Friday, February 24, 2006

AI Predictions for 2006/02/23

Eliminations this week:

  • Bobby
  • Heather
  • Patrick
  • Stevie

Top Twelve

  • Ace
  • Ayla
  • Bucky
  • Chris
  • Elliot
  • Katharine
  • Lisa
  • Mandisa
  • Melissa
  • Paris
  • Sway
  • Taylor

AI Review, 2006/02/22

Another pretty good show. Thank heavens Paula is looking like a human being again.

My faves:

  • Bucky: The whole hick-country-yokem thing he's got made me wince, but once he was on stage and opened his mouth I shut the hell up with the mocking him and started being extremely impressed. He really knows how to use his voice! I agree with the judges that he overused the 'rough' voice during the song, but really that doesn't matter very much. A definite winner.
  • Chris: Total pro. The real deal. Whether or not he wins this, he absolutely has a career in the music industry and I'm looking forward to hearing his stuff.

Very strong:

  • Ace: I utterly agreed with Simon's comment - brilliant song choice. BRILLIANT. If he keeps doing that he might win this competition on smart song choices alone. He also has a voice, sexiness and a genuine intensity (as opposed to Constantine's fake 'I am a glorious man' intense stare into the camera).
  • Elliott: Wow! This boy can sing! And he really gets into it, too. Nice. Taylor: During the audition shows I saw him do a better job of singing than he did last night. However, his performance was still good. I agree with the judges that he is totally original and that is definitely a good thing. He's so appealing! I think it's because he obviously loves music so, so much - he seems to live and breathe it and his exuberance for it just bubbles over in everything he does. That's going to carry him a long way. Plus, he can sing.

Not as strong but very likely still safe:

  • Gedeon: I. Love. His. Voice. That is a huge asset for him - big natural talent. He also has the thousand-watt smile that is so appealing (Simon has no idea what he's talking about - I can't believe he said the smile annoyed him). However, the way he moved really distracted me. The stage presence was there but the movements were pretty gawky and awkward. The fact that he repeated the same set of three awkward moves during the repeat of the chorus just emphasized the un-naturalness of his movements. I hope he can pull it together physically because he has tremendous potential.
  • Sway: Very smooth and stylish. Yeah, okay, it was pimpy - but it did have style. I liked it, but was unfortunately was distracted by all the out-of-tuneness with the falsetto thing. I liked it way better when he used his natural voice - hopefully in future weeks he'll use that instead. That one big high note was awesome, though.

At risk:

  • Bobby: He's my first bet among the guys for not making it into next week. His voice is good, but it was pitchy in parts of the song, and the whole performance was too cheezy and awkward. However, I will say this - I really, really like him. He seems like a totally great guy. But he's not going to win this competition.
  • David: Great voice, cute kid, very charming. Reminds me of my first boyfriend, actually. However, the performance overall gave me more of an amateur impression than a professional one. More like the kind of thing that would be a great performance in high school, but not quite good enough for the grownup world. However, I think he stands a good chance of moving on because of his looks and charm and because of the uniqueness among the competition of his crooner thing.
  • Kevin: This boy is obviously a very likeable, wonderful kid. Unfortunately that's about all he's got where this competition is concerned. His voice is okay, but not stand-out. He has a face only a mother could love. He doesn't exude charisma or sexiness. He just exudes niceness, and I just don't think that's enough in this competition.
  • Patrick: He can sing. He definitely knows what he's doing in that department. However, he was obviously nervous and awkward tonight, so that does work against him. I'm interested to see whether he's more compelling as a performer when he sticks to the 'ballad niche' they were talking about. Because otherwise, he's pretty bland and I don't think he'll last long.
  • Will: I think Simon was bang-on about him. The performance was okay, and he's cute...but the song did nothing to showcase his voice, which came across as ordinary (and of course by 'ordinary' I mean only compared to good singers, not the general population). Also, I felt the performance was a bit more high-school than really professional, so overall I think he's one of the weakest contenders.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

AI Review, 2006/02/21

Interesting night last night! I really enjoyed a lot of the performances.

Stand-out favourites:

  • Mandisa: Wow. She overdid it a bit too much with the power in some parts, but boy, can she ever perform! What a show opener.
  • Paris: Personally I find her a bit too cutesy-wootsey little girl, but she can really crank it up on stage! Great singing, great performance, total winner.
  • Lisa: She doesn't have the strongest voice of the competition (although don't get me wrong, it is a good voice), but it doesn't matter. Her stage presence and star power is fantastic.

Easily cruising into next week:

  • Katharine: Beautiful voice but I didn't get the oomph that my top three above gave me. On the other hand, I was concentrating more on my knitting than the TV while she was singing, so my lack of oomph could be my fault.
  • Ayla: Very, very nice. A very ambitious song that she did pull off extremely well. I was very impressed with how she gave a good balance of strong and soft, and bringing the audience in with her during the soft instead of just marking time until the next big note. Really enjoyable performance, great voice, I'm looking forward to seeing more of her.
  • Melissa: I was very surprised! Her voice is great and she really brought it, vocally and emotionally, during the intense bits. I would LOOOVE to hear her sing some classic rock, her voice would be perfectly suited to that genre.

Probably moving on:

  • Kellie: I think I might find her even more annoying than Brenna. However, I'm betting that a lot of Americans will adore the simple (read: dumb) blonde country girl thing, so they'll be able to overlook the APPALLING out-of-tuneness that plagued a lot of her performance.
  • Kinnik: She has a voice. She knows how to use it. She has stage presence. But her performance seemed pretty staged - point at audience here, raise arm there, now look intensely into camera, etc. She needs to make it more real, as well as to choose song styles that are going to be more popular with the audience - more modern, less Vegas.

In danger

  • Brenna: She sounded good, but the song was a bit bland (especially given her personality) and I think a LOT of people are going to find her totally obnoxious. On the other hand, I think a lot of people are going to vote for her - lots of people like having a 'bad guy' around. Of my bottom four I think she has the most chance of making it through to next week.
  • Stevie: What a disastrous choice. Both in song and in the way she chose to sing it. This is too bad, because I think it would be very, very interesting to see an opera-trained voice in this competition, plus I like her from the interviews. But she's in serious danger after last night because her performance, well, kinda sucked.
  • Becky: She sounded okay, she performed okay, it was okay. Okay, okay, okay. Given the song she sang, which rocks and which I love, just 'okay' is bad. I agree that she may cruise through to next week on her looks. Heather: I would bet good money that she definitely does not make it through to next week. She was terribly out of tune, her voice is nothing remarkable, and I agree with Simon that the performance was utterly forgettable. Bye, Heather.