ScarletDevilCCX

Valenzano's "Plums Up" wine tonight, because why would I have anything other than wine on Mother's Day? Speaking of plums, Ryan's wearing an interesting purple suit and an even more interesting tie. We've also got Coldplay tonight, and Casey Bishop's leading off with "Paradise". Chris Martin is clearly a Casey fan, but I personally think this performance was a bit chaotic, not really in her wheelhouse. But that can't always be helped with single-artist theme nights. I give her a 70. Chayce Beckham is up second with "Magic", which is one I'm not familiar with, but it's pretty awesome. 82.

Willie Spence is up third, singing one of Coldplay's first songs, "Yellow". He's a Coldplay fan and gets a selfie with Chris. And wow, what a comeback! I'm always hesitant to give out 100s this early in a show because I don't want to go beyond 100 and it's way too early to definitively call it the best of the night, but what else can I do? I can always adjust it down later if I need to. This was flawless. Luke says what all of us have been thinking for four years now, that we want more episodes of this. Up fourth is Caleb Kennedy doing a country reimagining of "Violet Hill". He says it was hard to pick a Coldplay song because he'd never listened to them before. He asks if this is a deep cut, and Chris says that it's actually the first Coldplay song ever. Interesting. The special effects team obviously didn't get the message that this is country; it's a very rock performance. ...Actually, they got the intended message just fine, because this is a kind of rock performance; I might charitably call it "country rock" but really it's just rock with a twang. Also...it's the best performance I've ever heard from him. 91. I'm shook. Apparently he even realizes that he's more of a songwriter than a singer. Tonight, he was a singer.

Arthur Gunn is up fifth, and it sounds like he's picked a good one. ...Or maybe not. He's doing "In My Place", which is definitely not the song they were playing while introducing his segment. We're still in the session with Chris and already I'm ready to give him a low score. His actual performance is...better than what he was doing with Chris, but still not good. 33. Apparently he changed up a lot to make it his own, and told Chris as much. Luke liked this; Katy maybe not so much. Up sixth is Grace Kinstler, who was torn between "Hymn for the Weekend" and "Fix You"; she decided on the former. Do I recognize that song? I don't by the title, but maybe I do. Chris feels it isn't a great fit and asks her to try "Fix You", and he seems to think it's a better fit. So maybe we're hearing "Fix You" after all? Yep, we are. The crowd loves it. I find it...understated, at first. But it finds a groove and...it's not bad. 66. Lionel says that everyone's afraid to fail, but her flaws are her magic. Katy...I've already forgotten what Katy said because I was busy writing about Lionel and talking to my mom.

The Top 5 will be mentored by...Finneas? I think that's how that's spelled? I vaguely feel like I've heard of him but it doesn't rate with me. Coldplay's debut album "Parachutes" was one of the first CDs Hunter Metts owned as a kid...along with the Chicken Little soundtrack. Okay, sure. He's doing "Everglow". It's...good right up until the point his voice cracks. Ouch. I really liked it overall but I've got to dock him for how all over the place his voice got. 64. Still, Hunter's been redeeming himself for me. We're just about to the halfway point, which means my sister just got off from work and is calling to wish Mom a happy Mother's Day. She accidentally hangs up, and I tell her that my sister's going to tease her about that. Anyway, Coldplay's performing now...that's not the Idol stage. That's a soundstage. Which explains why it sounds so different; we're basically watching a music video instead of a live performance. This is their new song, "Higher Power".

We're still in commercial break but there's an ad for a new show on Nat Geo Network, "Breaking Bobby Bones". Don't we wish. We come back, and Ryan and Luke are sharing a chair and Luke sees that Ryan's job is hard. Casey Bishop is back, singing "Ironic" by Alanis Morrissette. Hey, remember what I said about being afraid to give out 100's early in the show? Looks like I had nothing to worry about. ...Except I often start giving out the rating before the song finishes, so it changed from "yeah, I can give out multiple 100s" to "yes, this is worth breaking the rating scale for." 103. We go to commercial after just one performance, but when we get back, Chayce's song for his mother is...an original?! Yes please.

We return from commercial with Ryan trying to decide the pronunciation of "aunts", and then we get Chayce singing "Mama". ...I think Chayce has won the night. Even if he doesn't get the highest aggregate score, he's won the night, and possibly the show. I'll give this a 90, so he's certainly still in the running for winning the aggregate...by one point over Casey.

