April 18, 2013 - 5:37pm
'American Idol' Season 12 RECAP: Top 5 bore with diva hits and songs from their birthyears
BY GIBSON JOHNS
- FOX
After Lazaro’s long overdue exit from the competition last week, a female contestant is guaranteed to win Season 12 of “American Idol” to give the show its first female champion since Jordin Sparks six years ago. It’s about damn time.
Last night’s performance show had two themes: songs from the year you were born and divas. Nicki was lookin’ like a diva with a huge hole in the front of her dress. She dressed in theme, you guys.
First up after her sparkling week last week was Candice Glover who sang former “Idol” judge Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up.” When I read about her song choice earlier in the week I was understandably skeptical, but like, come on. It’s Candice. It was bound to be amazing. With a killer rearrangement, Candice proved that she can still provice unpredictable surprise performances that don’t even need her signature big notes. Her performance was filled with effortless intricacies and she took notes to places Paula Abdul didn’t even know existed (and not just because she was in the Loony Bin).
Janelle Arthur brought her guitar out with her to sing “When I Call Your Name.” The performance was actually gorgeous and her high notes soared and three out of the four judges thought so too. During Randy’s positive critique you could hear Mariah chanting “yes yes yes yes yes” and sounding even more like a crazy person. Keith, however, wasn’t feelin’ it, y’all. But it brought Mariah to tears, dahling.
First of all, I need to say how shocked I am that Kree is younger than Janelle. It’s not by much but I had just assumed that Kree was significantly older ... I guess that just speaks to the vibe she gives off (and not in a good way). Anyway, I liked the unexpected song choice from her with “She Talks To Angels” but the vocal was far from perfect, as the judges surprisingly noted. Nicki was the only one who saw nothing wrong with it as she gave her critique in a British accent.
I think it’s great that Angie, who’s from the Boston area, dedicated “I’ll Stand By You” to Boston. It embedded the song with that much more meaning and I’m assuming that’s why the judges gave it a standing ovation because, if I’m being honest, it was just OK. Something about the way both she and the staged were styled and the overwhelming arrangement didn’t give off the right vibe for this song. I would’ve preferred a more acoustic take on it a la Carrie Underwood’s version from Idol Gives Back a few seasons ago. It wasn’t Angie’s worst (let’s try to forget “Shop Around” ever happened), but it was certainly far from her best.
Closing out the first round was Amber Holcomb with Mariah’s “Without You.” Bold move, girl. After a very shaky, flat start, Amber finally opened up at the end but it felt like too little too late. Not only that, but the song choice wasn’t great for Amber’s range as she struggled with the low notes. Nicki picked up on this and even gave Mariah a little nod (without, you know, directly addressing or looking at her) saying that the reason why Mariah’s version of that song was because she could hit those low notes and still emote the feeling of the song. Again, Amber did a fine job but it didn’t deserve a standing ovation.
Kicking off the diva round, Candice took on the double whammy of diva songs in Mariah and Whitney’s “When You Believe.” She said she didn’t originally want to sing a Mariah song in front of, you know, Mariah, but then she was all like wait, I’m the best singer here, why the fuck wouldn’t I sing a Mariah song? Despite the whole setup of the performance lacking originality, Candice slayed the song and you could see the tears well up in Mariah’s eyes. RIP Whitney.
Kudos to Janelle for bringing something uptempo to the mix last night with “Dumb Blonde,” a somewhat unremarkable Dolly Parton song nobody’s heard of. She commanded the stage and gave a great performance, but, that being said, her vocals definitely suffered and you could hear her gasping for air. It just simply wasn’t the appropriate song choice for this point in the competition — if she’s going to perform, she has to also sound great.
Ugh. Kree’s favorite diva would be Celine Dion. Singing “Have You Ever Been In Love,” technically sounded close to flawless, but I couldn’t help but be distrated by 1. Her horrible make-up and 2. The fact that she looked like an orange. Someone took a trip to the tanning booth, you guys, and it sure as hell wasn’t Ryan Seacrest. Oh wait, nevermind. He totally did too. Anyway, the song was super boring but the judges gave it the night’s 42nd standing ovation and Nicki compared her to Adele and called her “iconic, not country.” Nope.
Angie proved that her head is still in the competition with her rendition of “Halo.” As Mariah noted, Beyoncé is incredibly difficult to cover and Angie did a fantastic job. It was a pure vocal that went everywhere and proved once again that nobody can do a ballad quite like Angie can. A definite highlight of the season for her.
Taking on the grand task of covering Babs Streisand, Amber looked classy and amazing singing “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life.” I thought the actual song was super boring, but Amber delivered an impeccable, regal vocal performance that deserved to close out the show.
Best performance: Angie Miller’s “Halo” and Candice Glover’s “Straight Up”
Who should go: Janelle Arthur
Who will go: Janelle Arthur, but the judges will most likely use their save (or it will simply be a non-elimination week) because “Idol” needs an extra week to make it to their finale date.
