‘American Idol 15’ review: Trent Harmon, Olivia Rox, Lee Jean, others perform with mentors
Tonight, “American Idol” is bringing back some of their greatest for what has become a fun extension of these top 24 shows: Duets! We do wish that we had condensed this all into one week so that the voting public would have more time picking their favorites versus the judges, but sometimes we just get what we get.
Just like every other review we’ve done for the show as of late, look below for our take on some of the individual performances. From there, stick around for some results, which we’ll be posting at the end of the show.
Amelia Eisenhauer & Kellie Pickler, “Suds in the Bucket” – Did anyone else really dig this performance? Sure, it was rather limited in terms of vocals, but we enjoyed the tempo and the musicality of it as something different brought to the “American Idol” stage.
Kory Wheeler & Haley Reinhart, “Bennie and the Jets” – Kory did a great job here! It helps him that he was paired with one of our favorite former contestants for one of her greatest songs, but at least this didn’t just feel like she was doing all of the work for him.
Lee Jean & Chris Daughtry, “Home” – Lee really tried here, but the big problem was with the pairing. They have different energies to their voices, and it was really hard to envision the two of them molded together in any way.
CJ Johnson & David Cook, “The World I Know” – We’re getting a little bit of terrifying season 7 flashbacks to when Simon Cowell completely missed the point of this performance. We do think David’s solo moment on this stellar number was better, but CJ did a solid enough job.
Manny Torres & Jordin Sparks, “No Air” – Manny did his best here, but Jordin is such a vocal powerhouse that we don’t think that he entirely matched her note-for-note.
Jenn Blosil & Constantine Maroulis, “My Funny Valentine” – Harry Connick Jr. hates rearranging standards like Carrie Ann Inaba hates lifts on “Dancing with the Stars.” We dug the originality here, but that may be because this has also been one of our least-favorite standards.
Tristan McIntosh & Kellie Pickler, “Best Days of Your Life” – We don’t think that Tristan is necessarily as great as the judges make her out to be at times, but we’re not going to complain about the melodies between her and Kellie here.
Olivia Rox & David Cook, “Light On” – The lack of a great melody in this song made it a tad more challenging, but we did really enjoy some of what Olivia brought to the table here in terms of energy and working to match David. They gave this all they could.
Adam Lasher & Haley Reinhart, “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” – There’s no doubt that Haley sang the song better, but we feel like Adam really tried to tap into a nice vulnerability that we haven’t seen elsewhere.
Dalton Rappatoni & Chris Daughtry, “Higher Ground” – This was solid, but we have to admit that we were so distracted by most of Ryan Seacret’s rapping and twerking that we had almost no chance of enjoying this.
Jordin Sparks & Trent Harmon, “To Love Someone” – We’re really glad that Trent is back on track, delivering with some of his performances! We weren’t sure about this in the intro package, but after seeing the two on the stage together, we officially went all-in on it from start to finish.
Shelbie Z. and Constantine Maroulis, “Boheman Rhapsody” – We’re not entirely sure what this was. An odd way to start the show, and Shelbie never quite seemed to fit in.
Results – Head over here to see that article!
Want to get some other news when it comes to “American Idol,” including some other reviews and coverage? Then head over to this link, and you can also sign up over here to get some more TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Fox.)