'Idol': David Cook 'wins the night'

A judge and the producers threw two curveballs at David Cook, but he made solid contact on both.

Season 7 of "American Idol" is sputtering to a finish, and the contestants can't be blamed solely. Several times this season, the producers have made bad administrative choices -- two weeks of the Beatles; two Neil Diamond songs in one night; Andrew Lloyd Webber week -- that torpedoed whatever momentum the show had mustered. Tuesday night, the contestants and especially the producers were at fault for deflating a showcase evening with bad song choices.

Even if yours is the most popular show on television, you're asking a lot of an audience when you make it sit through just 90 seconds of Dan Fogelberg's "Longer," Aerosmith/Diane Warren's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and a song about penguins from the animated film "Happy Feet." Those missteps were compounded by the contestants' choices, which turned out to be nearly as bad.

When the night was over, the consequences seemed murky. It looks like Syesha Mercado will go home Wednesday, but I'm not sure the evidence against her is rock solid. Simon Cowell declared David Cook the winner, and he might have been, but it wasn't in  a blowout. The roll call:

David Archuleta leads off  the show and we are presented with the Final 3 routine: The songs in Round 1, the judges' choices, will be presented in footage from each contestant's homecoming last weekend. For Little D, the announcement comes from the  the mayor of whatever town in Utah he's from, a guy in an American flag shirt who has a handlebar mustache like the horns on an Oklahoma steer. With great Mormon/redneck flair, he announces Paula's choice: Billy Joel's "And So It Goes."

We then go live to Paula, who explains the pick: "It's a beautiful song ... I know you can handle it" and she says something flattering about Little D's timbre. He, in turn, gives her that dead-eyed Stepford stare and a smile as wide and bright as a fleet of white limousines. Either he has no idea what timbre is or he's so nervous he's just trying hard not to pee his pants.

It turns out Billy J was a a wise pick for Little D, but his version is so Josh Groban-gooey I want to leave the room building city hemisphere. So the vocals are fine, but the boy has other problems. His body is illiterate: It speaks no language. He doesn't know how to stand comfortably, and he still hasn't figured out what t do with his empty hand, so he repeats the same underhand motion -- like he's pitching a Whiffle ball to a 4-year-old. And he sustains that same vacant/panicked look -- which must be the one look he hasn't been told to wipe off his face.

The camera goes to daddy, who beams like an owner watching his horse warm up for the Kentucky Derby. He's proud: Little D has coasted through another creamy ballad. The judges are split along the usual lines:  Randy: "Paula chose a dope song; you can sing anything." Then he resorts to his usual dried-up, worthless bromides: "You were in the zone ... You're in it to win it." Paula, who picked the song: "It was pure and sunny." You know, like concentrated orange juice. Simon is closer to the truth: It was good but predictable.

Next we see Syesha Mercado riding in a limo through her hometown in Florida, reading a text message from Randy: You are doing Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You." Back at the ranch, Randy explains why he wants her to do exactly what he has told her to stop doing: sing a song made famous by a diva. "She's young, hot and talented. I had a feeling she loves Alicia as much as I do." Or he was too lazy to put more than 3 seconds of thought into it.

Too bad for Syesha. It's a dull song with no pronounced melody -- typical modern R&B: lots of flair, no pop. She does OK with it, laying down a sweet run at the end. Still, it feels generic, forgettable. Randy loved it before she started: "I could see your heart beat" (That's not what you were looking at). Paula says everything except she liked it: "I'm proud. It's hard to do a song identified with an artist." Then comes the ultimate faint praise: "You look stunning." Simon is nonplussed: "You sang it well." Then: "I wish Randy had chosen something that would make you sound original." It's a good point, given how she has been hammered by Randy for doing Whitney, Mariah and Fantasia. But Jackson doesn't want to hear that: "She changed it a lot." Simon: "Not enough." And then the marital spat is on.

David Cook is next and the nation gets to watch a snippet of our local Fox 4 morning news from Friday, which is where Cook read a text messge from Simon telling him he'd be singing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." It's a Roberta Flack classic and, by far, the biggest stretch for any of the Final 3. Simon explained: "I wanted him to do something different. He has the chance to show originality. It's a very tough song." Yes it is. And it's way, way more iconic than the other two combined. The pressure is on.

Off the bat, D. Cook plays it straight -- too straight, uncomfortably straight, down to the strings and guitar. But before things get too uncomfortable, the song get stormy and rockier. Better. He brings it home loud and hard. It was good, fine, solid, the best of the three. In the audience, his mother beams.

