An Open Letter to the Producers of American Idol is brought to you by 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 played out and should be retired.  As the judges are so fond of saying, and what keeps me watching, is that this is a singing competition.  Having your screeners put through some croaking clown to sing before the judges is a ludicrous and transparent ploy, please stop it.

Issue #2: The endless, manufactured backstories
During tryouts, you pick supposedly interesting/appealing contestants and provide us with behind-the-scenes looks at their lives, toils, challenges, and troubles.  However, at this early stage these are anonymous singers, so the program would be much more interesting and lively, in our opinion, if you would simply stage the singing competition.  Now, when you get to Hollywood and start paring down the contestants to an identifiable bunch, we might like to learn a *little* something about them…but just a little.  The endless biographing and attempts to manufacture pathos and drama are irksome.

Issue #3: Kara DioGuardi
Who?  Why?  The best way to describe her is to paraphrase Shakespeare thusly:  “Kara is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets her hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.  Her’s is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.“  Kara did not have one moment that we saw this season that wasn’t useless, irritating, or both, or somewhere in between.  And don’t get us started on her “song”, which is addressed further down in this article.

Issue #4: Country week
Do you have to kowtow to that demographic?  Have you even stopped to consider how many viewers it drives away (like us) compared to how many it attracts for that one, single episode?  Country music is not what American Idol is about, period, so don’t try to put a pig behind the lipstick – it insults the fans of both kinds of music.

Issue #5: Golden Idol awards
Really?  Just shorten the damn show by 15 minutes.  Please?  Even 15 minutes of dead air would be preferable.

Issue #6: An even number of judges
This puts too much power in the hands of Lord Cowell.  Have three judges…or five judges…but not four.  Having Simon deciding ties also renders the new “Judge’s Save” useless, and makes it “Simon’s Save”.

Issue #7: Lip-synching
This is a singing competition.  If the guests can’t sing live, or the group can’t learn to sing together live, then skip it.  It taints the rest of the program to see such obvious lip-synching by the guests and during the group songs.  It would be like having a slam-dunk competition in basketball, and inviting revered, retired players to perform, but then having to lower the backboard and/or provide them with a springboard in order to actually dunk.  It’s demeaning to the performers and insulting to the viewers, so please stop it.

Issue #8: The horrible finale song
This is the worst issue of all.  When each new season starts, we already start dreading having to sit through the inevitably atrocious, amateurish, pathetic, soulless, empty, fawning, shallow, superficial song that is written for the last show.  There hasn’t been a single one that wasn’t a horrific affront to all things musical.  And it is the absolute wrong note to strike at the end of American Idol.  Over the course of the season, contestants improve.  The bar gets raised each show.  The songs and themes get better and better.  Tension builds.  Over the last two or three weeks each contestant has proven their worthiness, and each is a valid potential star.  They swing for the fences, and we all get swept along with them, big voices and big talents tackling big songs, the skill and expertise are awe-inspiring, the artistry is soul-enriching.  Until…like the giant, wet fart of an incontinent walrus….bbrrrppfppfppptttthhhh…that lame-ass final song.  *That’s* what we’ve been building up to?  A crappy and trite slice of pabulum not even fit for the discount bin?  Please, in the name of all humanity, please stop torturing us with this horrific ending.  Please.

I see today that the finale had all-time low ratings, and I can’t say that I’m surprised.  Listen, Idol Producers, your show is still solid.  You don’t need to do more non-singing-related bullshit, you need to do less.  Strip it down to a singing competition.  If you want to add something to it, make it about the singing and performing.  How about a jury night in Hollywood?  Bring in nine additional musical noteworthies/legends, make Simon the foreman, and have the jury decide on the final 24, or something like that? 

Make sure that the entire focus of the show is on the quality of the singers and of the songs.  Go back to the original three judges: Simon Cowell, Paul Abdul, and Randy Jackson.  If you end up having to make changes, please pick people who will be interesting and relevant, unlike Kara, who is neither.  And keep Ryan Seacrest, he continues to be an affable and unflappable host, the circus master who always seems to strike the correct note.

You have a great product, but it’s like you’ve taken a classic Rolls-Royce and tricked it out with fiberglass effects, tinted windows, neon running lights, and subwoofer in the trunk.  Strip away the cheap bling and flashy trash, and be what you are – a pure and classic singing competition.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2006: Mynagirls American Idol Dashboard and Commentary
2. American Idol (***)
3. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties

American Idol 2008 Dashboard is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 really good job with “If I Fell In Love With You”. That song is a lot harder to sing than it sounds, and he did a great job.
• David Cook – Eleanor Rigby was rushed and didn’t need to be rocked out — until the Chorus that is. The chorus was really good and kind of saved a why-did-he-do-it-this-way performance. Not bad.

Ennh:

• Ramiele Malubay – In My Life is one of the greatest John Lennon songs ever. Boring rendition and the crazy cocktail dress and spectator pumps were distractingly dressy for such a low-key song.
• Amanda Overmyer – This almost worked. It was a good song choice but Simon was right, it was hard to understand her. I think I only liked it because I want to like her and I already knew the song. If I hadn’t heard the song before that would’ve been a muddly mess.

Augh

• Syesha Mercado – Murdered “Got to Get You Into My Life”. Horrible. Soulless. Off key.
• David Hernandez – Hated the Ferris Bueller look. Hated the runs. Hated the cheeseball dancing around. Totally imagined him as a gay stripper. Sorry, dude. That was awful.
• David Archuleta – I would not have thought he could do badly. His voice is so pure but he was 100% uncomfortable trying to do a jazzy rendition of “We Can Work It Out”. I’m glad he’ll be here for another week. I think he tried too hard not to be what Simon called “gloomy” but we would’ve loved to hear his angel voice on “Yesterday”.

God-Awful

• Kristy Lee Cook yodele’d it up with a horrendous Kentucky Headhunters-esqe bluegrass-and-methamphetamine version of “Eight Days a Week”. To her credit, it was the first time she’s looked comfortable and her voice actually sounded good. But that was absolutely beyond words awful.

Week three – 3/4/2008 (The Eighties)

Uh… sorry. Too much work last week! Apologies for the slack off. We lost Luke Menard (no loss), Danny Noriega (that boy makes Barry Manilow look like Clint Eastwood), Kady… uh… Somebody-or-Other (oh, Kady Malloy, I love TiVo) and perky-but-too-hard-to-Google-you-anyway Asia’h Epperson.

Week two – 2/28/2008 (The Seventies)

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

Standouts this week

Young’un David Archuleta risked a John Lennon and did an amazing job — especially for his age. And Carly Smithson for the women was the only female singer who showed up for 70′s week, apparently.

Facing Elimination This Week – Boys

Luke Menard and Jason Yeager were probably this week’s weakest men. I bet they’re out.

Facing Elimination This Week – Girls

Hard to pick. So many were so awful. But the Donkey household speculates that we’ll see no more of Ramiela and Kady after the round of voting.

Who Got Voted Off This Week (with Broken-hearted Pic Badness)

Jeez, good thing we’re not trying to make money in Vegas. We only had a 25% prediction rate this weedk. Here’s who ACTUALLY got their walking papers:

Jason Yeager – Goodbye!

Alexandrea Lushington – Goodbye!

Alaina Whitaker – Goodbye!

Robbie Carrico – Goodbye!

Week One – 2/21/2008 (The Sixties)

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

Tonight the remaining Idols performed a medley of 60′s songs – very lackluster. The show also showed the world premiere of Paula Abdul’s new video, produced by Randy Jackson. The combination of music, singing, dancing, and video production showed that Paula is still a pretty good choreographer……………………………..

We lost four Idols tonight, and quite frankly my only concern was that our three or four favorites remained and didn’t really care much about the rest. I mean, I feel for each one and their broken dreams, but hey, the show gave them publicity they would never have gotten before, which gives them a better chance of living their dreams.

