From the Archives: Season 6 Gwen Stefani Week

The themes for Season 6 were much more mentor oriented than those in Season 5, at least it seemed that way to me. Thus my comments were also much more mentor oriented, as you'll no doubt see here. (pun intended). The songs were either ones that Gwen Stefani liked or sang, which led to some interesting song selections that said a lot about the contestants and about Gwen Stefani. Exactly what it said I'm not sure, but if you or I thought about long enough we might come up with something.

I also kept my comments relatively short this particular week since it was about 1 am when I wrote this.

From March 27, 2007

Gwen Stefani is this week's "mentor", though how much mentoring she can really provide is anyone's guess. It's not like she's known for her vocal abilities. Then again, maybe there is something that she can mentor the contestants on, how to be a really successful singer without being a really good singer.

I know, I know, I shouldn't be trashing a fellow O.C. homey like that, but it was just too easy.

LaKesha: Last Dance by Donna Summer
The judges loved it but I didn't think that much of it. The vocal was decent but I didn't think it fit her voice well. Although, it did sound better during the recap at the end of the show.

Chris S.: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police
Probably his worst performance to date, and that's saying something considering how much he butchered "Endless Love" a couple weeks ago. The vocal was kind of flat and his timing was off. He has the best voice of any of the male contestants but we've yet to hear it in the finals.

Gina: I'll Stand By You by The Pretenders
Went away from trying to be the rocker chick and picked a more demanding vocal song, and it worked really well. Her best performance to date. No screaming this time and stayed in tune throughout. Nice outfit too. I think Chrissie Hynde works much better for her than Mick Jagger.

Sanjaya: Bath Water by No Doubt



One writer I read said that Sanjaya has morphed into a circus clown, and sure enough the dude comes out with a Mohawk hairdo that I can't do justice to by trying to describe it here. His vocal was decent but uninspiring. Whether intentional or not he's really making a mockery of the competition, and that alone will probably get him enough votes to stay on the show.

Haley: True Colors by Cyndi Lauper
Man, this girl has some really nice, supermodel style legs. Last week it was the short shorts, this week it's a short skirt. She's clearly realized what her best asset is in this competition. I can't think of anything to say about her vocal performance. I was too distracted.

Phil: Every Breath You Take by The Police
I thought it was his best effort in quite a while. It was a very well textured vocal, and this time he managed to keep it under control. Nice performance.

Melinda: Heaven Knows by Donna Summer
Usual stuff: started kind of shaky, finished very strong, professional vocal. It sounded like something from an actual record instead of a karaoke act. Not her best but still the class of the field.

Blake: Love Song by The Cure
Kind of flat but OK. Less pitchy than usual. The judges loved the hip arrangement but I thought it paled in comparison to the original. Maybe they just don't appreciate New Wave. Paula Abdul thinks he'll be in the final two. The rest of America wonders if there really is booze in Paula's Coke glass. Randy and Simon think he's the best of the boys. If so, it's only because the other boys look so creepy and sing so crappy.

Jordin: Hey Baby by No Doubt
I thought it was pretty good. She made it much more musical than the original. I'm not sure if that's a compliment for Jordin or another cruel insult at Gwen Stefani.

Chris R.: Don't Speak by No Doubt
Stefani thinks the Justin Timberlake imitator is a "vocal Olympian", though one wonders which Olympic sport Gwen had in mind. Synchronized swimming perhaps? (I've spent 10 minutes trying to think of a really cool Olympic metaphor and just can't do it, sorry about that). I didn't think much of his performance. He went back to being more like a Justin Timberlake imitator, though considering he was in the bottom 2 last week after straying away from the boy band sound perhaps going back to it isn't a bad thing.

Your 3 Stars of Tonight's Game: Melinda and Jordin as usual. I think Gina stepped up this week to claim the third star, I'm really starting to like her. Though not Top 3 material Phil earned a shout out.

The Fearless Prediction: I was way off last week, though I did think that Stephanie could be in the bottom 3. Bottom line on the Beyonce' imitator is that she was the 4th best African American girl with a big voice in the competition, and when the other 3 African American girls with big voices are arguably the top 3 favorites to win it all (Paula Abdul's opinion of Blake not withstanding) Stephanie was doomed. Maybe she can take comfort in the fact that the same thing happened to Jennifer Hudson in Season 3, and she's managed to do pretty well for herself since then.

On to this week, it's the hardest one to predict so far since no one really stood out as being really bad except the usual suspect, and there are too many people out there that want to see Sanjaya stay on to see him leave now. So, I think the bottom 3 will be Haley and the 2 Chrises. I'm tempted to go with Chris R. because he was in the bottom 2 last week, but I'm going to go with Haley this week despite the nice leg shows she's been feeding everyone the last two weeks.

Now watch, Phil or Gina will probably get voted off even though their vocals were 100 times better than last week.