Finally, tonight, it was time for America to make some choices. Ryan Seacrest sported a new, wavier, Billy Bush-ier ’do and Randy evidently beat up a circus clown and stole his shirt for the occasion. So we knew it was going to be a special night. Let’s get right to what happened when the Top 13 boys sang whatever the hell they wanted to. Incidentally (and this is going to apply to the whole season), unless I say otherwise, if I neglect to say what the judges thought of a singer, you can just assume that they loved him or her.
I can definitely see myself getting sick of Reed Grimm a few episodes from now (especially when Randy pointed out that he’s reminiscent of Casey Abrams), but I’ll give him points tonight for starting the show off interestingly. I wonder, first of all, if there was any blowback regarding his choice to sing “Moves Like Jagger,” a song by one of the guys and the girl from The Voice. The slow, jazzy arrangement wasn’t exactly my taste, nor did I think it was the coolest, smoothest move to have Reed shimmy his way over to a set of snares for a drum solo—but again, it was a lot more interesting than the performances we typically see so early in the competition. I also found it sort of charming that his mic pack fell out of his pants and he was able to grab it and play around with it a little bit. Maybe I just like Reed tonight because he said “Oh, sweet cheese curds” during his taped segment back home in Wisconsin.
I also wasn’t sure how I felt about Adam Brock heading into tonight (he has a little Gokey stink on him), but I actually warmed to him after his video package. Between his cute house and his cute baby and his cute dog and his cooking and musical skills, I bet it’s really fun to hang out at his place. He showed off the “black woman trapped inside [his] body” with Aretha Franklin’s “Think.” I like it when people on this show take on songs that are typically sung by a member of the opposite sex, and Adam was solid, throwing in a little bit of ’tude at the start of his performance. It dragged a tiny bit toward the end but then he finished on a big note. So I was pretty impressed so far with the first performance show.
I cooled off a little, though, on Deandre Brackensick. I have a feeling his performance came off a lot better live than it did on TV (unless I just have a thing against falsetto, which is possible). I thought his version of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Reasons” seemed a a little hesitant and mumbly, but the crowd and the judges lost their minds. So who is wrong, me or them? You know the right answer.
I have to be objective when it comes to Colton, whom I wanted to dislike because I don’t really care for the type of song he performed tonight (Paramore’s “Decode”) and the fact that he seems so already self-assured of his own rock-star-dom (like James from last season). However, I also have to admit that Colton’s a strong singer and piano player and he seems remarkably confident in terms of what kind of musician he is. I wasn’t sure at first what the judges would think, since there was a shot of Jennifer looking concerned during his performance, but the judges loved him, although Randy saying that Colton is “our own little indie-alt-rocker singing like Paramore” sounded like a backhanded compliment to me.
I really like Jeremy Rosado and per my thing about “girl songs” was piqued that he chose “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles. I think he suffered a little bit in terms of placement in the episode: His performance was fine but nothing special—it needed either a little more authority or perhaps a slightly different arrangement. The fact that Jeremy was wearing the standard issue Idol-boy Members-Only-ish jacket didn’t help, either. But I liked the shot of Jennifer and Steven’s faces both “melting” during the performance.
Shortly before Marcellus’ performance, Steven tried his best to start a judges’ feud by going “Who am I?” and pulling out his nipple, teasing Jennifer about her alleged nip-slip on the Oscars. I’m of two minds about this: It was crude and not very funny on Steven’s behalf, but at the same time, this show was such a lovefest by this point, with nary a word of criticism uttered toward any of the singers, that maybe I didn’t mind a little strife. Jennifer didn’t seem to love it, that’s for sure. Anyway, Marcellus sang “Never Can Say Goodbye” and I started to complain to my laptop about how I couldn’t really see or hear him because he had his head down giving fives to the audience and whatnot but then I changed my mind. He nailed the song and what I liked about his performance was that there seemed to be very little fuss about it: He just came out and sang well like it was a normal day at the office.