"God Bless the Child" on Idol?

First, let me say that this was the best performance I have seen on Idol in ten years (second was Fantasia Barrino's Summertime).

Second, Schipo / samual, you could not be more wrong. Obviously, the lyrics had a deep personal meaning to this kid. No one sings himself to tears, just for dramatic impact. He was singing about himself whereas BH was singing about some other "child". Different context, different song, different art. Everything he did with the song was sincere, heartfelt and genuine self expression.

If he pulls the same vocal stunts singing yellow submarine on Beatles night, you'll be proven right.... Until such moment I say he was just emotionally connecting with the lyrics of the song and spilling his guts on the stage.

Of course the posterchild of over the top vocal runs was Adam Lambert, and then there was "scatt no matter what" Blake Lewis.

Few observations:

First: Agree getting rid of Simon was a blessing. Show was always too much about the jury to my liking and the balanced has shifted to focus on the contestants.

Second: Tyler strikes me as a genuinly nice guy, and J-Lo is surprisingly unpretensious.

Third: They are overdoing it on the short skirts. No need to sex up the show.

Fourth: Anyone notice the preponderance of good looking female contestants in the top 24, and all the overweight ones getting the boot?

Fifth: That said, with the exception of the young girl from Georgia I don't think the girls have a shot, so I guess the producers figured we might as well keep the cute ones....

Sixth: Ironically, none of the male front runners has the looks, unless the latin lover boy(s) show some strong development.

Seventh: The vocal agility of Jakob reminded me of Al Jarreau. I say his dominant style/inspiration is a gospel (not jazz) though.

Eight: Would love to hear Jakob do "a change is gonna come". That song was written for him. Unfortunately the "crazy eyed kid with the tail tie" already butchered it once this season (can't wait to see him go).

Ninth: Casey bass boy has the all the qualities that distinguish truly brilliant musicians (the epitomy of which that I have seen perform live is Prince) from the pack of merely talented; absolutely perfect sense of timing/rhytm AND melody. Complete natural flow of music from within, without ANY interference from the brain. Somewhat like Nadal probably never THINKS about his next shot; it is purely intuitive and always the right shot.

Enough amateur phsychology for today - more to follow.

After seeing tonights show I think that anyone claiming Jakob has no talent has foreever qualified him/herself as a moronic tonedeaf idiot, that has no business going anywhere near an audio system or live musical performance.

I'm sure our friend schipo sees it differently, but at this point his opinion has about as much credibility as Charlie Sheen's.

The boy to beat is Scotty. I don't like country and I find his G.W.Bush grin and asymetrical microphone handling annoying, but I can see he has real talent, commercial potential, and is amazingly mature for his age.

My take:
Top performer (by a mile): Casey
bottom three (three of these four): Paul, Stephano, Lauren and Haley.
Worst performance (by a mile) and hopefully going home: Paul
Frontrunner and guy to beat: Scotty

Interestingly, this season is evolaving into a competition between genres as much as performers (pop, jazz, hard-rock, gospel, country). Sadly missing is R&B.

The reality is James was a good showman, but his vocals just we not that good. Besides, his "emotional stability" issues may be charming on Idol, but won't do him any favors in a professional career. This is still and always has been Scotty's competition to loose. I got to say I love Haley more every week. Her contempt for the J-Lo and Randy is written all over her.

Pops, I am not calling him out an anything. In fact, I never even made the connection between his autism, Tourette, and emotional stability, and certainly never looked at him as "disabled" (like apparently you do, and may be I should have). I am just making the objective observation that having an emotional break-down ever other song is not helpfull if you aspire to a professional career in showbusiness.

I always liked Haley, and she is getting better every week. Her problem is identity - she has been all over the map and this week completely out of the blue she does a rocker chick act. Although it worked out very well, my take is she is so obsessed with winning this whatever it takes, she deliberately went after the James Durbin votes this week. Does not hurt she is kinda cute and has an attitude either ....

I agree. This season started with a lot of promise but went out with a whimper. May be the show is just getting old. Judges were/are as boring as the contestants. I predict Lauren will win and Scotty will have a far more succesful career.