Source: USA TODAY
The field continues to narrow on American Idol. Now, only four women remain — Amber Holcomb, Angie Miller, Candice Glover and Kree Harrison. How will they fare tonight? Follow along as I live-blog, and weigh in with your thoughts about their performances. — Brian Mansfield
The four remaining Idols will each sing two solo songs tonight, along with one duet. The contestants pick their own songs in the first round. The second theme will be announced later in the show — it’s the result of an AT&T contest where fans suggested themes.
***
OK, I love Julie London’s Cry Me a River as much as the next person, but I’d much rather have heard Angie Miller sing Aerosmith’s version. I suppose that’s neither here nor there, except that Steven Tyler’s approach to the song was much more original than Miller’s torchy take, even if it wasn’t as pretty. Still, if you didn’t know before that Miller could hold her own against the show’s vocal powerhouses, you know it now.
“It’s like, how is that even a one-hit wonder?” wonders Mariah Carey. “I feel like you’ve been holding out on us a little bit.”
“Mystical and celestially powerful,” says Keith Urban, who’s been told to cut his critique to three words.
Nicki Minaj is under no constraints “You came out tonight to snatch some wigs off some heads! … Tonight was your night.”
“The best of the night,” says Randy Jackson. “Angie wins the night, hands-down.”
***
Kree Harrison picks Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale for her one-hit wonder, hoping to redeem herself after a first performance that the judges deemed not quite enough. Another strong performance, and she plays well off the organ part.
“Just let the world know right now, with you singing that, you know what will never be your problem? Singing,” says Randy Jackson, who believe she did redeem herself.
“I’m going to go download that right now, because I need it on my phone,” says Mariah Carey.
Keith Urban disagrees a bit, thinking what distinguishes her is her ability to be intimate on the one side and sing burn-down rockers on the other. And he thinks tonight’s performance didn’t quite hit either of those extremes.
“Watch how you’re talking to my wife, Keith,” says Nicki Minaj, who loved the performance. “I think your voice felt so beautiful and pretty and angelic.” That said, she doesn’t think Harrison’s two performances will keep her out of the bottom two tomorrow. In that way, she understands what Urban was saying.
Grade: B+
***
Candice Glover cheats the one-hit wonder theme a bit, too, singing Emotion, a hit for both Samantha Sang and the Bee Gees. So, really, it’s the one-hit two-times theme night. But I’ll take this over leaving a cake out in the rain any day.
Nicki Minaj was grooving to the song and didn’t feel like it was 50 years ago. And the judges begin to defend themselves against Jimmy Iovine’s criticism. They didn’t comment on the quality of Amber Holcomb’s song, either.
Randy Jackson believes the former Candice from last week is returning.
Mariah Carey notices that Glover may have a slight cold. “Actually, I have a terrible cold,” Glover says. “I didn’t want to make excuses.” Carey thinks she’s a super-duper superstar quality girl.
Keith Urban wonders if anybody has had a one-hit wonder hit in the past decade. “Every song choice matters,” he says. “For me, nobody has done a bare-naked-bones ballad that exposes everything about their voice.” He recommends picking a song next week that stands out from everybody else.
Ryan Seacrest makes things interesting by dragging Jimmy Iovine out on stage. “She can’t sing corn like that,” Iovine says, accusing the judges of smoking some green icing. Jackson and Minaj take to the stage and pretend to throttle him. “Cue music!” yells Carey. “Cue music!”
And what does all this have to do with Candice Glover?
Grade: A-
***
The viewers have chosen One Hit Wonders as a theme. Amber Holcomb goes with Richard Harris’ sole hit, MacArthur Park, mainly because it was also one of Donna Summer’s — and, you know, Holcomb has never met a diva she didn’t think she was.
“It’s like summer has set in for you, and it’s here to stay,” says Keith Urban. “When I think of disco, I think of Richard Harris.”
“You’re blooming for the world to see,” says Nicki Minaj. “Out of the four girls in the competition, you’re the one I would want to get to know.”
“If y’all don’t know who Amber is, y’all should know tonight that she’s in it to win it,” Randy Jackson says.
“You are giving us, it’s confidence, and it’s not overt,” says Mariah Carey. “It’s star quality.”
Jimmy Iovine didn’t buy that song when Richard Harris sang it. Or when Donna Summer sang it. Or when Amber Holcomb sang it. “That song is corny,” he says.
Thank you, Jimmy.
Grade: B+
***
Candice Glover and Angie Miller apparently were listening to the judges’ response to Kree Harrison and Amber Holcomb’s duet, because they come out singing Rihanna and Mikky Echo’s Stay like they’re going to take it to church. They simultaneously sing like they’re talking to each other and trying to outdo each other.
“Yo! Yo! Unbelievable. That’s the way you do a duet!” says Randy Jackson.
Mariah Carey doesn’t even know how they were putting all the twists and turns on the melodies while breathing in all the smoke on the stage.
Grade: A
***
Amber Holcomb and Kree Harrison team up for the night’s first duet, Adele’s Rumor Has It. Sounds good, but there is none of the drama the song requires.
