Watch and listen to David Archuleta singing “Long and Winding Road” during The Top 11 Performances (Beatle’s week again; songs from the Lennon/McCartney songbook).
Proceed to the downloads on the forum.
View the episodic stills and screen captures in the gallery.
“The Long and Winding Road” is a ballad written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) that originally appeared on The Beatles’ album Let It Be. It became The Beatles’ last #1 song in the United States on 13 June 1970, and was their last real single. The song was covered by many artists, including George Michael in April 2002.
Listen to a potential cover that David Archuleta will do.
After the performance:
David amazed the judges once again after a not-so-great performance last week. Even Simon enjoyed it.
Download the audio and video of “Ling and Winding Road” here.
Well, here we are, Archuleta fans!
It’s a Monday night and the anticipation of tomorrow night’s performances is finally starting to create that annoying feeling in my gut. You know exactly what I’m talking about - that feeling where you have a sudden loss of appetite, your hands start to become sweaty, and you begin to shake from the anxiety.
This happened to me all the time in Season 5. I was an Elliott Yamin fan, and I had every reason to be nervous on Tuesday nights because it was never ever a foregone conclusion that Elliott would be safe. Now it’s Season 7, I’m a David Archuleta fan, and he’s considered by many (including Simon Cowell) to be the eventual winner. So, I should feel completely confident that David will have a powerhouse performance tomorrow night (which I predict he will)……….and yet I still feel those same damn butterflies rumbling in my stomach. I can’t stand it…and yet, it’s what makes American Idol so ridiculously addictive.
Why, oh why do I get myself into this show so much?
What Pavlovian techniques are those AI producers using upon the American public to keep their eyes riveted to the screen??
Why do some contestants repel me so completely while other contestants manage to melt my cynical nature and make me become a certifiably rabid voting maniac every Tuesday night???
All I can really say is that this is one of the most exciting season’s of AI I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing, and David Archuleta is one of the most engaging, real, and talented individuals to ever grace the AI stage.
“Why do you say this?” you ask.
Well, for one thing, the kid has a great ear, he knows what’s best for his voice, and he has keen musical instincts. He takes a song, sings the general melody of it, and then he begins improvising, throwing in melismas and arpeggios which make perfect musical sense. Listen to the end of his “Shop Around” performance. He took the last word “around” to his mid-high range and then, on the syllable “woah”, his vocal range descended using perfectly in-tune notes that were based on the blues scale. He claims that he doesn’t like jazz very much, but it’s clear that the jazz sound plays an important part in David’s note selection when he ad-libs.
Another aspect of David that makes me latch onto him is that he’s singing for the love of performing, and he wants to entertain and touch the audience on an emotional level with each of his performances……………………he’s doing this for the right reasons, folks!!!!
I love this show, and I love watching contestants like David Archuleta grow and mature in the spotlight, sharing their talents for the nation to enjoy.
A pox on those butterflies rumbling in my stomach!!!
Get ready to vote tomorrow, Archuleta fans!! VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!
Dean Kaelin woke up early this morning to explain why his voice student turned American Idol star, David Archuleta, struggled a bit this week. It was much more than strep throat. David was battling with busy schedules and last minute changes to song choices that left him with little time to rehearse.
Listen to Brian and Rebecca’s interview with David Archuleta’s Voice Coach
David Archuleta and the other contestants were featured in a recent US Weekly article titled “Before they were idols.”
Today they’re wowing millions On Fox’s ‘American Idol,’ but the top 12 were once just kids making music - and mischief.
“I love to play outside,” says Archuleta (age 5 at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, CA, with, from the left, cousin Chason, mom Lupe Archuleta, brother Daniel and sister Claudia). “I’d catch bugs, ducks, frogs, and snakes.”
David Archuleta’s singing was an unstoppable force of nature. Somewhere in the family’s genetic chemistry, the music seeped right into his bones, and then fate or providence or whatever you want to call it lent a hand.
What if his father hadn’t left a “Les Miz” record lying around the house?
What if his mother, a singer and dancer, hadn’t emigrated from Honduras to Florida, where she met his father, who was there only to do temporary sales work for a summer?
What if his sister’s boyfriend hadn’t stumbled into a legendary voice coach, or what if the voice coach hadn’t needed help with his computers?
“So many things have happened along the way to make this happen,” says Jim Archuleta, David’s grandfather.
David, the sweet-faced 17-year-old “American Idol” sensation from Salt Lake City, was drawn to singing the way most boys are drawn to football and video games. As fate would have it again, the 5-foot-4 teen developed a big, full voice that belies his stature. And with the soulful voice, he sang with purpose.
“Since David was 8, his goal has been to achieve enough celebrity that he would be able to reach many people with the gospel message through his music,” says his grandfather. “He is very LDS.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Listen to David Archuleta’s Top 11 studio version of “The Long and Winding Road” in the audio player.
Has there ever in American Idol’s history been a better contestant than David Archuleta? It’s not just that he’s the most vocally gifted of this year’s finalists; it’s also that — by nature, design, or mind-blowingly aggressive stage parenting — he embodies more winning characteristics than virtually any other hopeful in the show’s previous six seasons. Sure, his performance last night may have been less than perfect, but we think he’s still a lock for the win. Archuleta almost seems to be built from all the best spare parts of lesser Idols. Is he human? We’re not sure! Can anything stand between him and victory? Probably not. Five reasons why, after the jump.
