AI Season 12 - The Hometown Trio

     Of course anyone who has been reading my posts on this year's AI would know I was thrilled to finally be rid of Amber last week. I don't know who was smoking what with the pressure to keep her and shove her on America, but it was nuts. If someone is so insanely marketable, as they seemed to believe, you don't have to force feed them to the public. That's called "you made a boo-boo, they ain't marketable."

     So I'm brilliantly happy to have my favorite top two (Candice and Kree) and my grudgingly selected third place alternate in the hometown trio. I wish Janelle could have been here instead of Angie, but I can see why Angie's here. More than anything, I'm just so excited to have Amber gone, gone, gone! But Angie's already doing her best to annoy me. If she can't see the end of that hometown crowd, she needs glasses. Right there by the white tents, Angie.

     I saw that someone else thought Jimmy's choice for Kree was unfair, but I think Pink's "Perfect" is a good choice. Kree hasn't done a real straight-up pop song, and that could really broaden her fan base. Carrie Underwood did several pop songs in her season, and happily Kree absolutely reminds me of Carrie in this pretty, heartfelt, happy version of the song. Not bad to bring to mind AI's top-selling winner. It was so cute how she took the hand of the girl in the crowd and pointed right at her, saying "you are perfect." It was a great song to show off the nurturing, warmhearted person Kree is.
     Keith appears not to be a fan of the song, and comments a little condescendingly on it. He does seem to like Kree, complimenting her country tone. I don't appreciate Randy's derisive laughter throughout. I agree with Nicki that the song seemed a little short and I'd have liked more. I also agree with Nicki that maybe it would help all the girls to get away from the ridiculously high heels so they can move around the stage with more natural ease. Of course Randy didn't like the song for her, and claimed it had no pizazz. I think Randy's just a jerk who doesn't appreciate a calm, sincere delivery. Mariah compliments herself, suggests maybe Kree was storing up some energy for later, and encourages her to let loose later.
     Ryan reveals that Jimmy chose the song for the exact reasons I considered it a good choice: it finally brought Kree to the pop display. I firmly believe it was a positive move.

     For Candice, Jimmy has selected "One" by U2. This one I don't really understand. I guess it sort of brings her to a bluesier rock place she hasn't been. The quiet start is nice, but I don't like the changes as it goes into the band-accompanied portion. Candice sounds good, though. Her voice cracked a tiny bit as she reached for a note, and went a little off at one point, but it was the kind of things you hear in an impassioned performance, nothing too bad. It was good, but I feel like another song could have been more interesting. But it was good.
     Ah, Nicki reveals it is a Mary J. Blige version, which I did not know. Randy agrees with Nicki that the contest just started. Mariah can't believe Candice wasn't making a living as a singer before the show, and points out that she could tell Candice was nitpicking herself but the performance was great. Keith admires the power of the quiet in Candice, and agrees with me that the sharp note was due to adrenaline and emotion. Crazily, Candice has managed to never hear "One" before, but luckily she's smart enough (unlike somebody else we've seen--ahem! Amber!) to make sure she learns the meaning of the song as well as its lyrics and melody.

     Angie comes to the stage with "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word." It's a commonly theatrical Angie performance, but the quiet opening is nice. i don't understand why she puts so much vibrato into everything, even the "to." As she gets more loud and dramatic, she seems less and less sincere. But it sounds good. She is pretty much perfect.
     Randy asks if it was hard for her to do without playing the piano, which I think is really weird. It's a song many people have done without piano, even though of course Elton John is a piano man. A piano omi-palone. Anyhoo, Randy felt like she was restrained (huh?) and that she sang the verse more interestingly than she has sung before (hmm. . . sounded like the original to me). Mariah expected an extravaganza, but thought it was one of Angie's best performances. I agree. She often has at least a few vocal crimps, and here I didn't hear any. Keith feels Angie should have been more restrained, and suddenly Randy agrees with him. Nicki likes Angie's cheap looking outfit again, compliments her shoes as being not black, which is confusing because they look black to me, and says the performance was great but she didn't feel the emotion as much as she could have. Angie gets super cheeseball pointing and squinting at the camera during her number promo.

     Jimmy is backstage critiquing the deliveries of his picks: Kree very good but not as good as he wanted, Angie was stellar but should have played the piano, and Candice was great but missed moments. He gave the round to Angie, which I think is nuts, but the apparently now that Amber is gone, the production is now pinning its "marketable! marketable!" hopes on Angie.