Randy is still pissed at Simon so he inflicts his sore-loserness on his verdict: "You can sing the phone book ... but I didn't like the choice." Paula, who has alarmingly become a voice of reason, tells the boys to knock it off, then is a little too generous with the praise: "I love that song. You're my second-favorite person who sings it." Simon is even more generous and without humility:  "It was one of your best performances. This is what makes you brilliant. It was original. Round 1 to Cook and Cowell." Great: a battle within the battle between two fat egos.

Round 2: The contestants' choices. Little D goes contemporary/urban: "With You" by Chris Brown. Uh-oh. This will require mucho body language -- verbiage and syntax his legs and hips haven't been schooled in. Daddy can teach you pitch and timbre, little boy, but he can't give you soul. He can make you sound like an R&B horndog, but he can't show you how to move like one.

So he starts the song and nothing is right about it. For starters, he looks like his mom dressed him in his favorite Garanimals outfit, which is all shades of UPS brown. His voice is OK, as usual, but the rest of him is riding a horse he can't handle. I am not feelling a note of this. Maybe he should have cheated again and tossed in some Sean Kingston or Akon or James Brown or REO Speedwagon or the Sex Pistols or Air Supply or something. Anything.

The judges aren't impressed. Randy: I applaud the new song but it wasn't the right song. Seeing you sing "My boo": I couldn't believe it. Paula is back in the valley of denial: "It was perfect, the right tone. You should sing songs like this. It's part of who you are." Then she slips in a sharp dig: You kind of oversang part of it. Simon praises the intent but slams the results: "I applaud you for not doing a treacly ballad but you looked like a chihuahua trying to be a tiger. It was awkward." And as the insults reach him, Little D smiles wide and the head bobbles. I've heard worse, he must be thinking.

Syesaha: She makes a more unfortunate pick: "Fever" by Peggy Lee. Why? "I like the vibe." She can't play guitar so she is going to employ a chair as a prop. Her performance is not great: The big, high notes are weak and the chair isn't doing anything to help. She looks great, but nothing about this gives me a fever. And I don't like the vibe; it taxiis too long without taking off. She adds another frilly ending with liquid runs. Again, it's just OK, a little too theatrical, and I have a strong feeling someone is going to call it cabaret.

"The Mod Squad"? No, it's the Big 3 of Season 7 of "American Idol."

Randy, whose opinions now have abandoned any sense of consequence: You sang it amazingly well. (He is still fighting the Alicia Keys battle). Paula: You look lovely (which means she didn't like it). Then: "I'm surprised you picked that song. I'm not sure it shows me who you are." At that point, Syesha realizes she has lost her best fake friend. Simon is curt and brief: You will regret this. You had a chance to prove you are a real recording artist and you did lame cabaret.

D. Cook is next and he pulls a switcheroo. Instead of Collective Soul's "The World I Know," he does Switchfoot's "Dare You to Move," an adult-alternative/modern-rock ballad -- a Daughtry song. Too bad he changed. I don't like this song at all; the melody is flat and the arrangement is noisy. His voice handles it fine, but nothing much happens until the end, when he blows it up good. This will be his bread and butter when he gets out of here, but for 90-seconds in a high-pressure moment, it doesn't really connect. Randy: Not your best. It was pitchy. Paula is coherent and accurate again: "You weren't able to do enough of the song," meaning: Pick songs where the melody pops out immediately. Simon: It was pretty much what I expected. It wasn't the most melodic song.

Round 3

The producers' choice. Little D gets one of the sappier songs ever written: Dan Fogelberg's "Longer." They've done him no favors. A fresh-faced 17-year-old shouldn't sing New Age lyrics about "stars in the heaven." He applies his usual marinade: It's buttery and treacly -- as sweet as a box of kittens. Randy hits all the old alt-keys: " .. sing the phone book! .. In the zone! ... Hot! ..." Paula: "It was lovely." Simon: "I'm not gonna criticize you, because you sang it well." So he disses the dead man who wrote it and the producers who picked it. "The lyrics were horrible. A song for a 90-year-old." Then, with two more songs to go,  Simon boldly says: "You're in the finals." Maybe he could feel daddy's glare on his neck.

Syesha: She gets a song I don't know: "Hit Me Up," from the "Happy Feet" soundtrack. First "Cats," now penguins. It's a generic uptempo pop/funk number with lots of energy and percussion, but (again) not much melody. She delivers a decent performance of a dull, amorphic song and looks great doing it. Maybe she should take a swing at "America's Next Top Model." Randy: It was OK. Paula loves the singer but not the song. Then she gets shockingly frank and uncommonly bold: "It may not be enough to get you through." Her party peed on, Syesha nonetheless maintains her smile. Simon: Your best moment was last week. Nothing this week topped that. The song was forgettable. It wasn't a defining moment.

