American Idol – Boys Night – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Well, I’m not sure how much better the boys were but they sure are a more diverse group than the girls are. Many are terrific in certain styles, too bad many chose the brave route of showing diversity in a different singing style, only to fail miserably. Luckily for kids like David Radford and Will Makar, they’re cute and will probably charm their way to a few more weeks.
I will give this year’s contestants this, with the exception of Brenna, everyone has seemed to learn to take their criticisms well without resorting to obnoxious objections (Yes, Jennifer Hudson, this means you). Yes, it may show feistiness but when contestants fight back (in previous years), it just looks cheap. This years’ class all seemed to have gone through charm school or something and perfected the grinning smile at the end of their performance. It’s endearing. (oh god, where has my bitterness and irony gone?)

So, The Good? I thought Chris Daughtry and Elliott Yamin were the same bouncer at a nightclub but each proved they could sing amazingly and deserve to be on the stage in the club. Stage presence still need a bit of work, but Elliot’s silly looking grin has me picking him for the leader of the pack by a teeny tiny margin. Though I keep flip flopping on that one.
Ace Young never sold me over before, (is he really that hot?) but after watching his performance again on repeat, I have to say he seems to have the whole package, boysish but manly charms all at the same time, humility but a sexy enough presence to stand out in a crowd, and a voice that, though not perfect, was still pretty darn good. Still, we said that about Justin Guarini when we first met him.
Love child of Matthew Perry and Jay Leno Taylor Hicks is one dogarn likable person, and he can sing darn well too, but I just didn’t love his performance last night like the judges did. It was good, but it wasn’t great.
Gedeon and his huge ass smile sang “Shout”. I didn’t realize someone was having a wedding last night. Great singer, bad song. I almost had to laugh because I thought they were showing us a clip from the new “The Wedding Singer – The Musical” that opens on Broadway soon. Let’s hope he does better song choice next week.

The BAD
Or actually: The Horrifically Bad. Copacobana? Seriously? Talk about bad song choices. Bobby Bennett. Nice to meet you, have a good life.
Jose “Sway” Penala. His name is “Sway”. Enough said. Singing the whole song in Falsetto doesn’t constitute good singing to me. It just tells me that someone kicked you in the balls right before the show.

The Ugly
Copacobana? Seriously? Talk about an UGLY song choice. Bobby Bennett. Nice to meet you, have a good life.
It’s an ugly fact that even though David Radford and Will Makar put in laughable performances, America will still vote them through because they are cute and charming. I will also admit, that I was partly seduced myself. David was like the geek trying to be the cool kid, while Will seemed to be the White boy who actually has some charisma but still hadn’t been taught what to do with it. Will is way too young, but because he reminds me of John Mayer (see below), I’ll let it go. For Now.
Kevin “Chicken Little” Covais. What can I say about the poor kid? He looked like he was constipating the whole time but if I didn’t watch him, he actually sounded half decent. Key word being HALF.
It’s another ugly fact that even though Patrick Hall and Bucky Covington were not the worst of the night, they were highly forgettable and probably have a smaller crazed fan base than that of Sway, Bobby or Kevin so I’m betting one of these guys will be gone by tonight. (Speaking of Ugly, what was with those lips on “Patrick’s Friends”?)

So overall, whose starting to lead out of the pack? I can only remember Mandisa and Katharine (I remember Becky but for all the wrong reasons) from the girls night, and Dance-White-Boy-Will, Elliot, Chris, and Ace.
Gedeon, Taylor, Paris, Stevie, Patrick, Kinnik, Becky, Kellie and David will all have do some serious damage control with good song choices next week but if they make it through tonight (and I have a feeling some won’t because it’s usually the memorable BAD ones that make it through as opposed to the decent but undramatic contestants that leave), they all still have the chance to break through the pack.