magnificent understatement when I say that I do not enjoy Mariah Carey’s music. Which is why, when I learned that this week’s American Idol performances were all going to be from her songbook, I was dismayed.
Partly this is because Carey’s heavily pop-style songs would be very difficult to adapt to suit the voices of a number of this season’s contestants. And, as much as I don’t like her music, she is an enormously talented vocalist (much like Celine Dion in that respect), and just about anyone trying to sing one of her songs would be unfavorably compared to her. Unless they colored outside the lines and made the song their own.
To my mind, two of the Idol finalists did this last night. Jason Castro, who has been increasingly good in recent weeks, did a heartfelt, low-key rendition of I Don’t Wanna Cry, and gave the second best performance of the night.
You know how, when you go to see your favorite artist in concert, and at one point during the show (or more, if you’re lucky), the energy of the audience and the talent of the musicians and the charisma of the artist come together, and magic happens? For the third time this season, magic happened in David Cook’s performance (the first and second being Hello and Billie Jean, respectively). He turned the extremely pop Always Be My Baby into a gorgeous rock ballad, and like his previous two breakout performances—Eleanor Rigby, Little Sparrow and Day Tripper were merely excellent—it absolutely gave me chills.
I’m no longer worried that he won’t succeed. He will, and I will buy his music. Bravo, David.
even the savage beast » Randy Jackson said this week said:
[...] on American Idol that, more than anyone else on the show, David Cook (who, I’ll admit, I have formed a bit of an obsession for) was ready to make an album, and I said that I couldn’t wait to buy his music. [...]
April 18th, 2008 at 1:53 pm