American Idol - The Top 12

Well, no matter who they are or how they got here, the top twelve went at The Rolling Stones. Please note that all my determinations are made before I watch any judges' commentary. In the past, I have often reacted very similarly to Simon. However, this year he's surprised me a few times and we were absolutely opposite in opinions. Last year I noticed Kara also sometimes mirrored my reactions, but not quite as strikingly as I've always matched with Simon. Also note that whenever I refer to gauging people's performances, I'm only counting the stage show performances, no tryouts or auditions. The list is in the order I rank them based pretty much only on last night's performance, of course heavily influenced by how much I generally like their voice/delivery style.

1. Didi Benami, singing "Play With Fire." One of my favorite Stones songs, so good choice in my opinion. :) Honestly, I do think it's a great choice for a female singers. She also is doing less of the awkward schticky phrase breaking she's done in previous performances. A little scary in the faces. . . and did she stumble over some words? Hm. She did a good job, but those stumbly bits probably mean she was less totally at ease with the song than she could have been. Still, it was really very good. I wouldn't haveguessed that she was anything but totally at ease up until then, and she didn't even quite let any unease show through. I think this was my favorite performance from her. Less affected, very full of feeling. And I really love the tone of her voice.
2. Katie Stevens, singing "Wild Horses." Oh, oh, if she doesn't get this right, it's going to be a catastrophe. I don't know if she has the knowledge and understanding of the song and its feeling to pull it off! She's a sweet girl though, and does have an amazing vocal instrument, so I hope she can. I'd also hate to see all the crap she'd get from critics if she fails this week. Her first note is shaky. Her voice is oddly quite like Kelly Clarkson. She looks nervous, but she isn't showing it. She's delivering quite well. She's still posing for animal crackers, but her voice is doing enough of a job to overcome it. And speaking of comparisons to former AI contestants, her looks are reminiscent of Katharine McPhee. Katie's voice is better, though, I think. Richer, with more to offer. I don't think she does really feel and understand the song, but she's singing it with passion nonetheless. An altogether quite awesome job. I think this may have even been her best performance.
3. Casey James, singing "It's All Over Now." A bit of a country sound to the song, I guess just because of something in his delivery. A little off on some of the lower notes. But he grew stronger as he grew more into it. Good guitar, growing confidence. And by the middle point, it was sounding sort of early-mid '90s rock-vocalist rather than country, which was surprising but enjoyable. I'd have to think hard about who exactly his voice reminded me of there. More than one band ('s singer), certainly. What is it? Love Battery crossed with Big Head Todd? Garage/grunge vocaled country blues? Perhaps I shouldn't even bother---I usually shock and irritate most people with my similarity notes. Don't want to offend any early Pearl Jam fans. I know how defensive we learned to be. I think Casey here was a little more nervous than he showed, and that's pretty impressive, because he was quite good, and very charming. But he shouldn't be as nervous at this point. . . how come he's not getting cocky? It would be bad if he got too cocky, but I think he needs a bit of it to succeed. At least enough to show absolute ease onstage.
4. Aaron Kelly, singing "Angie." Uh-oh, uh-oh! Okay, I guess I can't worry too much for them, I just have to let them do what they've chosen to do. And he starts off better than I've ever heard him! Hm, maybe he should try a Bryan Adams song, if the opportunity for that arises. He has a great tone for this song, and he's singing it just right. A nice modern boy band/young man Top 40/Country crossover version. Glossier and cheesier than the original, but really nicely done. Nearly perfect. Man, have the young folks rebounded from last week!
5. Lee DeWyze, singing "Beast of Burden." Ah, now this is an interesting choice. This song, to me, is less definitively stamped with the soul of the Stones, though of course it has the stamp of their sound. I think it's a smart pick. Even though it sounds like he's starting "Tears in Heaven" with the arrangement. Messy with some of the lyrics. But I guess that's his style. It's not really my style, but he's doing a good job here, and showing what he can do vocally, which I feel like I've never heard before. There's all nice things like Springsteen and John Cougar Mellencamp mixed in with the cheesy Rob Thomas and Dave Matthews. A good show, I think. His own, and aptly done.
6. Crystal Bowersox, singing "You Can't Always Get What You Want." She's probably the most well-suited for the Rolling Stones, and this is a likely choice for her. Maybe I'd have liked to hear something a little less predictable, more exciting/interesting. It's a nice version, I guess. She isn't really my style. I don't like that very Janis sound she has. But she is an amazing singer. But she could do so much more with her voice than she does, so it's frustrating to me that she always stays in the same sound and the same vein. Eck, even the little talky to the listener bit---yuck. I'd like to hear her maybe do a little progressive country or something. Even to hear her do a little Aretha or Melissa Etheridge, just something even slightly afield from this same old sound would be so nice. And I'd love to hear her do pretty instead of always just gritty. She doesn't even really have a naturally gritty voice. I think she easily could do pretty, she just never does. And she's always behind that damn guitar. But she's kind of in a different league than everyone else tonight. She seems like a professional performer already, albeit one I don't particularly dig. She's very good, but she's a little tiresome.
