'American Idol' Top Four Can't Stop the Rock
David Archuleta and Syesha Mercado are Tuesday's standouts, while Jason Castro delivers the duds
Daniel Fienberg
Zap2It.com
May 6, 2008
Tuesday (May 6) night's American Idol theme is about as vague and wide-open as the Top Four could possibly hope for. Songs from the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame? What does that even mean? Working from the Hall's list of 500 influential hits, surely everybody should find great tracks to sing, right? Let's see...
Singer: PRESUMPTIVE AMERICAN IDOL FINALIST DAVID COOK
Song: "Hungry Like the Wolf"
My Take: Rock-n-Roll is a dangerous theme, particularly if rightly or wrongly, you've been coronated as the season's standard-bearer for the genre. As an American Idol rocker, David Cook is a very fine glam frontman and he's had some success with a few power ballads with a rock edge. He sure doesn't rock in the same way Bo Bice or Chris Daughtry did, though, and nights like this remind us of just how anonymous he would have been on CBS' Rock Star. Yes, he's absolutely proficient on this Duran Duran cover, but after saying he saw various ways to twist the song to make it his own, this is vocally identical to the original. If you heard Cook at an big city bar on a Saturday night, you wouldn't be offended, but you wouldn't remember it the next morning. David, though, is going to face higher expectations tonight.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: Randy thinks song selection is important on tonight's show and David's pick was only OK for him. Paula's left with a big appetite. Because David's song involved hunger. Simon calls it copycat, but says it was probably good enough to go through to next week.
Singer: SYESHA MERCADO
Song: "Proud Mary"
My Take: Syesha has never been afraid to tackle the biggest divas in each episode's theme of choice and going after Tina Turner may be her most ambitious challenge yet. She's even wearing a tight, shiny skirt to show off her darned fine (if not quite Tina-worthy) gams. Syesha isn't nearly the force of nature that Tina still is to this day -- Did we see her at the most recent Grammys? -- but the girl tries. Syesha tries so hard. She has absolutely no fear, even if perhaps she ought to. In a competition where her three rivals have shied away from any sort of musical diversity, Syesha has gone all over the map. In a competition where her three rivals haven't varied their stage performance styles an iota, Syesha frequently danced and tried not to get swallowed up by the Idol platform. And in a competition where her three rivals all gave their best performances weeks ago, Syesha has shown signs of improvement. None of that has anything to do with her ability to equal Tina Turner. She can't. She isn't even close, becoming breathless and times and getting swallowed by the music at others, but I'm loving her effort.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: This is the third week in a row that Syesha's been in the zone for Randy, "showing the heat late in the competition." Paula raves that Syesha's looking like a star and bringing the magic. Simon, though, calls it "a bad, shrieky version," a "bad impersonation of Tina Turner."
Singer: JASON CASTRO
Song: "I Shot the Sheriff"
My Take: It's a brilliant song choice for Clifford the Muppet, tackling an intense political anthem that's been reduced to a stoner party anthem by several generations of frat boys. I'm saying that as much damage has been done to "I Shot the Sheriff" as could possibly be done. It's a song where Jason's vocal liabilities are nearly irrelevant and where nobody's going to stop and ask why he's got a guitar around his shoulder if he isn't going to bother playing it. Do you want the good news or the bad news? The good news is that Jason doesn't smile blankly through the song. I don't know if his eyes are as dead -- errr... soulful and spiritual? -- as they usually are, because they're closed the whole time, but otherwise, he's impressively animated (by his low standards). The bad news is that he sounds weak and shouty and barely hits anything that could be called a note.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: "For me, that was a real karaoke Bob Marley," says Randy, who didn't see anything special about it. Paula's never seen him perform more to the audience, but she still wasn't crazy about it. She still thinks Jason's artistry signed through. Simon goes Randy one further, saying "That was utterly atrocious." He compares it to an audition massacre.
