Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Ramiele Malubay sang “I Should Have Known Better.” It fell flat.

And that was pretty much the story of Tuesday night’s American Idol.

Perhaps the producers should have known better than to force the contestants to perform Beatles songs two weeks in a row. Because they certainly weren’t up to matching last week’s strong performances.

What did that leave? Lots of lackluster performances with former front runners (like Brooke White and Carly Smithson) slipping a notch and some of the lower-ranking singers (Amanda Overmyer, Kristy Lee Cook and Syesha Mercado) turning in better efforts.

Well, for them at least.

Best of the bunch

Young David Archuleta bounced back strong from last week’s disaster with a heartfelt version of “The Long and Winding Road.” Other stellar performances? Well, David Cook and Jason Castro score points for picking songs that matched their talent and personality. On a night when some performers tried changes of pace that didn’t work so well, Cook stayed true to his rocker image with a rousing rendition of “Day Tripper.” Whitesnake did the song that way, or so he says.

Deserves to go home

Michael Johns tried to condense “A Day in the Life” into about two minutes, which is as hard as it sounds and was every bit as big of a mess as the judges said it was. I’ve come to the conclusion that Ramiele is never going to live up to her potential in this competition. She went up tempo this week, and it still didn’t work.

Please keep her

It pains me to write this, but Brooke — my Idol favorite — wasn’t all that great last night. Last week’s brilliant performance of “Let it Be” wasn’t going to be easy to match. And she certainly didn’t do it with that breezy version of “Here Comes the Sun.”

Baffled by the judges

In spite of his goofy interviews, Jason Castro is the show’s up-and-coming heartthrob. Which made his charming rendition of “Michelle” one of the night’s best matches of singer and song. But the reviews from the judges were lukewarm at best.

Best line of the night from the judges

Amanda scoffed at Simon Cowell’s suggestion that she try a ballad. She wants to be the fun girl people want to buy tickets to see, she said. Simon’s response: “Your tickets aren’t on sale yet.”

Surprise of the night

Chikezie started “I’ve Just Seen a Face” as a ballad. Then he played harmonica. Then it turned into a bluegrass song. And it was certainly different. But I’m still not sure if it was different good, or different bad. The judges looked equally confused.

Prediction for Wednesday night

Kristy Lee has been on the brink of elimination so often, it’s hard to believe she’ll be able to survive another round of tepid reviews from the judges, even though “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” was one of her better recent efforts.