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Putting my own funk on it
How great are the songs of Lennon and McCartney? Even though I hated (hated, and that’s putting it mildly) Kristy Lee Cook’s version of “Eight Days a Week” on American Idol tonight, I still found myself singing along with it. The “risk” she took turned something which is almost a country song to begin with and made it so hoe-downy that it was painful to listen to. I was reaching for the fast-forward button on my remote after half a verse.

With that quibble out of the way, I thought tonight’s Beatles tribute night was a triumph for almost all of the contestants. There were some exceptions, and I didn’t always agree with the judges. I didn’t think Carly Smithson’s “Come Together” was nearly as wonderful as they did, for example. I thought she screeched a little too much. Sorry.

On the other hand, the judges didn’t seem to feel very warmly toward Jason Castro’s version of “If I Fell,” but I loved the simple arrangement, with the heartfelt falsetto runs that conveyed his connection to the song. No, he’s not the best singer in the competition, and he reaches for notes that sometimes just aren’t there. But I always feel that he’s giving an honest performance, and that means something.

To me, the best performances of the night were by Michael Johns, who did one of my favorite songs, “Across the Universe,” and invested it with the emotion it deserves, and Chikezie, who had me jumping out of my chair and dancing along with “She’s a Woman.” That’s not something I’m eager to reveal, and it’s not anything you’d ever want to see, but there you go. I didn’t like him much last week, but this week I voted for him.

Another performer I didn’t much like until this week was Amanda Overmyer, who punched up “You Can’t Do That” so many notches it was like a song from the nineties instead of the sixties. It’s a very sassy song that suits her onstage persona, and it was a felicitous version that amped up her credibility in my book.

Let me dispense with the four most forgettable (that’s not the same as “worst”) performances of the night. Syesha Mercado picked a song in which half the melody is instrumental rather than vocal (“Got to Get You Into My Life”), and then she tried to sing over that part of the song, and I don’t think it worked. The arrangement that Brooke White gave to “Let It Be” left her nowhere to be great, and I don’t think she was. Ramiele Malubay chose one of the most familiar songs of Lennon and McCartney, “In My Life,” and sang it very well without leaving any kind of a mark on it, or on the competition. And David Hernandez did nothing to improve “I Saw Her Standing There,” unless you count changing the lyrics around so much that the song was nearly incomprehensible. He did okay with it, but I wouldn’t download it.

Let us conclude with poor little David Archuleta, who showed his youth for the first time. Unlike the judges, I loved the arrangement of “We Can Work It Out,” and I loved the vocal, but David, come on. You can’t go on the big stage at this point and forget the lyrics. There’s no excuse for that, not even being 17. But will he be back next week? Is there any doubt that he will? I think the poor performance and bad review by the judges will actually help him stick around, because his fans, who are legion, will rally around him. That’s what Simon meant when he made the distinction between a talent competition and a popularity contest. David has both; he just didn’t show the more important part this week.

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