Instant “American Idol” Review: Phillip Phillips, “Movin’ Out”

Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 05/22/2012 at 8:48 PM News

The Popdust Files: american idol

Phillip Phillips, “Movin’ Out,” slot two. This is also known as the slot where he could’ve reprised “Thriller”–people love it when he reinterprets songs!–or something like Dave Matthews–people, if they don’t love obscure DMB tracks, do love it when he acts exactly like himself! He could also have reprised Damien Rice’s “Volcano,” which is by far the best thing he’s done all season and arguably the only performance as good an ad for his album as his looks.

We shouldn’t even have to tell you how this sounded. Points for the angry strums on the guitar at the end; points off for the same grin-scat-stutter trick he adds to everything. (We’re deducting the same points for the serious-business growling Jessica adds to everything, so no comments on bias, please.) A couple more points off for being a ludicrously safe song choice, not that it’ll matter.

On the bright side, the brass player showed up again. She is the best part of any given Phillip Phillips performance. On a different show, she’d be in the finale. It’d probably be the show where the judges’ non-critiques didn’t include the phrase “authentic Phillip.”

POPDUST SAYS:

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Instant “American Idol” Review: Phillip Phillips, “Movin’ Out”, reviewed by Katherine St Asaph on 2012-05-22T20:48:55-04:00 rating 2.5 out of 5