shaggybrown

Is Matt gay? There's something different about him.

Timber

Gays don't play in the "Rose Bowl"

Jeremy517

Amy and LaToya were the best tonight, in my opinion.

JPL's song brought out the fact that he can't sing

shanester

Jasmine was really off tonight but she should still get by

Camille's voice is to weak it shakes from start to finish and has NO range. She should get booted out this week

Latoya + Amy did very well tonight but my personal fave is Diana Germano (?). I think she has a powerful set of pipes for someone only 16 and that last note she hit at the end was pitch perfect

I'd like to see her win it all but...

Simon was right (yet again) when he said she has yet to connect with the audience. As good as she's been so far I think there is one more performance in her that's going to blow everyone over and put her above everybody else in the competition

PS Surprise surprise! "teen Martin" did good but let's be real that's was NOT a country song imo.

As All Purpose mentioned this kid has no personality whatsoever. He's about as exciting as an enima.

Oh and let's hope this is the last time we see a country theme..ever!!

Cheers!

Alyoshka

The predictions of Amy doing poorly were ill conceived to begin with and thereby didn't hold up today. She probably had the best performance and had a wonderful song. It was the right choice and she sang it well. Beyond that, I can't figure out how a few people don't think she looks good. She is quite stunning.

Deftones

wholly crap, did anyone see Big Blue with the eye patch in the audience when Ryan was interviewing last year's guy? Jesus, I never knew the Kool-Aid guy switched flavors and lost an eye.

Again, Diana did great. I think it'll be her and Latoya at the end.

Jadzia

Well for once, I really liked Amy. I thought her voice sounded really great with that song. Every time I had heard her before she sounded slightly off-key and unsure of herself, but I think she really nailed it tonight.

Tonight's show was weird because it almost seemed like everyone was singing against type. People who usually do ballads, sand upbeat songs, and vice-versa. I think the upbeat singers fared a lot better tonight. Latoya was great-- I would have never pictured her doing that song but it was a lot of fun and I liked her version much better than Joshua Gracin's. I always have liked Red, but I thought he also showed improvement and seemed more loose tonight.

I thought George was disappointing. I like him better doing more upbeat material, not ballads. Same with Fantasia. I totally agreed with the point that Simon was trying to make before being so rudely interrupted by Paula. Sure, she can competently sing "Always on My Mind" but it was boring and completely lacking the spark and personality she usually shows.

Jasmine and Diana are both good singers, and while I can't find anything wrong with their singing, neither one seems to do anything for me. I just don't find them interesting.

Matt Rogers and JPL both turned down their cheesy schtick this week and were each utterly forgettable. I have complained before about not being able to actually hear JPL sing-- he always seems more like he's "talking" as he's singing. Sort of what my high school choir teacher would call singing out of "head voice" instead of out of "chest voice." He seemed to actually be singing tonight which was a nice change, but his voice was unremarkable. Matt Rogers is just ugh. Don't like the guy-- I agree with Simon, his smile is annoying. He just seems like smarmy car salesman.

Camile still looks pained/constipated as she sings. Sitting down while she sings did not help the imagery for me.

Jennifer's performance was odd. In some parts I thought she was great, and in other parts I thought she was awful.

Jadzia

Also -- could someone please tell George it's not called "Mush-tash"?

El Scorcho

Are you nuts? King of the Road is one of the most classic old country songs of all time. It's not Martina McBride or Garth Brooks country -- it's even better!

Old country.

New country.

El Scorcho

Haha, the "mush tash" jokes went around our house too.

Groucho

After finding out that Diana was one of those "Child Beauty Pagent" girls, I phoned in a vote for everybody BUT her. I hate that repugnant shit.

El Scorcho

Groucho = Child Beauty Pageant reject

It's okay buddy, we're here for you.

Groucho

To be fair, I was a strong contender until it was revealed that I couldn't spell "Pageant."

sinned

Prediction: JPL will be the one to go

Jadzia

We were amazed that the child Diana looked exactly like Diana does now.

She still has a lot of baby fat on her-- I think she'd look a little more mature if she lost a bit of weight.

Speaking of weight, I thought it was odd that Jennifer's "package" focused almost exclusively on her weight issues. I wondered if she was trying to get the obese vote.

Patman

Besides Amy and Diana (somewhat), no one else actually tried to sing their songs in a country vein.

Very Good:

Amy - actually sang a country song as a country song. Amy rocked tonight.

