‘American Idol’ review: Curtis Finch Jr., Nick Boddington shine among top 10 guys
Following the girls performing on “American Idol” Tuesday night, Wednesday was all about the guys; and surprisingly, we had to say that the guys were almost as enjoyable as the ladies. They were not as strong vocally, but the positive was that they actually did a little bit more than just drippy ballads. This is what could get the ladies in trouble at the end of the day, since the men showed this week that they can have plenty of fun.
Check out our take on all of the performances below, and as always, we’re going to have our predictions for who moves on below.
Elijah Liu – For whatever reason, Elijah is stuck with this delusion in his head that he is all about the ladies, and this is really what matters the most in this competition. Um, it’s not. Nobody likes a heartthrob who knows he’s a heartthrob, and his voice is definitely not good enough to get votes from people who don’t find him cute. The good news? This take on “Stay” was far better than what he did last week.
Cortez Shaw – First of all, we give Cortez major props for singing Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out of Heaven,” thus proving that an “American Idol” contestant this season can sing something uptempo. The pitching wasn’t perfect, but we’re almost willing to root for him to advance just because he did something different.
Charlie Askew – What was this? Consider it the second straight week of the Charlie meltdown, and proof that this competition may be a little bit too much for one of the more unique contestants. We applaud him for trying to do something different, but there was something about his screaming, the hair pulled back, and the whole get-up that just felt like he was once again trying way too hard.
Nick Boddington – Oh look, it’s another contestant on a singing show performing “Iris” on the Goo Goo Dolls. The good news here was that Nick actually did something a little bit different with the song, and gave it a pretty unique feel with the piano.
Burnell Taylor – Burnell really did something that we have in our book of things that we hate: someone performing their audition song again before the finale. Did the guy really have nothing else to sing? He did a good job with the song and will still likely make it through, but it probably drops him down a few notches on our list.
Paul Jolley – Here is our ultimate take on Paul as a performer: he’s good, but is he necessarily amazing? He just seems like fodder to make it a few weeks in, but there’s no way that the guy is going to be able to win … especially if he keeps picking duets from people who are coaches on “The Voice” in Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton.
Lazaro Arbos – It almost doesn’t matter what we say here, since Lazaro is going to go into the next round without even a second guess. The positive was that this version of “Feeling Good” was better than what he did last week. But, it still wasn’t amazing and there are some serious diction problems.
Curtis Finch Jr. – Oh boy, it’s another version of “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly. Thankfully, this was the best rendition of the song to ever be on this show. Curtis has great control for having a big voice, and this is the sort of thing to make us forget about some of his crazy behavior patterns during Hollywood Week.
Devin Velez – Ultimately, Devin probably did something that he really did not need to do: sing in Spanish again. If you do it once, it is cool. If you do it a number of times, it quickly becomes a gimmick. The vocal here was not bad, but Perry Como is so dated we’re pretty sure that no younger viewers will get it.
Vincent Powell – Finally, we have Vincent: a man with a great voice, and he needed this sort of break at the end of the show in order to give himself a shot at sticking around another week. This vocal, like many others on the night, wasn’t perfect, but he still proved himself as someone we would like to see again. Sadly, we just don’t think it will happen.
So who are our picks? At the moment, we’re saying Nick, Curtis, Lazaro, Burnell, and finally Paul … just for the sake of the country vote alone.
Who was your favorite among the guys? Be sure to share some of your thoughts with a comment below, and you can read our full review of the show from Tuesday night over here.
Photo: Slice