Idol 2010 - Friday Finals - Week 3, 22.10.10

A week is a long time on "Idol". Just one week ago, Minnah was evicted from the competition - rather unfairly, I thought. However a lot has happened over the last few days: when Alice Hagenbrant decided to quit the show after deciding she wasn't enjoying it any more, Minnah was asked back. Great news, as a) Alice was not one of my favourites and b) Minnah deserved another chance.

Friday night's theme was The Beatles, and as ever some contestants did it better than others...

Geir "keep on" Rönning was back again with "Love Me Do" and such are the swings and roundabouts of this competition that after his triumph last week, he ended up in the bottom two thanks to his over-cheesy performance. The problem with "Love Me Do" is that there’s not much to it, it’s not the most vocally challenging song. And I say this as a Beatles fan, before you say anything!

How would Jay Smith tackle "A Hard Day’s Night"? In Jay-style of course, although he was quite restrained this week - I guess he's trying to show some versatility :) It can't be argued that he already has the confidence and stage presence of someone who will go very very far in this contest.

Elin Blom sang "Can't Buy Me Love", which was all a bit rock-chick-karaoke, and I still feel that Elin is too "nice" to be taken seriously as a rock singer, but that seems to be the "stereotype", the box which they want her to fit into.



Olle Hedberg's version of "Helter Skelter" left me cold, firstly because I never liked the song anyway, and although it was good to see him sing in a style which he was more comfortable with, there was still something missing, as if he was holding back. He is capable of so much more, and remains my favourite contestant, but he'll need to do a bit more!



Minnah Karlsson was back, back, back!! If she lacked oomph last week, then you couldn't say that for her this week as she gave it her all (and then some) on "Twist and Shout". I loved her black dress and purple tights too!

The very prophetic "Ticket To Ride" was the song choice for Linda Varg, and while it wasn’t all that bad (proof of the very high standard in this competition) I guess there’s only room for so many rock-chicks and Linda’s time was up.

Andreas Weise sang "All You Need Is Love". Vocally spot-on, but it was all a bit "cruise ship cabaret" as Simon Cowell used to say. Last week I thought Andreas he had a future in musical theatre: this week I’m visualising a sideways-step into dansband. He is a good singer, but there are a lot of good singers out there. And he is certainly no "Idol".

Sometimes I think Daniel Norberg could be a dark horse, as he’s got a little Will Young-quality to his voice and at times he was spot on with the subtlety which "The Long and Winding Road" deserves, although at other times he was less impressive. I think he could be in danger in the next week or two.

On "Help!" Linnea Henriksson looked as if she’d just stepped out of the 60s in her yellow two-piece suit. As usual the gave it the Linnea-treatment with bags of personality and the biggest eyelashes you’ve seen in a long long time. She certainly didn’t need any "help" to stay in the competition one more week.

Bottom two: Linda and Geir, with Linda (pictured below) leaving the competition.

Next week's theme: the 90s. Which for me was a very underrated decade so hoping for some good song choices. And more Swedish songs please!!

(pictures above courtesy of Aftonbladet and TV4)