D. Cook is the evening's final performer, and the producers ask him to sing "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing," a song written for Aerosmith by Diane Warren, who is also in the theater.

Ugh. I don't like the song. Cook does with it all that he can. At first it's midtempo  -- with a string section -- and it sounds fine. He's not Steven Tyler and he wisely doesn't try to be. About halfway through, he goes big and loud, but the arrangement starts to go heywire: The lead guitar is too loud and it overwhelms the vocals, and the very end sounds chaotic.

Yet, when it's over, Paula is standing. (Everyone is very aware of the presence of the lady who wrote it.) Randy: I love the song but the performance was predictable. (He's still sulking.) Paula bows to Diane Warren, then: "See you in the finals." Simon must have sipped some of Paula's Kool-Aid: "It is one of the greatest songs of all time. ... You win the night."

Wednesday: The field gets trimmed to two, and the finale is on. Syesha, who has been hanging on for weeks, will most likely go home, leaving the climax to two contestants in completely different narratives: a boy and his dad; and a distracted kid brother.

Comments

[Mary]

Unfortunately, Syesha missed her chance to shine through. It looks like she came on stage suffering from a bad case of "FEVER". "Little" David A. once again demonstrated that he has a melodious voice capable of delivering the tedious, saccharine, boring ballad. His dad's strategy will probably keep him on the show one week "LONGER" than Syesha. David Cook's own choice of song was no better than his opponents' choices but he didn't "...MISS A THING" on his first and last songs! In my perfect world,David A. will leave tonight and David Cook will be the next American Idol.

[Vandelay]

My biggest gripe with this show is that they don't let the contestants sing more than 90 seconds of a song. With just three contestants left, there's no reason you can't let them sing 3-minute versions of one or two songs each.

I agree that David Cook "won the night", but it wasn't perfect. "The First Time Ever I Saw" was the best performance of the night. His falsetto was excellent, and the 90-second version of the song still had a nice emotional build-up. "Dare You To Move" wasn't a good choice for him. His lower register isn't strong, and the entire verse was in that lower register. (I'm assuming that the Collective Soul song was his first choice, but they couldn't obtain the rights in time). "Don't Want to Miss A Thing" was ok, but the tempo felt a little hurried. Dianne Warren's friend (her agent, maybe?) seemed to love it, giving David the "we're not worthy" gesture. I have to guess that Warren met with him yesterday to discuss working together.

I'd really like to see Cook make it into the finals -- the whole "expectations game" seems to require it -- but I think I'll be happy if he doesn't win it.

[HeatherJo]

There's a part of me that thinks Syesha picked the best song for herself - at least if she wants to go into musical theater. She's got to know she isn't going to win Idol, so why not set up for her Broadway career? She was off tempo and a tad flat for big portions of the songs. Little David's singing is gorgeous, but you've got it right -- he sure doesn't know how to move. David Cook has a lot of talent, but I didn't think his voice was all there last night. He sounded like he had strained his voice during the week or was dealing with congestion. He's definitely the best and most deserving, though.

[Casey]

It does seem, at times, as though Paula has gone without medication over the past two weeks. And that's a good thing.

Okay, it's either the lack of medication, or sitting next to a nonsensical ass-clown in Randy Jackson. Either way, she's become more coherent.

[Donna]

I am totally in David Cook's corner, but I thought he was a little off last night. He sounded flat at the beginning of all three of his songs. But I agree with Simon...he won the night and, hopefully, will be in the finals next week (probably with the other David - gag!)

[Tim Finn]

I thought his voice sounded tired, too. Last weekend probably took a lot out of all of them.

[Tim Finn]

Off point, but funny: I overheard Kathy Lee say this during the fourth-hour of "Today," when they were talking about "Idol" and goofs like Sanjaya: "I miss that Hung guy."

[Chris Foster]

If you have any testosterone at all flowing through your body, you were turned on by Fever.

That song is never out of style. Syesha nailed it.

I do think David Cook took the night.

[Chris Foster]

I am tired of Archuleta. I am trying not to be biased for DC but DA just bores me with his sappy teenie bopper vocals.

[Tim Finn]

Chris Foster, I've wondered where you've been. Little D is spooky. I see gloom and weirdness in his future, the Michael Jackson kind. As for Syesha and "Fever": She looked great (you know, molten-lava-boiling-water-jalapeno-pepper hot), but I wasn't buying the song. Why not try some Amy Winehouse or something more contemporary?