We get Willie Spence singing Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful", and yeah Chayce isn't going to have the highest aggregate on my scorecard. 95. And we've got our second original of the round, "Mama Said" by Caleb Kennedy. We're two for two on great originals. 78. Luke calls him a "true anomaly", and also calls him 15 because all teenagers are 15 to Luke. But Lionel gets the point across, that he's really mature as a songwriter. We finally get Katy reminding us that she's a new mom (although Ryan did so at the start of the show).

Arthur Gunn is up again with Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man". Well, at least he'll be back in his wheelhouse. It's...passable. 54. Lionel gives a critique straight out of the Randy Jackson phrasebook.

Grace Kinstler's doing Adele's "When We Were Young". Haven't we already heard this song in the voting rounds of this season? Maybe not from her though, though I thought it was. Well, whatever, Grace redeemed herself. 98 seems about right, just so it can be clearly slotted. And we get a third original, "The River" by Hunter Metts. It's not written for his mother, but she specifically requested he sing it, so yeah, still a Mother's Day choice. It's not bad, but not great. I guess a...68, except that forces me to bump Casey up so I guess she beat Chayce after all.

In no particular order, the first member of the Top 5 is Casey Bishop. Awesome. And second is Grace Kinstler, just to stick it to all the doomsayers here at IDF who thought that the two of them were doomed this week just for being female. Chayce Beckham is third, and Willie Spence fourth--America's good! And the fifth one is...Caleb Kennedy! All five of the people I voted for! I would've been fine with Hunter staying instead of Caleb, but Arthur leaving was a must for me and the first four they declared safe were the four I absolutely wanted to stay.

Casey made it!

And Grace too! Girl Power!

I feel like Arthur and Hunter should go home. Wouldn't be disappointed if Caleb left instead of Hunter since this was the first time I've liked Caleb, but Arthur's non-negotiable.

3 minutes ago, Solaris said:

I miss the days of the song recaps at the nights end

They expect you to have already finished voting by then.

Well, it's not a song for Mom, but it's Mom's request, so 

Yeah, this sounds like a love song too.

Haven't we already heard this song in the coting rounds this season? Or was it pre-voting? And was it from Grace, like I feel it was, or someone else?

12 minutes ago, Bk1234 said:

Caleb’s best night so far?

Definitely. His Coldplay song was by far his best performance of the show, and he did an original for the Mother's Day round which is always a good sign for him.

Lionel with the critique straight out of the Randy Jackson Phrasebook.

Even if he doesn't end up with the highest aggregate rating for me for the night, I feel like Chayce has just won the night. And possibly the entire show.

Yeah, I agree that was a good comeback song.

My thoughts after the first round: The girls were a bit off tonight; Caleb was the best he's ever been though Willie still won the round; Hunter was good until his voice cracked and then he let it get to him; Arthur Gunn absolutely has to go home.

29 minutes ago, jazzontherocks said:

 

And Laine Hardy won over Alejandro Aranda two seasons ago.

Not an all-male finale. Finales are Top 3 in the ABC era and Madison was third.

I mean, technically the S14 finale started with a female not yet eliminated, but unlike S15 when the whole top three were allowed to sing their OWS before Dalton was announced as the third-place finisher, JAX wasn't allowed to sing anything. (Speaking of which, after having exactly six performances in each of the first 14 finales, we've had a different number of performances every year since the last such year--7 in S15, 9 in S16, 8 in S17, and 10 in S18. I'm looking forward to how they squeeze out 11 next time by having each of the Top 5 do 1 performance before announcing who the actual Top 3 are and making them each do two more.

She was robbed! Put me on the list.

1. Hunter Metts - "You'll Be in My Heart" (Phil Collins)

2. Arthur Gunn - "Remember Me" (from Coco)

3. Grace Kinstler - "Into the Unknown" (Idina Menzel feat. Aurora)

4. Alyssa Wray - "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" (Ilene Woods)

5. Casey Bishop - "When She Loved Me" (Sarah McLachlan)

6. Chayce Beckham - "Baby Mine" (Betty Noyes)

7. Cassandra Coleman - "Go The Distance" (Michael Bolton)

8. DeShawn Goncalves - "When You Wish Upon a Star" (Cliff Edwards)

9. Willie Spence - "Circle of Life" (Elton John)

10. Caleb Kennedy - "Real Gone" (Sheryl Crow)

That's hardly accurate though. Grace started slowly, but once she hit her stride, she was the best. And honestly, DeShawn might've been the best if they'd allowed him to cut his song 15 seconds shorter instead of having him sing a few awful extraneous choruses. Yes, the guy I had eighth. Oh, right...

