Brooke White says "You must love me," but do we really have to?

Brooke White is up next and she is singing "You Must Love Me," from the film "Evita." She sings a bit of it for him and he says, "I don't think that girl had a clue about what she was singing about." So he stops her and tells her that it's well worth thinking about what the song is really about. He tells her the background behind the song. He says that she (Evita) is dying and she knows it, but she's saying, you must love me, please. And Brooke says that he looks into her eyes and she got it. And so she sings it again and Webber says that he was quite pleased because she was singing as if she meant it. He then says, "This is the question. Is that girl (did he forget her name?) going to be able to keep that up? I don't know. But if she can, I think she's got something there that perhaps hasn't been seen before."

So, she starts and immediately forgets the lyrics. She stops, apologizes and asks the band to start over. This is crazy - this isn't the first time she's screwed up and started over. I mean, on the one hand, you feel for her and you give her credit for starting over, but at the same time, you can't do that. There's an expression - I'm sure you've all heard it - "The show must go on." That means, no matter what, you just keep going... If you fall, you get up and keep going, if your pants rip, you keep back from the audience and you keep going, and if you forget the words, for goodness sake, you just keep going. I'm not sure people are going to feel that sympathetic toward her this time around - this may really hurt her, I think. Simply because even if she's fantastic, all people will remember is the fact that she screwed up and started over. I mean, her second attempt was pretty good, certainly not as good as the Madonna version, but it was good, enjoyable... but I have to be honest...all I'm taking from this performance is that she forgot the words and had to start over.

Randy tells her that it wasn't great, but what he did like is that she listened to Andrew Lloyd Webber, that the most important they could all learn from tonight, is that you have to believe what you're singing, and he says he kind of got that, the vulnerability in her, but vocally, it was kind of tough. Paula pauses for a moment and then says, "You must never start and stop." She some thing else that I didn't get, but then says that what she loved was that Brooke didn't overact. Simon says this is why he loves live TV, it was all so dramatic, the beginning. But he says the trouble is that it completely threw her because she became so tense trying to remember the song that her voice was straining in the middle of it all and it actually became quite uncomfortable. So, he says it's tricky one - that she's going to be very disappointed when she watches it back.

Ryan asks Brooke what happened and she says she lost the lyric, the first time its happened to her on the show. Ryan then mentions what Paula said about not stopping and asks Simon what he would have done and Simon actually says he would have done the same thing Brooke did, that it was actually a brave thing to do - that it's her opportunity, why not?

I'll give my opinion on why not. Because she'll never win that way. David Archuleta forgot the words three times in one song, but he kept going. Starting over, in my opinion, is very amateurish and she will never win this competition if she continues to do that.


Speaking of David Archuleta, he's up next, but before he starts, they have a group of girls go on stage to hug him - I'm sure it was meant to come across as cute, but it was all kind of silly and seemed out of place and weird.

Webber says that "Think of Me," a song from "Phantom of the Opera," was written for a diva, written for a girl and he couldn't wait to hear how he was going to sing it, because he simply could not imagine how a boy could sing that song. David starts singing and they cut to his interview, and he says that singing the song to Webber in a different way from how he composed it was nerve-wracking. Webber says David wrong-footed him completely (not sure what that means) because he never thought he'd hear "think of Me" sung like that. He says David has his own idea about where he wants to take the song and that's so rare that they should all be saying, "Bravo." Webber then tells Archuleta that he has two piece of advice for him. One is, "Open your eyes" and the other is, "Open your eyes." Webber says little David has a real musical soul but that he must keep his eyes open - that he can't watch someone who has his eyes closed all the time.

David sounds great, like he always does. I almost feel like there's not a lot to say about him anymore. There's nothing to critique, nothing to mock. But, there's not a whole lot of positive to say either. He sounds terrific, but he sounds the same every week, so there's nothing new to look forward to with him. With David Cook, you never know what you're going to get. With David Archuleta, you know exactly what you're going to get, down to the last note, and while his singing is beautiful, the novelty has worn off and no matter how great he sounds, it's just not impressive anymore - he needs to try something new...I'm surprised none of the judges have mentioned that to him yet.

It doesn't look like they will this week either...Randy tells him, as he has several times before, that when you can sing, you can sing anything. he says he knew this would be a big night for him and he even put his own personality into it. He says it was the bomb, that he's the one to beat. Paula says it was absolutely perfect, that he took a well-known song and turned it into a pop ballad. Simon says he thought it was pleasant, but one of his weakest performances so far. He says it's not of those performances you're ever going to remember - it's absolutely going to get him through to next week, but it was all a bit forgettable.