American Idol Season 11: The Top 13 Perform Recap

American Idol Season 11: The Top 13 Perform

1) Joshua Ledet - "I Wish"

I was not as enarmored with Joshua's as the judges were. I didn't think he sung his song terribly but I just felt like there was too much scratch and screaming in his voice. Last week he kept it check until the very end of his very impressive cover of fellow American Idol Jennifer Hudson's song "You Pulled Me Through" although I still felt like the very end was still a little too much. Mary J. Blige brought in music producer Eric Hudson to help him with his performance. I actually thought that Mary J. Blige was really the star of the evening. Her ciritiques and suggestions for the singers were spot on and she really encouraged Joshua to use a church like mentality for his performance. I thought Randy's Freudian slip of it being "flavorless" instead of "flawless" initially was much more acurrately descriptive of his singing tonight. Steven was useless as usual.

Singing in the dreaded lead off spot, Joshua sang "I Wish" and was immediately lavished with excessive praise. 

2) Elise Testone - "I'm Your Baby Tonight"

Elise's struggles started in her meeting with Jimmy Iovine and Mary J. Blige. She was originally going to sing "The Greatest Love of All" but then it was changed by her guest mentor and Jimmy to "I'm Your Baby Tonight" instead. It really didn't matter. This was a trainwreck of a week for one of the best voices of the season. Mary said it would be unfair if she "crashed her voice" since her voice was "so dope" and unfortunately that's exactly what happened. It was pretty clear before, during, and after her performance that she'd be in trouble this week. Her pacing was probably the only salvagable thing in her performance but when a song goes so far off the rails, it's hard to notice those things as much. The judges were pretty candid about her performance. Jennifer conceeded that "Whitney's a beast" which was her way of saying that Elise's vocal style is almost too unique for her own good. Even Steven was critical and suggested that she needed the right voice and that she needed a chorus that she could nail. Randy said she was boxing with the song and that every note is not meant to show off her voice. Elise admitted that she didn't know the song terribly well, even growing up, and it's pretty clear that she was uncomfortable in it and that she needed much more time with the song before saying that there was no excuse for it.

3) Jermaine Jones - "Knocks Me Off My Feet"

Mary warned Jermaine about stretching his words out too much and was impressed by his quickly timed adaptations and the fact that he is only twenty-five years old. Jermaine did a decent job in my opinion but it didn't standout enough to be considered one of the best performances of the night. Still, I don't think Jermaine will be going home. Randy had some criticisms of the choruses but overall it was a good enough performance to not be in the hot seat with the lowest scoring girl.

4) Erika Van Pelt - "I Believe In You and Me"

Jimmy felt she was struggling to find herself in the first part of the song. Mary was right to invoke "crashing and burning" and again if she tried to sing like Whitney Houston. Jimmy also stated that she'd be fine if she just tried to make the song her own. Erika is one of my favorites but I do think she gets in trouble sometimes by not expanding her vocals to go higher and more powerful at times but it's pretty clear that Jimmy and Mary wanted her to not overdue it. And I liked the soft electric guitar at the beginning of the song. I felt that was a nice touch by the band. J. Lo's "goosies" nonsense during her conference with Jimmy and Mary was predictably ridiculous. Randy wants her to not think too much about it and said that it was amazing at the end. Jennifer complimented her ability interpret songs combined with the tone and fullness of her song. She also, and I agree with this part, that Erika is playing it too safe and called her performance the tip of the iceberg. Steven agreed of course and enjoyed the way she sat on the first verses and pre-chorus before (essentially climaxing, if you will) finishing it off well. (This is Steven of course so we all know what he really meant by it.)

5) Colton Dixon - "Lately"

Stefano Langone did a good job with this last season but since Jimmy and Mary weren't initially "feeling it" according to Colton, was enough for Jimmy to ask him to play a bit of his own song (it's called "Let Go") first so they slowed down the song quite drammatically. There was just a mostly piano-flavored performance and Colton was actually not even the one tickling the ivories. I actually enjoyed the performance better the second time around and I even enjoyed the gradually increased tempo more too. Steven called it beautiful, Jennifer said he was probably one of the more challenged singers this week because of Stevie which made her like it more. Randy said it wasn't "picture perfect" and reassured the booing crowd that this was great constructive criticism designed to help Colton. He felt it started shaky for him but it turned out great. He compared it to "I Don't want To Miss a Thing" and Coldplay, which I felt were really good analogies. 

