I’ve been slightly addicted to American Idol this year.

Normally I watch record it and watch it back at high speed, cutting out the judges mindless garbage (do they really think anyone cares what they think?) and usually scuttling though half the contestants whining too. All in all the show, plus results can normally be watched in this manor in about 15-30 minutes (depending on the theme that week).

This year it’s been taking me a lot longer. Finally they seem to have some lively contestants, just about all of them can sing pretty well, most of them seem to have some great personalities…

All in all, the show is finally worth watching… It sometimes even takes me a whole hour to watch the entire thing

It’s still a shame some of the good singers went out in earlier rounds, leaving some of the weaker singers to get into the final stage. Had some of the earlier evictee’s still been around it could have been a whole different top 16.

Since I was watching it last night (yes I know we’re a bit slow to get it over here in England) I thought I’d do a little fraggle review of the whole thing.

First off, it was 60′s night, and it just goes to show what a difference a good song can make. Everyone was on top form this week (well technically I guess that should be last week.)

First up…

Haley Scarnato Or “the final clone” as I like usually refer to her. There were half a dozen girls in the final however many, all with similar hair, similar faces, similar clothes… I always got them muddled up, so they became collectively known as “the clones”…

But I digress…

First no review would be complete without mentioning her outfit… It went perfectly with the song choice, and it’s amazing how they stick her in a pair of hot pants, and suddenly she looks about 3ft taller, and it’s all leg… Those things went on for miles.

The top was a little distracting, there were some rather intriguing things going on inside that, which did tend to distract from the song a little. Maybe it’s just me, but I kept thinking it was about to fly off at any second, and she’d not be able to continue…

Still, it didn’t, she did, and it was her best performance so far. Simon’s comment of “You naughty little minx” pretty much summed it up nicely.

Chris Richardson

There’s something very likeable about this guy. I saw somewhere online someone say that he looks so innocent and you want to do incredibly filthy things to him… I’m not sure I’d go that far, I haven’t quite reached that level of depravity…

Yet…

Maybe something to work on :asbestos:

But I do kind of understand their sentiment

Earlier on in the competition, I thought he’d probably be in for most of the competition, but I’m starting to have some doubts about that, he still sings well, but his voice doesn’t seem to be adapting to the different musical styles as well as some of the others. Plus he seems to be trying to be a bit too much like Justin Timberlake, now everyone’s told him how much he looks like him. Still maybe one to watch out for though, if he can expand his vocal abilities so the songs don’t all sound quite so sameish.

Stephanie Edwards

She has a nice voice, pretty face, but we don’t seem to have seen anything else. There’s some strong personalities in this year, and she doesn’t really seem to have managed to get her personality to show strongly enough, so she’s sort of faded behind many of the others.

Plus there’s not been anything particularly memorable about her performances so far, at least as far as I can see, although I think much of that could be the choice of songs she’s had up until now.

I only watched this performance last night, and I’m looking at it again now because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was, which is always going to be a problem in this kind of competition.

If people don’t remember you, they’re not going to vote for you.

Blake Lewis
I wasn’t sure about Blake early on, yes he was talented, could sing and had the beat boxing thing, but I wasn’t sure how far he’d last.

Now he’s in the final stage, he really seems to be shining. I seem to remember hearing on one of the earlier shows that he’d studied music at some point, which may give him a technical advantage over some of the others for setting up the arrangements of the songs, adding beat boxing etc., to make the songs seem modern.

In turn that does make him run the risk that he might modernize a song that would have worked better staying true to the original version. But that remains to be seen.

This guy is certainly one to watch out for.

LaKisha Jones
This girl is one of the competition’s powerhouses, a great singer, who doesn’t appear to really know just how good she actually is.

I thought she sang the song brilliantly, when she first came out, if you closed your eyes, it could have been Shirley Bassey stood their singing.

I was a little confused by her outfit and hair though, she looked great, but it didn’t really go with the song, the hairstyle looked very 80′s when combined with the dress… And why the green dress? A slinky black sparkly number would have been more appropriate I’d have thought.

But maybe that’s just down to personal choice.

Phil Stacey
He seemed slightly more on track this week. He sounded great during the earlier rounds, but seemed to lose some of the magic once they hit the live shows. This song seemed much more his style, although I do take the judges point that you kind of expected a rougher, more gravely voice for the song, which he doesn’t really have…

But it still worked well. He stands a good chance of going a fair way if he can keep it going.

The shirt has to go though, the pattern on the front of it looked like he’d spilt food or water down it until you got a good look and realised it was the pattern in the material.

Jordin Sparks
Wow! What more can you say? She had to be the performance of the night with that song. She’s another, really likable contestant, you can’t help but sit there willing her along. The couple of times I’ve not liked her performance it’s been more to do with the song than her voice. She’s bound to make the final. Not sure about her dress though, I thought it made her look a bit frumpy… But again, that’s probably more personal tastes than anything really wrong with it.

Sanjaya Malakar
Oh dear, where to begin.

Ok, first the good, it has to be his best performance so far, finally we get to see that he actually does deserve to have made it to the live shows. The past few weeks he’s been so limp and lacklustre I couldn’t work out how he even got past Hollywood week.

I can’t make up my mind what it is that puts me off him, I think it’s a mix of things, the hair, the odd grin when he sings that makes me wonder if he’s on Prozac…

There’s something about him reminds me of Taylor Hicks from last year… They both kind of creep me out, and I really don’t get what it is everyone likes about them.

I’d say he’s likely to go any week, but then I thought that about Taylor Hicks last year too, and look how that went…

Gina Glocksen
I like this girl, she’s got a voice, and an edgy attitude about her, although I wish she’d ditch the tongue stud though so she’d stop lisping on some of the songs.

I thought it was a shame she got so slated by the judges, it sounded good to me. I’ve only heard the Michelle Branch version of that song, but it didn’t sound all that different to me.

With her rocky voice, she does seem to be struggling to pick the right songs to show off her abilities. Something with a rock feel to it, but enough range to show off her vocal abilities can’t be that easy to come by.

I hope she does well, but she’s going to need a bit more practice at adapting to the different styles if she wants to keep going I reckon.

Chris Sligh
A good voice, great personality and funny… A pretty good mix for this kind of show.

Another good song choice, showing off the unusual sound to his voice, the rocky edge to it… And he almost took Simon Cowell’s head off with the mic stand…

Can’t see a down side to that myself

May need to try hard at that next time though…

Melinda Doolittle
Like LaKisha, another one with an incredible voice who doesn’t seem to realise just how good she is. The slight difference, Melinda seems to get lost in the song when she performs, while LaKisha seems to need a more upbeat number to go into performance mode.

But I’m getting sidetracked again…

Hated the song, I remember it from Oliver, and I never liked it then either, but then it really didn’t matter, this girl could sing the phonebook to you and you’d be happy.

I’m not sure she even knows what a bum note is.

I’d say Melinda is probably the strongest singer in the competition, but then she not only has the voice, but being a former backing singer, she’s got to have the advantage over a lot of the others, as she’s got a fair bit of experience under her belt.

Overall

The best overall week so far, like I said, it just goes to show what a good song can do for your performance.

I reckon the girls have the edge this year, Melinda, LaKisha and Jordin have the powerful voices, and have been consistent throughout. Haley and Chris Richardson have the performance, but they may be overshadowed vocally by some of the other contestants, Gina and Chris Sligh both have a rocky sort of edge, which may count against them, after all just look at Chirs Daugherty last year… Blake and Phil are both good, but something makes me think they might be hit or miss, depending how things progress over the coming weeks.