Neil Diamond night.

Two songs each.  Hopefully you can follow along better than Paula (what a bubblehead),

because I’m only going to do one recap for each artist.  Here goes…

Jason – Light, acoustic, Forever in Blue Jeans.  The title may fit his personality, but the song just didn’t seem to work.  Maybe he should have sassed it up a bit.  I don’t know, maybe bring back the ukulele?  The second song also seemed out of place.  Maybe he was having a hard time because the mosh pit wavers were waving too fast and throwing off his rhythm (THAT was annoying).  It’s like Jason said to himself “Neil Diamond? What do I do with that?”  The answer is that he did practically nothing – but should have.  He was like a deer in the headlights.  He still has a good voice and he’ll get his target market vote.  He may eek out one more week.

David Cook -  Black suit jacket with pinstripes and creative red paint on the sleeve over red v-neck tee.  I’m standing by my prediction that he’ll win this season, but I wasn’t jumping up and down about his song choices this week.  He is Alive, but when he sang “All I Really Need is You” I was thinking “yea - our VOTE.”  Simon called his second song “brilliant.”  That may be an exaggeration, but at this point he just has to be better than the four other remaining contestants.  And he is.

Brooke – Light blue shirt with lots of ruffles and silver bell bottoms.  Sounds terrible, but she actually looked super cute.  I’m not a Believer that she was having fun on that first song.  The ”fun” seemed forced.  She also seemed flat at the beginning, but it did get better.  Maybe “fun” makes her nervous.  She should have pictured Shrek sitting where Simon normally does.  Paula could be Cameron Diaz.  That leaves Randy as Donkey.  Or maybe a ginger bread cookie with a missing leg and holding a crutch.  The second song was a much better choice for her.  She looked more comfortable and sounded better.  Maybe it was even good enough to keep her around another week.

David Archuletta – Black unbuttoned shirt over prison-wear (black and white horizontal stripes).  All he needed was a mask and a flat hat with a wide brim.  McDonald’s Hamburglar and David Archuletta – separated at birth?  I didn’t care for his first performance.  I don’t know if it was the song choice, the arrangement or the golden arches.  As I noted last week, I generally don’t understand why he’s the “one to beat.”  That said, he chose VERY WISELY for the second song and did a great job with it.  Probably good enough to get us an “all David” finale – where Cook is likely to fry up The Hamburglar spawn.

Syesha – Simple and tasteful purple dress.  (I did NOT imaging her as Grimace or even Barney.)  The lack of shoes seemed odd.  When she sang “Hello Again” I was thinking “goodbye again.”  She is no stranger to the bottom three (or two).  Her second performance was a lot better, but a little too gospely (gospelie? gospelish?) for my tastes.  I’ll agree with some of the judges’ comments – Time to book that ticket to Broadway, her time here is almost up.

All in all, the first round of performances were pretty rough but they each did better with their second songs.  I can’t help but wonder about some of the song choices.  Neil has written a lot of good stuff.  Maybe “Love on the Rocks” would have been bad karma, but what about “Cherry, Cherry” or “Play Me”?  Or “Red, Red Wine”?  Bah… look at me trying to be Monday morning quarterback.  I’m sure they would have done marginal jobs with those songs too.  

I’m strangely in the mood for some fries.  Too bad I banned McDonalds from my diet for life after seeing the movie Super Size Me a few years ago.

I’m lovin’ it,

Christopher