The American Idol Thread

[anonymous1980]

My rankings:

01. Nadia Turner (Awesome! Easily my favorite female in terms of talent)
02. Jessica Sierra (She's starting to grow on me)
03. Vonzell Solomon (Vocally okay but she's a great performer)
04. Amanda Avila (She's here because of my penis)
05. Carrie Underwood (Not her best. Good but forgettable)
06. Lindsay Cardinale (Mediocre, passable)
07. Mikalah Gordon (Bad. But bonus points for having the guts to take that song since LaToya did a fantastic rendition of it last year)
08. Janay Castine (ugh)

WHO'S OUT: For the love of God, please be Janay and either Lindsay or (God forbid because I happen to be in love with her, I don't care what anyone here says) Amanda.

[dws1982]

Last night made me dislike Anwar even more. All he cares about is hitting meaningless high notes just for the sake of showing off. He's like LaToya from last season, only with less personality.

[anonymous1980]

01. Anwar Robinson (Great rendition of a personal favorite)
02. Mario Vasquez (My favorite performance out of him so far)
03. Bo Bice (Not as good as last week but still very good. Something told me that he was gonna sing this song.)
04. Anthony Federov (I actually like him. Refreshing to see him do something upbeat.)
05. Nikko Smith (Very good but uneven)
06. Scott Savol (Boring)
07. Constantine Maroulis (Ehh)
08. Travis Tucker (This is NOT a dancing competition.)

WHO'S OUT: Travis, definitely. Constantine should be voted off but unfortunately he's got enough of a rabid fan base to keep him in. Scott's out, I'm afraid.

[Eric]

Whoa. I missed Mario Vasquez performing "Do I Do" last week. I don't know how well or poorly he sang it, but it is the single best Stevie song choice of the series run thus far. He's automatically my new favorite.

Anwar remains my (perhaps unfair and unjustifiable) least favorite.

[anonymous1980]

A shockingly mediocre night

My rankings:

01. Amanda Avila (She's number one because not only did she improved but she is as hot as ever)
02. Mikalah Gordon (She wasn't her obnoxious self. She does read these message boards!)
03. Jessica Sierra (Improved performer)
04. Nadia Turner (Not as good as last week but she brought it on)
05. Carrie Underwood (Not her best)
06. Vonzell Solomon (Wasn't as bad as the judges said. I personally liked her)
07. Celena Rae (Good but unimpressive)
08. Aloha Mischeaux (Ditto).
09. Janay Castine (an improvement but still not good enough)
10. Lindsay Cardinale (boring but she was hot)

WHO'S OUT: Lindsay and either Janay or Celena.

[Eric]

I didn't take note of who did what (and didn't watch the entire show), but the one thing I noticed was that all three judges seem to be really turning up the hyperbole in their praises... after quite a number of performances that I was underimpressed with, I assumed Simon would tear into them mercilessly and, with a couple exceptions, he didn't.

To whoever it was that chose "All in Love is Fair" for this week's obligatory Stevie Wonder song: Nice choice! Not my favorite song, but at least it hasn't been done to death at karaoke bars and sounded a lot fresher than the upteenth go-arounds on "Let's Get It On" and "What's Going On."

[dws1982]

My rankings are similar to yours, except with Anwar and creepy Scott both lower (Scott lower than Anwar), and Joseph higher (good voice, but he oversang).

David, and either Joseph or Travis are the ones going home.

[anonymous1980]

My ranking for this week's performances (male)

01. Bo Bice (Wow)
02. Anthony Federov (An improvement on last week)
03. Anwar Robinson (not as good as last week but a very good performance nonetheless)
04. Scott Savol (he continues to impress me with his silky, soft voice)
05. Mario Vasquez (almost a carbon copy performance, good but does he have anything else up his sleeve?)
06. Nikko Smith (ditto)
07. Constantine Maroulis (an improvement from last week but Bo showed us tonight who is the better rocker)
08. Travis Tucker (I liked his moves but the vocals are merely adequate)
09. Joseph Murena (an okay performance; he won't survive the week)
10. David Brown (another disappointing, boring performance)

WHO'S OUT: Joseph and either David or Travis.

[anonymous1980]

Melinda Lira DID have a point: At least two girls (Janay and Mikalah) who are still in the competition were worse than she was but they survived because they were given enough face time by the producers before the Top 24 performances and therefore already winning them enough faithful fans to vote for them to survive.

Knowing this though, she should have worked doubly hard to earn votes and knock their first performance out of the park (I hate baseball metaphors and I reluctantly use it here). This is what Aloha Mischeaux did. She had ZERO face time before the Top 24 performances but she gave it her all and won her votes.

