Source: USA TODAY
How do you get this group of American Idol finalists to stop singing ballads? Give ‘em a No Ballads theme! But I bet at least one of them tries to get away with it, even on a Rock ‘n’ Roll (no ballads) night. Which of the Top 7 singers can rock the hardest — Lazaro Arbos, Janelle Arthur, Candice Glover, Kree Harrison, Amber Holcomb, Angie Miller or Burnell Taylor? Tune in tonight, then tell me what you think in the comments section as I live-blog the show. — Brian Mansfield
Well, you know the only way you’re going to hear Rush on American Idol is if the producers use it under a montage. ‘Cause ain’t nobody, especially this year, going to be taking on Geddy Lee.
Instead, we’ll get covers of Queen, Heart, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi and the like. Still, gotta be better than another pop ballad, right?
“Our theme is rock,” says Ryan Seacrest. “That means no ballads, no slow-dancing.” And Orianthi is here to play along with the Idols tonight.
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Joshua Ledet and Hollie Cavanagh from last season are in the house tonight. Ledet says he’s been recording — and he’ll perform at the White House on Tuesday. Cavanagh just moved to Los Angeles two weeks ago; she’s also recording and hopes to release some music soon.
Angie Miller, on the other hand, holds the world record for speed-clapping, according to her housemates. They’ve also noticed that she loves to stare down the cameras.
Tonight, she’s back at the piano (finally), singing the Evanescence hit Bring Me to Life. And in a matter of a few lines, she’s made back all the ground she lost earlier singing with Lazaro Arbos. As she stalks away from the piano to stand on a raised platform at centerstage, she sounds like the only one of these singers who sounds like she has the possibility of being a contemporary rock artist. And she almost gets her own Marilyn Monroe moment when the wind machine tries to blow her top up around her shoulders.
“I think that this was a good choice for you, because you were able to start on the piano but still stay true to the genre we’re doing tonight,” Nicki Minaj says. “Kudos. Congrats.”
Randy Jackson knows that Miller’s heart is in the edgy, Evanescence side of music. He loved the tender moments and her “stellar” last note.
Mariah Carey is completely unquotable, but she thought Miller and the song were a perfect match.
Keith Urban wants to make sure that when she chooses the song, she truly feels it. He thinks, if she’s not so conscious about the way she looks, she’ll fall into the song.
Grade: A-
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Amber Holcomb talks to herself. “I’m not scared, though,” says Burnell Taylor, who seems to have a bit of a crush. “She can always talk to me.” She also likes to take pictures of herself with her smartphone.
Holcomb sounds like a R&B diva on her version of the Heart power ballad. Maybe one of her better choices.
“What a great, great song choice. Great shoes,” says Keith Urban.
“This is the difference between your song choice and what I just saw,” Nicki Minaj says, referring to Candice Glover’s performance. “It was striking. … The first line out of your mouth just completely melted me.” It’s her favorite of the night.
Randy Jackson likes that she came out and gave everybody the legs. He also likes that she doesn’t “lose Amber in there.”
“I think you did a really great job, and you can hear all your natural inflections,” Mariah Carey says.
Grade: A-
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Candice Glover let Burnell Taylor talk her into telling Lazaro Arbos that the house was on fire, as an April Fool joke. Unfortunately, it backfired, somehow, resulting in Glover breaking her toe.
Don’t feel too bad for her, though: She’s apparently the only one of the Top 7 who has her own room. Taylor thinks it may be because she’s going home soon. “That’s the meanest thing ever!” Glover tells him.
“Sometimes, I really want to punch him in the face, I’m not going to lie,” she says.
Turns out, Glover’s the only singer so far who really knows how to rock. She takes the Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and turns it every which way but loose.
“Every single performance brings a different part of you to the stage,” Mariah Carey says.
“Baby, how much is your toe hurting,” Keith Urban wonders. (“I can’t even begin to tell you,” she replies.) “I can feel you hurting from here.” Which kind of negates the comment he wanted to make about her needing to move around the stage.