One of our faves was actually in the bottom four for the women – Amanda Overmyer – but she was safe for the evening. The fact that she was in the bottom four women was surprising, but she made it to next week so whew!

As for the rest, here are tonight’s eliminated Idols:

Garrett Haley – Goodbye!

Amy Davis – Goodbye!

Joanne Borgella – Goodbye!

Colton Berry – Goodbye!

Well, I can’t complain about any of these eliminations, although we thought Joanne would go a lot farther in the competition, but she really sang poorly last night. The other three were just not good and their elimination seemed logical.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2006: Mynagirls American Idol Dashboard and Commentary
2. American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies
3. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties

American Idol: The Top Eleven Sing the Beatles is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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:

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

Either one is painfully awful to contemplate.  I suspect our contestants may have rather wished to move onto Styx Week or Guns N Roses Week or Poco Week or Phoebe Snow Week or Vanilla Ice Week or Leo Sayer Week or anything other than Beatles Week, again.  Just too hard.  Only one person really knocked it out and that was David Cook, rockin' it out Peter Frampton style on "Day Tripper".

• Amanda Overmyer – Did "Back in the U.S.S.R." and should have wrapped her raspy voice around "Oh Darling"
• Kristy Lee Cook – Did "Hide Your Love Away", and… well since Chikezie stole the only Beatles bluegrass song, not sure there was a good one for anyone who doesn't know the freaking Beatles songbook.  Special extra awful points for the Kohl's basement bargain dress and bad boots.
• Michael Johns – Did "A Day in the Life" (which is way too disjointed for Idol-ization), and should have rocked it out with that great vocal control and picked "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" or "I've Got a Feeling"
• Brooke White – Did "Here Comes the Sun",;should have done "For No One"
• David Cook – Did a ROCKING version of "Day Tripper" and honestly it was great.  He could have done that rocker's scream on "Helter Skelter" (not that they would have let him, Manson Family tie-in and all that), but I can't argue with how he freaking rocked what he did pick.
• Carly Smithson - Did "Blackbird"; should have done "Blackbird" softer and sultrier 
• David Archuleta - Sang "Long and Winding Road" admirably but he might should have tried "She's Leaving Home" (risky especially because it's a linear narrative but he can surprisingly feel some of those songs)
• Jason Castro – Did "My Michelle", should have done "Norwegian Wood" or even "Revolution" (the slow version)
• Syesha Mercado – Sang "Yesterday", should have lost her voice again instead.  Judges on TV liked it but two sets of droopy donkey ears here at the CD household.
• Chikezie – Sang "I've Just Seen a Face" decently if a bit disorganizedly, but probably should have taken a wicket swing for the bowler (or whatever Britishism is the equivalent of "swing for the fences") with "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" 
• Ramiele Malubay (who knew she was still in this contest?) flat-noted her way through the snoozer of "I Should Have Known Better" but "Can't Buy Me Love" might have been more her style — still a lightweight choice but maybe it would've been less silly.

Our pick for goner this week is Ramiele or Kristy Lee Cook.  Please for the love of all that is holy, let poor sweet, adorable, undynamic Kristy Lee Cook go back to her horses and family in Oregon.  I think she'll be happier.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties
2. American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies
3. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties

American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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.

Kristy Lee Cook

Sang “Rescue Me” in a very uninspired performance. And maybe this was because she’s a horsewoman, but she stood with a Larry-Craig-worthy wide stance throughout her performance…was she trying to dazzle us with misdirection? It didn’t work.

Joanne Borgella

Performed “I Say a Little Prayer for You”, and it was a very flat and forgettable performance. The song has a lot of orchestration and backup singers and her voice kind of disappeared in the mix – which she may have done purposely to hide her nerves, perhaps? All in all very disappointing.

Alaina Whitaker

Covered “I Love You More Today Than Yesterday”. Her performance was technically pretty good, but completely soulless. The judges liked her, but perhaps they see potential there…you can teach performance skills, but if you can’t sing you can’t sing.

Amanda Overmyer

Sang “Baby Please Don’t Go”, which included one of the great performances by the Idol band, but only honky-tonk-screeching from Amanda who also seemed to be hiding any singing ability behind the band – you could only hear her during the screamed parts. We still like her but her voice was too small tonight to take on the song and front the band, but we hope she sticks around so we get to hear more from her.

Amy Davis

Sang “Where the Boys Are”, and one hopes the boys were somewhere else during this performance. It was simply terrible – flat and off key from the first bar to the last. She was so good in tryouts, flawlessly covering “Blue Bayou”, which is a singer’s song of the first degree. Perhaps she was one of the ones with the flu tonight, but she barely managed to squeak and squawk her way through it to the end.

Brooke White

Covered “Happy Together” in an uncomfortable mess of a performance. What is it with the ladies tonight? Flat, pitchy, nervous, and definitely uncomfortable during the bah-bah-bah-bah scat part. But yet again the judges liked her. So far not one of the ladies tonight showed any star power of any type, and Brooke simply blended in to the mediocrity.

Alexandrea Lushington

Sang “Spinning Wheel” in a completely awful mess of a performance. Her wheels spun right off, she ran out of breath and ended up barely pushing out the last few lines of the song. Yet again Paula and Randy liked it, in the face of all reason. Simon had it right…he didn’t get it, and neither did I.

Kady Malloy

Performed “A Groovy Kind of Love” with a country twist. It wasn’t bad, with some pitchy parts, but she definitely can sing. But, again, just completely soulless. I think that people like Michael Bolton and Celine Dion have tainted the music business with their success – each has a big, powerful voice and zero soul. That’s a soul temperature of absolute zero. And Kady’s performance was wooden and she looked a bit medicated, to be frank.

Asia’h Epperson

Oh my god, did she actually try to cover Janis Joplin’s “Another Piece of My Heart”?!?? OMFG, where do these chiclets get the nerve? I think I’m going to have to stop watching 60′s week on Idol because these young pup contestants simply have no idea of the magnitude of the songs they are singing. They don’t do the songs justice and it seems like it’s because the songs are meaningless to them. That may be the nature of things, but to watch these tyros prance around as if they’re worthy of singing some of these songs is infuriating. Oh, and Asia’h's performance was simply lackluster. But the judges liked it. Oy.

Ramiele Malubay

And another one, this time covering “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” by Dusty Springfield. Listen, I’m very okay if someone wants to update a song, make it fresh, and/or make it their own. But, if you take on a classic by a legend you better bring your “A” game. And Ramiela did not. Again, another barely tolerable performance for this stage of Idol. But yet again, the judges loved it. I can’t figure out if I’m crazy, the judges are crazy, or if the judges are simply making the best of it because their ultimate goal is to sell records.

Syesha Mercado

Sang “Tobacco Road” in a completely horrible performance. Her voice was way too small for the song, and the end was completely off-key, horribly so, so bad that I got goosebumps but not the good kind – the kind you get from fingernails on a blackboard. But the judges *loved* it. Maybe my sound system is busted? I don’t think so because the backstory parts with their original auditions and Hollywood week contain a lot of good singing.

Carly Smithson

Covered “Shadow of Your Smile” originally done by Nancy Sinatra, and this was my favorite performance of the night. It was by no means a star-making turn, but it was the best of the lot tonight. Kind of torchy and jazzy it showed what a strong, pure voice she has. I’m not sure it was the best song choice, but she sang it with feeling and power.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties
2. American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies
3. American Idol: The Top Eleven Sing the Beatles

American Idol 2008: The Top Ten Girls Perform the Seventies is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 more.

Syesha Mercado

Hunh. Me and "Mr" Jones.

Cool to take a song like this and change the gender around. And she did a decent job on it.