11. John Baptiste

Just now, hazuki said:

the countrymen lol

There were actual decent country singers on this season!

...I think. Everyone else here hated Hannah who I liked, and Cecil was legitimately worse than Caleb, and Wyatt wasn't really country plus he withdrew so we can't blame the voters.

Damnit, the voters had one job. Eight out of ten contestants I thought were amazing tonight, and one of the two who wasn't was Willie who's been amazing every night until now. As mad as I'd be if one of my favorites left, I'd take pretty much any combination of three contestants leaving gracefully as long as Caleb Kennedy was part of it!

1 minute ago, joe14 said:

Last minute predictions

 

Alyssa, Deshawn, Caleb?

 

I can't really say. Maybe replace Caleb with Cassandra.

Sounds good to me. I love Deshawn, and he was great up until that unfortunate ending, but he was in my bottom three just by ratings.

Caleb needs to go.

Alyssa was good tonight, but she's been weak a bit

Okay, yeah. I've always been a generous rater, but I feel like in previous episodes this year I've been at least a little harsher than in years past?

Not tonight. Tonight I gave out 5-star ratings to the final eight contestants. We are absolutely guaranteed that someone I liked tonight will go home.

Okay wow. I'm happy that Hunter decided to turn it into a ballad instead of trying to imitate the original (which Dimitri was amazing on; totally robbed getting sent home for that.). That was the best I've heard him and...possibly the best of the night? It's hard to say, though, because this night's been so stacked that "the ending that never should have been" might actually make DeShawn deserving of his trip home. Depends on how Grace does.

Well, except for John Baptiste, but he's just a guest star so thankfully we're guaranteed to send him home.

Cassandra's going to just keep being this under-the-radar force, isn't she? I always forget that she's one of my favorites, and she keeps wowing.

Wow. Last episode we had awful contestants and great professionals. Tonight, we've had one good performance after another, and then this travesty from a pro?

Okay yes he doesn't belong here, but that was impeccable.

Ugh, took so long to get this started. Cape Codder tonight. Our show starts with something called a Sophia Carson singing "A Whole New World", eventually accompanied by the Top 9. Then the judges come out, and this year's Katy Perry Disney Cosplay is Tinkerbell. Tonight's mentor is John Stamos. Also, we've got the results from the comeback show, and unsurprisingly, it's Arthur Gunn. Also, new numbers! Rather than keeping them with the numbers going up to 24, tonight's performance order will be their numbers. Caleb Kennedy is singing "Real Gone" from Cars. It was probably the best that could be expected from him, which is to say, his voice is still awful and he needs to leave. 42; I want to say nice things about everyone because I'm a nice guy, so I'll say...on stage is not where he belongs. Whenever he performs an original, I'm amazed by how great he is as a songwriter at such a young age. But his voice...just isn't there.

Willie Spence is doing a song from Lion King...yeah, it's "Circle of Life". A lot of the pre-show speculation thought Alyssa would do that song. For all I know, she wanted to, but Willie won the hat pick. ...I like his coat. Very appropriate for this performance. That said, this is a bit of a misstep. I think it's maybe only a 55. Definitely the worst performance we've heard out of him.

DeShawn Goncalves is up third, doing "When You Wish Upon a Star". I'm a little worried because this is a fairly short song, but then again, the show cuts longer songs down anyway. And I do have a soft spot for this song. Ryan name-drops a bunch of famous people who are apparently talking about Idol on social media. We see DeShawn at Disney World, completely letting his smooth on-stage demeanor go. He's like a little kid. He's at the piano, and it's grandiose. He gets up after the intro, and we've got a trumpeter, a saxophonist, and a trombonist on stage with him. I love this jazzy rendition, though my worry about the length of the song was founded; it dragged out a bit to fill out the slot and it wasn't good at the end. Still, 82 because of how well it went up until the end.

Casey Bishop's up fourth, and the teaser before the commercial said she'd be singing an "emotional ballad". Also, showed that she's as impeccably dressed as ever. She's from Florida, so she gets to meet up with family at Disney World. We get the theme for next week being Mother's Day, as usual, and also...Coldplay week? Interesting. Oh, she's doing "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2! Brilliant. Yeah, her stepdad and brother show up to surprise her. This performance is...I'm not sure what to make of it. The notes are all over the place, but I think that was intentional? If so, this was very Poppe-esque. Katy's still spouting puns. 88. We're told what's coming up, and it's Hunter doing...a lullaby from Dumbo oh my G-d he's actually doing it. This...this is going to be a trip.