“I can’t think of extra things to say about your voice,” Nicki Minaj tells her. “But I fell asleep with that song, too.” And then Minaj boos herself, to save the audience the trouble.
“Rock is really an attitude,” Randy Jackson says. “You brought that girth, that rock, that attitude to it. … You got into the gist of it.” Wasn’t the perfect song for her, but she “put her back into it.”
Rock is far from her comfort zone, Glover tells Ryan Seacrest, “but I had to get with it or get gone.”
Grade: A-
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Janelle Arthur, Kree Harrison and Amber Holcomb tackle Billy Joel’s It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me. It wouldn’t make for a good Glee segment, but it’s better than the Lazaro/Angie duet.
“Wow, wow, wow — the three of you, that was unbelievable!” says Randy Jackson, who clearly doesn’t know what the word “unbelievable” actually means.
“Very nice blending,” adds Mariah Carey.
“You girls were great together,” Keith Urban says. “You should do more.”
Nicki Minaj disagrees with them but agrees with me. “That put me to sleep.” She singles out Holcomb, though, for “serving up Naomi Campbell realness.”
Ryan Seacrest asks for background on the girls’ song-learning schedule, which is a very tactful way of pointing out that Holcomb botched the lyrics at least once. Just so Lazaro Arbos doesn’t feel like he’s the only one.
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So Nicki Minaj has taken Janelle Arthur’s sparkly boots. And Randy Jackson has the fringe vest
Lazaro Arbos “was an ice-cream scooper before this,” notes Candice Glover. “Maybe the colors got to him.”
Tonight, though, he’s wearing black, brown and blue, a relatively muted ensemble for him. And maybe it wasn’t the best idea for Arbos to choose a song with the line “and bad mistakes, I’ve made a few” after forgetting his lyrics in two consecutive songs. And, sure enough, he stumbles over “It’s been no bed of roses.” He infuses the song with every bit of drama his fellow contestants accused him of in the introductory montage. He’s still the weakest singer left.
Nicki Minaj says she was loving his Latin tease. “I think you’re Lazzies out there are going to be voting again!”
“You know what? Dude, you did a good job; I’ve got to give you props,” says Randy Jackson.
Like Jackson, Mariah Carey was concerned but she feels like he “did a good job on a song that’s an anthem. … So, yay!”
“That was a really good song choice for you,” says Keith Urban, who wondered what he’d sing when he couldn’t do a ballad and believe Arbos found one that played to his dramatic flair.
Grade: B-
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Janelle Arthur continues to surprise: Who would have thought that, not only would Billy Joel’s You May Be Right be a great song for her rural Tennessee voice but that it would also make a great, contemporary-sounding country-rock tune (even with the line about walking through Bedford-Stuy)? Kree Harrison may have done slightly better singing her song, but Arthur’s mixing it up more and sounding more original. Plus, she’s got the sparkliest boots in the history of footwear.
“I love how you work the stage, baby,” says Keith Urban. “You come out and perform!” He wasn’t crazy about the song choice, but he thinks she’s getting better and better every week. “You’re such a contender.”
Nicki Minaj wants to borrow the boots – and she’s close enough to Arthur’s size that she might actually be able to do it. She also thinks she relates to girls so well that they feel like she’s their sister. “I like that you own that in every performance.”
“Authenticity at its best,” says Randy Jackson. “You’re real, you’re honest, you’re true to who you are.” The song choice “fit you like a top.” He calls Arthur “The Great Contender.”
Mariah Carey loved the key Arthur sang in because it brought out her vibrato. “I really enjoyed watching you.”
Grade: A-
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Now this is how a duet’s done: Burnell Taylor and Candice Glover give the Box Tops/Joe Cocker hit The Letter sort of a Billy Preston/Earth, Wind & Fire groove. Heck, Taylor should have sung this song instead of Bon Jovi. Everything Randy Jackson and Keith Urban told him he should have done in You Give Love a Bad Name, he does in this song. Maybe it’s the presence of Candice Glover, because she just rocks the house, as usual. Guess Taylor’s playing up to the level his competition.