Keith Urban gives the drummers some love and thinks Holcomb “found a commanding stance.” And he thinks Harrison has an amazing voice. But he kept waiting for somebody to cut loose “and throw a mike stand or something.”
Nicki Minaj thinks Holcomb almost dominated Harrison. She wants Harrison to get back into the songs. She doesn’t want her to get lost because the judges have been praising her all season long.
Ryan Seacrest asks how Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey would have done the duet. And that might as well be a rhetorical question, because simply asking it provides the answer to what was lacking in their performance.
Grade: B
***
Angie Miller goes back to the artist she sang for her audition — Jessie J, and Who You Are. She’s back at the piano and playing it smart — she may not have quite the pipes the other three singers do, but this is the one performance that sounds like it was made for this century. “Be true to who you are,” she sings, and she follows her own advice.
Mariah Carey blows her kisses and tells her she’s standing in spirit. “The caliber of that performance was beyond,” she says, and adds, “Songwriting is an asset that you have.” She wants her to get back to the writing room and come up with something original to perform.
That song was a mini-representation of what Keith Urban likes about her as an artist. “As the song went on, you got looser and looser. … You got more carefree and cooler and looser.”
Nicki Minaj is still infatuated with her at the piano. “There’s no one that compares to you in this competition when you are behind the piano, no one.”
You know what’s crazy to Randy Jackson? “You made me forget that was a Jessie J song. … It was 10 out of 10 out of 10 for me.”
Jimmy Iovine has her neck and neck with Amber Holcomb right now.
Grade: A
***
Kree Harrison indulges her blues-mama side tonight, singing Susan Tedeschi’s throwback triplet-blues It Hurt So Bad. It’s not a particularly old song, but it’s rooted in a familiar style of the late ’50s/early ’60s. Harrison, of course, tears it up, but it’s more memorable as a performance than as a song. And that’s not quite enough.
Randy Jackson thinks she was right in her element. (“I love me some blues,” Harrison says.) He felt parts of the song were a little disconnected. He was waiting to hear something else this week.
Mariah Carey was happy watching her perform and felt she had some free-spirited moments connecting with the audience.
For Keith Urban, the contest is coming down to song selection and “frickin’ emotion.” And, he says, “You can’t just let your vocal do it. … You’ve got to make my heart break.”
That performance won’t give Harrison what she needs for next week, Nicki Minaj says. “That is not a Top Four-worthy performance. I need you to get back into being Kreedom.”
“There are a hundred blues songs like that,” says Jimmy Iovine, “and 99 of them I know are better than that.”
Grade: B
***
Candice Glover wisely chooses a more contemporary song than she usually favors — Drake’s Find Your Love. She gives it the kind of treatment one might expect from a torchy standard, accompanied at first by only piano, then with a small combo. It’s more subdued, more intimate than Amber Holcomb’s performance — but every bit its equal (perhaps even its superior) vocally. And Glover takes a much more creative approach to the song.
Nicki Minaj opts not to comment on her voice, given that everybody knows it’s amazing. But she wishes Glover had stuck more to the melody. “You could have still kept it classic, Candy Girl, and still made it current.” She doesn’t want people to peg her as old-fashioned.
“The vocals are crazy good,” Randy Jackson says, but that’s the easy part. “It doesn’t mean that you have to use it all the time, full-on. … It can’t always sound like you’re in church.”
Mariah Carey makes a good point, saying that taking Drake’s song and turning it into a performance piece was more of an adult-contemporary moment for her.
Keith Urban finds consistently that he doesn’t think of what market she’ll be in, but he wants her to find herself artistically, and he sees her doing that each week.
Jimmy Iovine loves Drake, the song and Candice Glover, but he agrees with Nicki Minaj that Glover’s was the second-best performance so far tonight.
Grade: A-
***
Amber Holcomb is first tonight, covering Celine Dion’s The Power of Love. Holcomb, who’s got a big curly perm this week, begins the song a cappella on the stairs. It looks like she’s going to sing the whole song on the stairs, too, further emphasizing how distant many viewers find her emotionally. In fact, she doesn’t come down the stairs until it’s time to hear the judges’ reaction, which looks to be enthusiastic.
“If ever there was a song so tailor-made for everything in your voice, it was that song,” says Keith Urban, who thought she handled it beautifully.
Nicki Minaj thinks she looked like a “big, sexy glass of milk.” (She’s wearing a white pantsuit.) The song was made for Holcomb. “You are so current, outside of your amazing voice, you are so ready. Now it’s like we’re just at your show. You don’t even feel like a contestant anymore.”
Randy Jackson thinks Holcomb is the contestant who has shown the most growth this year. “You didn’t miss a beat.”
Mariah Carey loves that she did a Dion song, giving it flavor, like “2013 meets major classic songs that people love.”
Jimmy Iovine heard the strain in the top end of Holcomb’s voice, but he thinks that performance will be a tough one to beat.
Grade: B+
Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.