But I'm bored.  Yeah, she can sing and belt and has decent range and control.  And no originality.  And she has that actress' canniness of where the television camera is.  Call me old fashioned and even a bit cranky, but I don't want to feel like I'm getting manipulated.  I mean, I'm young enough that I grew up on MTv (back when it played videos) and I'm comfortable with the singer-singing-into-the-camera paradigm, but in American Idol I still want a little bit of the "omniscient impartial camera" feel like the contestant is actually there, in the auditorium, singing that song for the live audience and the judges, rather than just flashing sly looks and shiny lips to the camera.

Brooke White

Not sure she knew the word 'Gavotte'…

Started off well — and a brave choice, singing Carly Simon's You're So Vain!  But she cannot rock the low notes, her voice just falls off the low end of the slide there.  And, it must be said, her guitar playing was distracting at the beginning… it overpowered the vocal and she didn't seem comfortable enough playing it.

Other than Brooke not being able to sing a good 22% of the song, it was a decent performance. Her voice during the soaring parts it was really quite lovely.  At the very end she had a little husky tone to her voice and it was a really nice treat.  But overall I would have to give it a grade C.

Well, one other thought: now that I know from Hollywood week that she's never seen a Rated R movie, I am thinking she probably doesn't have the life experience to sing that song.  But it didn't feel robotic… at least during the parts where she could hit the notes.

Ramiele Malubay

She left us that way. 

What is up with the wacky sideswept hair?  It's distracting.  Get that damn hair out of your eyes!

Oh wait, she's singing.  At least she sounds like she might start singing soon. So far it's just preparatory noises, the song is going nowhere.

Ok, now she's singing.  Well, she's kind of repeating the same 12 notes.  Donna Summer songs (Don't Leave me this Way in this case) are generally great club jams with awesome baselines, but it wasn't much of a vehicle to show up the vocal talents of anybody.  I mean, she did a decent job of it but there wasn't a good hook or verse to really hold onto and get taken for a ride.  Know what I mean??  So in the end, she just kinda left us there.

Kristy Lee Cook

Honey, you need to take some standin' lessons

Ok, I am all about the outdoorsy girl, horsewoman, athletic thing, it's all cool.  But honey, you're right, you cannot walk in heels.  For that matter, you cannot walk in pants.  Because you walk and stand like a man.  It is REALLY distracting.  Start wearing pencil skirts or practicing with your freaking knees bungeed together.  Anything.  Your voice was startlingly good during the start of You're no Good by the amazing Linda Ronstadt, but then I couldn't hear any longer because I was in shock at your singing posture.

Literally, it's like my ears quit working when you started the pose Engineerboy always refers to as "The Squat 'n Sing". 

Ok.  I'm going to try and finish listening to the rest of the song.  I may have to look away to be able to write an actual vocal review.

The vocals were actually decent, this is the first time I think we've actually heard her voice.  She was clearly comfortable with the song and it showed.  But I cannot watch that strange forward squat.

Amanda Overmyer

Amanda rocks the chaps and sings her some Kansas 

I really wanted to like this performance.  But I'll quote Engineerboy here: "This is one of the lamest songs ever.  Classic rock my ass.  Classic tripe!"  And I'll have to agree with him.

And I love Amanda.  I love that she's consistent; she's her own woman with her own style — both vocally and sartorially.  I love the heck out of her.

But I couldn't quite get into this groove on this pitch-fest… she flat-out could not quite hit those low notes and I'm realizing the husky quality to her voice might actually be a cigarette smoker's death-rattle.  (One HOPES not since she's a nurse but I know several otherwise intelligent people who still suck on those disgusting things).  She rocked the fast parts and the strong note at the end was cool, but… overall it was a bit of a flop.

But that was a cool outfit (special points to Engineerboy for seeing her hairstyle and asking… "Is that Aslan up there??") and I hope she sticks around to wow us again.  I like her.  She should go the Daughtry route and front a band; she'd do really well in that role. 

Alaina Whitaker

'Is someone taking the anal temperature of a cat?!'

So now know you know Engineerboy's opinion.

For me, I liked this about 1000% better than I thought I would.  I mean, I still have a part of me that secretly likes the movie Grease (don't tell Engineerboy) but this is a really corny and stuuuuupid song.  But she allllmost rocked it.  There were flashes of real actual singing in that warble-fest.  But this was one lame song.

Alexandrea Lushington

Alexandrea slaps some boots on her workout outfit and rushes over to sing on Idol
-or-
We finally realize Alexandrea is an alien as she steps through her 'star portal' onto the Idol stage.

Hahahaha, Alexandrea has probably never heard Butters sing this song on South Park when he's trapped in the bomb shelter.  Butters does a better version.

Never pick a song with oo-oo-OOO as the opening to the chorus.  She did a workmanlike job with the vocals but it was overall a sloppy mess.  She sounded nasal and unsure of herself and the song was boring, unoriginal and not one freaking bit current.  Feh, I hope I forget it in the next five minutes.

Oh and BOO HOO on calling herself "the underdog" in the competition.  Wyyyannhhh.

Kady Malloy

Modeling Flinstones couture, Kady murders a Heart song.
-or-
A vortex spontaneously appears behind Kady to suck her back to her universe where that performance would have been in tune.

Tough with Carly, who's probably the best female vocalist they have, already having rocked a Heart song.  There is no way this crazy overly-tanned (even for Houston) chippie is gonna pull off the low growl required for Heart's Magic Man.  It was AN OUT OF TUNE MESS.

Horrible!!

I can't think of bad enough words to encapsulate how out of tune she was on everything other than the chorus.  Oh, and she basically sucked on the chorus too.

I will say I will be amazed if she's still around after tomorrow's vote-off.

Asia'h Epperson

She's gonna be all by herself, alright.

That was awful.  Did her mic cut out or did she just completely fail on that first note? 

Horrible.  This song is one-hundred-percent a singer's song.  And she just couldn't sing it.  It was a risk and she crashed and burned, I'm sorry to say.

Randy and Paula liked it (I can't understand that) but at least Simon agreed with the CleverDonkey household — she couldn't handle that song one bit.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies
2. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties
3. American Idol 2008 Dashboard

American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 at a chilled out pub of some sort.  But I might have to agree with Randy — the whole package is reasonably charming but he may not actually be a stellar vocalist.  I personally don't care but I realize the American Idol producers want the pop singer (which personally I think might be short-sighted of them).  Hopefully he sticks around to get a chance to pick a better song next week.

Luke Menard

On Her Majesty's Disservice 

Dude, he looks like Bruce Campbell's less successful younger brother whom you couldn't possibly imagine successfully delivering a line like "Gimme some sugar, baby".  Which then leads to the next point, which is that if he couldn't possibly deliver spoken words with any kind of panache, he certainly can't freaking sing QUEEN!!!!     Paula said it was great but it was HORRIBLE, nasally and weak and uninspired.  I mean he didn't screech through it but it it was awful.  He sang that almost too feminine-ly for a Queen song (uh… did I just say that?).  And as Simon said, he didn't have any charisma or charm… or the ability to carry off a song like Queen's Killer Queen. 

Robbie Carrico

ROFLMAO!!!! 

Oh my, Hot Blooded by Foreigner!!  Hahahahahaha!!!  I have a hard time admitting that I even know that song — I could never sing it straight-faced!!!!!!  And dude isn't nearly as sheepish as he should be when he belts out the line "Are you old enough… Will you be ready when I call your bluff?"  Bwahahahahaha… I can't even pay attention to what he sounds like as a singer, because anyone singing that song already sounds like a fool!!! HAHAHAhahah!  I'm still freaking laughing my butt off.  I have no review.  Hahahah!!!

HA!

Danny Noriega

Go cry emo weasel!

