American Idol 5: Top 8 Performance Show
We Will Rock You...A Little
Recap By Jillian Kuras
April 12, 2006
Welcome to Tuesday night on American Idol! Tonight, the top 8 tackle the songs of Queen. After two incredibly disappointing weeks in row, I admit, my expectations for tonight are very low. I think this is actually the least excited I have been at this stage of the competition in all five seasons.
When Ryan told us last week that the theme would be Queen, I predicted that Chris would of course be the most in his element. As for the others, I thought Katharine and Elliott would do the best bringing their own personal styles to the songs. I also thought Kellie would sing mediocre as always but would use her minx like charm to woo the judges.
The night begins with a Queen fluff piece that highlights the ups and downs of their lives and careers. The producers managed to stick Constantine's ugly mug in there (from when he sang Bohemian Rhapsody last year) which I think is highly insulting to the band. After that we are off and running and Bucky Covington is up first.
In his intro piece, the members of Queen acknowledge that Bucky interacts well with a crowd and is a natural performer. Tonight, Bucky is singing Fat Bottomed Girls.
Bucky does alright with this interesting song choice. I think his voice isn't nearly big enough to carry the song though. The entire song was also sung in the same two or three notes but that's typical for him. We all know by now that Bucky doesn't have a range at all but America doesn't seem to care. I also think Bucky still needs to annunciate more. I had absolutely no idea what he was saying throughout most of the song.
Randy tells Bucky it was a cool way to start the show and that he had a lot of energy but some pitch problems. Paula congratulates him for making the song his own and turning it into country rock. Simon says it was a good song of choice but says the song was bigger than him. He says he would classify it as mediocre overall.
Up next is Ace Young who will be singing We Will Rock You. In his intro, Ace is shown talking to the members of the band about how he would like to vary the arrangement to more suit his personal style. Ace gives out a few different suggestions which to me, seem to fit him very nicely. The members shoot down all his ideas though and say they refuse to play their song in that way.
I'm assuming they mean they don't want to hear their rock songs with more of pop feel. Considering that Ace is pop, and considering that this show is about making classic songs sound unique, I think the whole situation came off as very rude. The band should have allowed Ace to sing the song as he wished and the producers should have stepped in to back him up.
At any rate, Ace tackles the song the best he can but overall, the performance is not his best. His voice actually sounded very big in the beginning, which is a good thing for him. He's usually more of the soft, ballad singer so it was nice to hear something different. I also loved hearing his falsetto towards the end and I like that that has sort of become his signature. I feel bad for Ace tonight though. Even though this wasn't his best, I don't blame him at all.
Randy tells Ace it was only a 5 or 6 out of ten and that it was karaoke. Paula says she appreciates Ace's effort to make the song unique even though the band didn't support him. Thank you Paula! Randy can call it karaoke all he wants; Ace tried to make it unique but was flat out told he couldn't. Simon concludes by saying that Randy was being generous and that it was a complete and utter mess. He also mentions something about forgetting the words but I didn't notice any of that.
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