R&B night on American Idol meant Usher in sunglasses, some blah performances, some comebacks, and a fascinating backstage-cam that caught some awkward post-performance moments. In general, no one did as we would have expected last night. Except Tim Urban. It’s just a universally agreed-upon fact at this point that he is the cockroach of this season, managing to survive the nuclear blast that is Simon Cowell. And, awesomely, Simon told Tim to his face that somehow, no matter how bad he does, he’ll probably coast for weeks. More clips and assessments after the jump.
Siobhan Magnus wasn’t at the top of her game this week when she sang “Through the Fire”, and her high notes, as predicted, have started to polarize us as an audience. As with Facebook, we’re wondering where the dislike button is.
Casey James sang “Hold On, I’m Coming” which we will never not associate with the Blues Brothers, but still it was one of the stronger performances of the night. Casey was on par with Lee DeWyze in terms of taking a soul/R&B song and making it into their own version of guys-who-wear-necklaces rock (we just made that up), but because Casey smiles throughout his performance, he’s more interesting (or is it oddly disconcerting?) to watch. See for yourself.
Michael Lynche sounded good while singing India.Arie’s “Ready For Love” but the song was pretty boring. We were equally bored by monotonous Tim Urban, who sang “Sweet Love”, and Aaron Kelly’s “Ain’t No Sunshine”. To be fair, they all sounded better than they have in the past, they just didn’t have that “moment” Simon is always talking about. We found out Tim is referred to on these here internets as “Teflon Tim” however, because all these insults just roll off him, but if we had his glow and youthful naiveté, we’d probably let the insults roll off us too. The best moment of the night though, as we mentioned, came when Simon told Tim that it didn’t matter whether or not he listened to the judges because, basically, Tim and America don’t care that this is a music contest.
Poor Didi Benami. Not only did she cry during her rehearsal with Usher, but there’s something about her song, “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” that makes her emotional and Ryan Seacrest was trying to drag it out of her against her will. She wasn’t planning on divulging any secrets to all of America, so he made her so uncomfortable she looked like she might melt down.
We liked Andrew Garcia‘s version of “Forever,” but we’re willing to bet that anyone who saw the wedding dance video or Jim and Pam’s wedding on The Office will like it too. As a nation we have had a tumultuous love/hate relationship with Chris Brown because of this song, but Andrew performed it well and his zebra-striped mother even got up to confront Simon after he said that Andrew has a boring personality. That led to an uncomfortable, vaguely ethnic, possibly racist accent on Ryan’s part where he kept calling her Mama Garcia, but he actually sounded more like he justa wanta spicy meataball.
Katie Stevens met Usher once at Epcot Center. Could it be any more perfect that one of our youngest contestants met her mentor at Disney World? We love it. Despite her “Chain of Fools” not being a young, commercial song, we agree that if she works on her voice, she could totally have a Christina Aguilera career eventually.
Crystal Bowersox‘s big surprise this week was that she was wearing heels and playing piano. Not earthshattering, but a nice change. After she sang “Midnight Train to Georgia” we spotted Glee’s Jane Lynch in the audience, so that was cool, but not as cool as when Crystal told Rand, who’s currently working with Glady Knight, to “tell her I say hi”. She’s adorable. Win, Crystal, win!
Tonight: Usher sings! Diddy does stuff! (Run in a marathon? Try to sell us vodka? Who knows!) And someone gets voted off (but probably not Tim).
