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American Idol: Crunch Week
8-Mar-2006
Written by: Jennifer O'Reilly
It’s the last week for contenstants to prove their worth and make it into the coveted final twelve.
So it’s the moment of truth for the Idol contestants because, let’s face it, being in the top twenty four is nothing compared to being in the top twelve. That’s where the real Idol competition begins. The top ten gets all the publicity photos, they get to live together in the “Idol House”, they go on tour together when the show is over. The girls appeared to have the knowledge of the weightiness of this performance rooted firmly in the back of their minds as even steady front runners seemed to stumble over their nerves last night.
The evening started out with lackluster performances from two of the competition’s most reliable powerhouses. Paris tried to spice things up with “Conga”, but ended up losing a lot of her natural spark and demonstrating none of her impressive vocal talent on the seemingly forced latin beats. Lisa Tucker seems not to be able to process that she’s not fifty years old even though the judges keep telling her over and over and over again. Her performance of “Here’s Where I Stand” was well sung, but yawn worthy.
Simon told both Kinnik Sky and Melissa McGhee to pack their bags, and if his predicting ability of last week (Bye, bye Brenna Gethers) is still spot on, I agree that those will be the two to go. Sky fatally attempted Alicia Key’s “If I Ain’t Got You” and ended up sounding like a hollow imitation of the flawless original. McGhee’s performance of “What About Love” actually was pretty strong but where McGhee excels in singing, she lacks in personality. She just doesn’t have the likeability factor of the other Idols.
But a spoiler in Simon’s predictions for who will go home this Thursday could come in the form of young Ayla Brown. While her singing (this week it was “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield) is also pitch perfect, she seems almost too measured, too controlled, too perfect. Fans won’t be able to rally around her the way they can someone like, say, Kellie Pickler. American Idol might be the only competition where having too much going for you actually works against your favor.
Speaking of Kellie Pickler, her spirited performance of “I’m The Only One” gets her the Surprise of the Week award. We knew she was loveable, but who knew she was also a “naughty mynx” as Simon called her? A feisty, heartfelt performance, and it looks like Kellie Pickler is finally shaping up to be a worthy contestant beyond just the sympathy vote.
Katherine McPhee provided an enthusiastic performance of “Freedom” last night that would have been memorable if it hadn’t been eclipsed by the very large (absolutely no pun intended, I’m serious) shadow of the stunningly talented Mandisa. Mandisa was the stand out of the evening with “I’m Every Woman” and hands downs (you know this if you were watching) wins the Performance of the Evening award. As Randy likes to say, “We got a hot one tonight!” Woof, woof, woof.
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