American Idol Top 11 - Round 2

Currently Listening To: FictionJunction - Hoshikuzu

Hmmm where do I start? Well this week's theme is Elton John, and I personally I love this theme! One can never go -that- wrong with Elton John.

So how did the contestants fare this time? Honestly I thought all of them were pretty good this week. Except for a few...namely;

Naima. Oh dear lord please tell me she did not just reggae-fy Elton John. C'mon my good woman, it's Elton John! His songs are not suitable for strange arrangements. On top of that, her outfit was totally OMG. If I'm not wrong, the colorful stripes on her dress are the colors of the South African flag right? She has turned into Karen - constantly focusing on her African heritage instead of giving good performances. Vocally it wasn't -that- awful, however the arrangement killed it for me.

The other marginally bad performance, for me, was Stefano's. It wasn't exactly a trainwreck, but it was definitely not memorable and not impressive. Vocally there were no notable flaws, unfortunately the performance had nothing. I have a feeling he's in serious danger again this week...

...which leads us to Jacob's oversinging. Again. Dude has never been in the bottom three before but with the backlash he has been getting from reviewers lately, I think he should be worried. He's such a great singer...sadly he has to ruin everything by being overdramatic. Somebody really needs to pull a Simon and just flat out call him out on that.

I guess Paul wasn't any better than Jacob either? Another one guilty of being overindulgent. James suffers from the same problem as well. Both of them were okay in terms of vocals and performance (James was very dramatic with the special effects though. Piano on fire WTF). I think Paul and James should really try to shake things up a bit. And by shaking things up I don't mean setting the stage on fire or wearing ridiculous outfits (Paul's Elton John tribute outfit was just...ridiculous). I mean they should choose a song that no one will expect them to choose, and then do something totally different with it. Otherwise known as, take a leaf out of Adam Lambert's book and shock the audience!

I suppose that applies to Pia and Scotty too? Try something other than ballads/country music? Scotty gave a solid performance, but honestly I thought it was very boring. I was like, okay please end the song now so I can listen to the next person. And he was the first to perform! Way to start the show Scotty.

Thia sang surprisingly well this week. The song suited her voice, and she actually sang in tune this time, with less pitch problems. If her fanbase picks it up this week, she should be bottom-three-free.

Casey stopped growling this week and it paid off! His voice isn't very strong, but that was a solid performance of 'Your Song'. At least he connected emotionally with the song? He is one lucky dude...for getting that second chance last week. Hopefully this performance pays off and he won't get the boot again...

I don't understand the praise for Lauren this time. Yeah I know it was a good vocal, but errrr exactly what was so great about it? I couldn't sense the 'connection' the judges and some other reviewers were talking about. Some parts, she sounded quite flat to me so...yeah. I no understand hype? D= BTW she seriously looks like she should be in the Miss Teen USA competition instead of American Idol...she's starting to resemble Barbie now! *shudders*

And now we're down to the two best performances this week!

Haley was trending on Twitter today, for a very short period of time, so I knew that she was either fantastic or terrible. When I finally saw her performance, I was impressed because - it was really really good! I got the shivers when they showed the clip of her singing in the studio. Believe it or not, but I'm kinda favouring her right now. At least she's courageous enough to try new things every week. I loved the song (Bennie and the Jets), and I loved her voice! She worked the stage, sang beautifully and to quote Steven Tyler, sang SEXY. Kudos to Haley for slamming it this week! Say goodbye to the bottom three honey.



Although I kinda preferred Haley's performance, I just can't fault Pia's outstanding vocals. It. Was. Perfect. As usual! I'd prefer her to try something new but hey, if that ballad sounds good go ahead and sing it girl. Pia's in it to win it! (Why am I quoting RANDY now???)

Thank you Elton for the awesome week!