Favorite Performance(s), Songs, moments... Options

[Cheese]

Thanks for posting that pic Candi7of9. I can't decide what I like better - the mic spray or the throbbing vein in his neck.

[Gayl]

Apparently, I am one of only a few people who really liked his "Rocket Man" performance. I think the biggest problem is that "Rocket Man" is such a well-loved song as it is sung by Elton John, that unless a singer sings it like Elton John, people are going to be disappointed. I was so proud of JPL for not trying to sing it karoke, but people do not understand that he put his own style on it. For that reason, I think JPL should have picked a lesser known song.

A "source" near the family reported on idolforums that JPL had been in transition between relying too much on his larynx for support to using his diaphram for breath support. JPL was using his diaphram correctly on "Rocket Man", but his diaphram was still weak because it was not conditioned yet. The weak support and I think his nerves caused his voice to waver throughout the performance, but I could hear past that so I thought he sounded great.

I think the technique problem and his original take on the song combined kept people from appreciating what JPL was trying to do. Which is too bad.

Please notice how much better he sounded while standing next to Elton John in the introduction.

[Green Eyed Soul]

Like everyone else, I lurved the Crazy Love audition. I was going into watching this season feeling pretty *meh* about the whole thing and mostly looking for peeps to make fun of and then there was this really freakin' cute, sleepy boy with that decadent white chocolate voice and shockingly gracious manners. The madcap stepping afterward cinched it for me. I finally had someone to root for on the show.

Lmao at what Cheese Alarm said about calling him the Pen Salesman. I called him that for quite a while in front of the ol' man. I thought prattling off his name, age, stats, favorite artists would have him sleeping with the largest kitchen knife he could find next to him every night. "Oh yeah, that pen salesman guy. I kinda like him."

I'm also one of the few that loved Tiny Dancer. I've played it back quite a few times and I really think he did a great job with it despite some of the odd phrasing *shrugs*

ALLC - As if I could love him anymore, he has to pull out one of the gutsiest performances in the history of AI on a make or break night. A really defining, no turning back moment for me. His vocals sounded great (low voice, grrrr baby) and I loved his offbeat dancing. I even momentarily lurved Paula and wanted to buy her the fanciest, shiniest, rhinestone-encrusted crack pipe around because she compared him to Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger who are living, breathing examples of raucous RAWK star legends. Huge compliment, I thought. And he p*ssed Simon off, which gave me lots and lots of satisfied inner muhahahahahahas.

His hair looked so unkempt and adorable. And those jeans, whoa, squeeEEE! Homeboy was tailor-made for faded blue jeans. He seemed to have so much fun with that performance.

Drift Away - Ok, so I think part of this is that I just really like this song (the Dobie Gray version) Is it soul though? Anyhoo, I thought he started this one off great, not to mention that he looked super-hot, as usual. The end is the only part that gave me pause, not so much for the loss of breath, but more for the way it was arranged, which was not his problem.

This Old Heart of Mine - I thought his vocals sounded really good, albeit a little soft but he was as fetching as ever and deserved better reviews, methinks. He did look a little nervous here though, for the first time, I thought. I completely missed Country night because I was in Vegas. I haven't heard too many good things about it so I've always wondered if that somewhat tentative look on his face was resulting from experiences on that night?

Jailhouse Rock - Our boy totally rocked the effin' house with this. It's a bittersweet moment now in hindsight, but a totally memorable way to go out. It was great - he looked and sounded like a rock star that night.

[Twinkie the Kid]

[SnarkinUSA]

OK, so which haremite's job is it to go get that microphone so we can use his DNA to make clones?

[enjolras19]

Heee. HEEEEE. HA!

hooboy.

Oh...

Does that means it's my job...?

[mockingbird]

great insights, guys, dead-on observations. geez, the mic spray... candi, you really pay attention

i gotta add that i'm also part of the presumed minority who enjoyed "tiny dancer," green-eyed soul. i thought that the sublime quality i heard from his audition voice seemed to resonate most in this performance. maybe because this was an approximation of the unadulterated jpl, before the contradictory coaching among the judges had sunk in. the awkward spots... well, some would owe it to nerves but i thought "tiny dancer" wasn't exactly a song that's ideally sung in excerpts. still, i found his attempt at the perceived flaw of rendering it differently, "cartoonish" and all, more charming. it humanized the moment for me. i didn't really grow up routinely listening to "tiny dancer" on radio, so while i've heard it before, i became truly acquainted with the song by way of the film, "almost famous." i'm really less connected to how elton sang it than to the movie's signature scene of the bus chorus. i loved that movie as cameron crowe's ode to rock and roll; and jpl singing "tiny dancer" felt more like a similar tribute, and i loved him for it, too

i also second your appreciation for TOHM. i thought that was one of his most underrated performances. i didn't understand how the judges failed to recognized that when it appeared as one of jpl's more technically polished numbers. he toned down the crazy dancing (which i dig, nonetheless) and actually conceded to more conventional dynamics. instead of miming the motown sound as maybe, say, george, is wont to do, jp infused it with his own kind of soul, which was a tough feat. vocally, TOHM even sounded like the happy medium between sweet crooner (i just melt at how he smoothly mouthed, "i love YOU...") and the rocker's edge (his toe-curling "growl" as he sings the line "if i'm coming OR going).

anyway, i'm also not much of a fan of his "she believes in me." but i must admit, i loved it as he clutched the mic with both hands (now that's my contribution to the jpl and his mic blow-by-blows ). come to think of it, i'd much rather that he went for "i can't make you love me" (by bonnie raitt, if this can count as country) as a dramatic serenade. oops, i think this idea belongs to another thread

[enjolras19]

I was at the Motown Week taping! I was squealing during TOHOM. I looooved it. He sounded grrrreat LIVE. I was so pumped.