I can't figure this kid out.  He seems to be over-confident as a coping skill.  The sassy head bobs aside, I can hardly listen to him sing because he's trying to imbue the whole performance with some kind of mystique.  Or something. 

David Hernandez

Wow, like who's this dude that can sing so well?!

We had to pause for gales of laughter at the bow-chicky-wow-wow intro of the song, like, oh my gracious what cheesy piece of seventies crapsploitation music is this?  He's not actually singing SHAFT is he?!  But no, it was Papa Was a Rolling Stone (made famous by The Temptations).  If you'd told me this ahead of time I would've said, no way he could pull it off, and then I would've followed that with another thought… gee, I don't remember a thing about whether or not this guy can sing.

Well, he can sing.  That was freaking awesome.  HARD to pull off that song and he did it, he felt it, he sang the sh*t out of it.  Unbelievable.  Agree with Paula, he didn't overdo it or undersell it, it was just spot on.  Two sets of Donkey Ears enthusiastically up!!

Jason Yeager

Nice kids falls way flat singing the Doobs.

Sorry to say it wasn't such a great performance.  Long Train Runnin' is a very recognizable song from that decade, so it's a great jam but not such a great Idol audition song.  It was boring, and it would be wince-worthy from a wedding singer.  Totally not up to Idol standards.

And special dishonorable mention for the choreographed outro with the guitar-jam-arm-jabs.  Barf!

Chikezie 

Great performance of a song I've never heard before 

So, am I just ig'nant?  I do not know that song.  Helluva performance, though!!  After the Orange-Suited-Overscripted-Weirdness from before I was so just waiting to slog through listening to this performance.   Well shut my mouth!  I would NEVER before have put this dude in the strong singer category, much less a 'belter', but that was pretty impressive.  This is his genre.  Damn fine.

That was something.

David Cook

Bad Company cover was All Right (Oh c'mon, what other play on words was I gonna make here?!)

Wasn't impressed at first.  However, when I ignored the overall performance/hard-rocker/guitar aspect, etc… he actually gave a really strong vocal performance.  And he's one of the only singers we've seen that's given a performance where sing-along background vocals didn't overshadow his voice.  Not bad.

And he looks comfortable. 

I disagree with Simon that he doesn't have charisma, though.  I mean, we're not swooning here at the Donkey household, but I don't think he's just a singing doink.  And I don't think admitting he's a word nerd did him a disservice.  Pooh on Simon.

David Archuleta

Oh…my…god… John Lennon?

So here's a story.  The week after 9/11 Engineerboy and I were watching A Tribute to Heroes, and the opening chords of Imagine started playing.  We look up and see a cowboy hat bent over a piano, and Eboy says, his voice already cracking, "Who could possibly dare sing this song?"  And then it was Neil Young, and it became obvious, of course, that it was perfect for Neil Young to sing that song.

But you don't really have the same reaction to such a young kid taking on this song.  I mean, he's a baby.  He can't possibly understand it, can he?

But, wow, that was really something.  I am very ambivalent about anyone covering Imagine, much less changing it up vocally to the newer vocal run R&B style that's popular now.  But I can't really find much fault with it.  It did bring tears to my eyes.  I have to give him credit, I think he may have lived up to the song. 

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008: The Top Ten Girls Perform the Seventies
2. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties
3. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties

American Idol 2008 Top 24!! is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 Hairstyle)

I like this guy, he is really comfortable singing. I agree with Simon, though — he might be less comfortable when he doesn’t have a guitar with him.

Amanda Overmyer (a.k.a. Skunk Stripe Janis-ette with Surprisingly Good Voice)

This girl really surprised us. When they did the pre-story on her during auditions, I was so already over her with the crazy blonde bits and the no-helmet-wearing-idiocy on the motorcycle. I was waiting for her to be some kind of screechy twit. We were really surprised by the power of her voice, although we’re not sure she can keep up that rocker’s rasp throughout the whole competition.

David Archuleta (a.k.a. Cherub Face, Cherub Voice)

This kid is just too nice and cute!! A surprisingly strong voice for such a young kid. And he’s just too polite.

Kristy Lee Cook (a.k.a. Who the Hell is this Blonde Chick We’ve Never Seen Before?)

I’ve got no analysis here. Don’t remember seeing her before, but she clearly has the cute adorable look.

Brooke White (a.k.a. Blonde Wavy Hair Big Earrings Nanny Who’s Never Seen an R Movie)

She tensed up during the first Hollywood performance, very distracted by playing the piano. But she does have a good voice and seems honestly very sweet. Interesting to see how her nerves stack up over the next week or two!!

Danny Noriega (a.k.a. Good Voice and Slightly Fey)

Good voice but a bit over-the-top with the mannerisms. Can’t wait to see where we go from here. I predict the judges will get annoyed with him.

Jason Castro (a.k.a. Rastafari-ish)

Uh. Commentary pending.

Luke Menard (a.k.a. Chandler Bong)

Never heard him before. But he kinda looks like a doper, we decided.

Alexandra Lushington (a.k.a. Random Contestant Number Four)

I’d make fun of her since I have no singing commentary, but with a last name like Lushington she’s probably already had a tough go of it. We’ll let her off the hook.

Ramiela Malubay (a.k.a. Tiniest Filipino Singer Ever)

She does have a big voice, especially for such a tiny person!

Michael Johns (a.k.a. OMG is he Really Going to Sing Freddy Freaking Mercury?!)

This guy is good. Our early pick for winner. Amazing. Seen here modeling his action wear.

Syesha Mercado (a.k.a. Scarf Girl Who Got Hoarse)

She does have a good voice.

Robbie Carrico (a.k.a. Didn’t That Look Go Out With Bret Michaels?)

This guy has a much better voice than you’d think. Not blown away yet, but he could surprise.

Garrett Haley (a.k.a. “Harold” Stern)

Never heard of him. I guess we will though.

Kady Malloy (a.k.a. Cute, Blonde, Whatever)

I never realized how many of the contestants I’d never heard of at this point in the competition. Now I do. Alas, Kady, I’m already forgetting you. Go ahead. Prove me wrong.

Chikezie Eze (a.k.a. The Search Engines Will Never Find This Dude Because Who Will Know How To Spell This?! But Trust Me This is the Spelling)

I think I remember his original audition. Sounded good I think.

Amy Davis (a.k.a. Auditioning for the next Tim Burton Flick)

La la la. Someday maybe I’ll have something to say about her. But for now: she’s pale. I’ve never heard of her. There, I’m done.

Alaina Whitaker (a.k.a. Witness Protection Program)

Okay, message to all the hopefuls. Do not put your hands over your mouth. We cannot get a good picture of you. There, I’ve said it. See what you made me do?

Jason Yeager (a.k.a. Host of Talk Soup)

Are you still here? I’m not sure I am. He was one enthusiastic dude when they told him. That’s cool.

Asai’h Epperson (a.k.a. Another Search Engine Nightmare)

Don’t parents know by now to pick a unique name but not one that’s hard to Google? Seriously, though, she’s decent singer but I’m not moved at all. And she has the whole Mary J Blige 2000-crunches-a-day put-together “look” down way too pat for me. Shrug. Yawn. Is there any lasagna left in the fridge?

Colton Berry (a.k.a. Ennh)

Don’t really remember him from before. I don’t think he should’ve gotten in over Kyle the Geeky Governor. That stinks!!!

Joanne Borgella (a.k.a. Plus Size Model)

I like her. I’m glad she made it.

Oh my god I cannot believe he didn’t make it!!!

