And at last, we've come to the end of a rather lackluster season, and it's hard to muster up any more enthusiasm than to say that Lee and Crystal are the least objectionable of the bunch. Can either of them generate any actual excitement on the final night? Let's find out...
The rundown:
Round One: The singers choose their favorite song from the season.
Lee, "The Boxer" -- It's got a bit more energy than it did the first time around, but that's mostly due to the larger band, I think; Lee's vocal is still rather listless and blah. On the plus side, he's more consistently in tune than usual.
Crystal, "Me and Bobby McGee" -- When 2/3 of your lyrics are "na na na na na," it's hard to do much more than sing a bunch of pretty notes, and Crystal does that, I suppose, but aside from an unexpected little moment of yodel, it's not a terribly interesting performance.
Round One to Crystal, whose "na na na" was at least more energetic than Lee's "lie la lie." Neither one has made much of a case for themself, though.
Round Two: Simon Fuller chooses a song for each contestant.
Lee, "Everybody Hurts" -- Very smart song choice that suits Lee's voice beautifully. And it's a solid performance for the most part. There are a few moments when he's shouting rather than singing, which increases the rasp in his voice to an unpleasant level, but it's certainly a huge improvement over his opening number.
Crystal, "Black Velvet" -- In the final two or three notes, we finally got a hint of the subtlety and the sultriness that would have been much appreciated throughout the song. Instead, Crystal chose to belt the whole damn thing, walloping us upside the head with a Stompy Footed Big Voice holler. Ow.
Round Two to Lee, but mostly because Crystal handed it to him.
Round Three: The first single, and oh joy! We've gotten rid of the annual nightmare that is the Official American Idol Anthem.
Lee, "Beautiful Day" -- Technically, this is his best performance of the night -- he's pretty much on pitch throughout, and the rasp is under control -- but still, there's no real emotional force or passion behind it, and the notes just land there, limp and unexciting.
Crystal, "Up to the Mountain" -- Well, if you're going to pull the season's best performance out of your pocket, I suppose this is the time to do it. That was an absolutely marvelous moment, impeccably controlled and deeply moving.
Round Three to Crystal in a landslide.
For the night: Crystal, on the strength of the final number.
And the winner is: The conventional wisdom over the last couple of weeks seems to have shifted from Crystal to Lee, if only because Lee's thought to be more likely to pick up more of Casey's votes. I don't buy it, though. I think Crystal wins, but it'll be close.
No comments:
Post a Comment