All-Star Duets Set Lists

Idol has put out the set lists for the Sunday Night/Monday Night All-Star duets. About half of them drew an immediate reaction from me and I’m sharing those immediate reactions with you.

Sunday Night

• 

  Kate Barnette/Heartbreaker My Girl Pat Benatar – Hmmm. Girl with cool, chill vibe takes on My Girl Pat’s big, new wavy rocker?

• Madison Vandenburg/We Belong My Girl Pat Benatar – This is the kind of midtempo, dynamic, rangy song with feeling that is a singer’s song. I think Madison is both capable of sounding amazing or awful on this. Since I think she needs help after last week, I like this choice. But she has to nail it.
• Shawn Robinson/Elle King Proud Mary Credence Clearwater Revival – I assume he’ll be going uptempo with Ike and Tina Turner’s version. I assume it will be awful.
• Laci Kaye Booth/Mercy Brett Young – As I am not familiar with Brett’s oeuvre, I had to find this on Spotify. The 20 seconds I listened to convinced me that she will be amazing.
• Laine Hardy/Elle King The Weight The Band – Laine gets the Glory Spot and this could be really good.

Monday Night

• Eddie Island/7 Years Lukas Graham – Probably a good song choice for him but I’m more curious than anything.
• Wayne Cota/Broken Lovelytheband – Lyrically, this is a great song for Wayne. Musically, I’m not sure. I’m hoping this is a “you made it your own” situation because that might be spectacular. But it could be off the rails, too.
• Ryan Hammond/Cynthia Erivo Hold On I’m Coming Sam & Dave – First, I don’t know Cynthia who “is known for her performance as Celie in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical as well as the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.”[1] I listened to her version of this Sam & Dave classic and her voice is a great match for Ryan. I love the purity of his voice but whether or not he can bring Cynthia’s neo-soul swag is the question his performance must answer.
• Evelyn Cormier/Wicked Game Chris Isaak – She’ll be reprising her spectacular audition. It will be interesting to see how much she changes it up singing it with the man who made that song famous, especially given the pairing of her deep voice and his high falsetto. I’m pretty eager to see what happens.
• Alejandro/There Will Be Light Ben Harper – This has to be amazing. Because Alejandro.
• Jeremiah/Cynthia Erivo Time After Time Cyndi Lauper – The Glory Spot. And this could be incredible.

I’m eager to see how all of these pan out and if there any surprises from those I didn’t mention. And I can’t wait to see My Girl Pat Benatar Sunday night.

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[1] Wikipedia