The 3 Gs of American Idol: Week 3

The 3 Gs of American Idol

In a departure from our normal content, we will be guiding you through this season of American Idol from The A Cappella Blog’s perspective. We’re going to do this through the 3 Gs format.

Great/Good: Represents my thoughts on the best performance(s) of the night—these are the star-makers, the tearjerkers, the ones we’re all going to remember.

Gone: Represents my thoughts on the contestant(s) who I think is most likely to be going home (not necessarily the one I think should be going home).

Give it a second look: Represents the act(s) you might not remember, or that we might not have expected much from, but which delivered just the same, and deserve another listen.

Here are my thoughts from tonight’s episode:

GOOD

Crystal Bowersox gives us one reason she should stay here: I was skeptical of Crystal’s act in the early-going, but week in and week out she’s turning in the most consistently strong performances of anyone on Idol. Mellow as it may have been, this performance was more comfortable, confident, and professional than any act, male or female this week.

Andrew Garcia rubs things the right way: Say what you will about this being re-hash of Andrew’s “Straight Up” style from before. It was a nice twist on an established song and one of the best sounding performances this week.

Todrick Hall finally just sings: I’ve been a big critic of Todrick’s performances up to this point. This week, he took a back to basics approach, and demonstrated his actual singing ability. The result? Far and away his best performance since Hollywood, and one of the strongest male showings for the week.

GONE

This is the end of Lacey Brown’s story: I’m not sure how Lacey has survived this long. Honestly, this was probably her best performance to date, but I don’t think it was good enough to pull her into any sort of contention.

Aaron Kelly isn’t going to be there for long: OK, I get that Aaron is the teen wunderkind of the year. He’s got a very good voice, but he just hasn’t arrived as a performer just yet. Last week’s performance was weak; this week’s was better, but just not competitive with the field.

GIVE IT A SECOND LOOK

Alex Lambert tries to work his way out of trouble: I have been hard on Alex over the last couple weeks. It’s never been because I didn’t like his voice, but I thought his song selections were hit and miss, and that he always looked painfully awkward on stage. The judges are right, though—he has improved with every performance. He looked less awkward this time around, and picked the perfect song to complement his voice in Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble.” Nice showing.