Diana - tremendous range, but needs a few years of seasoning for that rapport (that George has) component in her performances.

Good:

Latoya - good performance, but her voice is all wrong for this song because her voice couldn't project the words well enough to be truly fun and intelligible.

So-So:

George - performance good, vocal quality was far to raspy/scratchy to make out the words.

Fantasia - she's got a baby voice, and it was horribly grating still to my ears.

John Stevens - mumbling/humming forgotten lyrics was totally unprofessional. He still can only sing one way.

Absolutely Horrible:

Camile - that vibratto in her voice makes her sound like she's about to bawl and cry, makes for very uninteresting singing.

Jennifer - terrible at the chorus of the song, totally ruined it.

Jon Peter Lewis - his pitch was off, and he totally distorted the song's chorus into the abyss, awful, just awful.

Jasmine - she was so flat in this song, and would have done better if she spoke the lyrics because this song exposed all sorts of shortcomings in her voice. I almost muted her performance because it was so painful.

Matt - ass-clown of the bunch, he so needs to be given the boot, he's terrible, ugh.


My bottom 3: Matt, Camile and Jasmine. (But any of the bottom 5 on my list would suit me).

El Scorcho

Ugh, Jennifer Hudson bugs me to no end.

Facial expressions, sassy black woman attitude, aretha franklin wannabe.. ugh.

She needs to go, but she won't just yet. You can forget about her winning this competition though.

Clear top 5 for me:

Amy
Jasmine
Fantasia (even though I hate her)
George
Teen Martin

Goldberg74

... and one of her votes is going to be from the big lady with the blue shirt and eye patch sitting in the wheelchair in the aisle.

TheAllPurposeNothing

Tonight, I'm really confused

I was really, really impressed by Amy. Despite the fact that I, for the most part, detest country music, I thought that she found a very comfortable niche. Much better than the Celene Dion numbers.

To be honest, however, I wasn't impressed with Diana. While competent tonight, she was a bit pitchy, esp at the beginning. And I, too, have to agree with Simon. Something was just missing.

And once again, Fantasia has left me cold. I love the voice. I really do. I just wish I could believe one thing she sings. Everything just seems too rehearsed and unspontaneous, and with not the least bit of feeling. I'd happily take Camile's shaky, but at least emotionally driven, performance tonight any day over Fantasia's.

As for the guys, George fared best, followed closely by John Stevens. The other two weren't even worth mentioning.

Jasmine was the worst performance of the night.

The really strange thing is that going into tonight, I was sure Amy was gone. But she may have just pulled it.

So why the confusion? Without Amy as an easy answer for the next to go, who will go??

Matt, both Johns, George, Fantasia, LaToya and Diana all have strong followings. Irregardless of how they perform, they come back next week. That leaves Camile, Jennifer, Amy or Jasmine.

Amy redeemed herself tonight and probably bought at least another week. And Jennifer actually gave one of the more competent performances of the night.

My guess is that it will come down to Camile or Jasmine, and I'm guessing Jasmine will be walking. Why Jasmine?? Despite a typically nice voice, she sits on the fence with the other four. And one bad performance can get you knocked off that fence. And tonight's performace of "Breathe" was bad....no doubt about it. Camile's wasn't great, but she'll get points just for singing "Desperado." There's just something about that song...

Its like I said earlier...contemporary female country-pop is not very conducive to being performed over a wide array of voice-types. I still hold that if Amy had sung "Breathe," she'd be the easy choice for the axe. But she was smart enough not to play it "safe" and it paid off. I think playing it safe has hurt Jasmine.

CreatureX

Diana was the best tonight. That last note Diana hit....AMAZING! After her performance you could see both Paula and Randy were totally blown away.

Also Latoya and Amy were very good tonight as well. But they weren't in the same league as Diana.

Iron_Giant

I agree with the note, but I think Latoya was the most entertaining of them all.

El Scorcho

Amy was #1 tonight by far. She sang a country song that not only was engaging, but sung how it was supposed to be sung. That and she has easily one of the best personalities of the bunch. Thinking back to her Celine Dion song she did a few episodes back and thinking about tonight, this girl can unexpectedly go a long, long way. Possibly top 3. Maybe even win the thing somehow. She survived the Motown round, so she might have it easy for her voice the rest of the way on.

Latoya was decent but here's my complaint:

Ain't Goin Down til the Sun Comes Up is pretty much a country rap song. Not much singing involved. And the singing that is involved is masked by the backup singers. Fun performance but it didn't show off her vocal talents.