     Candice's trip home just makes me smile and keep smiling, until she starts crying, which is when I start crying. Her town looks plastered with signs for her, but this is a place where a lady's weaving baskets! It looks small, but gorgeous. Candice visits her old job, where someone hollers "oh my god" when she answers the phone. Candice started her crying on the driveway up to her house, where her six siblings and other family are waiting. Then she's off to her "gullah" historical center to give hugs to an exuberant crowd of gullahs. She cries again at her parade, where throngs of people are hollering and cheering. I'm a little confused as to how so many people are out and about in the light at 4:15 am, but I'm guessing since no 4:15 am I've ever experienced has been light, that's a video editing typo. Beaufort looks so excited for her! I just kept crying through the whole thing after that. Her concert looked like it was in a beautiful outdoor spot, and a lot of fun.
     Now she's going to sing "Next to Me." It sounds real and beautiful. I love it when Candice sings like she does in the beginning of this. Except for one tiny hiccup when she goes too low after the band comes in more, she's spot-on and I'm transfixed. It's a great delivery, although the low "find him"s seem a little too low for her to hit properly in the context of the rest of the song.
     Mariah sees nothing but good things in Candice's future. Keith believed the start of the song completely, like I did, and loved the riffing of the rest. Nicki got super emotional during the video as well, or so she says. Then she really does look emotional when she tells Candice how proud she is. Randy gives American Idol "kudus," and thought the performance was amazing vocally, and that he loves Candice. He points out that they chose the song to show how she can be a relevant artist today, and it definitely did that. Nicki comes back in to say that she loves Candice's confidence and ownership of who she is.

     Angie took us to the break grinning animal crackers style from the audience, and she exits the plane like she's expecting a Beatles '63 welcome. It's the middle of the night and post 9/11, so the tarmac is empty. She gives a Mary Tyler Moore-esque skippety-do-dah spin for the cameras instead. Then she goes to the local TV station to show her prowess as a grinning weathergirl. The weatherman is smart enough to recognize true competition and tries to cover her up! It's weird to see that Boston has all Boston Strong signs. New Jersey is wall to wall Jersey Strong signs, at least at the shore. And every sign with the little letters you put up says "Revive, repair, rebuild!" or similar. It does make you feel stronger, so it's nice. Angie goes to a coffeeshop to meet her friends, who oddly enough have not saved her a chair, so she has to sit on one friend's lap. Then comes the real reason Angie's being pushed: she appeals to the munchkins. One little girl even expresses the Beatles tears Angie was hoping for. She is their Disney star. Angie takes some time to assault her cat for the camera, then takes off for her parade. She shows her true colors by declaring "it doesn't get any better than this" for standing onstage in front of her hometown throng. I guess the adulation is more important than the fans for her. It was a totally different experience than Candice's hometown visit, which seemed very family and community-oriented.
     The judges' pick for Angie is "Try." It's got too much production for her, for me. She looks more fake (disconnected, insincere, meaningless) than usual, but she fakes it well. I'd never go to this girl's concert, but if I saw her, I'd think she'd been performing for years. Performing lies, but whatever. It was okay. There wasn't much for her to do vocally, but it was fine. Maybe one teeter.
     Keith saw the same ease I did, and Nicki as well. Nicki finally makes the Miley Cyrus connection, though I find it a little horrifying she was at the Met Gala. Randy claps for Miley Cyrus, compliments the songwriter and the judges for choosing it, and says Angie looked so comfortable with it. He likes that they got to see "from where you guys came from," and says she's in it to win it. Mariah says the hometown visit was all very homecoming queen and festive, and that Angie's place is on the stage. Angie actually looks sincere and excited as she does her numbers this time. It's kind of cute how she sparkles.

     Kree goes home and actually does have fans waiting for her at the airport! She gives real hugs, gets sweet sentiments, and heads home, because she's "dying to wrap her arms around her family." The hugs continue at the crawfish boil, where again, like Candice, there is a real family/community feel. The next day Kree and her sister go to the house she lived in with her parents before they died. I'm not sure why the house is abandoned or in the condition it's in, but I hope Kree is successful enough to make sure she can always keep that house, because it's clear that it means a lot to her to re-experience the memories she has there. Kree's parade is slow and with lots of blown kisses. At the rodeo, she does a run down the fence of fans slapping hands the way she did at the airport, which is a cute way to make sure everybody gets a touch. Kree's concert is at a packed arena, and explains exactly what I thought when she was singing "I Will See You Again" last week.
     Kree's judges' song is "Here Comes Goodbye," which surprises me, since the judges have been down on her since about week three. It's a perfect song for her, and she's perfect in it. I don't know this song, but I'd want this version of it. It's just what I would like to be listening to. If I'm honest, in the belted "here comes goodbye," she could have had more depth or power or something. But it was just a tiny clause. She's more powerful in her gentler portions. And it was awesome. It made me want to drive by the ocean.
     The audience won't shut up. Nicki is wonderfully sweet and tells Kree her parents are seeing her now and she sang like a pro. Randy also recovers his humanity from the producers' prodding and says the judges love them all and that this is the best top three ever on Idol (I would check, but I think I agree). He points out that you don't need the big notes to get connected to the song, and she did. Mariah agrees it was brilliant, especially in the face of having to watch the video, and says she always sees something pure and real in Kree nobody can take from her. Keith says it was the perfect song, sang and felt perfectly, and that Kree had him from beginning to end.

