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What's more, while I've been pretty hard on Paula, Simon, and Randy the last few weeks, I've got to admit the ''judges' choice'' portion of tonight's entertainment was decidedly its most successful.
Simon, not surprisingly, was spot-on when he declared that round 1 went to ''Cook and Cowell,'' considering that his unexpected pick of ''The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'' turned out to be the performance of the evening and rendered everything that followed anticlimactic by comparison. As Simon explained it, he wanted to pick a song that was ''very, very, very tough'' vocally and would also force the contestant to stretch his artistic boundaries. And interestingly, while Rocker David added a little more guitar to the mix, he didn't stray wildly off the path laid down by Roberta Flack, which allowed him to highlight the gravelly timbre of his voice, the seldom-heard beauty of his falsetto, and, most important, his ability to breathe new life into decades-old lyrics that most of us have heard more times than Randy has used his ''you could sing the phone book'' cliché.
Side note: I'm really glad that turned out to be David's mom who was standing and gazing admiringly throughout the performance, and not just another overzealous mama with a homemade ''Cougars for Cook'' sign under her seat.
The depth of emotion in Rocker David's ''Face'' was the one ingredient missing from Little David's delicate rendition of Billy Joel's ''And So It Goes'' (a solid, if not particularly daring, selection by Paula). I momentarily nodded off when Ryan once again attempted to elicit a spontaneous answer from the young contestant about song choice (''I was excited; it was a really pretty song''), and judging from all the squinting that took place during the performance, I worried Little David might be about to catch some z's, too. But let's give credit where it's due: The way the kid stripped the song's arrangement down to just a light sprinkling of strings made his performance sound borderline a cappella and highlighted the purity of his tone. I will agree with Randy, though, that it might've been even more effective if David had sat down behind the piano on this one.
And thus we conclude the portion of this column where we express kind thoughts about Randy, because, seriously, could the Dawg have been less imaginative choosing Alicia Keys' ''If I Ain't Got You'' for Syesha? At no point in the season has Ms. Mercado proven herself to be a masterful song re-arranger, so why saddle her with a big, well-known ballad by one of the most successful pop-R&B belters to conquer radio in the last decade? (In fact, why didn't they just force Syesha to tackle ''Bleeding Love'' moments after Leona Lewis' results-show performance of the current chart-topper a few weeks back?) Ultimately, Syesha's ''Ain't Got You'' was perfectly serviceable, albeit a wee bit shrill on her upper register, but I was more disappointed in her decision to bury herself in 500 pounds of silver and gold sequins (this will not end up on my new list of 10 best season 7 outfits) and affect an accent (''be my-say-ulf'') more off-putting than her patented ''baby cry.''
NEXT: Make your own kind of music
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