American Idol 4 Final Ten: 1990s Night

Published on March 29, 2005 By Jamie Burnside In Entertainment

Tonight's 1990s-themed show surprised me. Usually when I watch American Idol, I am very familiar with most of the songs that the contestants sing. On tonight's show, I was only familiar with Bo Bice's song. I suppose that popular music loses its appeal once the audience graduates from high school. (I graduated in 1990.)

The Performances: (Tonight I wasn't able to identify all the songs. Sorry...)

1) Bo Bice sang a song that I actually do know and have on cassette. Bo sang the Black Crowes' "Remedy" (incidentally one of my favorite songs). Bo was okay, but he didn't really approach the original.

Bo had an awesome shirt on tonight. Bo is definitely the best-dressed contestant week in and week out. He should introduce the "Bo Bice Collection" at Macy's or something. (I'd take a look.)

2) Jessica Sierra sang some country song. It was quite a risk for her to sing a boring song that most people probably don't know, regardless if she sang it well or not.

Simon's comments were spot-on with Jessica, and he kind of stole my thunder. (Simon basically said that Jessica needs to have a great performance each time because the audience probably wouldn't care about her otherwise.)

3) Anwar Robinson sang a "I believe I can Fly" by R. Kelly. (I actually thought Michael Bolton sang that.)

You know: whenever I see the name R. Kelly, I always think of the former Yankees and Twins right-fielder Roberto Kelly.

I wasn't terribly excited about the song. My wife informed me that it was better than the original. Paula ate it up! Of course tonight, Paula was into everything.

4) Nadia Turner sang a good version of a song by Melissa Etheridge (or Bonnie Raitt, or someone like that. Hell. I don't even know how to spell Melissa E.'s name correctly.) Nadia sounded great, looked pretty, and was once again well-dressed.

It would be good if Nadia were to continue to perform with her midriff exposed. (As she did tonight.) It is a fantastic look for her.

5) Constantine Maroulis spoke in the interview part about how he was into grunge music during the 1990s, and how the grunge movement got him interested in joining a band. So did Constantine delight us with something from Nirvana or Soundgarden? Alice In Chains? Pearl Jam? Nope. Connie sang some sort of melodic song in a theatrical style.

The song sounded alright. The judges liked it. Personally I didn't care.

6) Nikko Smith acknowledged his father (on television) for the first time since his audition. That was cool. Nikko's song (whatever it was) sounded alright. The judges were reasonably into it.

7) Anthony Federov sang a song that the judges weren't into at all. I thought it was alright, and at least better than his recent efforts.

8) Carrie Underwood sang a country song. Carrie had a nice hairstyle and sounded great.

Carrie's performance stirred a little debate in my house. I claimed that Carrie looks a whole lot like Kelly Clarkson. Similar face, eyes, nose, and body shape. The biggest difference is hair color. (My wife disagreed with me.) She said that, "they all look alike because you're getting old."

9) Scott Savol sang a song that I assume the title is "Down to my last cry." As far as I could tell, a lot of the notes fell flat. Not a good one by Scott tonight.

10) Vonzell Solomon came out looking like a diva. She sang a big-voiced Whitney song. I liked it. Good job Vonzell.

Tonight's Top Three:

1) Carrie Underwood 2) Nadia Turner 3) Vonzell Solomon

In Trouble:

Scott Savol Anthony Federov Jessica Sierra

Now let's hope that next week's episode features a genre of music that I am more familiar with. It is really hard to write about singers doing songs that I have never heard before.

Comments

InBloom

on Mar 29, 2005

I didn't really care for some of the song choices...such as Bo's and Jessica's...

I actually thought they performed better than last week....I liked Nikko's rendition of Tevin Campbell's "Can we Talk"....but I'm being a bit partisan because I remember liking this song from the early nineties...(I think it was early 90s...)
Nadia sounded good singing Melissa Etheridge, and Constantine surprised me by not sounding too bad doing Bonnie Raitt's song...I love Brian McKnight's "One Last Cry", so I liked that Scott sang it...but he only did an okay job at it....Anwar did an alright job at "I Believe I can Fly" as well...Vonzell didn't do too bad, either...

It's a toughie for me this week.....but if I Have to choose the top performers, I'd give it to Carrie, Nadia, and Nikko.

KellyW0498

on Mar 30, 2005

Good Morning Jamie,
This show was just o.k. for me. Maybe I wasn't into the 90's music.

All the contestants are really good this year but Anthony stands out to me because he is singing "star search" style. I guess that means that he is a little over the top and trying to hard. I don't know I think he will be the one to go this week.

Hmm the top 3 for me were Vonzell, Nadia, and I liked Constantine.
See ya tomorrow...

AndyT

on Mar 30, 2005

Wow, the girls were on fire werent they? I was still in high school in the 90's so a lot of the songs meant quite a bit to me as they were all we were listening to back then.

Jessica Sierra - Simon said what I was trying to say last time I posted here. Jessica gives a feeling of generic-ness and can be quite forgettable unless she does exceptionally well. I do like her though and she did sing her song really well.

Anwar Robinson - Sorry Jamie, I'm gonna have to disagree with your wife.

Granted, Anwar did something different to the song. Unfortunately, for me, R Kelly had the voice to go with it so I'll be leaning towards the original. Anwar voice sounded whiny and pitchy when he sang the verse, and so I do agree with Randy and Simon here.

Anthony Federov - After what Simon said last episode, I was wondering whether Anthony might stand out more if he started wearing contacts and showing a bit more skin. Strangely enough, he did started wearing contacts (I assume).
Anyway, I have always love this song and he seemed to do a power-ballad version of it which is in my opinion quite good. Unfortunately, I'm sure someone last year sang the same song and did it better (Fantasia again?).

I think I mentioned that Carrie Underwood had a Kelly Clarkson feel to her in my last post didn't I?

I don't think Carrie looks like Kelly but they do have the same style. Being a Kelly fan though, I'm not sure it works to her advantage but she does seem to be popular. I think my vote goes to her.

Vonzell Solomon sang really well although I think she was slow in parts. Unfortunately, after watching so many pop idol shows (USA and UK, Fame Academy, XFactor etc), the public doesn't seem to like divas very much. Look what happen last year when Ryan said 3 divas and all three ended up in the bottom.

I agree with your predictions though - Anthony, Jesscia and Scott.

Dynosoar

on Mar 30, 2005

I got a chance to watch last night, and what happened?
Bo was awful compared to his past performances, so was Scott, the songs all sounded like Karoke Night at the Moose Lodge.
Carrie was OK ( I think her and Bo are the finalist, their genre's are not represented by past winners and are ripe for Simon's indulgences...)

Best( or least worst ) Vonzell, she hit all of her notes and then some.

Who gets the boot tonight? Should be Scott, but I think Simon has put the mojo on Jessica

Dynosoar

on Mar 31, 2005

Hmm, I got the results right.

Any takers on a Bo vs Carrie final?

And what in the world was up with tthe Ford-Muppet commercial ????

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