At last, productive tears on "Idol"

We've been waiting for this: At last, someone has properly timed her "American Idol" tears.

Those tears do no good on results night, when they flow so easily. They need to appear right after Simon Cowell levels his criticism and before anyone votes.

Jason Castro has no sense for this. People criticize him and he grins sheepishly. Maybe he knows the criticism is right; maybe he doesn't care. Either way, no one runs to his defense. Syesha, by comparison, flowed with tears, stirred by the mixed emotions of being both praised and criticized; she'll stay.

Here are a few of my comments; please add yours: 

1) Maybe it's just me, but if I were in a music contest and had a good voice -- two enormous if's -- I would choose a song that emphasized the singing. In tonight's first round, however, that rarely happened. Three of the four songs reminded us what a great back-up band "Idol" has, but didn't emphasize the singing.

2) Only David Archuleta took the obvious step: He took two of the greatest singer songs in rock history -- "Stand By Me" and "Love Me Tender" -- and sang them as if this mattered.

3) Of course, it would be jarring to see the original "Love Me Tender" alongside David's. Elvis Presley always seemed on the verge of unbridled sex; David Archuleta seems on the verge of a firm handshake.

4) Two of tonight's local commercials were for a tractor-supply store and a rural lender. Just who do they assume the "American Idol" audience is, anyway?

5) Every week, I love Syesha Mercado, other people like her, Simon Cowell seems to hate her. One of us is confused. As she stood there -- a splendid, golden statue with a diva voice -- I was thoroughly impressed.

6) OK, I'll give you this: Syesha was kind of stretching it when she found a parallel between the civil rights movement and her good fortune on "American Idol." Her look and phrasing had zero to do with Sam Cooke's song about rising from hard times to find a change coming. Still, I loved it anyway.

7) The biggest understatement was from Jason Castro: "I lost some lyrics in there. That's kind of bad." Kind of.

8) Hey, blame it on Bob Dylan. He writes a lot of words, some of them large. You can't expect Jason to remember all of them

9) At least, Jason followed Paula Abdul's advice to keep singing, no matter what. If he could cry instead of grin, he might even stick around.

10) Now the should-will: Should go, Jason. Will go, Jason. Should have gone weeks ago, Jason. Should survive next week, too, inexplicably giving us three people in the final two: Syesha and David Cooke and David Archuleta.

Comments

[Maggy]

Completely agree this week with Mike's comments regarding Jason. Bye bye pretty boy.

I thought Syesha did wonderfully, however I wonder if Simon's positive comments after her Sam Cooke song were sincere or were they made under pressure? After Paula's crowd-pleasing praise and the tirade of tears, it would have been hard for Simon to say "It was okay."

If we had to download an album, it would most likely be from David Cook. So I guess we're rooting for him, though the Davids and Syesha all have been performing impressively these last several weeks.

[Peg]

The only tragedy about losing Jason now is that he took up a spot that should have been used by somebody else for several weeks.

I do think Syesha will go next week, although she has really bumped up her game and her sophistication.

In the battle of David vs. David, I prefer Cook. That Archuleta kid has some great pipes, but I keep feeling like he's a high school choir soloist, not a singer of current popular music. He could sing a million covers and be perfect on every note, but what is HIS style?

Course, it makes no difference because Cook is off to a fabulous commercial career as soon as Idol is over. ... think Daughtry, only bigger. Syesha is guaranteed to be be on Broadway by next year. (LaKisha Jones was not as good and she's already done Broadway.) But can Archuleta do better than Studdard and Hicks?

Now, we wait.

[Emily Meyer (Mark Meyer's daughter)]

I think Jason will stay. I know that in the past weeks he hasn't done well but he isn't a future broadway star, a teenybopper, or a die hard rocker. He is a mellow folk singer who took the chance at being different and stood out for the better!