Battlegrounds

Currently Listening To: Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

The top 12 guys performed tonight, and it wasn't a complete trainwreck!
Now I wouldn't say that they were fantastic, but they were definitely better than I had expected so I say, good job! Scratch that, it's Top 13 not 12 thanks to the addition of the 'Gentle Giant Jermaine Jones'. With the exception of a certain Bieber sound-alike, all the guys sang pretty well. The girls will have hard time this year I think, despite being a rather strong bunch.

All right let's get down to business, 13 guys sang tonight but only 5 will go through. Yeouch that's pretty harsh, getting rid of 7 guys in just one night is a bit too much I think. Can't help it I guess? Anyway...

...let's give it up to the one and only trainwreck of the night:

Eben Franckewitz
Oh. My. God. Why they let this little...kid through to the Top 24 I do not know. Come on there were better 15 year olds out there, why Eben?? I mean seriously. Bad song choice - Adele's Set Fire to the Rain - and also horrible execution. Kid was just completely off-key. I don't think there's any chance of him cracking the Top 12 unless only little girls are voting...forget it I don't think even little girls will vote for him. Goodbye Eben.

It's a bit tough for me to rank the other guys because they were all really decent...I'm still rooting for Deandre Brackensick but he kinda screwed it up with his song choice I fear. He has a really nice upper range but he can definitely do more than that. Too much falsetto and he didn't show his range...oh well, hopefully his looks will get him through somehow?

Same goes for Heejun Han, not a very wise song choice there, with Robbie Williams' Angels. It wasn't too bad I guess, the only problem was his diction but dude the song is just too bland and he didn't do anything with it. Like John Park, his song choices are just ballads and that never goes down well with the voters. I really like the tone of his voice though, if he has someone to coach him and work with him I think he'll go far. There's always K-Pop right LOL.

Adam Brock, Reed Grimm, Aaron Marcellus and Chase Likens were all somewhere in the middle, neither too good nor bad and with decent song choices. I doubt they'll be getting the majority of the votes though, they lacked presence on the stage and they didn't stand out. I don't know about Jermaine Jones, he has this really awesome bass voice but honestly, he just doesn't cut it.

Colton Dixon and Jeremy Rosado surprised me with their performances, I hadn't paid any attention to them although they were more or less shown quite frequently during the Hollywood rounds so yeah, I think they have a pretty good chance of making it through based solely on their performance and their likeability factor. Creighton Fraker was another surprise, he was just so-so for me but after his terrific rendition of True Colors I'm kinda rooting for him too. Don't know much about his appeal to the audience though.

Standouts of the night were Phillip Phillips and Joshua Ledet, the former for trying something different and the latter for having the most awesome set of vocals this season. Phillip chose a really good song that showed off his gruff voice while Joshua just appeared out of nowhere and wowed me. Excellent song choice (Jennifer Hudson's You Pulled Me Through) and vocals.

My predictions for who will be going through: Phillip, Joshua, Jermaine, Colton, Chase/Jeremy

Who I want to make it through: Heejun, Phillip, Joshua, Colton, Deandre

All in all a really good night. Ladies, it's your turn next and Jessica Sanchez, please pick a good song and sing it well I beg you.

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With The Voice and American Idol both airing around the same time and most probably attracting the same audience, it's gonna be an interesting battle to see which show will pull in better ratings. I'm actually really happy with American Idol's Top 24, and the contestants from The Voice (especially Sera Hill on Christina's team) are pretty good too. I still prefer some of the Season 1 singers but Season 2 is off to a good start too. If I have time I might be blogging about The Voice too