1. He’s the cute one and the talented one.
On every season of American Idol there’s one adorable, clean-cut contestant whose prepubescent fan base and popularity among old people practically guarantees him a place in the top five, regardless of how he sings (see John Stevens, Anthony Federov, Kevin Covais, and Sanjaya). This year it’s David Archuleta. At the same time, there’s always one steely-eyed professional whose laser-precise singing ability and natural stage presence typically make him or (usually) her a lock to win, even if she’s as charismatic as a head cold (previously Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Jordin Sparks). This contestant, too, is David Archuleta. Never before in the history of the show have these two been the same person, and with both huge blocs of fans dialing his 800 number, his spot in the finals is more or less assured.
2. He’s a guy without a gimmick.
In general, male contestants on Idol have had a problem with mass appeal — which is why almost all the recent successful ones have defined their base early, then played to it relentlessly. Chris Daughtry won over modern-rock-radio fans by singing all his songs like Live’s Ed Kowalczyk; Taylor Hicks and Bo Bice stuck to dad rock; Blake Lewis bravely added mouth percussion to songs in which mouth percussion clearly had no business (like this one), in spite of what the beat-box-hating majority might think. All four required a gimmick, while female finalists Kelly Clarkson and Jordan Sparks could coast to victory on just being the best singer.
But Archuleta has no shtick and he’s still this season’s undisputed front-runner (Paula Abdul told him as much last night, even after he forgot his lyrics). His huge talent lets him be bland (favorite drink: water) and run a national campaign. With no apparent allegiances to any particular genre, and — even more important — no apparent personality, he’s in minimal danger of turning anyone off. As more singers are eliminated, this will help him pick up more of their fans than any of his nichier competition.
3. He’s got a great sob story.
Not since the Book of Job has God been so needlessly cruel as he’s been to this year’s crop of AI finalists. Apart from the two singers afflicted with male-pattern baldness, two female contestants lost their fathers in the days before Hollywood week, and one girl was even hit by a truck (Amanda Overmeyer, and she seems to be okay).
But a few years ago, David Archuleta suffered a paralyzed vocal cord, which, for a short time, prevented him singing; eventually, he made a full recovery without surgery. Sure, it’s not as terrible as losing a parent, or as flashy as being run down by an eighteen-wheeler, but it’s got a happy ending, it’s nonexploitative, and it doesn’t make you feel bad. Most important, it gives him a story that local newspapers, network early shows, and Fox producers themselves can parrot to make him seem interesting. Really, it’s the perfect Idol sob story.
4. He’s pacing himself.
Because Archuleta is the earliest-emerging front-runner in American Idol history, a few have already accused him of peaking too soon. Still, we think his best moments are in front of him. In these early rounds, he’s been smart to offset his abilities by picking some of the worst songs of any finalist ever. During his auditions, we heard him sing John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” and Bryan Adams’s “Heaven.” Last week, he sang an undeniably excellent version of Phil Collins’s atrocious “Another Day in Paradise.” The judges didn’t love it, but that probably had less to do with Archuleta’s singing than the fact that Phil Collins writes terrible music. Last night he finally attempted a good song, the Stevie Wonder version of “We Can Work It Out,” but still hamstrung himself by not knowing all the words. Still, the ones he sang sounded terrific and suggested that when he finally cuts loose on a great song, he’ll be unstoppable.
5. He was born to do this.
At 17, Archuleta is the first-ever top-twelve finalist born in the nineties. He’s spent more of his life absorbing the phenomenon of AI than any other contestant who’s ever appeared on it. For probably as long as he can remember, it’s been the dominant star-making force behind many of pop music’s biggest success stories (plus Taylor Hicks).
The bio on his now-defunct official Website (archived here), cites the AI’s premiere as a turning point in his life. When Archuleta was 10, an appearance on The Jenny Jones Show got him a meeting with failed contestant AJ Gil, who introduced him to the rest of season one’s top ten. (In the creepy YouTube clip above, he sings “And I Am Telling You” for Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini in the lobby of their hotel.) Since he wasn’t yet old enough to audition for Idol (you have to be 16), Archuleta bided his time by winning lesser reality competition shows, like CBS’ Arsenio-hosted Star Search reboot, on which he took top honors in the Junior Vocalist category in 2003. On his own, he recorded a Christmas album and a few cover songs (including Kelly Clarkson’s single “A Moment Like This”), but apparently never had much interest in music apart from the standard Top 40 stuff performed on Idol, or any recording contract besides the one with RCA he’ll probably get after winning the show. In other words, he’s the first contestant for whom AI defines the musical universe. For him, it’s not just a means to an end … it is the end.
I’d like to formally recant my previous assertion that David Archuleta is a doe-eyed, ever-smiling, Small Wonder-like robot.
As we learned tonight, he is not perfect. He does make mistakes—including even the most blasphemous of all American Idol sins: forgetting the words. And yet, dangit…Wait a minute…That somehow manages to make him all the more appealing, does it not? Curses! There is no escaping the undeniable charm and overwhelming talent of boy wonder Awwwrchuleta.
And I’m gonna call it now (so you can ridicule me later) and predict that David Archuleta and Carly Smithson will be the final two (even though I love Jason Castro and Brooke White wholeheartedly—I even cried when she cried!).
So why are Carly and David so tough to beat? As I mentioned when this seventh season began, Carly was the Irish “powerhouse” Paula had predicted to me that would win back in season five (when she couldn’t get through immigration to be on the show) and now tonight, Simon has said that her sixth episode performance was so stunning, she’s now “just like Kelly Clarkson” in his book. (That’s sorta like a prospective employer telling you you’re “just like Jesus”–chances are, you’re gonna get the job.)
Watch and listen to David Archuleta singing “We Can Work It Out” during The Top 12 Performances (Beatle’s week; songs from the Lennon/McCartney songbook).
Proceed to the downloads on the forum.
View the episodic stills and screen captures in the gallery.
