Ai 9 Top 5 Recap - The Songs Of Frank Sinatra Jr
By: Edward Ganges
Original Article
for RealityTVMatrix.com

Tuesday, May 04, 2010
American Idol Season 9, Voting Week 11 Performance Show
Episode: Top 5 - The Songs of Frank Sinatra, Jr.
Mentor: Harry Connick, Jr.

Recap:
Welcome to American Idol: the Top 5 perform the songs of the legendary Frank Sinatra, Jr.

Mentoring this week is the also legendary Harry Connick, Jr. Is he still married to Jill Goodacre? Just askin'?

And without further ado, let's get into it. Harry personally worked out the musical arrangements for each contestant and questioned whether he was working too hard. His suspicion? That Shania Twain didn't "have" to work this hard. And for the most part, the hard work payed off. Harry managed to get each contestant into a particular comfort zone and correspondingly into a proper top 5 worthy performance. Or so we would have hoped...

Aaron Kelly - 1-800-Idols-01:
gets the "tries hard" vote from Simon and lots of praise from the other judges. Eolen found the piano to be a little pitchy. For me, it wasn't bad, but more like the one point on which Simon and Kara agreed: there was a lack of dominance of the stage; a.k.a. charisma. Likability: yes. Charisma: no.

Casey James - 1-800-Idols-02:
Apparently it was the piano's fault. As Ellen asked: who put that piano up there on that stage? Randy found it to be the worst of Casey. Kara found it to be lamb-ey. As in Baaaaaa. Maybe add an "d". Harry Connick, Jr. felt that Casey killed - approximately 2hrs ago (too early). Apparently, Harry is a VERY funny guy). So, unless Mike bombs, Casey is sure to make it into the bottom 2.

Crystal Bowersox - 1-800-Idols-03:
Was it me, or did she start out completely out of sync with herself and with the band? At any rate, the band eventually synched back up, and she gave a better performance than last week (which to recap was VERRRRY bad). Randy found it OK, but sleepy. Ellen felt every word was "swallowed" in the beginning, but ended with "really really impressive". Kara liked the phrasing, and "kind of liked it". Simon loves the song but found it indulgent on Crystal Bowersox. Keeping it real, Simon marked this as "OK week 2 of 2". I'm seeing a the flashing yellow light for Crystal here. And then she got defensive. And insulted American Idol. And the Ryan diffused the tension with a redirect to her "pretty dress". Smooth move by Ryan.

Michael "Big Mike" Lynche - 1-800-Idols-04:
Contagious? We'll see. The way you look tonight. Mike's opening note was awesome, but the stride up to the Mike, could have used a little more polish. And then he dropped the best performance of the night. Unless X does better. But, then, that would be the best performance of the decade. End of story. There is NO WAY Lee is going to surpass that. Almost *exactly* how Frank would have done - in essense; this was VERY far from kareoke. Randy went wild. Ellen found him to have the most comfort and ease of movement. Charisma plus, plus. Kara enjoyed the journey and never lost sight of "Big Mike" in the performance. Simon used the word "loved" and observed that everything worked together in the performance.

Lee DeWyze - 1-800-Idols-05:
That's Life. Which kind of sums up the performance. The absolute best song ever. It's like winning the lottery for Sinotra songs, and Ellen went so far as to say that "If this were the last night of performances, you'd have just won the whole thing." Kara echoed the sentiment and assigned Lee to write "I can win this thing" 100 times on a nice sheet of paper. Simon called it "by far, the best performance of the night". By far? Really? Boy, the short term memory on the right side of the judges table is getting shorter by the performance. Meanwhile, Randy was ga-ga for it and appreciated the withstanding sense of "guitar rock" that Lee bought to it, despite the organ and the Big Band. Speaking of the organ, Ellen was distracted by the organ being on the stage even more so than the piano (smile).

Best Of Night?
Wow, what a toss up. It's definately Lee vs. Mike. As to which one get's the nod, well, America - don't forget to vote!

Worst? Casey.

Tomorrow:
Tomorrow, we move down to the top 4!

See you here!