American Idol: Skylar’s Last Roundup
Skylar Laine misunderstands CCR's "Fortunate Son" on her way to being booted off Idol.
As American Idol moved into its Final 5 round, the voting pattern over the past weeks showed that it could still be anyone’s game. Hollie Cavanagh has come into her own over the past two weeks and really hit the sweet spot last Wednesday with her cover of Tina Turner’s “River Deep Mountain High” and Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love.” Jessica Sanchez remained her usual super-talented self, covering another Tina Turner hit, “Proud Mary,” and Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful”—minus the grimaces and contortions. Joshua Ledet found his groove bringing back the old Motown R&B sound with his cover of The Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” and nailed the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” with only about 15 minutes’ work—after never having heard the song before. (Celebrity mentor Little Steven Van Zandt was blown away.)
And, per expectations, Phillip Phillips turned in two wretched performances. Three, actually, if you count his half of a duet with Joshua on The Righeous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” in which he was unable to hit a single note in the song, despite much flexing and grimacing. (At least when Joe Cocker grimaces, he hits the notes.) Phillip took The Box Tops’ “The Letter” and rendered it basically unrecognizable, leaving the usually voluble Steven Tyler searching for words: “Bad news: I miss the melody. Good news: You get away with it.”
“Phillip is, not to put too fine a point on it, a horrible musician, a one-trick pony who is out of his depth on any song requiring a modicum of musical range. His half-octave voice and mumbled delivery works on very few songs that weren’t written by Dave Matthews. (And that’s no knock on Matthews, who has far more range and talent than Phillip.) But the judges keep letting him get away with it, giving him some sort of praise when they should be savaging him from one side of the stage to the other”
Preach it! I agree 100%.
AI really should attempt to prevent people from voting more than once. It’s the teenybopper 14 year-old girls keeping Philip on the show…just like Scotty last year.
Also happy Hollie is doing so well after so many weeks of the judges (unfairly, in my opinion) criticizing her performances. Too bad the bubblegummers in the audience who vote 100 times each on their cell phones kept her from being rewarded with a seat on the safe side of the stage.
As for Randy talking on Leno about Philip being a “mad talent,” he has to sell the show. He can’t exactly tell the truth…that he sucks. Of course, he should have done that on the show itself a long ago and prevented him from getting into the top 12 in the first place.
What was wrong with the kid who grew up with his parents on stage and sang from behind the drum kit? He was miles more talented than Philip…and so were a lot of others they sent home.
Well, since we haven’t had the draft, and since the wars are considered a little more necessary now than back in Vietnam days, the sting goes out of Fortunate Son. I didn’t see it as inappropriate.
Again the refrain: reality shows often select for mediocrity.
Phillip has bored me since the beginning, and his two performances last week were dreadful.
He’s not saying the song was inappropriate. He’s saying that Skyler misunderstood it and her performance was inappropriate.
He’s saying it’s a weird arrangement, like Nat King Cole’s bewildering arrangement for “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” a song about sad hookers he put out like it was “Take Me Out To the Ballgame.”
Constance Bennett, Francis Langford and Dianna Krall had that one right.
Hey no worse than hearing for the zillionth time Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” being sung as patriotic.
Any Springsteen sung any way is an exercise in boring arrangements regardless of the context.
I agree with you, but there’s some hint that Phillip is and has been ill. He really doesn’t look at all well. I guess AI doesn’t want to divulge too much for fear of giving to PP on sympathy, but I suspect this guy has some serious health issues.
You Phillips haters don’t seem to realize that the world does not need anymore “Great Vocals”. It needs entertaining singers and performers. Phillips has chosen some bad songs but from his earlier songs the talent is there. I agree that he is in poor health but expect to see an improvement in his next performances. Skylar was a good singer but if you are not a fan of twang then she was not for you. Holle finally learned that her strength was an octave lower and now she sings with a much more powerful voice. Jessica is great but she is not an idol. Sorry. Joshua is a great performer but I would place him on the cruise ship circuit for a spell to get over those Peter Pan dance steps and arm movements. He has great stage presence but he is so feminine that he needs to work on his image and movements. I predict Joshua and Phillip as the final two.
What boggles my mind is this: WHY do the judges allow a lame Dave Matthews imitator with a limited vocal range through to Hollywood?
It was the same thing with the Josh Turner-imitating Scotty McCreary last year. They may as well send a lame Elvis imitator to Hollywood! And to make matters worse, the bubblegum adolescent girls in the audience actually vote for these guys because they’re cute.
Can’t the judges SEE that they’re putting through someone who simply imitates a popular artist? Phillips is no more an “original artist” with “crazy, mad skills” than the fat sweaty guy conducting novelty weddings in Vegas who talks with a faux southern accent and sings about being a “hunka hunka burnin’ love.”
I know, this is small in the grand scheme of things, but to me it’s just another example of how our popular culture all too often rewards mediocrity and punishes excellence.