Source: USA TODAY
You gotta love when Harry Connick Jr. comes to American Idol to mentor the singers. He’s detail-oriented about the performances in a way that the judges only pretend to be.
And, with a Top Three hometown trip hanging in the balance, Connick revealed significant flaws with most of the singers. Just sing the melody, he repeatedly told them, as they tried to tart up perfectly good songs with unnecessary runs. “Maybe some of the 14-year-olds in the audience won’t get it,” he told Candice Glover as she rehearsed Billie Holiday’s You’ve Changed, “but I’d be willing to take that risk.”
Glover took Connick’s advice, and, as a result, she ruled a night where singers had to perform both a current song and a standard. When Glover dispensed with the runs, she still had a full understanding of the song at her disposal, able to interpret it using subtler means like diction, phrasing and dynamic shifts.
Amber Holcomb wasn’t so lucky. When Connick asked her to tell him what the song My Funny Valentine meant, she looked like Ted Kennedy explaining to Roger Mudd why he wanted to be president. She clearly didn’t have a clue what she was singing about — a problem compounded by an earlier rehearsal clip in which Connick noticed how much better her voice sounded when she forgot the lyrics to Pink’s Just Give Me a Reason
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Those two clips identified the source of the disconnect many viewers and critics have felt about Holcomb since early in the season: Though she can sing the melody very, very well, she just doesn’t understand what she’s singing about. To her, the lyrics are almost entirely superfluous, little more than phonetic sounds to help distinguish one note from another.
Connick’s critiques seemed to especially get into Kree Harrison’s head as she closed the night with Stormy Weather, putting her in the unenviable position of not quite being the bluesy singer she likes to be but not quite being anything else, either. Her version of Carrie Underwood’s See You Again, on the other hand, was lovely and understated for a power ballad.
One thing that contemporary music has in common with the standards era, though — people listen only to ballads. At least, that’s what you’d think if you only watched Idol. So on a night each singer could have taken as an opportunity to display the scope of their abilities wound up sounding remarkably flat and tepid — a problem most evident in Angie Miller’s performances of Someone to Watch Over Me and Rihanna’s Diamonds. Like most of the rest of the night, they were pretty enough, but ultimately unremarkable.
The winner of the night? Harry Connick Jr., who, if the show’s producers are looking for new judges next year, should be at the very top of the list of potential replacement candidates.
Here’s how I rank the night’s performances
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