7. Paige Miles, singing "Honky-Tonk Woman." Why in hell do they keep outfitting her in shorts with tights? That's a very hard combo to pull off, because the tights stick to the shorts and move them in very unflattering ways as you move. But we'll have to set her outfit for the moment. She seems nervous at first, but is delivering. Her lyrics get a little messy and hard to understand. The country honky-tonk vibe is nice. And her voice has some beautiful points, but it also goes awry when sometimes when she's low or switching gears. She's trying so hard on this song she's going off key at times and getting herself hoarse. But unlike some other performers tonight, she's showing confidence and performing well physically. The vocals were impressive as well, in spite of a few wobbly bits.
8. Siobhan Magnus, singing "Paint It Black." Hrm. Maybe everyone's just picking well-known songs. I guess they only have as certain list to use, and it's probably mostly the top hits. This will be a difficult one, but she may be able to do it. I like the little dollhouse tinkling. The opening was pretty good. But once she got to the main part after "until my darkness goes," she went right into a part of her voice I've only heard touches of before. I don't know if it's her nose or a certain shape of her throat, but it sounds like she's trying to sing while holding her nose after drinking a gallon of chocolate milk. Especially for the "I look inside myself" section. And the backup singers chanting "paint it! paint it!" sound imported from the TV/Adam West Batman theme song. The ending was much better, although the scream was pretty much like a real scream, not very pleasing. Very Adam Lambert minus the scary vibrating tongue wriggling in his mouth. The soft high a cappella notes at the very end sounded good, but I just don't understand the version of the song as a whole. I don't know. The vocals were fairly good, as I'd expect from her, but the tone wasn't as nice as she usually has, and it seemed a little overdramatic to me.
9. Andrew Garcia, singing "Gimme Shelter." Yikes! How is he going to do this? I'm nervous for him. Hm. Somehow the song is nearly unrecognizable and sounds very Seal and Terrence Trent D'Arby like. Strange, because for about two weeks I've been saying I think he should try a Terrence Trent D'Arby song, but I think he should do it with an actual Terrence Trent D'Arby song, not a Rolling Stones song! It was a very good performance in many ways, but for me there was something missing in it. I feel like he started to go there; past the Seal & TTD sounds I started to hear a turn toward Soundgarden/Chris Cornell, but then that quickly evaporated into some strange Duran Duran-esque music and a shift back to Seal/TTD. He had a couple of off-key notes, and I simply never heard the danger and haunt that lies within this song. I don't know if that's a requirement for it, but for me it kind of is. He needed more power and feeling. So while I thought this was ably done, and I liked that he seemed comfortable, it wasn't a top showing to me.
10. Michael Lynche, singing "Miss You." Hm, I wouldn't have expected the Rolling Stones could sound so much like cheesy 1980s R&B. But I guess if that's what you want, he also did it fairly well. The arrangement and actually staying on key was done well, but I still think his voice doesn't deliver the richness and the power most pro singers should. He has to try too hard, and he never actually gets there.
11. Lacey Brown, singing "Ruby Tuesday." All right. Before I actually watch her sing, I am immediately frightened with this choice of song. This is an absolute beauty, and she's had some stinking performances. She has to pull this off right, and without any of the shortness in notes that seems to be her trademark. So I'm worried. The first part works with it all right. A little babylike, Lisa-Loeby. She's not the best, that's for sure. And she always performs the same way (physically). Boring, and she doesn't seem to be really feeling the song. Yuck on the "still I'm going to miss you" arrangement. What is that supposed to be? All right with the "catch your dreams before they slip away," but then she goes right back to her nasally baby voice tone. And that "still I'm going to miss you" is like a bad Carpenters Christmas song arrangement from 1978. All in all, not a very good showing. Lacey definitely has a niche and some ability, but while this wasn't her worst performance (I'd even say it was her second-best), she just wasn't shown off well here. I think she either chose the wrong song or did the wrong things with it. And she has to develop a different stage routine than undulating, sitting, and pursing her lips at the camera.
12. Tim Urban, singing "Under My Thumb." Aw, oi! What's up with all the scary contestants choosing my favorite songs? I don't know how he'll do this. Nobody here really has the conviction to pull off Jagger's vocals---although I'm looking forward to Paige Miles---but I think Nickelodeon boy here has the least strength to. Oh my god. He's making it reggae. Does he even understand the song? Reggae makes no sense for this. He's also not staying on key. This is so wrong in style, though, that it's making me sick. Watch people like this, though. Ugh, it's gross! His vocals got more stable in and past the a cappella bridge, but to me that hardly even matters unless someone else performs just atrociously. In doing this arrangement, to me he's shown that he doesn't understand music at all. Sickening.

In spite of my personal choices here, I'll admit it's hard to tell who is really in danger this week. that's partly because there was such an uproar about last week's voting that there will likely be backlash voting this week, and you never know what effect that is going to have. People may rabidly vote for their favorites, but those favorites may include those who really belong off the show. But I guess I'll go with my bottom four as the ones most in danger, possibly adding Paige Miles as more likely lost than Michael Lynche. I don't understand why people like him. While he does stay on key most of the time, he never offers very powerful vocals, which is strange given his size. Everything seem "lite" from him, like it's a getting squeezed out a mono speaker.

I'd like to remark more on some of the judges comments---I only caught a bit of a few, but it seemed like I was generally agreeing with a lot of them. And I was shocked to see Randy even made the same comparison I did between Lee DeWyze and Rob Thomas & Dave Matthews! But he didn't hear any Springsteen or Mellencamp, I guess. Also, Kara's connection with the scream, although that was pretty obvious---as long as she really meant Adam Lambert when she said Adam Lamberg. :P