 | 1-2-1. Fantasia Barrino: Wow, yet another absolutely amazing performance from Fantasia. Her singing was nothing sort of breathtaking here, quite possibly her best performance yet (though that might just be cause it's the one I've heard most recently, they've all been excellent). A good arrangement as well, with several notes I expected to be restrained powered through, and others I expected her to let go pulled back. Excellent. All except the 'yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah' ending, at least. |
 | 2-1-3. George Huff: I love George. God that's an amazing voice, a throwback straight to the original motown singers. And he even threw in a smooth bit of falsetto to shake things up a bit. Solid. |
 | 3-3-4. Latoya London: Wow, a damn near spotless technical performance. Every note in its right place, and every note sounded excellent. That said, this performance for some reason did not add up to the sum of its parts for me. Don't know what it was, but I just didn't quite 'feel it'. Certainly not saying it was bad, as the singing was phenomenal, just not quite my cup of tea, dunno. |
 | 4-4-2. Diana DeGarmo: Well, the vocal intro sucked (as they always do), but the rest of the performance was simply phenomenal. Amazingly, this minor might be the most technically perfect singer in the group. The only downside is that it was just that; technically perfect. This was exactly what Simon warned of prior to her bottom 3 showing last week (a week in which her performance was again perfect): She's simply too good. Viewers apparently aren't connecting to someone who does it so effortlessly, crowd noise is often the only indicator that the performance is even live. Add to that her apparently perfectly stereotypical teen girl personality, and there's just no dynamic for viewers to latch on to. Again though, an amazing performance, and she could definitely release a successful pop album tomorrow, if she were so inclined. |
 | 5-5-5. Jennifer Hudson: Wow, American Idol is quickly making me hate this song, this is like the 4th time it's been done. Fortunately, this was one of the better performances of it, but still... Anyway, I really like Jennifer's voice, and this truly was a fine performance, but... (and there's always a but)... she simply can't outshine Latoya or Fantasia. Even if she was the 3rd best performer overall, there's simply nothing she can do to get past them. It's unfortunate, since I really do love her voice, but she's just outclassed here. |
 | 6-6-7. Jon Peter Lewis: Well, apparently the judges blasted this one (I wouldn't know :p), but I thought it was decent. Good energy, and at several points in the verses his tone was absolutely amazing. The chorus was fairly weak, especially the softer notes, but meh, it certainly wasn't terrible. |
 | 7-8-6. Jasmine Trias: Well, after last week's travesty, Jasmine really needed to come through... and she kinda did. It was nothing spectacular, and parts of the song were a bit low on her, but it was decent. The soft intro was by far the highlight of the performance, the few notes prior to the octave drop. Following the low section, the power section was also decent, nothing spectacular, but well done. A good, perhaps saving, performance. |
 | 8-7-8. Amy Adams: Well, she took some of the criticism to heart and avoided the slow stuff... yet the performance seemed to fall back into the same pattern. Despite the song's pace, she _still_ couldn't infuse it with the energy of her country performance. Admittedly I'm hurt here by not being able to actually _see_ this one, but the singing didn't seem to be much more than by the numbers. That said, she did sound quite good, I definitely prefer her when she avoids that 'sweet' upper register of hers - which unforunately made an appearance right at the end.. the last four words were awful sounding. Alright. |
 | 9-10-10. John Stevens: Yuck. Well, despite the promise shown last week, John is yet again back to his old, un-good self. The very first line was horribly out of tune, and it didn't get much better from there. There were a few points in the song where his admittedly beautiful tone shone through... but they were just that, few and far between. Up-tempo songs simply expose the many weaknesses in his voice. He may be smooth and cool, but his voice is really quite weak (in a support sense). He doesn't get much behind his singing, and when he can't linger on a note to 'find' his tone, it just never comes through. Awful. Awful. And, well, awful. |
 | 10-11-9. Camile Velasco: Well, she still sounds extremely shaky on more exposed parts of the song, but at least this song was full of real power moments for her to just let loose on. That said, she played freely with the pitch throughout, and this was really only a minor improvement in comparison with the horrible performances she's been putting out lately. Hate to say it, but without a decent performance since the round of 32 (and even that not overly impressive), I have to think Camile's stay is done. |
