We're up to the top ten of American Idol Season 8 in our look back at Kris Allen's 2009. Having achieved the objective of making the summer tour, the ten finalists for American Idol now had to try to do enough to score a recording contract and hopefully, at the end, win the show. It was time to start pulling ahead of the pack. The theme was Motown week and we were in for some amazing and/or memorable performances by Kris Allen and other contestants, which you can watch after the jump (and as always in these posts, I'm including some goodies to reward those who read them)!
Performance Episode
We start with a little "wow Alexis Grace got cut" from Ryan (not so much from the judges) and some advice from Paula and Simon to the contestants to bring it. After bringing out the contestants, now free of the flu, we see a video explaining Motown's impact. The contestants get to tour Motown and meet Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy. They all seem genuinely thrilled. Back in L.A., Smokey is going to mentor them. Aw they all seem so happy rehearsing "Ain't No Mountain" with Smokey!
Matt G. kicks it off with a bluesy and strong Let's Get It On. The judges like it a lot and Simon calls him "one of the frontrunners in this competition."
Kris is up second, performs How Sweet It Is for Smokey, and his interaction with Smokey is awesome! Smokey loves Kris and when asked advice about using a guitar, tells him "Don't touch that dial." Kris is speechless to get such great feedback. Smokey can't believe someone can play a guitar and sing like that at the same time. We get Kris' performance next, and it's smooth, full of Dino Jaw, and gets Paula grooving at the judges' table. Kara praises the performance and Kris' ability to make that song his own. Paula likes that he's more comfortable on stage, his infectious personality and the technical High A note at the end of the song. Simon thinks Kris is having a good competition but needs more swagger, conceitedness and self-belief. (I completely agree with him.) Ryan and Simon awkwardly engage with each other, some guy in the audience yells, "Arkansas" and when asked, Kris says he appreciates the self-belief advice, but not the conceited part.
Kris is up second, performs How Sweet It Is for Smokey, and his interaction with Smokey is awesome! Smokey loves Kris and when asked advice about using a guitar, tells him "Don't touch that dial." Kris is speechless to get such great feedback. Smokey can't believe someone can play a guitar and sing like that at the same time. We get Kris' performance next, and it's smooth, full of Dino Jaw, and gets Paula grooving at the judges' table. Kara praises the performance and Kris' ability to make that song his own. Paula likes that he's more comfortable on stage, his infectious personality and the technical High A note at the end of the song. Simon thinks Kris is having a good competition but needs more swagger, conceitedness and self-belief. (I completely agree with him.) Ryan and Simon awkwardly engage with each other, some guy in the audience yells, "Arkansas" and when asked, Kris says he appreciates the self-belief advice, but not the conceited part.
After this, we get an all-over-the-place You Can't Hurry Love from Scott MacIntyre and For Once in My Life from Megan Joy. The judges are not impressed. Anoop Desai does Ooh Baby Baby and it's very nice. The judges like it, but want a pinch more showmanship from him. They give him good advice. Michael Sarver is next with Ain't Too Proud to Beg. It's not the best performance on the show, but I didn't think it was as bad as the judges did. They do try to give him good advice too. Lil Rounds follows with Heatwave, and maybe it's my tinny laptop speaker, but it's not sounding all that great and I agree with the judges that the song was rushed.
After all of that, we get to one of the highlights of the night, Adam Lambert's Tracks of My Tears. I actually found this to be the best performance of the evening, for Smokey's reasons - Adam feels the emotion of the song and keeps it soft and unplugged. The judges love it. After that, we get a hot mess of Get Ready from Danny Gokey. Simon agreed with me about that. Allison Iraheta closes the show with an awesome Papa Was a Rolling Stone. She always does great on those bluesy songs of the 60s. The judges enjoy it but there's too much clowning around from Simon and Paula.
You can watch the entire episode here.
Before we move on to the results, let's find out the top ten's guilty pleasures! Kris likes to not shower and watch video games all day. Suddenly a few things now make more sense. ;)
Results Episode
Ryan begins by letting us know this top ten episode got the most votes of any top ten Idol episode ever! Wow. Ha ha, he introduces Kara by saying "I've got three words for you...Kara DioGuardi" and calls out how silly Paula and Simon were during the performance judging the previous night. In the highlight reel, we see Kris, Gokey and Anoop praised, but Megan, Lil, Scott and Michael shown having their rough nights. Matt, Allison and Adam are shown as "taking this competition very seriously" and Adam "emerged as a star."Group performance! A clearly pre-taped Motown medley featuring a lot of Kradam dancing! The ladies sound fantastic on You Keep Me Hanging On, Matt and Lil blend well on You're All I Need to Get By, Allison and Scott not so much. Kris gets to sing a drawn out "Hey" and we transition to a very harmonic group version of Ain't No Mountain High Enough.
Commercial time! Ford video! Pocketful of sunshine - I liked this one.
Concept for the video helpfully explained by Kris and Allison in this video:
The contestants are seated and applaud themselves. But now it's time for Season 2 winner ROOOOOOOOBEN. I love Ruben Studdard and he does a nice job singing Together. Ruben is a newlywed (in 2009).
Back to the contestants, who got to travel on an awesome private jet to Motown. Adam, Matt and Lil were very excited! Ryan begins pulling out the bottom three with the top row, but quickly declares Adam safe. Matt G is somehow in the bottom three. OK, America got that completely wrong. Kris is up next. Ryan fools Kris with a "Wow, you too are.... safe." Poor Kris had started to nod and walk to the stage on "you too." Kris is embarrassed and is like, "man every week!" It's pretty cute.
Lil and Michael are up next. Ryan really tries to scare Lil but Sarver tells her "sit down" and he heads to the bottom three. The lower couch awaits their fate, but must first sit through Smokey Robinson and Joss Stone.
Back to the couch! Last week, Allison was bottom three but this week she is safe, as are Anoop and Gokey. It comes down to Scott and Megan who both had rough performances. Megan clearly expects to be bottom three and makes a bunch of mugging faces, but it's Scott who is sent to the center of the stage to join Matt and Michael. Asked by Ryan, Randy says that Matt might have only been in the bottom three due to having gone first. Ryan then sends back to safety... Scott. Matt looks so bummed.
Asked about the judge's save, Simon observes the bottom two are there because the "public doesn't like them much" and that they'll be judging from the performances. But first! We get a fantastic live medley from Stevie Wonder. Watch Lil, Anoop, Gokey and Kris during this; they are serious fans!
I feel bad for Matt and Michael - they'd probably have loved to be on the couches hooting for Stevie. Instead, they're about to learn their fate. Matt is declared safe and Michael Sarver must sing for the save. He literally says, "I have to sing after Stevie, oh crap" and sadly he predicts his fate. It's energetic, but it's obvious there are stronger idols on the couches and the judges do not save him-although Kara and Paula argue for it and draw out the deliberations. He takes the news well and smiles at his farewell video as Kris and the others hug him goodbye.
Goodies:
How Sweet It Is (performance mp3)
How Sweet It Is (Idol single mp3)
Bonus! How Sweet It Is - the only other time Kris performed it! [Mother's Day 2013 mp3]
Past Kris Allen on Idol recaps:
Audition in Louisville
Hollywood Week, rounds one and two
Making the top 36
Group 2, aka the Best Idol Group ever and the one where we get to see him sing Everything
Top 13 week (Michael Jackson songs)
Top 11 week (Opry songs)
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