Josiah Leming (a.k.a. Sad Quavery Tennessee Boy Who Lived in his Car)

He’s really something. I cannot believe he didn’t make it. I know he was rough and even a little disingenous, but geez, he had promise. I hope someone signs him, he’s really good. So sad, nobody even there to console him when he came out. That’s a shame. He’s a talented kid. Somebody sign him!! He’s just as sad and a better singer than Bright Eyes.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008
2. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties
3. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties

American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 that American Idol lets people return for multiple seasons, even if they’ve been to Hollywood before. It’s smart for the producers — they don’t put someone in the permanent ‘no’ pile and lose out on a money making opportunity — and it’s great for the contestants — if they just need a little polish or a little voice training or a little confidence or whatever, they’ve got the better part of a year to work on all of that. A drawback to this scenario, however, is that it seems to be spawning the “professional contestant”. Chikezie has the whole schtick down, man… he lost some weight, got the fly persimmon-colored suit, and sported some clearly rehearsed ‘natural stage presence’ bullcrap. But he’s lost that ingenue’s wide-eyed wonderment at the whole process — rather than being amazed by it all, he’s determined to master it. So he’s got the smooth patter with the judges (not even letting Simon talk) and the smart alecky one-liners. Oh yeah, and now he’s just down to one name. I’m so over him already.

David Cook

Wow, super nice guy; totally not enamored of himself. Happy Together by The Turtles was an inspired song choice for 60′s night but unfortunately he was a bit uneven. He’s got the stage presence thing down but I get the impression that he didn’t know the song that very well, because he proved in his original audition that he can do difficult vocals with a lot of range. But the judges loved it, and it was a great take on the song. I’m hoping it was just nerves, because he seems really original and genuinely a good person. I wish he would just comb the hair back, though. The flared-forward rooster tail isn’t fooling anyone dude.

Jason Yeager

Nice kid, seems like a good dad and all that. He’s a bit too plasticly gorgeous, like a Hollywood director took the volleyball scene from Top Gun and put it a giant Central Casting Morph-o-Matic. The vocals were stolid and bo-ring with a capital ‘bo’.

Robbie Carrico

Engineerboy’s high praise is “He’s got a Journey voice”. “Well,” he then clarified, he meant that as “medium praise”, in that Steve Perry has a perfect voice and no soul. “This guy has more soul, but not as great of a voice”. But he rocked the Three Dog Night, which is always a way into this reviewer’s good graces. And there were moments when the soaring background singers weren’t drowning him out and you heard a true rock voice hitting the note just right. We liked!

David Archuleta

I’m always in awe of these young kids that are on this show. I remember what I was like at 17 and boy am I sure glad there weren’t any cameras broadcasting into America’s living rooms back then… at least none pointed at me. But this kid is just so sweet and nice as to almost not be believable. But boy can he SING!! He’s a bit uneven but really talented. And he really got the crowd going! David Hernandez (Spray-n-Wash) could learn some things from this kid.

Daniel Noriega

If I only had to listen to him and not watch him. Or listen to him talk in the pre-interview stage about his “attitude and swagger”. GROSS! He’s a good singer but he’s annoying as hell. And anyone that young attempting Elvis better bring it. He did, I guess. But the arrangement was a little too fast.

Luke Menard

Wow, seriously out of tune in spots. Like the spot where he sang. Even his audition sounded like that to me. Truly Terrible. And the slacker-hoodie-thing is like so Ben-Affleck-pre-Jennifer-Lopez. Blech. I predict Luke Songkiller will be gone by next week.

Colton Berry

So we finally get to see a little more of the kid who kicked out the future governor of Oklahoma. He took on Suspicious Minds (what is with these kids that have the chutzpah take on Elvis?). Hated the blue pants. Hated the vocals. Not a big fan of the performance, either. I think I agree with Simon that he isn’t a recording artist.

Garrett Haley

Sigh. It’s painful to watch these kids try to talk to the camera/America — don’t try so hard, kids!! Just answer Ryan’s questions. But he seems nice. Cool that he auditioned in San Diego on a lark, that he hasn’t been like planning his life around this since he was in grade school. He sounds like he can have a good voice, but this either wasn’t the right song for it or he wasn’t at his best. But there were glimmers. He did really well on the key change at the end. But slow ballads are killer unless it’s got some serious emotion in it. I hope he sticks around for at least another week, because I bet we could see something good.

Jason Castro

Cool song!! Cool playing the guitar! So cool, the audience was clapping along immediately. WOW! I love the interpretation — risky on a John Sebastian “joint” (as Randy would say) but paid off BIG TIME. Damn. Excellent!!! Outta nowhere, totally amazing!! Two enthusiastic sets of Donkey Ears up!!! Dude’s got the look, the voice, the originality, the talent. Amazing that he’d only ever sung in public a few times before auditioning for Idol. Love love love. A true natural.

Michael Johns

He’s been our favorite since he sang Bohemian Rhapsody during Hollywood Week. This performance was good but didn’t blow us away — hard to follow whiteboy-dreadlocked Jason Castro, strangely enough! And that Doors song is so overblown, it’s hard to take anyone seriously who sings ‘and our love become a funeral pyre’. Pleaze! But he’s a good singer, fo’ sho’. We’ll be voting and he should be back, easily.

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties
2. American Idol 2008: Top 10 Men Sing the Seventies
3. American Idol: The Top Eleven Sing the Beatles

American Idol 2008 is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 so closely to the show’s formula.  On the one hand, it’s nice to see a show that doesn’t have a neurotic need to be “new” and/or “different” and/or “revolutionary”.  AI has a good formula and they stick with it.  On the other hand it is also a bit predictable.  But in the grand scheme of things, given a choice of something “new” (and probably stupid) and “old”, I’ll take the tried and true, even if it is a bit stodgy.

Overall the contestants were what you would expect for the opening tryouts.  A dash of crazies, a handful of pathetically misguided souls, a whole lot of mediocrity, and the tiniest pinch of really good singers.  It’s still too early to spot any great ones, but there was some great potential and we’re looking forward to seeing the rest of the tryouts and getting to freaking Hollywood!

Related posts:

1. American Idol 2008 Top 24!!
2. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Men Sing the Sixties
3. American Idol 2008 – Top 24, the Women Sing the Sixties

American Idol 2007 is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

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 a stellar production. Gwen Stefani once again lip-synced her way through a completely lame and pointless song, made even more egregious by the fantastic nature of the rest of the night’s performances. And poor Bette Midler just simply doesn’t have a voice any more – we couldn’t watch her whole song and had to fast foward through it on TiVo due to our hearts breaking.

But other than those two the rest of the performances were almost overwhelmingly good. Kelly Clarkson rocked out an intersting, edgy number, the top six men returned to the stage in matching white suits and sang a medley of songs with none other than Smokey Robinson! Later, the top six girls came out and sang a medley with none other than Gladys Knight!! I was in heaven!!!

Then, in a wonderful bit of creative thinking (not to mention artistic risk) by Idol producers, Blake Lewis traded beats and lines with the original beat-boxer himself, Doug E. Fresh, tripping to “The Show”. Now, this could have sucked and fallen flat, but they rocked the house with a fantastic interplay, strong rapping, great beat-boxing, and an overwhelmingly funky performance!

Then we had a classy performance of “For Once In My Life” by the incomparable Tony Bennett. Mr. Bennett’s voice is not quite the lyrical instrument it used to be, but he arranged the song so that he could reach the highs and lows, and then went out with a big, big, finish. Fantastic!!

Melinda Doolittle then did a commercial for God with BeBe and CeCe Winans. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Carrie Underwood did a moving version of “I’ll Stand By You”, and there was a cheerful and bouncy song by the African Children’s Choir.

Then, in another creative and risky move, the Idol producers let Sanjaya Malakar take the stage one more time, to sing “You Really Got Me” accompanied by Joe Perry of Aerosmith on-stage. They even had crying-Sanjaya-fan-girl back in the audience, and she was crying with gusto. Sanjaya still can’t sing worth a damn, but the performance sure was fun!

