AI S4, Top12 Gals, 2/22/05

Another good show, as usual the girls slightly outperformed the guys, and they're also much more 
fun to look at :).  Anyway, some standouts, some disappointments, some MOR, just more of the usual.

1. Carrie Underwood: This is one hot farm girl.  Wow.  I like.  Anyway, once I was able to start 
watching with my ears again, she can also sing remarkably well.  Nice control (though the song 
didn't test it to any truly great degree), but most noticably a VERY powerful, beautiful voice.  
Managed to make a horrible song sound excellent.  Oh, but if she takes one more step towards the 
country in pop/country I'm gonna have to dock her purely on principle.

2. Vonzell Solomon: This was an excellent start to the show.  Very powerful vocal, displaying both 
range and control in solid measure.  I remember this song as almost destroying quite a few previous 
Idol campaigns (almost eliminated Kim Locke early in AI2), and this was the first time it didn't 
just outright suck.  Great job.

3. Nadia Turner: I wasn't feeling this nearly as much as the judges, but it was definitely good.  
I liked her a lot more in the verses then in the chorus, where I didn't feel she had the 'edge' to her 
voice to properly pull off the rock vocal.  Good performance, but I wasn't blown away.

4. Melinda Lira: First of all, I HATE this song, I can't help picturing Celine singing it to that 
90 year old father figure she married, just freaks me out.  Anyway, this girl's definitely got nice pipes, 
but I can't help feeling she's a slightly less talented, slightly less attractive Kelly Clarkson.  Meh, 
maybe she'll be able to differentiate herself down the line.  Anyway, definitely has an excellent voice.

5. Sarah Mather: Sarah's got a very cool, laid-back vocal, and it's quite nice.  It also completely 
sucked ALL life out of that song.  I was actually picturing Norah Jones singing disco, it just didn't 
work at all.  I really like her voice, but she needs a different song.  I'm not really sure what kind 
of up-tempo song she should do, but maybe something a bit more funky or with more of an edge.  Anyway, 
she's definitely attractive, but not nearly enough for that to carry her through the competition, so 
she's going to have to step it up.. if she survives that long.

6. Amanda Avila: Decent job, she's obviously got a very nice voice.  That said, the song was very boring, 
and the 'emotion' in it was purely of a cheese variety.  Anyway, she's also quite attractive, and should 
have no trouble surviving this round.

7. Jessica Sierra: This is an excellent singer's song, and it's hard to really sound bad on it. And 
she didn't.  But it wasn't really all that impressive either.  She also reminds me of some actress from a 
90s tv show that I really can't remember.  Not sure if that's good or bad, but yeah.  Meh, sounded decent, 
should've been better.

8. Aloha Mischeaux: Awesome, the lead-in clip shows her denying the Beyonce in her voice, and then she 
rips off a cover of an alright Beyonce song.  Yet another alright, she had enough sizzle in her voice to 
almost pull it off, but still couldn't really make me feel the funk.  She's also not nearly as ridiculously 
hot as Beyonce (who is though...).

9. Lindsey Cardinale: Crappy song.  Really crappy song.  She also seemed to be definitely lacking in vocal 
range, hope that was just a fluke or artifact of the song, but for now she's suspect.  Really pretty, but 
also seemed to come off sort of fake, don't know what that was, something in her smile.  Anyway, a very 
blah performance.

10. Celene Rae: What the hell was that song?  That crazy sub-bass boom at the start had me thinking of some 
terrible dance remix of a crappy pop song.  Anyway, her voice was really clean, and by the same token, 
lacking in any distinctive personality.  Don't know, she has a decent voice, a decent look, and was.. decent.

11. Janay Castine: I'm not sure if it was just nerves or what, but something was wrong with Janay up on 
that stage.  She almost seemed like she was about to cry at one point, and both her voice and her arms were 
shaking like crazy.  Anyway, she displayed a very strong voice... and offset it with a ton of very weak 
moments.  Mixed impression, nice voice, poor performance.

12. Mikalah Gordon: OK, this girl is a complete shapeshifter.  Sometimes her voice is annoying, her look 
good, others the opposite.  Then sometimes they both work, and then others, like tonight, it just all falls 
apart.  She was seriously channeling Fran Drescher of Nanny and Friends infamy - both vocally AND image-wise.  
Yuck.  I definitely fall into the camp that Simon said would find her ridiculously annoying, even if I can 
hear the talent lying buried under there somewhere...