American Idol- Season 4, Update 2

American Idol Update- Season Four

We write about AI so you don't have to: Cathy in Purple, Deb in Red, Tim in Blue

Week Two: The boys put the girls to shame...

Boys:

The guys are going first again? I'm surprised they're not switching off each week.

Mario Vasquez (I love music) - Great song choice! I loved it a lot, especially at the beginning, but I would've liked a song with a little less repeating and more excitement. Oh, I just want him to loose the hat though.

He’s a good singer and a very good performer, a natural. Good song even though I don’t know it. I think it was a great start to the show and that he’ll go far. He needs to do a slow song soon though.

He's got a really safe pop look and style the 13 year olds will love- he's good, but I think there are a few that are better. Definitely deserves to make the top 12, though, doesn't seem like that will be an issue...He does need to lose that hat. I thought it was lame that he talked about not being bald but then STILL didn't lose the hat!

Anwar Robinson (What's goin on) - Excellent song choice for him. Just when I was gonna write that I wanted a little more umph, he gave it to me. Ouch, the finals are gonna suck having to choose between some of these people. I really think that most of the people in this top 24 are really good.

I think especially the guys are very good. I thought Anwar sounded great! He makes it seem effortless. Like Mario, he’s also a natural. I love this guy. Two really good guys, I think it’s all downhill from here.

He is very good- I liked last week a little better, probably because I love the original of this I don't think anyone can compare with Marvin's performance. I really like the risks Anwar takes though, and he's very consistent.

Joseph Murena (Let's Stay Together)- Wow, he did a MUCH better job at this song than I thought he would. Clean cut whitey has a lot more soul than I thought. I liked it!

At first I cringed when I heard he was doing this song, but he did well with it. Not fantastic but respectable. Hard song to sing and not sound like karaoke. It was just a little loungy though and thanking everyone at the end didn’t help. Sweet lounge singer collar too. So, I liked him but not as much as you.

It was far better than last week but this competiton is really fierce, and he is the weakest link. Goodbye!

In my opinion we're 3 for 3. The first guy to suck is REALLY gonna suck.

Mmm, 2.5 for 3.

David Brown (All In Love Is Fair)- Very very very shaky start. Dorky facial expressions. Yeah, he made the end better, but I still didn't like it. Pitchy, and just nothing great about it.

I agree, it was disappointing. I really liked him last week! This performance started flat and weak. He didn’t turn it on until the end but then it was good. Kind of forgettable.

Agreed. He's nowhere as good as his audition, which is a shame, because that was great.

Constantine (Hard to Handle) Wow, parts of this were really dorky. And some of the screams were annoying. I know he could've done better than that. But, of course the judges loved him. Grrrrr. They don't know what they're talking about.

He acts like such a bad boy. Whateva. I still don’t like his voice. I’ve heard a gazillion cover bands where the singer sang this song 100 times better. The Lance bracelet? Cool. Weak fake metal attitude too, he’s a poser. The screams were all off. Glad Simon agreed with me about the cover band thing.

He's weak. It's a shame for him that Bo is around, but Bo is the far superior rocker. Constantine is, as Deb says, a poser.

Scott Savol (All My Love?_- Cool shades! Not a lot to say. Good song choice. Very pretty voice, as usual. Really good performance. Man, he's totally one of my faves!

I love his voice! Great song for him, I really really liked it. Randy didn’t like him, he’s dumb. Hooray for Simon liking it though!

This kid is cool, I see a lot of Ruben smoothness in him. His look is improving, too, so hopefully he'll stick around for a while.

Travis Tucker (All Night Long)- I have five letters that perfectly describe this performance. D-O-R-K-Y! He tried WAY too hard. Ok, he did the crazy part in the middle and that was a huge risk worth taking, but still could've done better at picking a song. Ok, I watched it again and it was fine, but just not my thang.

His voice was good but the performance was kind of cheesy. He wants to be Usher. Wow, Mikalah has on huge earrings.

Strangely enough, I liked him more than both of you. It's tough to sing and dance at the same time and I think he pulled it off very well.

Nikko Smith- (Let's get it on) - As soon as I heard the music, I got really excited. He definately looked and moved the part. One major pitchy part, but otherwise pretty good. Not what I hoped for, but still good. Ouch, Simon was very mean to him saying he looks like Bobby Brown?!?!?

Good look for him. Too much growly voice and ooohs though. Trying too hard vocally I think. It didn’t seem genuine to me. I liked it OK but it wasn’t my fave. Ha! He does look like Bobby Brown! At least he wasn’t forgettable this week.

I thought he did great- REALLY turned it around from last week. And he TOTALLY looks like Bobby Brown, cool that Simon picked up on that so quickly!

