AI S4, Top10 Gals, 3/1/05

Well, last week I thought the girls came out atop the guys... this week they flipped it around.  
I honestly didn't think the girls performances were anywhere NEAR as impressive as the guys were 
the night before.  The high points were lower, and low points were painful.  The talent's there, 
the performances just aren't on at all.  Most of them actually seemed ill-prepared and singing 
songs unsuited for their voices.  Anyway, on to it...
(Ordered by my overall ranking, with tonight's performances ranked in parenthesis)

1. (3) Carrie Underwood: Last week she was flirting with the pop/country line and this week she 
crossed; decidedly country.  To go along with this, her vocal was significantly weaker than anything 
I've heard from her thus far.  This would probably be because country sucks and singing it was 
sapping all the talent from her voice.  She's still the cute farm girl.... but I don't really wanna 
listen to her singing this junk.... country sucks.

2. (6) Vonzell Solomon: Alicia Keys she is not.  Not even all that close, to be honest.  She was 
barely hanging on in the low range, and reaching in the high range.  And without anything even 
remotely original added on, it just comes across as poor karaoke.  Blah, simply not good enough.

3. (1) Mikalah Gordon: THIS was the Mikalah that has a respectable shot at a top 6 finish on this 
show, and was SOOOOO much better than the horribly painful display she put on last week.  Literally 
improved everything, starting with her look, then the song and singing, and finally her deportment 
during her judging.  Just a complete turnaround.  Anyway, the singing was very understated, a simple 
performance of a powerful standard.  Rather than piling on vocal histrionics, Mickey chose to impress 
with a beautiful, rich tone, and powerful, clean notes.  Excellent job, especially considering she 
had to step back from her natural tendencies as an annoying teenage girl.

4. (8) Nadia Turner: Terrible song, featuring the three main lyrcs 'my', 'love', and 'woah'.  She 
also didn't sound all that good.  Her voice was just barely finding the high power notes, and many 
of the lesser notes were barely hanging on pitch-wise.  I'm hoping that this was just an off night, 
but perhaps some of the power she displayed last week was really just a by-product of the attitude 
she was injecting in the song.  Meh, didn't suck, but wasn't good either.

5. (2) Amanda Avila: Well, considering how bad this song CAN go, this was alright.  She held on to 
the difficult pitch variations quite well.  To be honest, her biggest problem was probably volume, 
during the faster sections she was sometimes almost inaudible.  I actually like this performance the 
more I think about, definitely a decent job on a tough song.

6. (5) Jessica Sierra: Country sucks.  I'm not sure why Simon was so completely in love with this.  
It was alright, but there really wasn't anything particularly challenging in the vocal... at all... 
Meh, she sounded ok, shouted a few of the notes at the end.  It was alright.  Just alright.

7. (4) Lindsey Cardinale: Well, the song was clearly low on her, since she was never tested high and 
seemed constantly losing the end of phrases.  Besides that, some of the attitude came across a bit 
affected, but overall it was ok.  Certainly different, just not all that great.  Looking might fine 
though, if I do say so myself.

8. (7) Aloha Mischeaux: Meh, really nothing original in this entire performance.  Sub-par Alicia Keys 
impersonation, really not feeling this.  Hit most of the notes I guess, but that's about all she's got 
going for her.

9. (9) Janay Castine: A half-decent karaoke of a half-decent, but decidedly NOT difficult, song.  Meh, 
she had the attitude of the song down, but the vocal part simply wasn't impressive.  She also looks 
incredibly awkward singing, her eyes get scary buggy.  Anyway, she sounded alright, but so would any of 
the rest of them on this song, not gonna get it done.

10. (10) Celene Rae: What the hell was this song?  Blah, this'll likely be the last we see of Celena.  
She missed some notes, her voice sounded VERY weak in places, and, well, it just wasn't that good.  
Clearly the weakest performer left...