Your bottom 3 will be:

Camile
Jennifer
Matt

With Camile taking the walk.

El Scorcho

By the way, here are the current odds for the competition from betfair.com :

Latoya: NA
Fantasia: 2.2
Jasmine: 4.6
George: 7
Diana: 7.8
JPL: 8.4
John: 14
Amy: 22
Matt: 26
Jennifer: 26
Camile: 40

Basically bet $1, get the posted number of dollars back.

Decker

Did anyone else find it funny that Fox managed to censor a song by the Dixie Chicks, those poster gals for free speech. They changed "mattress dancing" to "crazy dancing", as in "That's right, I said crazy dancing!"
...And this was right before they ran a promo for That 70's Show that clearly referenced masturbation. Nice work, Fox!

Y2K Falcon

Did Paula, several times, almost have a wardrobe malfunction?

Also, I was intrigued by the imagery of Jasmine and Fantasia (two Disneyesque names) entangled in the hammock. (insert drool smiley in a couple years )

My Cut List

Matthew Rogers "Amaze" - What number do I dial 10 times to just vote to get rid of him? It's not just that he needs to stop smiling. Couldn't carry a tune last week, more of the same this week. And NO feeling. Was it too high for him? Like how he had the nerf football (again) during the fashion video thingy?


Camile Velasco "Desperado" - Certainly not as scared as last week, and greatly improved (i.e. it didn't quite put me to sleep), but still a somewhat lifeless performance. I think she think's she's channelling Celine Dion. Though she'll survive another week, probably. (thanks, Criptik and friends )


Jennifer Hudson "No one else on earth" - I said she peaked last week, and she definitely came down a notch this week. She was flat throughout, and she went back to the shouting at the end. I still haven't seen anything that shows me that she could win this competition. I liked the hair over the other, but to me that bouncy big hair was part of her personality. And my wife said at least she's trying to capitalize on her preior criticisms. "You haven't seen the best of me yet!" Ummm... what are ya waiting for, Jennifer??? Given the "popularity" of JPL and Rosebowl, I think she is at risk.


John Peter Lewis "She Believes in Me" - Well, the ritalin seems to be working. However, without the distraction of his jumping around, all we were left with was the fact that he can't sing. His excuse for being off pitch (his "energy") was gone. Kermit can leave now. I move him down from last week's "on the bubble" location.

On the bubble

John Stevens "King of the Road" - 5 bonus points for song choice, plus one for maturing in his performance. That or "Crazy" was the sort of thing I was expecting. But unless he reinvents himself in a way I don't think he has the wherewithall to do, he won't win. But I'm not ready to get rid of him yet, when there are so many other deserving candidates this week. So I called in 3 times for him.


Jasmine Trias "Breathe" - She lost the maturity I heard from her last week. The repetitive feel of the refrain didn't bring me much, and the low parts were maybe too low? I kept losing track of her voice (and I doubt I can blame the usually overbearing band).


Diana DeGarmo "A Broken Wing" - The problem I have when little girls sing songs like this is that they don't know the proper feelings to sell during the song. The irony is her fluff piece discussed the National Anthem. It was like she was singing that. Musically she is great, but I didn't feel any emotion tonight. Down from last week's "best of show".

My Top Four (in order, best last)

Fantasia Barrino "Always on my Mind" - Well, she lost the "shhhh" sound. The whole "Git down with the git down" attitude just doesn't win me over. Was Simon giving her the finger? My wife loved her (for the first time). I just didn't see this performance as a huge difference to last week's. She's like the Matt Kenseth of AI. Always in the top 5, so might carry it all the way through.


George Huff "I Can Love You Like That" - Pluses: I liked his voice tonight even more than usual. I can't wait for him to sing "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" later. Minuses: He looked stiff as all getout (almost like Red trying to dance). Do I blame the jacket?


Amy Adams "Sin Wagon" - Totally bounced back from last week's disaster (the opposite of what Jasmine did). I wish Simon had said something about her performance, not just that he "didn't understand" the genre. I enjoyed her performance, she showed her strong and clean tone, imho. I called 10 times for Amy.


LaToya London "Ain't Goin' Down Till the Sun Comes Up" - Stepped it up, and won the night, imho. Great move starting in the audience (vs. Camille's "stool" routine ) I worry that she'd come across as stiff, but she was engaging the audience (including me), sounded great, and looked amazing (again). LaToya got about 12 calls from me (who knows, just kept redialing till I was bored).