On Wednesday night, American Idol was as gripping as ever. With its Nashville theme, the show saw the contestants heading to the city of Detroit. They returned to LA, to record the two -hour finals show.
From the start the big question was whether Michael Sarver will be able to go ahead after getting the lowest votes last week.

Smokey Robinson, the Idol mentor for the show, listened to the selection of songs chosen carefullly by the contestants in an uncritical manner. There were many tributes to Marvin Gaye, with Matt Giraud’s
"Let’s Get It On," and Kris Allen’s  "How Sweet It is (to Be Loved by You)" being the best picks.

Scott Macintyre wisely decided to accompany himself on the piano, with his version of “Can’t Hurry Love” earning a muster from the audiences. Lil Rounds managed to impress everyone with “Heat Wave.” She alone was able to provide the true Motown feel, complimented by the mood of her outfit.
The judges however felt that she could have done better with a more “explosive” song.

After an electrifying performance last week, Adam Lambert underwent quite a makeover. The black nail polish was gone, and we had a sauve Lambert dressed up in a suit, offering a slow falsetto version  of “Tracks of my Tears.” The song earned him a standing ovation from Robinson with Simon Cowell, going to the extent of saying that Adam has “emerged as a star.” The final triumph for Adam was when Cowell called his performance the best of the night.

Continuing with the trend to sing songs by the legendary Robinson, Anoop Desai sang a tender version of "Ooh Baby Baby." Some singers could have refrained from performing rather jaded songs, case in point being "Ain’t Too Proud to Beg" sung by Michael Sarver to "Get Ready" by Danny Gokey. Gokey’s performance was critiqued for being clumsy and amateurish by Simon.

16-yr-old Alison Iraheta did struggle through parts of "Papa was a Rolling Stone" but her performance was not without power. The brickbats were reserved for Megan Joy, who could not redeem herself with her innovation on "For Once in My Life." Simon stated the obvious-that she would have trouble garnering votes.

One thing that became apparent during the show was that male voices outnumber female ones in the eighth season, due to the skewered 7-3 ratio. Hopefully this won’t hold true for the Idol’s future.
Everyone is now anticipating the results night on Thursday, when they will know which one of the 10, will be saying goodbye.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 2:44 am and is filed under American Idol, Reality Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.