And then things took a very surreal and potentially dangerous turn. Last year it was an unexpected performance by Prince, but this year topped that both in risk and in impact. The words that came out of Ryan Seacrest’s mouth were (I kid you not):

“With John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero”, please welcome Green Day.”

I had to pause the TiVo and rewind to be sure I’d heard that correctly. First of all, the concept of that song on this show was almost too much for my mind to comprehend. I mean, if there’s a sacred text in my household, it contains this song as the Book of John. And one of the verses is:

“They keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, and you think you’re so clever and classless and free, but you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see…”

Now, those are powerful lyrics, and certainly not ones that I would consider to be Idol-friendly. And having Green Day cover it, what the hell was that all about? Afterwards I discovered that they covered it for an upcoming Amnesty International album to raise awareness about Darfur, but at the time it seemed like a chaotically random choice to me. I mean, Green Day, the pop-punk-emo-goth-rock pissants covering this great and mighty John Lennon gospel? But you know what, they did a damn fine job with it…damn fine. The lead singer even appeared to sing the F-words, and they simply muted his mic for those two intervals. It’s always a nice feeling to have one’s mind opened and one’s perceptions altered so dramatically, especially for a crusty old fart like me, where it doesn’t happen too often (because I’m so right about so many things to begin with, dont’cha know).

Taylor Hicks then came out and did a nice Taylor Hicks number, complete with Ray Charles-y keyboard riffs, funky-white-boy-dancing, and harp blowing. Jordin Sparks and Ruben Studdard then did a nice duet.

The Twilight Zone nature of the evening was topped off by a medley of songs from the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, performed by Idols past and present. It was again a very gutsy move by the Idol producers, and the Idols did a fantastic job of making the songs fresh while not ruining them, a neat trick indeed.

So, overall the show was fantastic, the naming of Jordin Sparks as the new Idol made us ecstatic, and American Idol Season Six went out with quite a bang. The only thing missing from tonight’s show was that with all the Beatles songs I was expecting to see Sir Paul McCartney and/or Ringo Starr make an appearance, but they didn’t. However, the fact that the remaining Fab Two and the Lennon and Harrison families gave Idol the rights to use the songs is promising for next year, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

THIS is why I watch this show. See you next season!

Tonight Blake and Jordin performed three songs. The first was the Idol’s choice of any song including those sung previously, the second was the Idol’s choice of any song they had not sung before on Idol, and the third was the (ugh) winner of the Idol “songwriting” competition. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Jordin Sparks: Her first song was “Fighter” by Christina Aquilera, a song of female empowerment, and Jordin sang it with just the right amounts of sass and ability. Her second song was “Broken Wing” by Martina McBride, another female empowerment song, and Jordin did a nice job with what could have been an overblown ballad, but wasn’t. Her third song (which Blake will also sing as his last song) was “This Is My Now” by the winner’s of Idol’s songwriting competition, Jeff Peabody and Scott Krippayne. The song is a quite forgettable pop confection, but Jordin sang it with power and emotion, and her heart-wrenching finish left us (and her, at left) in tears. Amazing.

Facing Elimination:

• Blake Lewis: For his first song Blake re-sang “You Give Love A Bad Name” by Bon Jovi, which I thought was a surprisingly poor choice – I would have picked “Time of the Season” to redo if I were him. Anyway, he did an okay job with the song, but nothing special. His second song was “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon Five, which was a trite and boring song and performance. He finished by covering “This Is My Now”, and his performance was simply flat, boring, forgettable, and should lose him the title.

Simon summed it up tonight when he said to Jordin, “…this is a singing competition and you just wiped the floor with Blake on that song…” after her performance of “This Is My Now”. And she did, as she has done all season. However, Melinda also always sang better than Blake and he outlasted her with his…appeal? I’ve never “gotten” Blake, and his beatboxing and androgynous, frat-goth style has always rubbed me the wrong way – but I will say that he has always been personable. Jordin, on the other hand, seems like that rarest of all gems – the truly nice artiste. So many people with god-given talent assume an air of superiority, but Jordin seems genuinely humble while still being absolutely sure of her talent. There is no question that she *should* be the next American Idol. We’ll see tomorrow if the universe has other plans.

On a related note I simply have to complain about the worst aspect of each American Idol season. Things start well with the cattle-car auditions and the long-suffering judges assessing a parade of varying talents. We then move to Hollywood with the marathon sessions, group songs, and genre changes. Then we get to the Top 24 on the big stage, and the stretch run starts with the most talented singers. They compete head-to-head every week, meeting big-name mentors, singing songs both in and out of their comfort zones, refining their performing skills over the brutal weeks and weeks. And then we finally get to the end – two left standing – winner take all – each sings three songs and it’s their time to shine, their last chance to prove themselves. And for the last song of the year, after all that striving, struggling, effort, blood, sweat, and tears, when they should be singing the strongest and best possible song, the Idol produces foist on them (and us) some lame-ass, watered-down, cheese-filled, soft-rock, tuneless, tasteless, forgettable “song” that Idol owns the rights to so as to try to maximize their revenue on the winner’s first single release.

Listen, Idol producers, all year I dread that final song. It turns me off to the whole concept, knowing that you guys sabotage the entire competition by having the final song be some crappy ass song that you happen to own. The last song of the year should be the biggest and best song of the year, and you literally cut the legs out from under your own show and dissipate any sense of a Grand Finale with your crappy, cop-out final song. Please change this next year.

Thanks for listening.

Tonight we get down to the final two, but first we had performances and blah, blah, blah. It was nice to see Elliot “Toothsome” Yamin back for a performance, but the song he sang was boooooring, but he sounded good. Then a very blase and boring performance by Puce 12, er, I mean Maroon 5. And finally to the eliminations. The first to be saved was Jordin Sparks, deservedly so. That left Melinda Doolittle and Blake Lewis in the bottom two, which was also correct, in my estimation. And then, against all common sense and judgment, the one who got sent home was:

• Melinda Doolittle: OMFG, what the hell is wrong with the voting public?? I like Blake, he’s a’ight, and his presence in the top four or five would have been deserved. But in the top two? Puhleeeze. Melinda is orders of magnitude a better singer and performer than Blake is or ever will be. He’s got a decent voice and a cute schtick with the beatboxing, but Melinda has the god-given pipes of a star singer. Sigh.

Well, the finale is set – Jordin versus Blake. It *should* be a no-brainer and Jordin should be the next American Idol, but we live in a country that re-elected Dubya, so one never knows, does one?

Tonight each Idol performed three songs. The first was selected by one of the judges, the second was selected by the producers, and the third was selected by the Idol. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Jordin Sparks: Her first song was “Wishing on a Star” by Rose Royce, selected for her in an incredible act of sabotage by Simon Cowell. The song itself sucked, but Jordin did the best under the circumstances. Afterwards Simon tried to blame the arrangement, but it was obviously just a bizarrely inappropriate and terrible song choice by Cowell. Her second song was “She Works Hard for the Money” by Donna Summer, selected for her by the producers. Again, really a poor song choice to saddle her with, but she again put on a smile and gave an energetic and enjoyable performance. For her last song Jordin chose “I (Who Have Nothing)”, which is the song she sang earlier this season in a jaw-droppingly powerful performance. Well, she recaptured that magic and simply sang a heartbreaking and perfect rendition. Wow!

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Melinda Doolittle: Her first song was “I Believe in You and Me” by Whitney Houston, selected for her by Randy Jackson. I hate Whitney and find all her songs to be trite and hollow, and this was no exception. Melinda did a good job, though. Her second song was “Nutbush City Limits” by Ike and Tina Turner, selected by the producers in what I at first thought was another act of sabotage, but after she channeled her inner Tina into a rocking, raucous, strutting, snarling, gritty, bluesy performance, I realized they had picked a perfect song for her, and she sang the HELL out of it! For her last song Melinda chose “I’m A Woman” by many different artists, my favorite being Maria Muldaur, and put on another strutting, snarling, provocative performance.

