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My name is Annie Hundley and I'm the editor here at valleynews.com. My blog will range from what's up with the site to life for a newbie in LA.

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Idol girls make round of cuts easy for voters

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Contributed by: Annie Hundley / valleynews.com on 3/8/2007

When Simon Cowell can't remember your name, you know you're in trouble.

I watched that realization sweep over Haley Scarnato's face after her lackluster performance of Faith Hill's If My Heart Had Wings. Randy and Paula tried to be polite, saying it wasn't their favorite performance. Then Simon laid it down. "Look," he said, "the problem with you is I can't remember your name!" Ouch. Talk about not standing out.

That was one of two cruel feedbacks offered during last night's American Idol, where the top eight girl contestants performed.

Something tells me Simon hasn't had this problem with all the contestants. In her very first audition, after LaKisha Jones finished singing all Simon could say was "Love you, LaKisha." Something tells me he hasn't forgotten her name since.

The other cruel critique came after Antonella Barba attempted to sing Corinne Bailey Rae's song Put Your Records On. Antonella missed several crucial low notes.

"You've gone as far as you can go, Antonella," Simon said. "The reality is, and I think you know this yourself, which is you are surrounded by some pretty amazing girl singers and I don't know how much more you can do because I don't think your voice is going to get any better."

Zing! Have I mentioned I love Simon?

It's true that Haley and Antonella have perfectly nice voices. If you look at the numbers, they have better voices than the thousands of girls who were cut before them in this season's auditions and eliminations process. But now they're just out of their league. Jordin Sparks, Gina Glocksen, Melinda Doolittle, Sabrina Sloan, Stephanie Edwards and LaKisha are functioning on a whole other plain of musical talent.

So how about those talented girls? They were in great form last night. For a lot of them, last night wasn't their best performances ever, but they still stood out.

Jordin was young and energetic singing Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar. I hope Sanjaya Malakar was taking notes on how a person his age gives a fun, youthful and entertaining performance.

Gina came into her own singing Evanescence's Call Me When You're Sober. At first I didn't recognize the song but I heard that great tone in her voice and turned to my husband and said, "You know, she should sing an Evanescence song." As nicely as possible he turned back and said, "Uh, I think that's what she's doing." Um, right. That's what I meant.

Melinda sang the Peggy Lee song I'm a Woman. Melinda has a real knack for taking very old-fashioned songs (i.e. - last week's My Funny Valentine) and infusing them with a modern energy. She is an amazing performer and has a killer voice.

Sabrina was good, not great singing En Vogue's Don't Let Go. The singing was spot-on, but the judges were right in saying the performance was a bit mechanical.

Stephanie rocked singing Chaka Khan's Sweet Thing. The judges loved her singing, but criticized her for sounding a bit copycat. Randy also warned Stephanie against picking songs from icons like Chaka "because Chaka already done sung it." Since I don't know the song, I couldn't say one way or another. But I do know she can sing.

LaKisha took a big risk by picking a Whitney Houston song, for just the same reason Randy criticized Stephanie's song choice. But nobody was complaining about LaKisha's performance of I Have Nothing. It gave me goose bumps!

For the record, I voted for LaKisha (again).

So who from the girls will be sent home tonight? In my opinion it should be Haley and Antonella. But, like Sanjaya, Antonella seems to be impervious to these eliminations. Will this finally be the week those two stinkers get sent home? We shall see tonight.

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Showing 1 of 1 comments

Submitted By: Robin Nolet

posted on 3/8/2007 @ 4:05:21 PM

Rated Blog Entry

Hi Annie!(Finally figured out how to get a comment onto your blog!)I totally agree with you on this week's performances-I'm blogging over on the Parker CO. Hub and begging America to send Haley and Antonella home! As for those boys...I wish I could say I really care about ANY of them. I say, "Make me care!" They've got their work cut out for them. We'll see what America does tonight! http://denver.yourhub.com/Parker/Blogs/Life/Philosophy/Blog~260287.aspx

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Annie Hundley

Woodland Hills , CALIFORNIA

Annie Hundley has posted 65 blog entries and 19 comments since joining on 7/24/2006. Annie Hundley's average blog rating is 4.87.

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