Clay-Do (I wanna know what love is) - If he wins this competition, it'll be because of the amount of chinese he ate (in case you don't remember, he talked about all his fortune cookie fortunes saying he we gonna win). Ok, as for his performance, gayer please! The background vocals were horrible. Like seriously horrible. And wow, he pulled a TOTAL Clay with this song. I'm interested to see what happens to such a white boy with all the other guys who are so un-white.

Oh miracle boy, shan’t you ever learn? If you want to distinguish yourself from Clay don’t sing a sappy gooey ballad. Too funny about the fortune cookies though. My last fortune cookie said, “You’re getting voted off American Idol this week”. Wow, he sure is lucky he didn’t get that one! He can sing, I’ll give him that, but I hate it. Wow, he’s got a huge divet in his neck. Is that from his miracle surgery? Ugh, sugar crystals are forming on my TV screen, this was horrible.

In the words of Simon, I have to agree with Cathy, believe it or not. This kid stinks. Technically he is decent, but he has NO soul. He makes me feel black.

Bo Bice- (Whippin Post) - Very good. I really don't have any more comments though. Not much to say about him.

Great! Great energy, fantastic voice. He really brought it. I had to watch this one twice. Seriously, compare him to Constantine and he totally blows Const away. Good enough for the finals, but we’ll see how he is once he’s tied to a certain format.

He was waaaay cool. A great job. This guy seriously can rock.

Ok, my fave three are: Mario, Anwar, Joseph (but Scott is a very close 4th)

My fave 3 are Bo, Anwar, and Scott. Joseph is your 3rd???? Seriously, get off the crack.

My top three are: Bo, Nikko (yes, I liked him that much) and Anwar.

Bottom 2**: David and Constantine

**I don't know if I need to clarify this or not. My fave 3 are MY fave three. Bottom 2 are who I think America will pick as the bottom two to leave the competition. That doesn't have anything to do with how much I like them, or Constantine wouldn't be there.

I think Joseph and David Brown will be eliminated, although if I had my say it would be miracle boy and Constantine.

I totally agree with Deb on who will be out and who SHOULD be out!

And after watching the results show it turns out I was correct. I had had high hopes for David, too bad he was eliminated. The guys are so good this year. I know America won’t vote off miracle boy or Constantine, and I hate to see 2 of the other guys go next week! I guess I’ll just have to stop watching.

I'm just hoping both of them don't make it- 'cause I could handle one of them and Travis leaving...but not anyone else. They're too talented.

Aloha (You don't know my name) - I don't know. It's hard to say cause the music was too loud to hear her. Strange song but I'd say she sang it fine, as far as I could hear.

1. Lose the flower already. 2. Bad hair. The vocals weren’t loud enough but they do sound good. Good song choice too. She needed more energy for the first performance. I wonder if they know ahead of time (i.e. when choosing their song) in what order they’ll be singing. If so she should have picked a more up-tempo song.

It was nowhere near what she did last week. Good of her to mix it up, but she needed to do great to stand out and she didn't.

Lindsey (You're all I think about these days) - Wow, that was very good. She really got into it and gave a good performance. I agree with the judges though about stretching it a little more.

She worked it and had good energy but the vocals were just good. It was fine. Not my fave.

I thought this was really weak. Not very good AT ALL.

Jessica (___ broken wing) - Very good. Great start and got to the perfect loudness.

Ugh, more country bullshit. She reminds me of Amaya from the Real World. Let’s hope the people in the south split the vote and the country singers get eliminated. OK, actually, I don’t love the song but I must admit that she sounds really good. That was cute how excited she got going into commercial.

GOOD CALL on the Amaya reference. Now I'm going to really dislike her! Technically she was good, but enough with the GD country.

Mikalah (Gd bless the child) - I didn't even recognize this song until the end. The best singer of this song will always be Lisa Simpson on "Simpsons Sing the Blues." Anyway, I promise I won't go on and on about how much I hate her if you just keep it in mind as a given. But...if I'm being honest (as Simon would say), if I were to close my eyes and forget who was singing, I still just wouldn't like her voice. I just don't like it, like Fantasia's. At least she was serious this time though. And other than her crazy collagen lips, she was VERY pretty. I liked her look.

How annoying in her mini-interview (before the performance). Fantastic vocals though. Too bad she’s so irritating – although not so much so tonight. Smart girl, she kept her mouth shut.

She really downplayed her annoying personality and just sang- and did great! I don't like her at all, but I'll admit she sang the crap out of that song.

BTW, Cathy, was the song title a spelling error, or are you kickin' it Old Shul? Either way, cheers! Or should I say Mazel Tov?

