CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Dear American Idol Producers,

American Idol...Reborn?

Sigh.  Another season has ended, albeit with a surprise ending (Kris Allen defeating Adam Lambert), but the finale wasn’t watched in my household.  Again.  We didn’t watch last year, either.  And although we watched most of the episodes this season, we still watched many fewer than last season.

Over the years there have been several consistent issues we have with the show which continue to drain our enthusiasm.  If you care to know them, here they are:

Issue #1: Obvious no-talents singing before the judges during tryouts
I can see you all huddled in your planning meetings, hoping to strike some more William Hung-like ratings gold by putting through idiots, freaks, sad losers, and people whose singing talent is measured in the negative range.  However, that schtick is old and

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Week four – Top 12 – 3/11/2008 (Lennon / McCartney)
Wow. Talk about something to LIVE UP TO!!
Outstanding:

Chikezie rates a HOLY COW. That was amazing with the bluegrass start and the crazy upbeat stuff and some great vocals
Carly Smithson was the best of the night, doing a great rock out of “Come Together”
Brooke White was clearly nervous and having a hard time playing to the crowd from behind the piano but freaking feeling it, which is what the Beatles are ABOUT. She did a great heartfelt “Let It Be”.
Michael Johns rang clear as a bell with “Across the Universe”. As Engineerboy put it, “you’ve got to be naked to sing that song”. I think he means emotionally naked, so I agree with that for sure. I couldn’t believe the judges didn’t love that performance, it was strong and really moving.

Good:

Jason Castro – Did a

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First off.  Let me just say:

If you have never heard of a particular Beatles song, especially a HUGE Beatles song, like 'Hide Your Love Away', you should not admit this.  You sound like an idiot.  You do not sound like a singer.  You sound like a dope.  And every time you repeat this fact you sound more and more stupid.  Mentioning that you picked it out from the title.  That you heard it for the first time today.  Etc.  You sound like an idiot.  I weep for the future.

Aside from that, our contestants had a little vapor lock having to face the gigantic sheer unscalable rock face that is having to attempt not only a Beatles song, but another Beatles song after having either:

Captured lightning in a jar and given a fabulous performance last week against all oddsEmbarassingly fell on his/her face after running smack into said giant unscalable rock face last week

Either one is

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Click here to see our recap of this week’s performances by the men.
Click here to see our recap of this week’s Idol eliminations.

The Girls (Wednesday Night)
Well, tonight it was the girl’s turn, continuing The Sixties theme. All around there were quite a few lackluster performances, and only one standout – Carly Smithson. As for the rest, was it nerves? Bad picks by the judges? Poor song choices? Bird flu? Who knows, but the fact that the judges said as many positive things as they did leads me to believe that they’re scrambling to recover from a poor batch of lady contestants this year.

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Carly Smithson

Very few people can sing Heart.  Carly Smithson is one of them.

We've heard some disastrous Heart covers before on Idol, so I was a little worried about anyone attempting it.  However, Carly really did a decent job — she didn't quite slay it, but it was definitely mortally wounded. 

This is what's great about Idol — when you hear this girl sing you think, how is it she doesn't have a freaking recording contract?!  Nice to know that after this season she probably will.

She is a fabulous singer.  I agree with Simon's assessment that she's absolutely the best of the women vocally, she now just needs to pick really perfect songs for her.  Crazy on You was a good choice but there are probably ones that would showcase here even

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Top Ten Men

The men took on the seventies…

Michael Johns

Fleetwood Muck

Our Favorite Aussie does a bleennhh job with a Fleetwood Mac song.  Engineerboy hated it but I thought it wasn't too bad, just a bad song choice.

Jason Castro

Charming but not sure yet if he's a singer

Our favorite dreadlocked whiteboy from last week sang the Bee Gees in a feelgood acoustic number that wasn't fabulous but would've been decently enjoyable were he playing at an outdoor festival or

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And the top 24 are…
Letting the contestants play instruments was a stroke of brilliance. Not only did it help us see the true performers who are really comfortable up there on stage, but it broke the monotony of Hollywood Week and – thank GOODNESS – meant that we didn’t have to have any more group auditions with pimple-faced-stress-pups forgetting the words to “Baby Love” by the Supremes.

Carly Smithson (a.k.a. Girl with Irish Accent and Half-Sleeve Tattoo)
Carly certainly did better in her audition than at Hollywood, but you can tell that she can actually sing. I just wish she didn’t sound like she was forcing out that voice. Dude and what’s with the blue tongue? A little too much rehearsal chloroseptic?

David Cook (a.k.a. Slightly Balding Rocker Trying for the Green Day

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Click here to see our recap of this week’s performances by the women.
Click here to see our recap of this week’s Idol eliminations.
The Boys (Tuesday Night)
The boys kicked it off with The Sixties. Some real talent this year. And several we’ll have forgotten by the time we’re chattering at the water cooler on Friday.

David Hernandez
An uninspired rendition of… oh I don’t know what. Decent voice, but yawn. He was nervous, didn’t move around the stage very much. His left leg sorta kept the beat in that pelvis-forward-but-brutally-awkward stance that 15 year old boys have at their first high school dance. And, honey, that shirt looked like the “before” picture in a Spray-n-Wash Spot Remover commercial.

Chikezie
I like

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1/15/2008 – Season Seven Premiere, Philadelphia, PA

Well, here we go again with another season of American Idol!  Tonight’s premiere got things started in the traditional style, with wildly varying singing skills, as well as a large standard deviation on the sanity scale.  The shtick of putting through painfully untalented contestants for either tragic mockery or pitiable foolishness is growing old.  This is a singing competition and the things that count are voice talent and charisma, period.  It’s also nice to get the backstory for the contestants, such as the young lady tonight whose daughter had a neuromuscular disease – she sang her heart out, made it to Hollywood, and couldn’t have had a brighter or sunnier personality, in spite of the challenges she must face as a young mother.

I’m not sure if I respect or detest the AI producer’s decision to stick

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5/23/2007 – Grand Finale, the New American Idol Is Named!

Well, tonight I felt like I entered some kind of alternative dimension where American Idol didn’t suck. At the end of the show we all sat back in awe at the…magnificence…of tonight’s production. I’ll cover the details of tonight’s excellent show down below, but first the results – the new American Idol for 2007 is:

Jordin Sparks: Thank you, American voting public, for making the overwhelmingly correct choice!!! We’ve watched Jordin grow from a wide-eyed, raw talent into a mature, composed, humble superstar. Congratulations Jordin!!!!

And Blake showed real class tonight, and seemed genuinely happy for Jordin when her name was called instead of his. Nice job, Blake!

And the show itself was simply terrific. There were two clunker notes in the show – Gwen Stefani and Bette Midler, but other than that it was

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