American Idol Top 5 Do Neil Diamond Songs

It’s Neil Diamond night on American Idol, and all I can say is that I couldn’t say much because I know very few Neil Diamond songs. Making it worse is that the Idols were made to sing two Neil Diamonds songs each for the night, so we’ll just sort of summarize what they sang and what went on:

Jason Castro: “Forever in Blue Jeans” and September Morn”

Jason Castro is definitely the most consistent performer this season, as he consistently bored me to tears with his rendition of the two songs, the latter of which is practically the only neil Diamond song I know. But he’ll still be there next week, and I’ve since come to terms with the possibilty that he’ll at least be in the Top 3.

David Cook- “I’m Alive” and “All I Really Need Is You”

Not really sure what decade this song was released, but Cook made “I’m Alive” sound like some 80’s pop rock song, and I’m not really sure if that’s a good thing. He sounded better with the second song, but the again, I don’t know it, so there wasn’t any point of comparison for me.

Brooke White- “I’m A Believer” and “I Am…I Said”

Unfortunately for her, I know “I’m A Believer”, and I could say that she sounded really terrible, especially at the beginning of the song. Those low notes got the better of her, and she never really did anything different with the song. She just sang it an octave lower (or higher?) than the original male version, and it just didn’t work. In the second song, she followed Neil’s somewhat cheesy suggestion to replace “New York” with “Arizona” somewhere in the lyrics, but to my surprise, it worked. She really sounds great when she plays the piano that way, expressively and very vulnerably.

David Archuleta - “Sweet Caroline” and “America”

Starting off a bit shaky with “Sweet Caroline”, David A. recovered and did a really nice rendition of the song. This kid’s voice could do just about any song, and he can definitely make that song sound a bit better than the version that we know. However, he didn’t do well with the second song, plenty of pitch problems, and he even croaked at one point. But just like Jason Castro, he’ll make it to the Top 4, owing to his legion of fans.

Syesha Mercado- “Hello Again” and “Thank The Lord For The Night Time”

It’s really nice to see Syesha Mercado, one of the most vocally-talented finalists this season, finally do her songs in a relaxed manner. Even if she’s been at the bottom more than any of the remaining contestants, she seems to have grown in confidence and that is supremely evident in the way she sang “Hello Again” and “Thank The Lord For The Night Time”. Watch the video below to see it.

I wish I could say it would be Jason Castro who would finally get his long-overdue kick in the ass tomorrow, but sadly, that isn’t the case. Syesha and Brooke are the ones in trouble, and my money’s on Syesha finally leaving the competition come Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 6:31 am and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.