American Idol - The Top Five (Sinatra avec Harry Connick Jr.)

Yeah yeah yeah, I'll get back about last week's. I took notes, but I was busy and not even home those nights.

So, very excited about sweet Harry Connick Jr. being on tonight's show. Less excited about Frank Sinatra songs. They're mostly written by other people, right, so why call them Frank Sinatra songs? They're really more "standards." But whatever.

I love Harry Connick Jr., and he summed up the aim of the week well: Sinatra interpreted these standards his way, the contestants have to interpret them their own way. Connick also appears to have put a lot more effort into the mentoring role than most of the others did, which is nice. Some of the mentors this year have been crap. Harry Connick Jr. is a wonderfully skilled musician and artist. In my opinion, he's more skilled than Frank Sinatra was (in everything but schmoozing, perhaps). But I don't know how fair it is to have him doing the arrangements when the contestants are getting judges on the arrangements as well. I trust Harry Connick Jr. and would much prefer to have him arrange a song (especially a standard) for me if I were a contestant, but I still wouldn't want to be judged on his work as if it were my own creation.

I see Lee wears the same outfit even to the rehearsals now.

Okay, performance observations, in order of general impressions best to worst.

• Crystal Bowersox, singing "Summer Wind," promised a "very different" sound in the audition, and I guess she sort of delivered. I really don't know why she has to get all breathy when she sings prettily, or why she has to break up all the phrasing with gulpy accents. But once she got going, she was pretty good. I liked it. I especially liked the end. I wished she sang the whole song that straight and beautifully, instead of the breath stylings. [note: I wrote my reaction before hearing Kara's, and I maintain what I said about Crystal's phrasing, and not for the first time, feel Kara is a nutter.]
• Aaron Kelly, singing "Fly Me to the Moon," was pretty damn good. I like the tone of his voice during lots of it, and he even sounded a little older at points. He looked cute, too. The vest is interesting. I like the hairdo this week, rather than the slightly wet/greasy 'do he usually has. Slightly wavery on occasion, but generally on point throughout. Sweet and a little country, very endearing. Very Aaron. So a win for him, I think.
• Casey James, singing "Blue Skies," was really adorable in the story he related. Casey seemed extremely nervous when he was working with Harry Connick Jr.---but he sounded good in that rehearsal. He didn't open quite that strong in the performance, and he looked even more ill at ease. He had way too much of the vibrato in his voice, and seemed quite uncomfortable, but he powered through pretty well nonetheless, and as usual, covered his shyness with smiling. I don't understand why he's always so nervous when he's such a good singer and seems like such a nice, likable guy--as in, people must like him, so why would he be so nervous they wouldn't? Harry Connick Jr. obviously liked Casey, and I really respect the support he offered in pointing out that Casey killed it in rehearsal and probably had a hard time hearing well on stage.
• Michael Lynche, singing "The Way You Look Tonight," makes me a bit nervous and disappointed before he even started, because this is such a gorgeous song and he's usually such a milquetoast disappointment. But it's not a difficult song, really. So maybe it would work well for him. He started off all right, got even better, and was generally solid throughout. I would have appreciated less vocal wiggling and some sharper anunciation, but good performance overall. Nothing exceptional, though---I don't know quite why the judges got so excited over it. What Kara claims is "Big Mike" is something that would be totally unrecognizable as "his" if you heard it out of context.
• Lee DeWyze, singing "That's Life," was lucky to hear Harry Connick Jr.'s compliments, although I must say I think both Harry and his wife are off their rockers to say Lee is cute or looks anything like Harry Connick Jr.! Harry Connick Jr. is much cuter. So here's Lee, again in the black jacket and skinny tie. Is he just refusing to wear anything else? Lee is so cocky at this point, he makes me sick. He performed better than he has recently, but he act like such a stuck up asshole I'm not really interested in seeing his shit. I mean schtick. Or do I? The song is kind of about that, but in Lee's case, it's not there, so I think the song choice sucks, and it leaves me liking him even less than before. But yes, he stayed on key this time! Wow. I agree with Kara: given that he's one of the five finalists on American Idol, he very well could win. He just shouldn't.

My opinion isn't fully based on single performances anymore, because it would be insane to be doing that at this point, and I don't believe anyone else is voting that way either. I think Michael or Lee should be eliminated. I think Aaron or Casey are in the most danger. My home team for Casey got in about a good 2,500 votes for him, though, so I'm hoping we made a difference. If I could have, I'd have given votes for Aaron as well.

Crystal and Casey were the only ones who had arrangements that really differed from an accepted standard version, so I don't know what the judges were on about in their willy-nilly love for Michael and Lee. The way they judge, they've pretty much had the fix in for a while---especially bringing Michael back with that save, which was utter insanity. I hear that viewership is down 17% this year. I'm not surprised. The old formula of Simon, Paula, and Randy was the ideal setup to get the proper results on the show, results that reflected audience feeling (minus the year Rueben Studdard won, which has always seemed hinky to me). Ever since they started messing with that, there have been problems, and this year is the worst ever. Simon's already half out the door, Ellen is useless, Kara is feeble, and Randy is as waffly and uneven as he has always been. Unless they get Paula back and keep Simon, or possibly try whole new set of (truly impressive) judges, perhaps with a revamp of the voting system, I think we're seeing the start of the swift decline of American Idol. Adding Kara was the beginning of the end, so by now we're sliding pretty quickly. Rein it back in, Fox, or you'll lose your magic cash cow for good.