Song Selection: Paint it Black – Rolling Stones
RigelSeven’s Take:
This season’s most interesting and unpredictable contestant does it again. I wasn’t quite as enamoured with this performance as the judges were (I preferred her performance of “House of the Rising Sun” last week), but Siobhan continues to impress me. Every week it’s something different and she has the vocal ability to keep up with her ambition. And don’t her interview packages just add more layers of odd to her personality? Something about the way she talks… Siobhan is my personal favorite contestant after not having much buzz entering the top 24. Crystal better stay on her toes or by the end of the season Siobhan will be the last girl standing.
Chindi’s Take:
Not the person I thought would be doing this song, not the arrangement that I’d have expected either. In one of my earlier reviews of a Siobahn performance I stated that she was fearless, dramatic, and a little bit crazy. This performance was her introducing herself to those who hadn’t been watching as exactly those things and a pretty good singer to boot. At the end she carried a long multi-tiered glory note a little too far and got screechy… but that was also after a 25 second segment where she hit 3 strong powerful notes in a row with no space in between them before going up into that note. Plus, as a Rolling Stones homage that note works for me. Here’s the thing though, you don’t have to have a perfect vocal, or even a completely clean vocal to be a great performance and this was a great performance. It immediately grabs the attention as the most interesting / dynamic performance of this week so far. She also looks like a million dark dollars up there on stage.
There are two interesting notes about Siobhan, first she’s come a long way from that girl who Simon said was boring initially. The second note and probably the most important for this competition, is that she’s not ‘boxable’. The judges can’t put her in a box in their heads and say ‘this is who you are and who we expect you to be’. Simon called her ‘a strange little thing’, and in that zone she can do almost anything as long as she delivers solid performances.
