CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Week four – Top 12 – 3/11/2008 (Lennon / McCartney)

Wow. Talk about something to LIVE UP TO!!

Outstanding:

• Chikezie rates a HOLY COW. That was amazing with the bluegrass start and the crazy upbeat stuff and some great vocals
• Carly Smithson was the best of the night, doing a great rock out of “Come Together”
• Brooke White was clearly nervous and having a hard time playing to the crowd from behind the piano but freaking feeling it, which is what the Beatles are ABOUT. She did a great heartfelt “Let It Be”.
• Michael Johns rang clear as a bell with “Across the Universe”. As Engineerboy put it, “you’ve got to be naked to sing that song”. I think he means emotionally naked, so I agree with that for sure. I couldn’t believe the judges didn’t love that performance, it was strong and really moving.

Good:

• Jason Castro – Did a really good job with “If I Fell In Love With You”. That song is a lot harder to sing than it sounds, and he did a great job.
• David Cook – Eleanor Rigby was rushed and didn’t need to be rocked out — until the Chorus that is. The chorus was really good and kind of saved a why-did-he-do-it-this-way performance. Not bad.

Ennh:

• Ramiele Malubay – In My Life is one of the greatest John Lennon songs ever. Boring rendition and the crazy cocktail dress and spectator pumps were distractingly dressy for such a low-key song.
• Amanda Overmyer – This almost worked. It was a good song choice but Simon was right, it was hard to understand her. I think I only liked it because I want to like her and I already knew the song. If I hadn’t heard the song before that would’ve been a muddly mess.

Augh

• Syesha Mercado – Murdered “Got to Get You Into My Life”. Horrible. Soulless. Off key.
• David Hernandez – Hated the Ferris Bueller look. Hated the runs. Hated the cheeseball dancing around. Totally imagined him as a gay stripper. Sorry, dude. That was awful.
• David Archuleta – I would not have thought he could do badly. His voice is so pure but he was 100% uncomfortable trying to do a jazzy rendition of “We Can Work It Out”. I’m glad he’ll be here for another week. I think he tried too hard not to be what Simon called “gloomy” but we would’ve loved to hear his angel voice on “Yesterday”.

God-Awful

• Kristy Lee Cook yodele’d it up with a horrendous Kentucky Headhunters-esqe bluegrass-and-methamphetamine version of “Eight Days a Week”. To her credit, it was the first time she’s looked comfortable and her voice actually sounded good. But that was absolutely beyond words awful.

Week three – 3/4/2008 (The Eighties)

Uh… sorry. Too much work last week! Apologies for the slack off. We lost Luke Menard (no loss), Danny Noriega (that boy makes Barry Manilow look like Clint Eastwood), Kady… uh… Somebody-or-Other (oh, Kady Malloy, I love TiVo) and perky-but-too-hard-to-Google-you-anyway Asia’h Epperson.

Week two – 2/28/2008 (The Seventies)

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

Standouts this week

Young’un David Archuleta risked a John Lennon and did an amazing job — especially for his age. And Carly Smithson for the women was the only female singer who showed up for 70′s week, apparently.

Facing Elimination This Week – Boys

Luke Menard and Jason Yeager were probably this week’s weakest men. I bet they’re out.

Facing Elimination This Week – Girls

Hard to pick. So many were so awful. But the Donkey household speculates that we’ll see no more of Ramiela and Kady after the round of voting.

Who Got Voted Off This Week (with Broken-hearted Pic Badness)

Jeez, good thing we’re not trying to make money in Vegas. We only had a 25% prediction rate this weedk. Here’s who ACTUALLY got their walking papers:

Jason Yeager – Goodbye!

Alexandrea Lushington – Goodbye!

Alaina Whitaker – Goodbye!

Robbie Carrico – Goodbye!

Week One – 2/21/2008 (The Sixties)

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

Tonight the remaining Idols performed a medley of 60′s songs – very lackluster. The show also showed the world premiere of Paula Abdul’s new video, produced by Randy Jackson. The combination of music, singing, dancing, and video production showed that Paula is still a pretty good choreographer……………………………..

We lost four Idols tonight, and quite frankly my only concern was that our three or four favorites remained and didn’t really care much about the rest. I mean, I feel for each one and their broken dreams, but hey, the show gave them publicity they would never have gotten before, which gives them a better chance of living their dreams.

One of our faves was actually in the bottom four for the women – Amanda Overmyer – but she was safe for the evening. The fact that she was in the bottom four women was surprising, but she made it to next week so whew!

As for the rest, here are tonight’s eliminated Idols:

Garrett Haley – Goodbye!

Amy Davis – Goodbye!

Joanne Borgella – Goodbye!

Colton Berry – Goodbye!

Well, I can’t complain about any of these eliminations, although we thought Joanne would go a lot farther in the competition, but she really sang poorly last night. The other three were just not good and their elimination seemed logical.

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• American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies
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• American Idol 2008 Top 24!!
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