American Idol 2009: Top 8 Show
This week each contestant sang a song from his or her birth year, which gives Idol an excuse to show baby photos.
RyanSeacrest: idol tonite hint: ever wonder what randy and simon looked like as a kid?? you may find out :)
As hinted by Ryan, the judges and Ryan didn’t escape so we were treated to an unbelievably cute photo of Ryan complete with big front teeth and what looked like strawberry blond hair. Adorable!
Having asked on twitter whether he should wear a tie bar or a pocket square, Ryan tweeted before going to Idol:
RyanSeacrest: Tie bar it is
… but it wasn’t there when the show started!
As the oldest contestant, Danny Gokey went first with a song that pre-dates his birth year of 1980. Allowing for re-release dates opens up a lot of songs. The song was dull and the judges’ feedback was mixed.
Next up Kris Allen is back with his guitar and Ryan is finally wearing the promised tie bar. A quick check of twitter explained all:
RyanSeacrest: Tie bar fell off just before show open haha…I put it on a few mins into the show. Oops
During his chat, Kris told Ryan about a guy recognising him … then asking him to say ‘hi’ to Adam. The song’s not as good as the last few weeks, but not terrible. Paula thought Kris’d made the song his own whereas Simon found it indulgent, boring and forgettable.
Lil Rounds did a stars-in-their-eyes version of ‘What’s love got to do with it’ and was compared unfavourably to Tina Turner as a result. Randy told her she’s not listening to their advice, but to be fair to Lil their advice is often contradictory. I hated it, but loved the blinged-out shoes she was wearing.
Ryan let Anoop Desai give a shout out to his team before giving him a chance to apologise for his perceived arrogant comment to Kara during her critique last week. He made a decent job of the song and the judges liked it better than last week.
Scott MacIntyre swapped the piano for the guitar. The song was a bit bland and his vocal was weak and out of tune in parts. Simon thought the song was atrocious and the guitar playing wasn’t any better. Ryan picked up on Scott saying it was his ‘punk side’ which was pretty funny.
I really dislike the song Allison Iraheta chose, but she sang it well. The judges liked it, but Simon wants to see more personality.
Matt Giraud chose a song that really suited him and the judges loved it. He should be safe this week, but his outfit is weird.
Last to sing, for those watching live at least, was Adam Lambert. The show was running so late that Adam started after the scheduled end time so people recording it off Fox had to head over to Ryan’s website or YouTube to catch up. Adam picked Mad World by Tears for Fears … one of my favourite 80s songs … and rocked it, earning a standing ovation from Simon Cowell. Personally I didn’t think the overrun would affect the result too much for Adam as presumably people record the show because they’re going to watch it later; possibly after the voting lines close. Unless you’re close to the bottom, which Adam hopefully isn’t, a few thousand votes shouldn’t matter. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Idol often puts a strong contestant on last.
A few tweeps complained to Ryan about not getting the show in on time, but as he explained on the radio, he’s not the one who schedules the running order and the judges don’t watch a clock while they’re giving their comments, so some things are outside his control. He also said that the show would have run over by around four minutes if it had gone to schedule.
RyanSeacrest: @tomluck idol went long. producers build the show time… 8 singers 4 judges… my tivo cut out too
Maybe Ryan needs to be there during the critique to shut them up (Kara, Paula) if they’re going on too long. That this would mean Ryan on stage longer hasn’t escaped my notice ;-)
ITV2 would probably just blur Ryan out like they do with coca cola logos! I am sure the 9 minutes they cut were all of Ryan — there are definitely a couple of funny comments I am sure he made that aren’t here. It’s a conspiracy!