Celena Rae (When the lights go down) - Very bad earrings. Other than that, it was fine. Not bad but nothing spectacular about it. Also her stance is weird when she sings. Honestly, she has to give us something to remember if she wants to stay in the competition because a bunch of country songs no one knows aren't gonna get her to the final 12, let alone the final 3.

Is this ANOTHER country song? I might have to kill someone. Bad song. She did OK but I don’t find her particularly charismatic. She’s boring. But she has a great look and is very pretty. It was just OK for me.

Not a great performance but she is a little cutie, which may keep her around.

Nadia Turner (My Love) - Interesting song choice. No, not good for me. Started off at full steam and couldn't go up from there. It was ok, but definately could've been better. Plus, it was a very awkward song to perform, as much as I like it.

Fro – ick. She needs to eat a sandwich too. Very good, not my favorite song. I wasn’t wowed.

Interesting and somewhat risky choice, but not her best. Good of her to mix things up and take a risk. Overall, she is my favorite of the girls...

Amanda Avila (Turn the beat around) - I hate this song! She sang it sexilly which is very diff than the way it is usually sang and I ended up liking it a lot. Interesting.

It was good but I could hear it at Great America. She added nothing to that song vocally, but she did a good performance though. When AI is over for her she’ll get lots of calls from the cruise ships. Big improvement from last week too.

Much better than last week, and she pulls off the sexy thing where everyone else on Idol- all seasons- have failed. But technically, she is just a really good amusement park singer...

Jenay Castine (Hit 'em up style) - I like the song she chose, but she did a bad song. Some songs just aren't right for this competition. Especially if you're needing to change so many of the words to make it fit. Sometimes you just need to chose a song that's NOT your fave because it's better for the performance. Not only that, but the original song has a lot of attitude and she sang it completely attitudeless. Paula said disconnected. Perfect way to put it.

Scary when Paula hits the nail on the head. And I agree with you too that this song would never be a good choice to sing for this competition. Anyway about Janay - I think it was lousy. She needs to wax her moustache too. Such a bad song choice, and she mumbled her way through it. She kept pointing too! Not a good performance.

Ugh. Poor kid. She's out of her league. Like a deer in the headlights. Much better than last week, but it still sucked, which says how bad she was last week...

Carrie (Take another little piece of my heart) - Cuh-razy dancing. Whoa! I did NOT recognize this song till the chorus. I liked it!!! Holy cow, she took a Janis song and sang it for a completely different genre and it worked really well. I admit, I didn't like it much till I realized what song it was, but it wasn't necessarily the way she sang it, but the way she made the song her own. It really worked for me. Cool ending too. (Note: On the results show I found out that this is Faith Hill's version of this song which means that Carrie didn't to jack to it and so it's a lot less exciting for me now).

I can’t hear this song anymore without thinking of the dead fish performance of it by Nicky McKibbin in season 1. If she was going for a country cover of that song she nailed it. But then (like you Cathy) I realized during the results show that it was Faith Hill’s country cover that she was doing. I originally was quite impressed that she switched it up like that but apparently it was Faith Hill who did that. As with you, I’m much less impressed.

I thought this was terrible- technically, she did well but it lacked passion. The lyrics are strong and VERY passionate, and she didn't put any emotion into. I'm sure Faith Hill didn't either. I just hate the kind of commercial country she does. For what it was, she did o.k., but what it was in my book was poop.

Vonzell (Some people want...) - I'm sick of this song, but she did a freakin' great job, and I'm not a fan of her. Oh well, once again the judges and I are not in agreement at all.

Well I’m in agreement with you. She did a great job. I am so sick of this song b/c everyone sang it during the auditions. But she did a great job with it. Big improvement over last week. She stood out much more this time.

It was good, not fantastic. The girls are very weak compared to the guys...

Ok, my favorite 3: Jessica, Amanda, and Vonzell

Overall the guys show was waaaayy better than the girls. My 3 faves are Mikalah, Jessica, and Aloha.

My top 3 are Mikalah (going by performance this week, not my overall favorite), Nadia and Aloha.

Bottom 2: Janay and Celena

My bottom 2, and the ones I think will be eliminated, are Janay and Lindsey.

Again, I agree with Deb- Lindsey and Janay are my least favorite and my picks to be eliminated.

And after watching the results show it turns out I was not correct on either. I don’t know who Janay is blowing but somehow she survived another week. I’m sad to see Aloha go but not too surprised, she was on the downswing. Not sad to see Celena go, I think the only reason she made it this far is b/c she’s pretty. I thought it was very interesting how she was eliminated too, just picked her out of the group and said you’re out. Kind of refreshing actually. Last week it seemed like they were working really hard to come up with new needlessly complicated and ever increasingly jackass ways of doing the eliminations. I like it better straight up, but that’s just me. Less time dicking around with the eliminations leaves more time for skits!

Agreed! Bring on the skits!

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