'Idol' Speculation

Hello Everyone

Tonight on “American Idol” the Top 5 contestants (pictured below, courtesy of FOX), including Mesa’s Brooke White, took on the tunes of pop legend Neil Diamond, who was conveniently on hand to be guest vocal coach on the top rated show on television just as his latest disc, “Home Before Dark,” is due to hit stores on Tuesday, May 6. Hmmm…

And because the FOX folks want to keep their ratings cash cow on the air for as long as possible, the contestants got to sing TWO of Neil’s tunes, allowing the network to flesh out the show to a full hour and thus reap in some more advertising revenue.

We at Idol Speculation believe in brevity, however, so we’ll spare you the filler and get right to the goods.

Brooke’s two tunes tonight were “I Am I Said,” which the singer played on guitar, and the Diamond-penned Monkees hit “I’m A Believer,” which Brooke rendered on piano (points for versatility!).

Of course after last week, when Brooke stumbled over the lyrics to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “You Must Love Me,” when she stopped the band and then started up again, everybody wondered whether Brooke would suffer a similar stutter Tuesday night. But the singer was able to get through both tunes without any unintended drama.

Brooke’s upbeat version of “I’m A Believer” found judge Simon Cowell telling the singer the version was a “nightmare” (after which Brooke blurted “No!”), but the ballad “I Am I Said” (she substituted the Diamond lyric “well, I’m New York City born and raised” with “Arizona”) went over better, with judge Randy Jackson telling Brooke she did a “nice job” and judge Paula Abdul liked that Brooke showed her vulnerable side behind the piano, telling the singer that “everybody loves who you are.” Cowell said that while he hated Brooke’s first number (“it was like girls night out at the karaoke bar”), the judge said the singer’s version of “I Am I Said” was “the Brooke that we like.”

Brooke should be safe for another week (if the singer’s lyric-forgetting gaffe didn’t knock her off the show last week, then it’s conceivable that Brooke could wind up in the Top 3), as Jason Castro suffered through a tough night with the judges and Syesha Mercado, who always seems to (somewhat unjustifiably) wind up in the bottom two, might find herself there again when the results are announced during Wednesday’s “American Idol” elimination telecast.

The affable, dreadlocked Castro, whose “aw shucks” demeanor has won over (judging by “Idol’s” live audience)  plenty of young girls, struggled tonight with “Forever in Blue Jeans” (after which normally positive judge Abdul told the singer he was “not fighting hard enough to win”) and “September Morn,” which Jackson called a “whatever performance.”

Mercado’s performances of the ballad “Hello Again” and the gospel-tinged “Thank the Lord for the Night Time,” drew the praises of Abdul and Jackson, but Cowell told the singer that “you may be in trouble tonight,” saying her second performance wasn’t as strong as some of her competition’s latter performances.

The two front-runners to win the season 7 “AI” crown, David Cook and David Archuleta, did nothing to diminish their chances on Tuesday, with Cook drawing praise from the judges for his takes on “I’m Alive” (judge Jackson said he was a “huge fan” of the singer’s) and “All I Ever Really Need is You” (which Cowell called brilliant), and Archuleta got the thumbs up for his versions of “Sweet Caroline (“that was the bomb,” said Jackson) and “America” (”smart choice of song,” said Cowell).

Tune in tomorrow to find out who is out, then visit the Idol Speculation blog to get the analysis on how it all went down.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.