For as serious and at times uptight my father came off, deep down he was just a big kid, just like me. And nothing exemplified that more than the story of him refusing to leave the hotel room go to dinner on his first honeymoon (he got a divorce; my mother is a second wife) until Dumbo was over. (...Wait, this isn't Hunter, it's Chayce. Okay, that's even better; I actually like Chayce. Or is it worse because it increases the chances of me crying?) And even watching it as an adult, he'd still cry when they take Dumbo's mother away. There's something about losing a loved one where you forget all the things you didn't like about them and only remember the things that made them great--perhaps in part because seeing all the well-wishers, they only saw his good side. It's been almost two years since I found him having a stroke on the bathroom floor. I'm going to cry. The song's over, I'm just barely not crying. 85. I'm still crazy about it. Also, hello again, Graham DeFranco! Also, we're not going to commercial yet. Alyssa Wray is a big Cinderella fan and she's doing "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes". She's wearing a big shimmery dress and looking like a real Disney princess...oh, right. This is the type of song that she's actually good at, which means we might be stuck with her for another week when, presumably, the theme will be awful for her and she'll put up two stinkers. ...92. I was about to give it a lower number and then she went full Whitney on the ending.

Arthur Gunn is giving us the annual performance of "Remember Me" from Coco. Wow, this is pretty good! And he plays off the band (the trumpet/sax/trombone trio from DeShawn's number is back). 97. Hard to believe that DeShawn's performance, which seemed damn near perfect until he missed some notes during an ending that never should have been, could end up as one of the worst performances of the night.

John Batiste is coming on to do the theme from Soul, before Cassandra Coleman brings us back to the competition with an Oscar-nominated song from Hercules. ...Oh wow. Last week, we had awful performers and amazing professionals, and this week, we've got one great performance after another and then this travesty of a song and singer from a guest star. Even with a 30-point stage presence bonus, this performance is a 26. I'm not kidding; this was awful. Also, Cassandra's a Star Wars geek? She, too, gets a surprise visit from family at Disney World. She's doing "Go the Distance". I love her dress; she themed it well to her movie choice. I wasn't sure about this song choice since it's one that Herc sings in the movie, but it still works with a female singer. 84.

Angry Orchard Unfiltered again. Yes, that's right, we're going double tonight. I might need it since Hunter Metts is up now and he's doing Tarzan. "You'll Be In My Heart", which has been done very well on this show before. We're revisiting the mistake in the previous show. He, too, gets a surprise visit from family. ...He barely even has to start the song and I'm rethinking my feelings about him. Wow. This is the Hunter Metts we need! 100. I like it as a ballad, and I'm glad he didn't try to imitate the original.

Grace Kinstler is closing out the show with "Into the Unknown" from Frozen II. It starts a little shaky, but she gets into it eventually. How about a...96, if only because of the slow start. Once she got going, it was the best.

The first contestant into the Top 7 is Chayce Beckham. Second is Casey Bishop. So far, so good. Third is Willie Spence, and fourth is Hunter Metts. Fifth...damnit, you had nine choices to put someone deserving through and you picked the one bad one. Caleb Kennedy's through. He's followed by Grace Kinstler, and the final spot belongs to...Arthur Gunn. Well, Alyssa going home is fine, and DeShawn, I like him but I'm not surprised he's gone. Only real disappointment is Cassandra gone and Caleb there.

Just now, *Wallace said:

I actually really liked Alyssa's peformance and thought it was beautiful. I was unsure on some of the scatting in the middle - but liked the softer parts and belting. One of my favorite performances from her.

 

And her dress was very beautiful.

 

Some of you all are too harsh on her.  

I agree. A lot of people hate the belting? I think that's the best part. When she's being a Whitney wannabe, she's actually pretty good. It's her performances in other genres, like when she did the Carrie Underwood song, that I've hated her.

Unfortunately, that was brilliant. She went full Whitney on that ending which is perfect because she's at her best when she's channeling Whitney.

The reason it's unfortunate is because whenever she gets out of that niche, she's awful. I'm dreading the idea of her still being here for Coldplay week.

Well, I managed to get through it without crying. Yay?