Facing Elimination:

• Blake Lewis: His first song was “Roxanne” by the Police, selected for him by Paula Abdul. Throughout the competition I’ve noticed a Sting vibe from Blake, and now was his chance to leverage it. He did an okay job in what was basically a Sting impression – not bad, but nothing memorable. His second song was “This Love” by Maroon 5, selected for him by the producers. This song was right up his alley and he did a really good job with it. For his last song Blake selected “When I Get You Alone” by Robin Thicke, which proves that whatever talent Blake has, song selection isn’t it. Why pick a lame-ass song by a third-rate pseudo-crooner when you have the entire library of available popular music from which to choose?? In any case, he moued his way through it in a very flat, boring, and pointless performance of a forgettable song, almost assuredly sealing Blake’s fate as this week’s loser.

Strange, odd, and questionable song selections abounded tonight, by the judges, the producers, and the Idols themselves. These last few nights of the Idol season are both the most exciting (because of the narrowed field of contenders) and the most frustrating (because of the awkward song selections as the Idol producers position themselves for producing Idol albums with crappy new songs). I always dread the finale week, because that’s when we get treated to the horrible new “songs” that the Idol producers have dredged up for the finalists to sing/record. It would be a treat this year if they let the Idols perform in the finale by singing songs that are worthy of such a momentous singing occasion, but I doubt it will happen. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing who wins, even if it means I have to listen to two songs with a 100% chance of sucking.

Tonight we cut down to three, but first the fluff and filler. A pre-recorded performance by Pink, where her voice was barely audible, which was strange as we’ve heard her sing live before and she’s pretty good. Barry Gibb also performed, and he was just terrible – what’s with his teeth? They made him talk funny, they made him sing funny, not that it was the only problem – his voice was quite creaky and croaky.

In any case, onto the eliminations. First to be saved was Jordin, which was a’ight with us. Second to be saved was Melinda, also as it should be. That left LaKisha and Blake, and the one who went home was:

• LaKisha Jones: Well, I think the Idol voters got LaKisha and Blake in the wrong order, but I think she would have been gone next week regardless.

She did “Staying Alive” as her goodbye song, which was fantastically appropriate, particularly given her life as a single mother before Idol. We love LaKisha and wish her all the best, and she sang out with style. Next week are the top three – Jordin, Melinda, and Blake!

Barry Gibb was this week’s mentor, and his catalog is filled with beautiful, iconic, and challenging singer’s songs, so the Idols have their work cut out for them this week. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Jordin Sparks: Her first song was “To Love Somebody”, and she did an excellent job. In fact, during rehearsals Barry Gibb said, “I know a couple hundred people have sung this song, but I haven’t heard a greater version than Jordin’s”. And he was right, she nailed it. Her second song was “Woman In Love” written for Barbra Streisand by Barry Gibb. Ms. Streisand has one of the purest, clearest, most beautiful voices in history, so Jordin had her work cut out for her, but she sang the HELL out of it, simply jaw-dropping and goose-bump-inducing. Now, I rarely comment on the judges here, but none of them loved her performance and I have to say I have no idea what they were listening to. In fact, I’m finally going to predict a winner – Jordin Sparks will be the next American Idol.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Melinda Doolittle: Her first song was “Love You Inside and Out”, and she delivered a professional performance, but with no real passion or entertainment value, very much going through the motions. Her second song was the hauntingly beautiful “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart”, and she again did a technically good job, but her phrasing and timing were just awkward, and detracted from the beauty of the song. This one cries out for a singer to just sing the melody with emotion, and she chose to scat and jump around. Overall her two performances are good enough to return next week, and she’ll probably be runner-up this year.
• LaKisha Jones: Her first song was the iconic “Staying Alive”. She slowed down the tempo, and it just flat out did not work. Her voice was big and strong as usual, but the rendition simply had no style and wasn’t entertaining. Her second song was “Run to Me”, and it was simply a boring love ballad that she belted/shouted with no real emotion or beauty. She still showed her big voice, but my prediction for her this year overall is third place.

Facing Elimination:

• Blake Lewis: His first song was “You Should Be Dancing”, and his schtick is really starting to wear thin. First of all, he looked like a member of Sgt. Peppers Foppish Dorks Club Band, and his gratuitious beat-boxing is just played out. The sad part is that he can really sing, and if he’d just sing, then he could be a singer, but it looks like what he wants to be is a latter-day Michael Winslow (he was the black dude who made all the weird sound effects in “Police Academy”, heard from him lately?). His second song was the obscure “This Is Where I Came In”, and Blake had the opportunity to make the song his own, as nobody has really heard the original, but what he did was continue his tiresome scatting and beat-boxing and just bored me to tears. On top of that, he looked like the bastard love child of Wally Cleaver and Andy Dick. The boy can sing, and I wish he would, but I don’t think he’ll get another chance, other than his farewell song because based on his songs tonight, he’s gone.

Well, there you have it – hard predictions that they’ll finish in this order (from first to fourth): Jordin Sparks, Melinda Doolittle, LaKisha Jones, and Blake Lewis. Remember, you read it here first.

On another note, I have to point out a couple of unsung heroes from American Idol – namely Ryan Seacrest and the band. When we first started watching Idol, I found Seacrest to be an annoying dork, but over the years he has proven himself to be engaging, witty, emotional, and confident enough to be the ringmaster for the circus that is American Idol. He’s so smooth, but not fake, and he really seems to connect and care about the contestants, even during the grueling auditions when he has to get in the faces of the winners and the losers and engage them for the cameras, even if they’ve just come from having their lifelong dreams squashed.

And the band, they are simply amazing. The repertoire of songs and styles that they have to cover every week is astonishing, and the fact that you never think about them (because of them making a mistake, or overshadowing the singers, etc.) means that they are constently fabulous. Even when they come to the front of the stage to accompany the singers, they are professional, talented, and know that they’re job is to support and enhance the contestants, not to shine themselves. Bravo to the band.

So, tune in tomorrow when one goes home and we’re left with the Top 3!

There was a lot of filler tonight, including a performance by some former Vienna Boy’s Choir castrati named Robin Thicke. After doing a little research into his lineage, I can tell you that Robin is as powerful, talented, and emotional a singer as his dad Alan was an actor (eh?). Bon Jovi also performed, some song I’ve never heard that reminded me in more ways than one of Kiss’s “Beth”.

In any case, after combining last week’s and this week’s votes, the two who got eliminated were:

• Phil Stacey: Sort of a shame after last night’s strong performance, but when considering his entire oeuvre, no argument from me. The picture at left was right after he found out he was eliminated, and looks to me like he’s contemplating feasting on the blood of his enemies. Where’s my garlic!??!? On the other hand, he delivered a very strong farewell performance. Goodbye, Phil, you’ve been quite the conundrum.
• Chris Richardson: No argument from me on him leaving this week, his boy-band schtick was getting out-classed by the rest of the strong singer/performers in the competition. Seems like a nice kid, though, and I wish him well.

Well, Phil and Chris are gone, and that feels like the right two. LaKisha and Blake were the other bottom two, meaning the top two were Melinda and Jordin. All of that sounds just about right, and I can’t wait for next week!!

If you recall, last week was “Idol Gives Back”, and none of the contestants were eliminated. But, the votes from last week will be added to the votes from this week, and the bottom two will be eliminated this week, putting us back on track. This week’s theme was Bon Jovi, and although I’ve never really cared for his/their music, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, a real musician, and a capable mentor for the week.

