Michael Johns nails 'Simple Minds' for Top 8 Men performance

Ok so after some delays last week, this week's performance of Simple Minds' 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' is hot off the press.

Courtesy news.com.au's Michael Johns 'like Hutchence' article:

The performance earned rave reviews from judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell.

"You remind me of Michael Hutchence. You've got that big old range, that big old voice," Jackson said.

"I loved it dude."

Cowell agreed: "I really, really like you and I think you're going to do very, very well in this competition."

Thanks to YouTube's justbeingh0nest for saving me the effort of commenting:

Michael vocally owned this song. Simple Minds should be proud of such a justified cover. Michael did a good job singing the first verse and ever better singing the next verse an octave higher. This is the best cover I've ever heard of this song.

They also noted it's the lighting producer who's on holidays this week... which is surprising after that awesome fire for the top 12 performance:

The lighting designer should've picked different colors than bright green and pink to light up the background and stage...the color scheme felt out of place.

Anyway to give you something to compare to, here's the original:

Jason Yeager (ex-Top 10 Men) on Michael Johns

Jason Yeager had lots of nice things to say about Mike (who was his roommate in Hollywood Week) during his exit interview according to the Charlotte Observer:

We became really, really good friends. We were roommates from Hollywood Week, day one. They kind of set everybody up randomly and we were lucky enough that we didn't have to switch rooms or anything. Every time somebody got eliminated through Hollywood Week, you'd have to consolidate rooms and everybody kept switching around. We were lucky that we just got to stay in that same room and really get to know each other. Our personalities just really clicked. He's like the funniest guy that I've met. He has a great personality. I just was blessed to get to know him. He is a dedicated songwriter and musician and especially a singer. We just really encouraged each other. We always helped each other out with our song choices, giving each other advice and criticism. Gosh, I'm really gong to miss that guy a lot and I hope that he does really well.

Nice guy. Anyway, why are you reading this now. Shouldn't you be watching the show and getting ready to vote for Mike?

American Idol Top 10 Guys - Mike sings Fleetwood Mac

Mike sang Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" for his top 10 performance and though there was some sound problems, we already know for sure that he'll survive to sing another week.

Enjoy, and for the benefit of those of you viewing the podcast you can download the video. If you're lucky enough to own an iPhone then you'll be pleased to know this video is optimised for it.

Update: Top 12 Men performance video for Podcast viewers

Update: For the benefit of those of you subscribed to this blog as a podcast, you can download the video itself, optimised for iPhone as usual.

Sound Check... One... Two... Testing... One... Two... Three!

Fortunately they put the performances up on iTunes too so we have a reference (including this one, which we encourage you to buy along with last week's - at a buck each they're the cheapest singles you'll ever buy and you'll be supporting the show too). We've spliced the TV audio with the iTunes audio and were blown away by the difference, but we'll let you draw your own conclusions as you can download the comparison yourself (thanks to fair use laws)... you'll probably need iTunes to play it.

Moral of the story: if you want to hear the performance verbatim, buy it on iTunes.

Sound Check... One... Two... Testing... One... Two...

Ok guys we're still here but we got caught up a bit this week with the videos. You see there's a lot of work goes into bringing you the highest quality possible - it's recorded in HDTV, trimmed, titled, transcoded and uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

So when we end up with a clip that doesn't sound right we end up scratching our heads trying to work out why, checking our source, transcoding, etc. It's only when we see comments like this: "I don’t know if it was the sound board or Johns himself" and footage like this where Paula can't be heard (twice) that we realise that maybe the sound guy is actually asleep at the wheel - after all you can clearly see that Mike's belting out the song in the video. Ok so granted this stuff is hard (especially live) but with 30m+ people watching and careers on the line they should be able to get it right. Anyway enough ranting...

American Idol Top 12 Guys. Wow.

There really is nothing more for us to say - the judges said it all:

Randy Jackson: Yo yo - what a way to end a great night man. I tell you what man, I loved you the day that I saw you because like you just throw all caution to the wind - you're always you, you sing great, I always feel like I'm seeing a true legend rock performer. You're like a Michael Hutchence dude, you don't here there's no like... you were the bomb tonight baby, that was hot, I love that.

Paula Abdul: It was an excellent way to end the night and you did set everyone on fire, I mean this was a great, great ending, it really was, and you are a great part of the show, you really are.

Simon Cowell: I would say Michael you are the most consistent contestant we've had. Every one of your auditions we've loved. I didn't like it as much as Bohemian Rhapsody by the way because I think you were over trying. But you have the natural charisma of a lead singer - you have just got it. No problem.

Ryan Seacrest: Now before the show you kind of said to me that you were worried about what Simon might think, thinking back to hollywood week right?

Michael Johns: Well you know when we chose these songs I didn't know that they were going to show my first, because I sang Light My Fire for a little bit in Hollywood Week so I wasn't sure like if Simon was going to go 'Ok, we've seen that, next'

Ryan Seacrest: Well I'm sure you're happy with this outcome then.

Michael Johns: Yeah, thanks guys.

Ryan Seacrest: Good job man.