[kaytodd]

To me, the most striking thing tonight was the sour pusses on the two ladies that were eliminated. I know sportsmanship is no longer valued as much as it once was, but this was ridiculous. I have seen many contests on TV with this type of elimination format--some involve talent competition, some sports competition, some answering trivia questions. I almost always see those who are eliminated be gracious. They smile, congratulate the winner and express gratitude for having had the opportunity to compete, no matter how bad they are feeling. I think this, and overall sportsmanship, shows class and maturity.

Not these two ladies. They (especially the first) made no attempt to disguise their resentment over being eliminated, and I do not remember seeing either congratulate the other girl that was standing next to them when they found out which was eliminated. And their resentment was visible the entire time they were singing their farewell song. This was their last opportunity to leave viewers with a positive impression after experiencing a public disappointment. I found their behavior off-putting.

[dws1982]

I think it hit a new low tonight. When they were elminating the guys, they had told the back row they were safe and the front row to come down to the center, and he went one by one, sending them back, until he had the lowest vote person eliminated.

Then, later, when eliminating the second guy, they told the front row to remain seated (to make them feel safe), and brought the back row down front and went through them two at a time, until he got to the last two and revealed that the person going home was...on the front row. Went through all of that for the purpose of pulling the rug out from someone. Booo.

And of course it had to be one of the few guys I actually liked Monday. And the other guy who got sent home was better than a lot of the guys who stayed too. But the two girls who got sent home were both awful and deserved it.

[Eric]

04. Nikko Smith (good performance but sounded too much like Stevie)

Is Stevie shadowing as a producer on this show? I think that at least a third of all the songs performed on the show during auditions and semi-finals have been Stevie songs. It's interesting how some of his songs sound astonishing a capella ("Lately," "Until You Come Back to Me") and others are just disastrous without his complex keyboard-voicings backing up ("Sir Duke"... whoa... just, whoa).

Stevie songs I'd consider singing if I were on American Idol:
- "Rocket Love"
- "You and I"
- "Evil"
- "All I Do"
- "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"

[anonymous1980]

My rankings:

01. Nadia Turner (Wow! Loved her. Easily my favorite performance so far)
02. Aloha Mischeaux (She did what she needed to do: Give a knock out performance and win her some fans)
03. Vonzell Solomon (Very enjoyable performance)
04. Carrie Underwood (Does what she does best)
05. Jessica Sierra (I really like her fresh take on that song)
06. Celena Rae (Pretty good but a bit boring)
07. Lindsay Cardinale (Didn't show off her potential but I can definitely sense it on her voice)
08. Amanda Avila (I just love her despite the fact that it was a relatively safe and boring)
09. Melinda Lira (Didn't wow me)
10. Sarah Mather (Lacks that certain something)
11. Mikalah Gordon (She's got spunk and personality. Too bad I don't like that personality and her voice didn't win me over)
12. Janay Castine (I thought she was awful. Bad song choice and her nerves did her in.)

WHO'S OUT: Tough to decide. It could be any two of these three: Melinda, Sarah or Janay.

[Big Magilla]

I don't watch this show. I used to watch it when I was a child it was called Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. Strictly amateur stuff. I don't care how succesful Clay Aiken is, are any of the other winners or runner-up winners going to be remembered two years from now?

I was channel surfing the other night, I think it was CNBC where I came across these three obnoxious blonde twit late teen rejects from the show who were (gasp!) triplets, frightening clones of one another. "It was like, ohmigod, we are so hot right now, Keanu Reeves walked into the restaurant where we were eating and, ohmigood, we asked for his autograph and he ended up paying for our dinner, ohmigod." The interviewer asked if they were going to go home treasuring the moment as the high point of their lives or take a chance and see if it might be only the beginning. I didn't stick around for the answer.

[anonymous1980]

Rankings/Comments/Predictions:

01. Anwar Robinson (fresh twist on one of my favorite songs)
02. Mario Vazquez (very entertaining but I really couldn't get over how much he looks like Wilmer Valderamma)
03. Bo Bice (surprised me tonight)
04. Nikko Smith (good performance but sounded too much like Stevie)
05. Judd Harris (fun and goofy)
06. David Brown (very disappointed by his performance, I expected something better from him)
07. Scott Savol (great voice but dull performance)
08. Anthony Federov (dull, yes, but it wasn't bad)
09. Constantine Maroulis (a little off tonight but I can see the appeal)
10. Joseph Murena (dull and kinda bad)
11. Travis Tucker (very disapppointing)
12. Jared Yates (mediocre voice, bad performance)

WHO'S OUT: Jared Yates is most definitely out. We didn't see much from him during the audition round and Hollywood rounds so his fan base is small to say the least. The other one will be either Joseph Murena or Travis Tucker.