The Philippine Online Chronicles

Tonight, it seemed, was all about the stage. Big stage, glitzy stage, lots of lights on the stage, judges walking to their seats from the stage, judges criticizing the contestants' use of the stage, and so on, and so forth, but somewhere in there was a singing competition and a good dose of Rolling Stones. Now while I could probably count the number of contestants who had Rolling Stones tracks on their iPod before this week on one hand, I think overall a lot of people gave a good account of themselves tonight.

Who's on their way out? Who's here to stay? We have the tiers headlined by Rolling Stones singles, so we too are in theme!

Tier 1 - Not Fade Away

12th - Crystal Bowersox - "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
Bowersox came out with an interesting mix of country and soul, combining the acoustic guitar with a bit of a choir going on during the chorus. It is again, a well-polished, absolutely amazing performance. She is clearly in a different league from the rest of the Idolettes, and the entire judge's row was just buzzing about this. Simon had to take a little jab at her by pointing out that she might have been beaten this week by another singer, which Bowersox simply shrugged off. Competition? What competition?

9th - Lee DeWyze - "Beast of Burden"
Probably the best sounding male of the night, DeWyze came out extremely polished. He could be selling records right now. Randy Jackson compared him to Dave Matthews and Rob Thomas, but I think there's a hint of Staind as well in there. Probably the best reinterpretation of the night. Simon is still looking for a moment from him though.

Tier 2 - Time is on My Side

1st - Michael Lynche - "Miss You"
Here's someone who took on the challenge of the big stage a bit too eagerly, running, bounding and basically hitting every single square inch. There's a clear Gospel/Motown spin to his song and he rocks out on the falsettos. It's a great showcase for his big voice, but Simon calls him out on the cheese factor of his moves, though I think his personality is such that it's really a part of him, and isn't as annoying as it should be.

8th - Siobhan Magnus - "Paint it Black"
I was loving it all the way up to the end, when she went and did that note again. Bad enough when they cued it up on the VTR I thought to myself, "wow that sounds horrible on second listen," but doing it again just seems annoying, self-indulgent, and it reeks of absolutely ridiculous, unneeded gimmickry from a person who is talented enough to not need it. Kara compared her to Adam Lambert, with Simon continuing the metaphor by saying that she will be divisive. If that's the case then I belong in the camp that doesn't like shrieking banshees, while the judges are all in the camp that does. 

Tier 3 - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

2nd - Didi Benami - "Play with Fire"
She is like a lite-version of Siobhan Magnus, which is bad, but she doesn't do the shriek, which is good.

3rd - Casey James - "It's All Over Now"
Though he had his electric guitar with him, he seemed to be just strumming at random intervals while his other hand just dangled at his side. It was a very laidback country performance, but Simon in particular wish he had used the stage instead of just stand there, mounted to the ground.

6th - Katie Stevens - "Wild Horses"
The girl showed a lot of personality in her video again and she turned in an excellent performance. True, any halfway-to-savvy music fan will tell you that she basically did one of the many female covers of this song, but she sang it well which should be all that matters, which is what Randy said when he conceded that they had been giving her a lot of contradictory advice in the past few weeks.

10th - Paige Miles - "Honky Tonk Women"
Based on what happened, I presume Simon, Kara, and Randy don't Tweet, while Ellen does, because despite it being a trending topic, the other three seemed to have no idea that Miles had been suffering from a bout of laryngitis. You couldn't tell though as she sold a very lively, soulful performance that the judges heaped extra praise on when they found out about her throat. I wanted her off last week, but she gave viewers tonight some good reasons to keep voting for her.

Tier 4 - Get Off of My Cloud

4th - Lacey Brown - "Ruby Tuesday"
Ruby because of her hair, and Tuesday because that's when the show airs in the US? Probably not, but a pun as bad as that is deserving because her performance was equally terrible. Brown channels Dolly Parton, which shouldn't be done except on Dolly Parton week. There's a ton of off-key, off-pitch stuff though I have to concede that the arrangement with the string quartet was lovely. Her problem was that a lot of notes weren't actually sung, but were more of forced out. Remarkably, none of the judges called her out on this, instead choosing to focus on the way she moves, which is, to quote Simon, "like an actress...you're in danger of the doing the same thing week after week." Mr. Cowell, I think I'd worry more about her being voted out for her vocals first.

5th - Andrew Garcia - "Gimme Shelter"
He's gonna need shelter when he's voted out, which might be sooner rather than later. In his first non-female cover in a long time, Garcia didn't impress, but at the same time he didn't dazzle either. More entertaining to watch was the weekly Kara-Simon spat which Kara lost again, decisively.

7th - Tim Urban - "Under My Thumb"
I know I'm a hater, but the judges are with me on this. Reggae doesn't seem to be something the contestants can execute this season and as Ellen says, "I felt like I was at a resort drinking a pina colada...like Simon said you should wow us [sic] it just didn't wow." I have him in the fourth tier but lord knows he'll survive again despite the pitch problems and the terrible swing-and-a-miss attempt he had, totally reinventing the song.

11th - Aaron Kelly - "Angie"
Shades of David Archuleta, with a little bit of Danny Gokey at this point from the young man, and while it was good, it definitely wasn't great or memorable (though he gets points for using the stairs). Both Randy ("you were a little Justin Timberlake") and Ellen ("you and Siobhan, those were the two performances that stand out tonight") must have been listening to something else, but I prefer Simon's backhanded comment of "what you did cleverly was that you sang the song within the limits of your vocals tonight." Let me tell you, those limits are pretty tiny.

Photo screencap from VdovinaHD