‘You both have proven that you can sing anything,” Mariah Carey says.
“I loved it; I thought that it was a great song for you, too,” Keith Urban adds. He compares Taylor’s voice to a shining star and Glover’s to an entire galaxy.
“I’ve run out of words to describe your voice,” Nicki Minaj tells Glover. “It pierces through every single thing on this planet.” Minaj points out how much better Taylor was on this song than he was on the first song.
“Burnell, this was much, much better for you,” Randy Jackson. “Oh my God, Candice. … Yo, girl, you already there.”
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Kree Harrison “is definitely the mom; she holds the group together,” says Candice Glover. Angie Miller adds: “She knows everyone. Literally, she knows everyone.” Note to American Idol finalists: The ability to remember the names of every single person you’ve ever met is one of the most useful skills any aspiring entertainer can cultivate, greater, perhaps, than the ability to actually, you know, sing.
Harrison can do that, too, of course, and tonight she lends her pipes to Piece of My Heart. It’s a little bit obvious, especially done more like Janis Joplin’s classic rendition than the Faith Hill version I bet Harrison knows, too. Solid, but absolutely forgettable. It’s a good song for her voice, but a terrible one if she was hoping to do anything more than coast this week.
“Now, guys, I feel like the show finally started tonight,” says Randy Jackson. “That’s how you come out and rock the stage.”
“You have an innate ability to choose your songs, and I think that really shows a true artist,” Mariah Carey says.
“I can’t critique a woman that irons everybody’s shirts,” Keith Urban says, wondering how comfortable her boots are. It looks like she was struggling to stand up straight. “I have a pinched nerve,” Harrison confesses. Apparently, it’s all she can do to stand on the stage and sing. “Ten out fo 10 for your professionalism, Kree,” Urban says.
“That was magnificent, Miss Lady,” says Nicki Minaj, adding that she’d give Harrison all 50 of her SuperVotes.
Harrison, it turns out, has a couple of Janis Joplin connections: Harrison’s grandmother attended school with Joplin, and both singers were born in the same Texas hospital.
Grade: B+
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Let’s see, how can we continue Angie Miller’s fall from front-runner to mere mortal? I know, let’s make her sing Crazy Little Thing Called Love with Lazaro Arbos! Arbos is to Freddie Mercury as Pat Boone is to Little Richard. He looks like he barely knows the song and can barely remember the words. And it’s more lifeless than a dead fish. Miller sounds good, but there’s no salvaging this.
“Well, that was, um, that was nice,” says Nicki Minaj, saying that Arbos sounding okay “up until the point where you forgot the lyrics again.”
Keith Urban says its looks like a variety-show number (like the Bizarro World Donny & Marie).
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Burnell Taylor begins with an unbelievably stiff rendition of Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name. It’s almost completely devoid of any of Taylor’s usual charms and unusual phrasing. Instead, he looks very uncomfortable and just tries to growl a few lines, as if that’s what he thinks rock singers are supposed to sound like. Not sure who’s to blame, but Taylor’s giving Bon Jovi a bad name.
Keith Urban’s practically giggling at the last attempt at a big rock kick. “I’m going to assume rock ‘n’ roll’s not your thing,” he says. “I’ve never seen you, for me, look more uncomfortable in a song.”
“You remind me of a little Teddy Ruxpin bear today,” Nicki Minaj says. “You still were lovable to me. … I still wanted to hug you.” ‘Cause nothing says cuddling like a Bon Jovi rock anthem.
Randy Jackson tells him he was way behind the beat.
“You know that I adore you,” Mariah Carey says, adding that she loved that song when it first came out. “I was proud of you, because this is definitely not the typical song that you would sing.”
Taylor says he did know the song before last week – but it was the only song on the approved list that he knew. So he was kind of stuck with it.
Grade: C-
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