AI: 4/19 - The Top 7 (B.I.B.)

April 20, 2005 · Filed Under popmedia

Bo. Is. Back. — Three simple words that sum up last night, IMO…

The theme of 70’s dance music was one that almost assured us of a night full of good performances. Dance, especially 70’s era, (oh, let’s just call it what the producers were trying to avoid, disco!) is primarily about the music & beat, and only secondarily about the lyrics & vocal performance. This group of 7 is strong enough vocally that, given a proper song choice, the beat could carry them along quite nicely. And it did — All 7 performances were very good, although only 2 were, IMO, outstanding.

The two in that outstanding category were Bo & Vonzell. The confident Bo, who prowls the stage while growling out a seductive & emotionally authentic performance IS BACK! He took a early 70’s proto-dance/disco song (Vehicle) and just ran with it. Much like Spinning Wheel & Whipping Post, Vehicle was right in Bo’s wheelhouse, and he knocked it out of the park. I agree with Randy — when Bo is on, I can hear the song as a released single, and/or as part of an album that I want to buy!

As for Vonzell, what can you say, really? She took on Chaka Kahn, which (as we’ve found out over the 4 editions of AI) is almost never a good thing. Baby V, though, took it on, slapped it around a little, had a lot of fun, and ended up owning it. Vonzell is very, very good at song choice, knows how to work the stage, has an infectious bubbly enthusiasm, and keeps improving each & every week. She has grown on me quite a bit, and I’d peg her as my darkhorse choice to win it all at this point. I still want Bo to win, and would be happiest if he does, but if Vonzell wins, I won’t be at all disappointed (at least as of this moment… :-P).

Constantine’s fans will be happy to hear that I think he did a very good job this week, even though I do think he regressed a little from last week (though it was almost inevitable, given the highpoint that was his performance of Bohemian Rhapsody.). He looked good (although I do think he had too much eye makeup on, to the point of making him look a little overly feminine…), he sounded good, and it was a reasonably good song choice. Constantine is/ought-to-be safe.

Anthony, Anwar, Carrie & Scott — They all did quite well, but I’m lumping them together because I think that the person eliminated this week will come from their ranks. I think that that the bottom 3 should also rightfully come from their ranks, but at this stage of the competition everyone is so equally matched that I’m giving up trying to predict the bottom 3 — picking the bottom 1 will be hard enough! I didn’t particularly like either Carrie’s or Anwar’s performances. With Carrie, it might just be that I don’t like the song choice all that much — given her lack of stage presence, I think Carrie is better served by staying away from slower tempo songs like MacArthur Park - vocally, she’s ok, but performance-wise she doesn’t emote well enough to convincingly pull it off. Anthony picked a good song, one that fit very nicely into his vocal range, and one that allowed him to give a nice performance. He’s been improving slightly every week, and he seems to have a pretty strong fan base. Scott also did a very good job of choosing a great song, and his performance was very, very good. I’m not sure that his fan base is the strongest (in fact, I’d say that I think it’s probably the weakest of the 7…), so I do think he’s in danger. Anwar, IMO, gave the weakest performance last night. September was a nice song choice, and he actually did better than he has in past weeks in terms of performing & looking comfortable. That being said, I think that he sang it just a bit too low (octave, register, or whatever the proper vocal/musical term is…) than sounds good for that song.