'Idol' Speculation

Hello Everybody

Tonight on “American Idol” the Top 6 contestants, including hometown girl Brooke White of Mesa, performed the extremely difficult to sing compositions of musical theatre maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber, and a couple of the remaining “Idols” had rough nights.

And the contestant who had the roughest night of all was Brooke.

In the preview to Brooke’s performance, Webber, acting as guest vocal coach, said, after Brooke sang for him, that he didn’t think that “that girl had a clue about what she was singing about,” but after a bit of coaching Webber said that Brooke is a “natural, wonderful actress.”

Brooke went third in the order tonight and sang “You Must Love Me,” originally performed by Madonna in the film “Evita,” and Brooke started, then stopped, the tune before beginning again (saying “I’m sorry”), a Cardinal Sin in the performance arts. Brooke was obviously, as judge Simon Cowell said after the performance, “tense,” and judge Paula Abdul told Brooke afterwards “you must never start and stop.” Judge Randy Jackson said Brooke’s performance was okay once she “got started,” but that overall Brooke “wasn’t great.”

After the judges comments Brooke told host Ryan Seacrest, after he asked what happened at the beginning of the tune, that she “lost the lyric.” Jackson said Brooke did the right thing by starting again and Cowell said it was a “brave thing to do.”

Brooke’s vocal, once she got going, was actually very good, but the start/stop/start again at the beginning of the performance might hurt her when the audience at home dials in their votes.

Jason Castro, the dreadlocked singer from Texas, also had a poor night, singing Webber’s popular “Memory” from the Broadway classic “Cats,” which lead judge Cowell to remark (harshly!) that it was to him, as it must have been for Castro, the “longest two minutes” of the singer’s life, and Jackson called the performance a “bit of a train wreck,” which, in performance parlance, is pretty bad indeed.

Of the better performances of the evening, David Cook elevated himself to the clear frontrunner in the competition Tuesday night, impressing the judges with his rendition of Webber’s “Music of the Night” from “Phantom of the Opera.” Jackson called the singer’s spot “an amazing vocal performance, ” while judge Paula Abdul said that the vocal was another reason that Cook is a good, “well-rounded performer.”

Also impressive was Syesha Mercado, who always seems to find herself in the bottom three contestants in recent weeks only to survive to sing another day, who sang “One Rock & Roll Too Many” from “Starlight Express.” Judge Cowell said it was one of Mercado’s “strongest performances so far” during season 7 of “Idol” and judge Jackson told Mercado she could be a “huge Broadway star.”

Early frontrunners David Archuleta and Carly Smithson were also good on Tuesday, with Archuleta’s “Think of Me” (from “Phantom of the Opera”) prompting Jackson to call the teenager from Utah “the boy to beat,” and Smithson’s take on perhaps Webber’s best known composition, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” drew kudos from Cowell, who said that Smithson’s vocal was “one of my favorite performances of the night.”

It is probably going to come down to either Jason Castro, who wasn’t very good vocally, or Brooke, who stumbled at the beginning of her tune before recovering, getting the axe after Tuesday’s performances.

Tune into the results show Wednesday night to see if Brooke White makes it into the Top 5 or goes home, then check back in with “Idol Speculation” to get the analysis on what happened and why.

Chris    

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