Tuesday, March 4, 2008

The Top 8 Guys Are Great on American Idol

The Guys Performed 80's songs tonight, what a surprise! The real surprise was just how great and how original these guys all were. Every single one of them brought something fresh to the table, granted some were better than others.

01 Luke Menard sang "Wham! Wake Me Up Before You Go-go" made famous by George Michael. This was a real good choice for Luke's vocal range; he has that really high falsetto so this worked perfectly. Luke is a member of an acapella group called Chapter 6, and anytime you sing acapella it makes you really musical. Luke might be able to pull a major upset and stay in the competition.
Score: 4

02 David Archuleta sang "Another Day in Paradise" made famous by Phil Collins. David really doesn't have a lot to worry about; it would be the shock of all shocks if he didn't make it into the Top 12. He is a talent for sure, but tonight did not by any means belong to him; other guys pulled out amazing performances.
Score: 4.2

03 Danny Noriega sang "Tainted Love" made famous by Soft Cell. Danny was unfortunately tentative on the vocals tonight, and it wasn't a good night for that to happen. The vocal arrangement was HOT! The performance wasn't as good as it could have been because Danny's vocals faultered.
Score: 3

04 David Hernandez sang "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" made famous by Meatloaf and Celine Dion. Randy said it was a great song choice for David, and I agree; David has that big voice, and this song worked perfectly for him. Paula said he has one of the best voices in the competition, and I agree; out of the top 24 I would say he is definitely in the top 5. I hope he stays in this competition and continues improving.
Score: 4.5

05 Michael Johns sang "Don't You (Forget About Me)" made famous by Simple Minds. (nb. A lot of people remember this from the movie, "The Breakfast Club"). This song and this performance was totally Michael's vibe. I can totally see him recording this, and his performance made the song current; he is once again defining himself and his originality is really appealing. Simon believes Michael is going to go very well in this competition, and I could not agree more.
Score 4.9

06 David Cook sang "Hello" made famous by Lionel Ritchie. I love how David took this Lionel Ritchie pop song, and turned it into a rock song. The arrangement was awesome, and he was it so current and so mainstream that it could be a hit recording today. Simon told David it was brave and unpredictable and he loved it. I loved it too.
Score: 5

07 Jason Castro sang "Hallelujah" made famous by Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and k.d. lang.
The way Jason sang this song showed the ease of his vocal abilities. First of all, the song has a high degree of difficulty, and anyone in the music business knows this song from the great Jeff Buckley who died in 1997. Simon called the performance brilliant, and I think that is the best word to describe it. Jason is another singer who needs to be in this competition because he has loads of originality, and he isn't afraid to be who he is.
Here is Jeff's version--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AratTMGrHaQ it's pretty amazing.
Score: 5

08 Chikezie Eze sang "All the Woman that I Need" made famous by Whitney Houston ("All the Man that I Need"), Luther Vandross. I thought this performance was so cool. Chikezie reached notes that I didn't think he could reach. Simon said it was cabaret, believe me, there was nothing cabaret about this performance. I loved it tons, and I just kept thinking about Whitney singing it, and it was nice to have a guy singing this song because the song has a lot of soul and heart to it. If you have any desire to check out Whitney's performance like I did ---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXIWOg6rYHY you won't be sorry.
Score: 4.75

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