6) Shannon Magrane - "I Have Nothing"

Mary said she could see her thinking which was not a good thing and told her to stop running so to speak. It's probably a case of someone struggling with a song and momentarily getting it back before losing it again in the interim. Her voice was too soft and timid in the beginning and it just set the tone for a very weak performance. When she tried to elevate her song it came out too growly and she didn't hit enough of the right notes. Jennifer confirmed that she thought her thinking got the best of her and told Shannon to just tell the story. Steven chimed in the same thing about her nerves and that she crashed and burned on the turn around. Randy wondered about the melody going wrong in the beginning of the song, whether it was Shannon or the band. Shannon said she was listening to and focusing more on herself and how she should be singing the show. Shannon is definitely in trouble.

7) DeAndre Brackensick - "Master Blaster"

Once again I thought that Mary gave great instruction and it paid off handsomely for DeAndre. I haven't been his biggest fan but this song, which he volunteered is one of his favorite [Steve Wonder] songs was a great fit for him. It really helped him tone down the falsetto runs and only giving a glimpse of the strongest parts of his range really worked to his benefit. Steve called him a "male Naimi [Adedapo]" and Jennifer told him he has rhythmn and soul and suggested that perhaps she didn't want it to end. Randy said he was in perfect rhythmn and, like Joshua, showed a different side to his abilities tonight and I couldn't agree more.

8) Skylar Laine - "Where Do Broken Hearts Go?"

This was the first time Skylar ever sang Whitney Houston. Mary successfully told Skylar to go softer with her voice and I thought it was a brilliant stroke of criticism. The front part for Jennifer had some nasally and imperfect portions but she kept it together and up to that point gave the performance of the night. Steven loved the escalation of her performance in the way she raised her game with each successive segment of the song and Randy noticed that Skylar too showed another dimension to her vocal asrsenal. Definitely one of my favorite performances of the night.

9) Heejun Han - "All In Love Is Fair"

Mary said he was softer than Stevie's "in your face" tone. Jimmy asked the band to just have the piano play during his rehearsal. The highlight of the mentoring session was when Heejun gave both of them photos of himself and he wrote "I love you more than Jimmy" on Mary's. It was the very same kind of humor that Jimmy criticized him for last week that won him over this week. His performance was solid; it was neither great or terrible but my problem with him is he is too ballad centric. Randy put it best. "It wasn't perfect - but it was really good." 

10) Hollie Cavanagh - "All The Man I Need"

"The little girl with the big voice" got good advice from Mary J. Blige about being comfortable with what she sings and told her that her voice "is sick" and if she followed their advice that she'd steal the show. Randy said, "Dude, you nailed it." J. Lo said there might be a sing off between two girls in the final. 

11) Jeremy Rosado - "?? In The Sky"

Jimmy seemed more intent on stating the stakes for Jeremy and that definitely proved to be for good reason. The nerves Jimmy worried about were not necessarily the issue. His performance was just neither great or terrible and that was exactly the problem. It just felt too safe with the possible exception of the last few notes at the end. Randy as usual was the voice of reason on the judges panel. He felt it lacked swag and I agree. Really, the most interesting part of the segment was when they came back from commercial and Randy and Ryan pretended to be each other. Come to think of it, despite the intentionally sarcastic nature of it, I think they both did a better job than Jeremy. Jeremy goes home this week.

12) Jessica Sanchez - "I Will Always Love You"

There was only one singer on this show who could pull this song off. Jimmy and Mary told her at first she had too much vibrato and Blige told her to take her time. Jessica simply proceeded to give the best performance of the season by far. Randy said, "Jessica Sanchez is legit." And then he just said she's merely one of the best singers in the competition? Um...ONE of the best? Really? She earned her standing ovation and the way she started to smile at the end while squeezing out the last few notes was just materfully skilled. Steven for once put it best. "Jessica...you...maybe...the one. You just made 40 million people cry." Barring catastrophe, she is finals bound.

13) Phillip Phillips - "Superstitious"

Jimmy said he comes "batteries included" but thought ending on a lick was anti-climatic. Mary loved Phillip because he does get lost in the music and that there's no ending for him. Phillip's arrangement was definitely the best of the night. I still put Jessica's vocal far ahead tonight but I really enjoyed Phillip's rendition. Randy laughingly said he "waiting to see every time how you're going to reinterpret somebody's song because that's what you do. You drive your own car in your own lane and I love it." The truth of the matter though is that he put it perfectly. 

My prediction is that Jeremy goes home tonight, edgiing out Elise and Shannon.

Follow Jamie Cole of Himay Co. on Twitter. To hire him for PR write-ups and other marketing and creative services, send a tweet on Twitter for further contact info.