‘American Idol XIV’ review: Jax, Joey Cook, Quentin Alexander sing Kelly Clarkson hits
Tonight, “American Idol XIV” featured many fun performances. It also had a few random ones, such as Jennifer Lopez completely phoning it in to the point where she forgot that she gave a save to Qaasim Middleton and not Quentin Alexander. She claimed that she was talking about the wild-card save, but we’re not so sure.
Anyhow, tonight’s episode was particularly fun for those of you out there who love nostalgia. Not only was Kelly Clarkson back and performing, but the contestants took on her biggest songs and mostly fared well. Also, cheers for Candice Glover and Ruben Studdard each being in the audience! It made this more of a family affair. Let’s go ahead and get to the performances.
Nick Fradiani, “Catch My Breath” – Really nice. Not perfect, but we felt the intimacy was there more than in some other performances that he’s done this season. He has always delivered vocally, so there has never been a question when it comes to that.
Jax, “Beautiful Disaster” – Awesome performance yet again. After some rough outings early on, this is the third straight time that she has delivered. This was simple and wilted, but almost perfect for her in every way.
Tyanna Jones, “Mr. Know-It-All” – She has the biggest vocal range of any woman left, but sometimes that works against her. This one was a little unwieldy, and to go along with that, she did not quite get to the song’s emotional, defiant core. She’ll get there with age.
Joey Cook, “Miss Independent” – We’re of two minds here. First and foremost, it was a great performance … but is the style a little bit of a gimmick at times? We don’t necessarily think that it was the case here, but as a jazz musician, Harry Connick Jr. may be a tad sensitive on such things.
Quentin Alexander, “Dark Side” – Totally boss vocal and arrangement. We’re so glad that America has seemingly gotten behind the guy the past few weeks, and understood more about who he is, and how he will actually be a player in the industry after this is over. You’re going to remember him.
Qaasim Middleton, “Stronger” – Qassim is a ton of fun to watch! Unfortunately, he’s just not that great a singer, and that becomes more and more apparent with each passing week as the overall quality rises.
Clark Beckham, “The Trouble With Love Is” – Very similar to Tyanna in that he did a great job hitting most of the notes, but a few of the big ones he went for were off. It was admirable for him to bite off so much, but it may have been more than he could chew.
As for the final two contestants, click here to see our take, and the end result!
What did you think about the performances tonight? Share with a comment, and head over here if you want to see where we ranked the contestants before the show! Also, you can sign up to get some other TV news worth singing about via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Fox.)