American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties

Posted on February 1st, 2008 in American Idol by mynagirl

Click here to see our recap of this week’s performances by the women.
Click here to see our recap of this week’s Idol eliminations.

The Boys (Tuesday Night)

The boys kicked it off with The Sixties. Some real talent this year. And several we’ll have forgotten by the time we’re chattering at the water cooler on Friday.

David Hernandez American Idol Top 24

David Hernandez

An uninspired rendition of… oh I don’t know what. Decent voice, but yawn. He was nervous, didn’t move around the stage very much. His left leg sorta kept the beat in that pelvis-forward-but-brutally-awkward stance that 15 year old boys have at their first high school dance. And, honey, that shirt looked like the “before” picture in a Spray-n-Wash Spot Remover commercial.

Chikezie Eze

Chikezie

I like that American Idol lets people return for multiple seasons, even if they’ve been to Hollywood before. It’s smart for the producers — they don’t put someone in the permanent ‘no’ pile and lose out on a money making opportunity — and it’s great for the contestants — if they just need a little polish or a little voice training or a little confidence or whatever, they’ve got the better part of a year to work on all of that. A drawback to this scenario, however, is that it seems to be spawning the “professional contestant”. Chikezie has the whole schtick down, man… he lost some weight, got the fly persimmon-colored suit, and sported some clearly rehearsed ‘natural stage presence’ bullcrap. But he’s lost that ingenue’s wide-eyed wonderment at the whole process — rather than being amazed by it all, he’s determined to master it. So he’s got the smooth patter with the judges (not even letting Simon talk) and the smart alecky one-liners. Oh yeah, and now he’s just down to one name. I’m so over him already.

David Cook

David Cook

Wow, super nice guy; totally not enamored of himself. Happy Together by The Turtles was an inspired song choice for 60′s night but unfortunately he was a bit uneven. He’s got the stage presence thing down but I get the impression that he didn’t know the song that very well, because he proved in his original audition that he can do difficult vocals with a lot of range. But the judges loved it, and it was a great take on the song. I’m hoping it was just nerves, because he seems really original and genuinely a good person. I wish he would just comb the hair back, though. The flared-forward rooster tail isn’t fooling anyone dude.

Jason Yeager

Jason Yeager

Nice kid, seems like a good dad and all that. He’s a bit too plasticly gorgeous, like a Hollywood director took the volleyball scene from Top Gun and put it a giant Central Casting Morph-o-Matic. The vocals were stolid and bo-ring with a capital ‘bo’.

Robbie Carrico

Robbie Carrico

Engineerboy’s high praise is “He’s got a Journey voice”. “Well,” he then clarified, he meant that as “medium praise”, in that Steve Perry has a perfect voice and no soul. “This guy has more soul, but not as great of a voice”. But he rocked the Three Dog Night, which is always a way into this reviewer’s good graces. And there were moments when the soaring background singers weren’t drowning him out and you heard a true rock voice hitting the note just right. We liked!

David Archuleta

David Archuleta

I’m always in awe of these young kids that are on this show. I remember what I was like at 17 and boy am I sure glad there weren’t any cameras broadcasting into America’s living rooms back then… at least none pointed at me. But this kid is just so sweet and nice as to almost not be believable. But boy can he SING!! He’s a bit uneven but really talented. And he really got the crowd going! David Hernandez (Spray-n-Wash) could learn some things from this kid.

Danny Noriega

Daniel Noriega

If I only had to listen to him and not watch him. Or listen to him talk in the pre-interview stage about his “attitude and swagger”. GROSS! He’s a good singer but he’s annoying as hell. And anyone that young attempting Elvis better bring it. He did, I guess. But the arrangement was a little too fast.

Luke Menard

Luke Menard

Wow, seriously out of tune in spots. Like the spot where he sang. Even his audition sounded like that to me. Truly Terrible. And the slacker-hoodie-thing is like so Ben-Affleck-pre-Jennifer-Lopez. Blech. I predict Luke Songkiller will be gone by next week.

Colton Berry

Colton Berry

So we finally get to see a little more of the kid who kicked out the future governor of Oklahoma. He took on Suspicious Minds (what is with these kids that have the chutzpah take on Elvis?). Hated the blue pants. Hated the vocals. Not a big fan of the performance, either. I think I agree with Simon that he isn’t a recording artist.

Garrett Haley

Garrett Haley

Sigh. It’s painful to watch these kids try to talk to the camera/America — don’t try so hard, kids!! Just answer Ryan’s questions. But he seems nice. Cool that he auditioned in San Diego on a lark, that he hasn’t been like planning his life around this since he was in grade school. He sounds like he can have a good voice, but this either wasn’t the right song for it or he wasn’t at his best. But there were glimmers. He did really well on the key change at the end. But slow ballads are killer unless it’s got some serious emotion in it. I hope he sticks around for at least another week, because I bet we could see something good.

Jason Castro

Jason Castro

Cool song!! Cool playing the guitar! So cool, the audience was clapping along immediately. WOW! I love the interpretation — risky on a John Sebastian “joint” (as Randy would say) but paid off BIG TIME. Damn. Excellent!!! Outta nowhere, totally amazing!! Two enthusiastic sets of Donkey Ears up!!! Dude’s got the look, the voice, the originality, the talent. Amazing that he’d only ever sung in public a few times before auditioning for Idol. Love love love. A true natural.

Michael Johns

Michael Johns

He’s been our favorite since he sang Bohemian Rhapsody during Hollywood Week. This performance was good but didn’t blow us away — hard to follow whiteboy-dreadlocked Jason Castro, strangely enough! And that Doors song is so overblown, it’s hard to take anyone seriously who sings ‘and our love become a funeral pyre’. Pleaze! But he’s a good singer, fo’ sho’. We’ll be voting and he should be back, easily.

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