AI: The Top Twelve Take On Diana Ross!

It was a depressing show tonight, I thought. The guys fizzled for the most part, except for Phil Stacey, who elevated his game and finally impressed me. Melinda and LaKisha were off the scale, as always, but Jordin Sparks came up last and absolutely crushed one out of the ballpark. The judges are mentioning her in the same breath with the dynamic duo now.

Top 3 performances:
(well, duhhhh...)
1. Melinda
2. LaKisha
3. Jordin - wow!

As Darth Vader says, "Impressive!":
4. Gina. Really nice version of "Love Child" that hit on all cylinders. Perfect song for her style. She's on a roll.

5. Phil Stacey. "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" - He hit all the right notes. Very Michael McDonald-ish, and he totally sold the song with his stage presence. Just in the nick of time - I was about to lose hope for him.

6. Haley. She forgot the words to her song (I didn't notice it, until she let it show in her body language) and probably thinks that sank her tonight. Not so. Her performance was good, the style fit her well, and she garnered a lot of sympathy. She was far from the bottom tonight, and I think the fact that she's the best looking girl left will keep her around for a bit longer. She showed signs of 'getting it' tonight.

Nothing Special:
7. Chris Richardson. I actually dug his version of "Boss" and his performance. I don't think it was as obvious to the rest of America what he was trying to accomplish, though.

8. Chris Sligh. Did "Endless Love" in a free-form arrangement with a syncopated backbeat that just didn't work. This was the first example of Chris over-thinking his strategy. The arrangement of the song didn't work, but the vocals were good. The bad arrangement was stronger than the good vocals, though.

9. Blake. Tried to do the same thing as Chris. I wonder if they planned this out together? I've forgotten the song, but he tried to modernize it and he completely forgot that he needed to sell his vocals. He lost focus on the goal of the competition - singing well.

10. Stephanie. Vocals good, but nothing memorable. Her performance was better than the 3 guys above her on this list, but Chris, Chris, and Blake all took big swings and missed. To extend the baseball metaphor, she got on base, but people will remember their attempts and forget her performance. One thing I noticed with my super-powers of criticism, but the world will miss: She had a moment in one of the choruses where she actually channelled Diana Ross - I could swear Diana sang those couple of notes. Then the moment passed.

The Basement:
11. Brandon. Geez, guy, I feel sorry for you. You have all the tools, but haven't figured out song choice or style yet. Everyone else is shooting off cannons, and you keep fooling around with a bb gun. Pick an uptempo song, one that doesn't start off low and slow for once, and belt it out with some power! He did "Can't Hurry Love", using the same arrangement as Phil Collins, but didn't fill it up, and he messed up the roadmap of the song and tried to sing the chorus when the band played the bridge. Understandable, he didn't do anything else well enough to overlook it.

12. Sanjaya. Bad, and continuing to get worse. He pretty much spoke his song tonight ("Ain't No Mountain High Enough"). He couldn't win third prize in a karaoke bar. Whatever is causing him to get more votes than others will probably keep going until it gets serious, I'm afraid, but I can always hope that America wises up and kicks him to the curb.

For the first show on the big stage, I'd say that Haley, Phil, and Gina were positively affected by the big audience and expanded band, and Stephanie, Blake, and Brandon were negatively affected.

I'm personally disappointed that no one, particularly none of the guys, did "Upside Down". If a girl had tried it, they'd have had that low-note problem I described in a previous post, but a guy could take advantage of the range and pull it off, without being accused of "trying to be Diana Ross". That's a missed opportunity for one of the guys.