Courtesy of Parliament    

The Top 10 Idol Guys perform songs from the 70’s tonight.  Though the nerves seemed to be gone, the talent didn’t actually shine.  For the second week in the a row, Jason Yeager and Luke Menard appeared not to belong in this elite group.  Not much inspiration, or improvement. 

 

Chikezie seemed to bounce back from his Top 24 week disappointment.  Chikezie’s choice to cover Donny Hathaway, which certainly made him more contemporary.  I thought Chikezie did well. 

 

 

Danny Noriega wasn’t terrible, much like I thought last week.  Though, his lack of testoserone, annoys me, vocally, Noriega actually is decent.  Jason Castro came out with his acoustic again, and gave a similar style performance, as last week.  I thought Castro was one of the best last week.  This week, he was just predictable, and kind of a cliche.  Castro seems to be one-dimensional, and he’ll have to bring some variety, or he’ll be home sooner than later. 

 

David Hernandez is pretty damn soulful.  He was very karaoke the last time we saw him.  But tonight, he showed his vocal range.  Kind of in the Elliott Yamin mold in style, soulful with long runs, I thought Hernandez did enough to stick around another week, I would just watch the theatrics, cuz it was borderline Broadway-ish. 

   Image of Elliott Yamin

 

For the second week in a row, I thought Robbie Carrico faired pretty well.  Though much like the Idol judges said, he doesn’t appear believable, even still, his vocals aren’t bad.  Then again, Carrico sounds like alot of bands you hear on the radio, so he could easily be swallowed in the “Whine Rock” genre.  (Daughtry, Nickelback, Creed – shout out to my boy Rainman)

   Image of Nickelback

Parliament’s personal favorite, and projected winner, Michael Lee Johns, was pretty good again.  Nothing special, certainly not a challenging vocal.  But I love this guy.  He reminds me of the late INXS front man, Michael Hutchence.  And I am a huge fan of Hutchence.  So obviously, I’ll be partial to Johns’ style.

  Image of Michael Hutchence

David Cook again rocked the crowd.  Cook is obviously the most talented of the bunch.  He commands the stage, and appears to be the most confident and poised of all the contestants, including the girls.  I’d be shocked if we didn’t see Cook go as far as the Final 5.  He’s that good!

cook  Click here to listen to performance

Okay okay … I have been bashing David Archuleta since Day One.  And for the record, I still don’t love the kid, like everyone else in the world.  But with PIE ON MY FACE, I have to say, that Archuleta was certainly the best tonight.  Archuleta’s cover of John Lennon’s classic “Imagine” was great.  I think Archuleta needs to keep his tone at the higher octave, it keeps his pitch on, and his voice doesn’t sound so pre-pubescent.  Archuleta stole the show tonight.  He’ll appears to be the front runner, for now.

archu     Click here to view performance

Stay tuned for the Top 10 Girls Preview …