American Idol Lennon-McCartney Night Part Deux

On top of it all, she did not think she did such a bad job.

Ok, I'm back for more.

First off, the biggest mistake was clearly doing another night of the Beatles. As much as we all love the Beatles and with all the great songs they've released, there just wasn't enough material for two nights of a singing competition. The problem was that the Beatles were not a great solo vocal band. Many of their songs relied on chorus singing, and there was some decent production work done to all of their voices, Lennon's in particular, to make them sound good. Besides that, most of their songs just don't lead to a singer being able to show off their full range or vocal talents.

That said, here's what I think about the individual performances.

Jason Castro - "Michelle" - I think he had the best performance of the night, though that's not saying much. I'm not even a big fan of his, and this was probably his third best performance overall, and still the best tonight. I liked this song for him, but Simon is kinda right in that his personality makes it interesting more so than his voice. I kinda would have liked him to have tried "Here Comes the Sun", as I think he could have nailed that. I that whole "you're not obnoxious" comment from Simon was completely directed at David Cook, who did completely look smug the entire time he performed.

Amanda Overmyer - "Back in the USSR" - This was not the song for her. She does have a more southern rocking/bluesy voice, but the performance seemed perfunctory and boring. She didn't do anything really with the song. It sounded too much like karaoke, like she didn't practice at all.

Kristy Lee Cook - "You've Got to High Your Love Away" - I really love this song, and I really hated that she completely destroyed it. Read more of my top comment to see why. As for the song, this song is best with a simple arrangement, more up tempo, using an acoustic guitar and simple percussion.

David Archuleta - "The Long and Winding Road" - I'm not a fan of his voice to begin with, it sounds childish. His arrangement was also pretty bad, it was way too old fashioned and in Simon-speak not relevant today. I'm not sure if this would work, but I would have liked him to try something a bit jazzy, with some brass baking perhaps. Not sure what Beatles song would fit with that, but for whatever reason I feel his voice may work with that and not be boring.

Michael Johns - "A Day in the Life" - I actually think this was the perfect song for him, so I really don't know what the hell went wrong. This is one of the few Beattle's songs that can allow him to show off his vocal range ala "Bohemian Rhapsody". This should have been a moment for him, but he dropped the ball. If he can't nail a song like this, I just don't see any hope for him.

Brooke White - "Here Comes the Sun" - I've compared her to Jason Castro before as artists with great voices who give good performances but are just missing that little something extra that makes them special. I think that while Jason is slowly gaining momentum and taking the right chances, Brooke is sliding. Awkward is the perfect word to describe this entire performance. You'd think this would be a great song for her, but it didn't work at all. She moved awkwardly, the tempo was awkward, the "whooa" was awkward, the "doo doo do do" was awkward. It just didn't work. Maybe she should have stuck with another ballad like "Yesterday" it would have worked, but she did need to take a chance before she became boring just doing ballads. The problem is that the chance she took did not work.

David Cook - "Day Tripper" This is a pretty good choice for him, it's certainly a rocker. However, I agree with Simon that he was just too smug throughout. The performance was good, just not special. His performance was just a little too close to too many of his others. I liked the idea of vocoder more than the implementation. It seems that he used it just for the sake of using it and doing something different. He needs to use it for a purpose and he had no purpose using it. The song did not need it at all, and it just seemed gimmicky. I think he also made the mistake of arranging the song a little too grungy, when it should have been a little more faster paced, with a sharper guitar, and a bit more of a punk rock vibe. That would have also helped him change it up and not get so repetitive. What does help him is that he had some good post-song banter with Ryan and the judges around the vocoder and at this point everything helps.

That said, I actually think "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" would have been the perfect song for David Cook to have done. He could have dropped the band and just played acoustic guitar with it, and shown that he can do something besides arena rock. Basically I'm thinking David Cook doing Eddie Vedder's cover of this song. Tell me you can't see David Cook performing that and owning it.

Carly Smithson - "Blackbird" - Not a bad performance, I just don't think it complemented what Carly is capable of very well. "Blackbird" would have been a great song for all those contestants who are limited to slow ballads like Brooke or David Archuleta. Now that I think about it, this may have been the perfect song for Kristy Lee Cook if she let someone who knew what they were doing arrange it for her. Carly needed something more kicking, and the Beattle's catalog offers plenty of that.

Syesha Mercado - "Yesterday" - If you have even the littlest bit of vocal talent it's hard to sing this song badly. But it's also the taking the easy way out. This song, like "Let it Be", just overpowers whoever is performing it. You don't own this song, it owns you. It's easy to do it well, but it has a very low ceiling as to being able to do it great.

Chikezie - "I've Just Seen A Face" - It just didn't work. I loved his performance last week, and it seemed like he tried to recapture that and failed miserably. I actually think his performance mirrored David Cook's. They owned last week and tried to recreate that this week, but add in something new, the vocoder for Cook and the harmonica for Chikezie. Neither of the new instruments worked, and both seemed gimmicky at best. David's performance was good, just a bit boring and redundant. Chikezie's performance was terrible. The transition from the slower part of the song to the harmonica was painful, and the up tempo part of the song was pretty bad as well. I'm thinking with his voice, he should have aimed for a song like "Help", "Love Me Do" or "Penny Lane"

Ramiele Malubay - "I Should Have Known Better" - It just bored me. There was nothing wrong with it, just one of the more boring songs arranged too close to the original version. I don't hate it, but I can fall asleep to it.

Correction.
I too wonder if he can do anything but slow ballads. His performance last week suggests that the answer is yes no.