Song choice derails the Chikezie! Express, on American Idol

For this week of Amer­i­can Idol the singers got to choose songs from the year of their birth. It’s like Eight­ies Nite all over again, only with fewer songs to choose from. Which was prob­a­bly a good thing.

Randy was a lit­tle harsh this week, and Paula was wear­ing some weird armwarm­ers with dia­monds on them… I think. Her sense of style clearly stayed in the Eight­ies with her career. There seems to be a flu bug or some­thing going around, though Ramiele hur­riedly dis­counted that as hav­ing any effect on her (bad) performance.

I got to think­ing, while watch­ing the show, about which of these singers could get me to part with actual cash for an album of theirs. Of these ten con­tes­tants, I would buy albums from Brooke (she’s my fave!), and David Cook. That’s it. Carly has an out­side chance, if she gets her­self together after a cou­ple of bad weeks (noth­ing a pro­ducer couldn’t fix, but I’m not sure what her musi­cal style would be). Turns out they actu­ally do full-length, stu­dio record­ings of their songs (as they showed us dur­ing the results show iTunes promo). I might actu­ally buy one or two.

Per­for­mance of the week (of the sea­son?): David Cook absolutely knocked it out of the park with his Chris-Cornell-inspired ver­sion of Michael Jackson’s “Bil­lie Jean.” Wow. We went and found the Chris Cor­nell ver­sion later, and if they post the stu­dio recorded ver­sion of this song, I will most cer­tainly buy it. It’d be infi­nitely bet­ter than the Cor­nell ver­sion (and it already was a lot bet­ter than the orig­i­nal, sorry Michael). Con­sid­er­ing that of the absolute stand­out per­for­mances of the sea­son so far, Cook already has two… the judges may be right that he’s the odds-on favorite now. Also of note, Chris Cor­nell called, and he is adding him­self to the David-Cook-covered-my-song fan­club, join­ing inau­gural mem­ber Lionel Richie.

Speak­ing of the favorites: Two weeks ago I listed my final five or six, and since then some of them have had a rocky road. Carly got Bot­tom Three’d for her cloth­ing, Chikezie went back to Luther and punted, Brooke fum­bled her sec­ond Bea­t­les song, and Jason dis­re­spected the grav­i­tas of Idol (I know, I know, what grav­i­tas?). The only two to have risen since my pro­nounce­ment are David Cook and Aus­tralia, and Aus­tralia seems to have a pen­chant for gim­micky arena rock. The new order is Cook, Aus­tralia, Brooke, Carly, and Jason. Sorry, Chikezie.

God Bless the USA: Kristi Lee Cook, in a des­per­ate bid to avoid going home, pulled out all the stops in her song selec­tion rou­tine. She went for Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” It was a judi­cious, canny, insight­ful, clever, totally annoy­ing, per­fect choice. Which means some­one else must have cho­sen it for her, right? She did a pass­able job, but she draped her­self in the flag to try and pull votes from all the patri­ots out there (not to men­tion Amanda’s Southern-country crew, now that she’s out). That, and Lee Greenwood’s bless­ing, took her over the top (into fourth from the bottom?).

The Bot­tom Three this week were:

Chikezie, falling off his own band­wagon. We were all on the Chikezie! Express: young, hip, ener­getic, and fun, and then he went back to the Luther Van­dross well, and it sucked. The song (“If Only for One Night”) was ter­ri­ble, though the singing of it may have been fine. I couldn’t tell over the sound of his career shat­ter­ing into a mil­lion pieces.

Sye­sha, who report­edly sang well (“report­edly” because the judges appar­ently heard some­thing I didn’t) but chose yet another R&B tune (once sung by Gladys Knight), which just doesn’t fly with today’s youth. I don’t think we’ll be see­ing a Motown theme night this year.

Jason, who has indeed been coast­ing since “Hal­lelu­jah,” and pretty much coasted all the way to the Bot­tom Three, elic­it­ing a bored “meh” from me with his Spang­lish ver­sion of Sting’s “Fragile.“

I was hop­ing Sye­sha would be the one to go, because she has done noth­ing but bore me to tears, but Chikezie took the hit he deserved. You don’t turn your back on who brought you, and Chikezie did more than that, he took all the fans who voted for him because of his pre­vi­ous two per­for­mances, and he spat on them. Too harsh? I don’t think so.

Next week we’ll have guest men­tor Dolly Par­ton. Should be another ban­ner week for Kristi Lee Cook, as she rides the coun­try music bronco all the way to the bank. I’m expect­ing a train wreck from most of the others.