     Jimmy is back to comment, claiming we don't know how hard it is to sing choke up (a lot of us do). He liked the songs the judges chose for Angie and Kree, but felt Candice's song was too subtle. I'm surprised, because I felt like they did the same thing he did in giving Kree a pop song. But he gave the judges' pick round to Kree.
    
     For the producers' pick, Angie is singing "Maybe," presumably not from Annie. She goes a little off in her second ooo, and the start of the lyrics is weirdly toneless and a little too quiet. Also, she's at the piano, but not playing it, which looks weird. She starts to play a little but seems distracted by it rather than seamlessly integrating it into her performance. I don't know this song, but it isn't so great. A little singsongy and repetitive. It does seem to have a few of the same notes Angie's sung in other songs, and she's delivering them exactly the same. I sort of feel like I've heard the song before. Then there's a really weird "ta-DAH!" outro.
     Randy credits the original singer, and sidesteps around a critique by saying Angie sang her heart out, and it's weird that she "sang two songs without the piano and went back to the piano for that." I think what he was really saying was it was funny that all season they were telling her she was best on the piano, while tonight she was worst on it. Mariah agrees with Randy, and says the song wasn't easy to sing. She correctly points out there was less theatricality, and said she "had nothing negative to say about the performance." Keith suggests that Angie sing a song under the piano next week. Nicki says if nothing else, her growth has surpassed Nicki's expectations, then gives a horrifying laundry list of Angie's prior shortcomings: singing in her head, being pageanty, not feeling it/being emotionally disconnected, and staring in the camera like a zombie. Yikes! What's up with that, Nicki? Maybe the judges has a last minute change of heart and decided they would do what the producers wanted, but creatively.

     Kree's producers' pick is The Band Perry's "Better Dig Two," which irritates me, because this is a song for someone who can't sing, and totally not Kree's style. Without even hearing it, I feel it essentially removes Kree from counting this round at all. Sucks. Kree does well with it, though. She's snarly and a little flirty, with a good amount of rock. It could have been livelier. I think maybe Kree was a little uncomfortable with that style, though.
     Mariah likes the sorrow more than the anger. Keith says the song isn't the right place for her, but she set the bar so high with her Rascal Flatts song that America will have a hard time voting. Nicki says whoever picked the song for her should be stoned. She insists the judges and fans know who Kree is, and promises she'll buy Kree's album. Randy says Kree is a superstar and on her way, but like me thought the song was too ordinary for her, that her voice is too big for it. Kree compliments the song tactfully by saying "I had fun with it." Ryan says we hope to see her in the finale (yes we do, Ryan!)

     Shockingly, bizarrely, the producers have chosen "Somewhere" from West Side Story for Candice. Not that I don't think she'll sing it well, but what the heck is up with these picks, producers? I think they hoped Angie would show better than she did with hers. I think they're going to get faked out and Candice will take it with this one. She looks glamorous and lovely, and delivers like a diva. A couple of her lower notes wobble a little off, but it's negligible. Her last "-where" sounded off to me. It was really good. It wasn't the best ever, but it was really good. I think she could have had a better song, or an arrangement that sent this one off into a new light.
     The judges are overly effusive. Keith unfairly suggests that this song makes it so "if you don't want to vote for Candice, call your doctor, you probably don't have a pulse!" Randy says "exactly!" Nicki just says "see you next week," and Randy comes in on his turn to say this is another best vocal in Idol history for her. I agreed with the last one (Lovesong), disagree on this one. I think that's what they were going for, but they missed. I find it shameful that they're acting this way when they've been so rude and crazy toward her during the weeks they were pushing Amber. Maybe this is recompense. Mariah says congratulations, thank you, and "A plus mazing." Jimmy joins Ryan onstage at the close to say Candice didn't just win the round, she won the night.

     So, who goes to the finale? In my book, it's been clear since the Top Ten or even Top 20. Candice and Kree. But I think a lot of little kids and tweens like Angie. So it's hard to tell.


Tonight's Ranking:

1. Candice
2. Kree
3. Angie




Who should go? I guess Angie. But at this point, it's really hard. Honestly, they're all good, and they all go toward different markets. I think country sells the most, but pop may make more in concerts and merchandising. I could easily see Angie being on the radio for years to come, but I'd much rather listen to Kree, and occasionally to Candice.