AI S4, Top8 Gals, 3/8/05

Interesting night.  Most of the performances were 'not bad', there really wasn't anything 
excellent, and only a couple complete flops in the bunch.  Unless one of these ladies can 
really rip off something EXCELLENT in the near future, this is going to be an all-male 
event in a few weeks.  Anyway, on to it...
Overall (Tonight)

1 (2). Vonzell Solomon: I'm really not sure why all the judges felt the need to rip on her 
voice, she's easily as good as any of the other girls out there.  Anyway, this was an 
excellent performance.  Sure it's not an overly difficult song, but she nailed every bit of 
it, and managed to have fun and work the stage at the same time.  Great performance, as 
good as any put on thus far by the ladies.

2 (3). Nadia Turner: This was a very interesting song on her.. I certainly didn't like it 
anywhere near as much as the judges did.  It was alright, I just didn't enjoy it that much.  
Don't know, I'll just pull a Randy and say I really wasn't feeling it.  Certainly good 
enough for this stage of the competition.

3 (6). Carrie Underwood: What on earth was that crappy song, wow.  Anyway, clearly a bit of 
a dud of a performance from Carrie, on a song that was at the very bottom of her range.  
She had trouble getting any force behind the low notes, and it plagued her throughout.  Not 
that it matters though, the few power notes she did get out clearly placed her at the LEAST 
in the top 6 of this rag-tag group of gals.  Obviously not the best she could do, but still 
obviously better than what most of these girls can put out.  She's going to need to step it 
up next week when the girls are thrown in with the guys, however.

4 (1). Amanda Avila: As much as I hate to admit it, I really liked this performance.  Obviously, 
comparing her to Tina Turner, she's going to come up short.  I'll let you in on a secret, 
none of these ladies is the vocalist Tina Turner is.  Cat's out of the bag.  That said, she 
sounded really good on the song.  Had some difficult pitches rock solid (except perhaps for 
the very first couple), and hit the power notes with ease.  She also looked really comfortable on 
stage, and she's clearly a gorgeous girl.  Probably the best performance she could've given, nice work.

5 (4). Jessica Sierra: Huh.  Took about half the song for me to figure out what it was.  Anyway, 
Jess is very unique in this competition, probably the first barroom bluesy female singer since 
what's her name Starr back in the first season.  And she plays the part well.  Nice voice, 
she's comfortable in her performance, easily one of the most polished singers here.  Good stuff.

6 (7). Mikalah Gordon: Well, this _started_ horribly.  Terribly.  Flat and awful.  Then it got 
a _bit_ better, but it was too low on her and she was reaching for the notes.  And then, finally, 
she hit the power parts that she obviously chose the song for, and it was ok.  Very nice even.  
If the last 8 notes were the whole performance it would've been quite nice...... but you can't 
make an entire performance on the end.  So yeah, on the whole, poor job.  And she still annoys 
the hell out of me.  Meh.

7 (5). Lindsey Cardinale: Aerosmith, a very interesting choice.  There's a lot of song here, 
and she hit most of it quite acceptably.  There's something about her, she just seems a bit flat, 
personality wise, and it comes across in her singing.  There never seems to be much of HER in her 
singing, she's just hitting the notes.  Anyway, decent job.

8 (8). Janay Castine: Kind of funny, this was the first performance where Janay looked even remotely 
comfortable... perhaps she's resigned to the fact that it's over, and thus there's nothing left to 
be nervous about.  That was terrible.  She hit a _few_ of the power notes, specifically the ones that 
were in the middle of runs, but other than that it was consistantly cringe-worthy.  That was the kind 
of singing I expect to hear random people doing along with the radio - and yeah, it causes cringes 
then too.  Just not good, Janay's got to be going home after this.