Singer: PRESUMPTIVE AMERICAN IDOL FINALIST DAVID ARCHULETA
Song: "Stand By Me"
My Take: Well, it's rock-n-roll night, which means that it's a great chance for David Archuleta to do exactly what he's done every week since March. The arrangement isn't exactly the Ben E. King original, but it's still just Li'l' Archie begging the audience to stand by him in his spiritual charge against world hunger/war/high gas prices. It's earnest, intense and in-tune. Up until a wobbly closing falsetto, though, I'm ready to pronounce this David Archuleta's best David Archuleta performance in weeks. This is actually the strongest and least strained his voice has sounded in some time.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: Randy says that every time David hits the stage, he's in it to win it, that it was hot, that he brought the hot man vocals. Paula raves that David's mature beyond his years. Simon just says that after Jason, anything would sound great, but he finally dubs it the best performance so far.
Singer: PRESUMPTIVE AMERICAN IDOL FINALIST DAVID COOK
Song: "Baba O'Riley"
My Take: There's a time and a place for humility and this isn't it. David Cook really doesn't want to be telling viewers that he could have done better with his first song. Confidence, man. The second half of David's "Baba O'Riley," as he hits the chorus and it actually begins to rock, is fantastic, but it starts off much too slow and dour and stays that way for too long. There's something Eddie Vedder-esque about Cook's voice here and he probably should have taken the arrangement from one of the countless Pearl Jam covers of the song floating around the Internet.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: Randy tells David he's great and that this is closer to what he should be doing. Paula's humbled to sit and watch his soul. Simon welcomes David back.
Singer: SYESHA MERCADO
Song: "A Change Is Gonna Come"
My Take: If you asked me to write a list of the greatest popular songs ever written, this would be at the top of my list. The very top. And Sam Cooke's vocals on the original are as good as it gets. Syesha doesn't make the mistake that Gideon McKinney made several seasons ago when he sounded great, but smiled like an idiot throughout. Syesha seems to understand what the song's about and she sings the heck out of it. I don't love the all of the phrasing in the arrangement, which sometimes makes it sound like she took the Cooke version and knocked it just slightly off the beat at times. Minor tweaking aside, this is a beautiful vocal turn for Syesha, as different from her first song as possible and full of exceptional moments that are pure without being excessively showy or affected.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: Randy didn't love this as much as the first song and that she oversang it, that it was disconnected and fell flat for him. Paula stands for Syesha and says it was a superstar performance and that she's changed and she's come. Yes. She says that. Syesha's in tears. Simon agrees with Paula and even goes out of his way to tell Randy he got it wrong.
Singer: JASON CASTRO
Song: "Mr. Tambourine Man"
My Take: Nope. You don't take Bob Dylan and blunder the lyrics and "La la la" your way through with a sheepish smile like "Oh well, what can you do?" This is the Top Four. What you can do is do better. I'm too lazy to do the research on this, but I'm going to wager that Jason's performances tonight were two of the least impressive Top Four performances in the show's seven seasons.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: Randy asks Jason for his opinion. Jason giggles about missing the lyrics. Paula just says that it is what it is and Jason still blows her away. Simon tells him to pack his suitcase.
Singer: PRESUMPTIVE AMERICAN IDOL FINALIST DAVID ARCHULETA
Song: "Love Me Tender"
My Take: No, David, you've never sung a romantic love song on the Idol stage, but how are we supposed to distinguish your "I'm in love with you" sincerity from your "I'd like for you to pledge money to my telethon" sincerity? Actually, I'm going to say the exact same thing about this as his first performance: I still don't care for Archuleta's falsetto, but the vocals are strong as nuanced otherwise. I'm just wondering if Li'l' Archie can possible win this show without ever having a single success out of his comfort zone.
Stony Brooke, Lullaby Joslin and Simon Say: Randy loves how David caresses each word. Paula felt David's heart. Simon thinks David crushed the competition.
TONIGHT'S BEST: Nothing was wrong with what David Archuleta did, but Syesha did more.
IN DANGER: This is no reflection on the strength of his fanbase or his ability to sell records down the road, but the producers will need to intervene if Jason's not the lowest votegetter. I'd expect David Cook to join him in the bottom group, though.
Agree? Disagree? Who do you expect to go home?