Then, if you saw me in the background (glasses, jean jacket, red hair), I'm totally bored by the rest of the show (save for the moment I roll my eyes after the Fantasia's name should be changed to "Fantastic" lame-ass judge comment).

I also love the way he clutches the mic in "She Believes in Me". Sure it's amateurish or whatever. But, more importantly, it's adoooorable.

[candi7of9]

Gayl: I think the general consensus among JPL fans is that "Rocket Man" started out great, but then degraded a bit when he started wandering the stage. Personally, I groaned when I first heard he was doing the song, because I'd just seen a clip of William Hung singing it a few days before. That is not an Elton John song I am terribly familiar with, so my main impression was that of William Hung doing those jumps and me turning to my mom and saying, "What on earth was he just singing?" And then a week later I hear JPL's going to be singing it. Nooo...Also, I think the lyrics are a bit bad for AI. They're a bit too dark, and "dark" and "thought provoking" are two things the AI audience usually doesn't want to be faced with. But I have to confess I got a kick out of listening to him sing, "I'm gonna be hiiiiiigh as a kite by then."

[krunkyou]

TOHOM was not only one of his best sounding performances, but most definitely one of his most SQUEE worthy, as other Haremites have noted here. Does anybody know where I can get a video of that? I haven't seen it since I deleted it off my Tivo.

[candi7of9]

krunkyou: jonpeterlewis.com has TOHM. Thanks for giving me a reason to go download it. SQUEE! The recording I have of it is better quality, but the file size would be in the area of 1.5 GB. After the show is completely over, I'm going to try to put together a DVD of all the performances I have. We'll see how that goes!

[schmanda42]

Put me down also as a definite fan of "This Old Heart of Mine." Though he started off a bit tentative for the first not-quite-30 seconds, when he hit the "But each day that passes by..." he's fully warmed up, he's going the distance, he going for speeeeeed. His most underrated performance by far.

I lurrrrved me some "Tiny Dancer," probably in no small part too that I was largely unfamiliar with the original vocals. Up to that point in the semi-finals, though, the male entrants had been weaker than weak, and so I found him arresting and passionate and getting major bonus points from me for upping his level of difficulty with that song choice.

I have his everything he sang solo on the show (save for "I Want You Back," since I watched none of the Hollywood shows because I -- get this -- wanted to go into the competition phase with no pre-chosen favorites, though his was the favorite of the auditions I had seen, and by a wide margin, and also excluding "Rocket Man," because that one started off so great but kinda landed with a thud, making me a more than a little sad) and compiled into one mp3 and loaded on my trusty little Rio, which I surreptitiously listen to at work. (Well, surreptitiously nothin', because I've had it rather blatantly sitting out at my workstation -- oh, you should know my job is taking orders for [crappy over-priced catalog retailer where, hrmmm, "It's All Inside"] -- with one earbud in my free, non-headsetted ear, and have had center managers and assorted bigwigs happen by, and no one has said anything. Yet. And even of they do, to hell with it, I'm working better with that as background noise than hearing the chatter of all the other operators around me.)

Anyway, that particular track gets repeated a bunch, and I find that, without fail, when "A Little Less Conversation" is over, I'm grinning ear-to-ear like a damn fool. This one Has It All: again, bonus points for difficulty, we get plenty of SexyVoice passages, and just thinking back to his exhilarating, off-the-hook, "top this, suckas!" performance will never fail to make me smile and swoon and ultimately be entertained for the rest of my days.

As for the Round-of-12 down through Round-of-8 performances, I thought he had a Bret Saberhagen-esque thing going on, where every other performance was good and in between (this would be "She Believes in Me" and "Rocket Man," of course) was... not so much. His obvious discomfort aside (I think the flat-ironing of his hair, cute-though-nondescript as it was, may have sapped him of his powers), I actually liked "She Believes in Me" a little bit more than most, but I'm sure that's owing in large part to my having had a crush on that song since I was 10 years old (to wit: my dad about wore that Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits tape out when I was a kid, and, God help me, I helped a great deal by sneaking it out to listen to it on occasion. I spotted it now on CD in a MegaloMart not long after Country Night and seriously considered getting it -- I still might, in fact. Yes, I'm a sad, sad person.).

What needs to be said of my love for "Jailhouse Rock," other than "God bless the midgetous geek-rockers, for they shall inherit -- if ultimately not the Idol crown -- my unending love and affection for going roughly batshit, Simon-be-damned, in the face of the Parade o' Ballads." And you know the rest of the "going out on top"-cakes refrain.

And all of this is to say nothing of the immense enjoyment it got out of the group sings he was in, not only for the fact that he seemed to be most relaxed, having fun and bringing the vocals, but also because I found something squee-worthy in every single one.

[Cheese]

Oooohhhh the Daniel mic stand. Notice how it's too tall for him. Squee!!! (The first picture of rainbow shirt hideous hat RoseBowl Matt needs a warning, though.)

And I ::heart:: the "Treasure Hunter" jacket. Actually spent a good two hours looking for a place that sells the "Treasure Hunter" jacket on the Internet. What the hell do I think I would do with it if I found it? Mr. Cheese would think it a bit strange if I started dressing in men's vintage track jackets with random words on them since my "style" (bwah!) is pretty GenX suburban mommy these days - ie., boot cut jeans and black shirt.

Word on the TOHOM performance, which I forgot to mention above. When he does the "not to proud to shout it, tell the world about it" I want to jump my TV screen. Didn't get the judge's comments at all.

[enjolras19]

I.


have.

a huuuuuuuuuuuuge.

crush.

[Cheese]