Home
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Are you ever concerned about choosing songs that have already been sung on previous seasons of Idol?
DAVID ARCHULETA: You're always concerned about that. You always want to be you. Even if you do sing [a previously sung song], you always have a different feel, I guess, because you always have a different feeling. Like me and her [points to Amanda Overmyer] can have a completely different interpretation of a song.
CHIKEZIE: If you can put your own ''stank'' on it, then more power to you.
DAVID HERNANDEZ: If the song touches you, and you're really passionate about it, nothing else should matter. There's been a lot of people who've done a lot of covers, in music throughout the course of history, and it shouldn't stop you.
RAMIELE MALUBAY: You don't want to get compared to them in a good or a bad way. I try really hard not to pick songs that I know are too much for me, but I want to pick something that's challenging. So if somebody else has done it better than me, I try not to watch that one on YouTube so I don't feel so bad!
BROOKE WHITE: Yeah, you think about it, because fans of the show know what's been done. But it's not always out of the question; it's just dependent on how you do it. Song choice is the most important thing, but number two is how you put it together.
Ever frustrated that your song choices are sometimes limited by whether the producers can clear the rights to sing it?
JASON CASTRO: Yes, very. It's hard enough to find a song from the 1980s, and on top of that, when there's a few you think, ''Oh, this would be awesome,'' [they say,] ''Nope, you can't do it.'' Aww. You know, it's frustrating.
CHIKEZIE: The first week, yes. But as time goes on, you just become better until you start to listen to songs for more than just the song. You get to hear behind it — chord structures, the flow of it, the speed of it. Then you can put your own stank on it.
KRISTY LEE COOK: I do feel a little limited, because this is all new to me. I don't know how to do arranging and not singing the whole song. But I'm learning every week, and I'm getting better every week.
CARLY SMITHSON: They're all saying online that we have a list to pick from. I believe we had a list in Hollywood week, and it was a big list; we had a lot of songs to choose from. But since the live shows have started, we get to choose whatever we like, which is great. They're very supportive of everybody's originality, they really are.
When the judges go off into their own world and bicker at each other, what goes through your mind?
JASON CASTRO: It's never happened to me, but I've watched it and thought, ''Wow, that's awkward.'' Especially if they've just said something really bad, and someone's really down, and then they just start arguing, you know? It's really weird to see the tension.
CHIKEZIE: ''Woo! Break time. Now I don't have to say anything; all I have to do is just wait for them to figure it out and come back to me as soon as they know.'' While some judges can be a little more harsh than they may mean to be [rolls eyes], there's some truth in it all. They've done this for several years now, they've seen it all, and sometimes it just helps to just listen. Even if it may seem like I'm not listening [laughs], at the end of the night, I'm like, How can I make my next performance better? Honestly, I wasn't raised to be disrespectful to my elders, but the thing is I never saw Simon as an elder. [Laughs] Simon, he's a great guy. We're two-of-a-kind, you know — there's very little filter between the brain and the mouth, so we just kind of say whatever's there.
MICHAEL JOHNS: After ''Light My Fire,'' that kind of happened, and I was the last contestant. I just had to stand there, and I had this scarf on and this warm jacket, and I was just like, ''I'm totally sweating right now in front of, like, 40 million people.'' I was so embarrassed. You're at their mercy!
RAMIELE MALUBAY: You have to take it for what it is, you can't really stop them from doing what they do. Oh my gosh, we over-analyze [what they say] so much. We really need to stop, all of us.
NEXT PAGE: Makeover options!
You Might Also Like
- Photo Gallery 'Idol': Best & worst fashions | Michael Slezak
- Television News 'American Idol': Season 7 in the Steel Cage! | Michael Slezak
- Television News ''Idol'' boss says Paula Abdul's job is safe
- Video Gallery 'Idol': Season 7 mixtape! | Michael Slezak
