-album deal, but I’m a little disappointed with how shouty and flat “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was at the end. Yes, she’s really young and she has time to improve. But does potential alone win “American Idol”? That said, because I’m happily surprised Sparks made it this far into the competition, she wins my Elliott Yamin award. (What happened to that guy, anyway? Did he peak too soon with last season’s finale duet with Mary J. Blige?)
4. LaKisha Jones (lower right): When Seacrest teased the audience that Jones would sing to us what she “believes” after the commercial break, I got genuinely excited. She’s going to do R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” and it’s going to be her best song yet! Nope, she sings my least favorite “American Idol” winner’s signature track, “I Believe.” Not only is the original Fantasia Barrino track subpar on its own, but the judges correctly acknowledge that Barrino sings it better. Double ouch. As a result, she’s probably going home three weeks earlier than she deserves.
5. Phil Stacey (upper right): I’ll admit: Two straight weeks of really solid performances. Don’t let the judges fool you; his resurgence isn’t due to his country style. It’s due to the fact that he’s not wailing and yelping on high notes anymore. The bad news for him is that almost everyone else remaining in this group has been better throughout the competition. He doesn’t deserve to win, but he’s finishing nicely.
6. Chris Richardson (upper left): After bucking musical and grammatical convention in his argument with Simon Cowell that “nasally is a form of singing,” Richardson lost much of my respect when, to me, the Virginia resident tried to dodge criticism by mentioning his sympathy for those impacted by the Virginia Tech shootings. I don’t blame Cowell for rolling his eyes after that moment; even if Richardson had planned to express those sentiments before the quarrel, he came off as tacky, pandering to a vulnerable demographic and exploiting an awful situation to win more votes. Worse still, it worked; he wasn’t in the bottom three last week. So, forgive me if I can’t get too excited about his decent vocal on Eric Clapton/Babyface’s “Change the World.” Sadly, he’ll be around at least two more weeks, with LaKisha and Phil leaving before he does.
(Photo by Frank Micelotta/FOX.)
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 10:12 am by Chris Serico.
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