FYI, the rankings below are based solely on this week’s performance, see the end of each Idol’s review for their combined chances that include last week’s performances. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Phil Stacey: Took on “Blaze of Glory”, and delivered a powerful vocal performance. He *still* creeps me out, and this song would be the perfectly ironic Idol exit song, but it was a strong performance. Combined with his okay performance of last week, Phil should probably be safe to return.LaKisha Jones: Covered “This Ain’t A Love Song” and delivered a performance more powerful than anything we’ve seen since her audition. She blew the roof off, brought the house down, was looking and singing great, and she knew it, baby. All I can say is, amen, LaKisha, welcome back! LaKisha balanced out last week’s poor effort tonight and should be safe for this week.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Blake Lewis: Blake continues to take chances with a very beat-boxy version of “You Give Love A Bad Name”. I didn’t care for it, but it wasn’t horrible, and his unique style and continued chutzpah are refreshing. Combined with last week’s performance he should be safe.
• Melinda Doolittle: Covered “Have A Nice Day”, and you could tell she really doesn’t have the “rock” gene, but she worked hard at it, threw in a little Tina Turner growling and strutting, and did a professional, if uninspired job. Combined with last week’s strong performance she should easily be safe this week.

Facing Elimination:

• Jordin Sparks: Covered “Living on a Prayer”, and just was all over the place, off-key, not into the song, not selling it, no spark. However, combined with last week’s stunning performance she should be okay to return.
• Chris Richardson: Took on “Wanted Dead or Alive”, didn’t know the freakin’ lyrics during the mentoring session, he sounded like Chris Daughtry crossed with Michael Jackson (and not in a good way). Combined with last week’s average performance Justin Timberfake may be gone this week.

So, based on the combination of last week’s performance and this week’s, I’d say Chris Richardson is definitely in the bottom two, but not sure who else to put there. Oh well, tune in tomorrow for the double-eliminations!

Well, not exactly. Tonight Idol played a little bit of a trick on us…nobody got sent home tonight. However, tonight’s votes still count because they’re going to take this week’s votes, add them to next week’s votes, and then eliminate two, count ‘em, TWO Idols next week.

Tonight was really about Idol Giving Back – a slew of stage, screen, and music stars participated, and many tragic, hopeful, and uplifting stories of poverty and disease were presented. It was actually a great humanitarian effort, and I hope this event becomes a fixture of Idol every year.

My only problem with the entire evening is that the web servers have been overloaded and I haven’t yet been able to donate. Here’s where donations are being accepted:

http://www.idolaid.com
(877)436-5243 (877-IDOL-AID)

I’m going to keep trying until I can get through – I hope you do the same.

This week was “Idol Gives Back”, where America’s TV juggernaut does a little do-gooding. FOX is donating up to $5,000,000 based on the number of votes, with taped segments of Seacrest and the judges visiting people and places in need of help. I have to say that the charitable aspects of this week’s show were blended quite smoothly (and not preachily) into the show, and some of the segments of Seacrest and the judges visiting people in need (and those who help them) were genuinely touching and heartfelt. Note that tomorrow night (Wednesday) is when we the people get to donate, so tune in and drop some largesse into the mix, and remember, it’s all about the Hamiltons (and Benjamins), baby.

In keeping with the topic of “Idol Gives Back”, tonight’s musical theme was Songs That Inspire. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Melinda Doolittle: Took on “There Will Come A Day” by Faith Hill (on a complete side note, the title of the song sounded more like a dire threat or Alec Baldwin parenting tape than an inspirational song…to get the effect, say the title while angrily shaking your fist at the heavens). Another note unrelated to singing – is there some kind of plastic surgery that heals in a week, because both Mynagirl and I noticed that Melinda’s face just looked completely different this week. As the weeks progress her look and style just get classier and more professional. And her singing tonight was…well…flawless, both technically and emotionally. She’s opening up quite a lead on the rest of the pack with her string of fantastic performances, and only Jordin seems to be following her into a higher gear.Jordin Sparks: Covered “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel”. I wasn’t familiar with the song, but she gave a nuanced, graceful, emotional performance with just a couple of sliigghtly off-kilter notes. It didn’t match her miraculous, jaw-dropping version of “I (Who Have Nothing)”, but it was close. Melinda’s pulling away, but Jordin remains right behind her, within striking distance.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Chris Richardson: Covered “Change the World” by Eric Clapton, he had a *very* rough opening bar, but he settled into a nice, smooth groove. He looked classily rumpled and struck the appropriate balance of solemnity and musicality. The vocals were a’right, nothing special, but not bad.
• Blake Lewis: OMFG, Mr. Beatbox had the chutzpah to take on “Imagine” by John Lennon. In the history of the world there has only been one other performer who, to me, had the pedigree to cover this song. Flash back to late 2001, and we sat watching “A Tribute to Heroes”, the special commemorating those who died on 9/11. We were watching and grieving and healing, and suddenly a lone piano started with the unmistakable opening notes of “Imagine”, and it jolted me out of my reverie. Who, I wondered, was blasphemous enough to try and cover that great song? I held my breath, hoping it wasn’t somebody idiotic like Bon Jovi or Celine Dion or Michael Bolton or Elton John (well, maybe Elton could do it) or Madonna or…well, just someone unworthy. And then this creaky, cracking, world-weary voice started squawking out the song, and there alone at the piano obscured by his hat, head hung low, eyes avoiding the camera, emotion pouring out of his being, sat Neil Young – and he did that song justice and at the end I was in tears. That’s who covers this song. Not Blake Lewis on American Idol.
• Phil “Nosferatu” Stacey: Covered “The Change”, by Garth Brooks. Phil *still* creeps me out and he *still* sings well.

Facing Elimination:

• LaKisha Jones: Covered “I Believe” by Fantasia. You know, when LaKisha auditioned I *loved* her – she had sass and soul and a voice that just could not be denied. But as time goes on I’m finding that while she does have a fantastic voice, she seems to be missing (or failing to develop) the other aspects of an Idol star, such as style, a good sense for song selection, an ear for good arrangements, and charisma. She’s like a golfer with a huge drive but no short game – impressive, but incomplete and ultimately not enough to win.

Remember to tune in tomorrow night to help Idol give back. Seacrest said we should also tune in to see the biggest surprise in Idol history – what could it be? Everybody comes back next week, maybe? That would work, because it would sure be a downer to go through tomorrow’s show raising money and doing good only to end with killing some kid’s dreams before millions of viewers.

Well, it finally happened – the one who left American Idol tonight was:

• Sanjaya Malakar: absolutely no argument from me on this one, and it was about damn time, America.

In an amusing twist, during his farewall performance of “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About” he changed up the lyric to “…let’s give ‘em something to talk about, other than hair…”, which I thought was a nice farewell twist for him. I’m not sorry to see him go, but I do still like the kid and hope he can parlay his je ne sais quoi into something fun for himself.

This was Country “Music” week, with some country chick. To set the context for this week’s review, here’s my personal music heirarchy:

• Funk (not disco)
• Classic Rock
• Soul/R&B (funky, not “Oooh Baby”)
• 80′s Music
• Disco
• Zydeco
• Oompa
• Punk
• Anthem Rock
• Rap/hip-hop
• Tibetan monks chanting
• Classical
• A six year old playing chopsticks
• Emo
• Car tires over evenly spaced rumble strips
• A squeaky metal gate blowing in the wind
• Jazz
• A dog shaking off water and rattling its metal collar tags
• A flock of arguing geese
• A clip-clopping horse dropping road apples
• Banshees
• Opera
• Caterwauling
• Jihad ululation
• Last row of the jet (including regular flushes)
• Awkward silence
• The snap of a latex glove during annual physical
• Other people’s stupid ringtones
• Fingernails on a blackboard
• Static fuzz white noise when cable goes out
• Artillery fire
• Phlegmy coughing
• Phone call announcing an IRS audit
• Dentist’s drill (unanesthetized)
• Sound system feedback (non-stylized)
• The sound my ankle bones made grinding together when the doctor cut off the first cast in order to re-set it after I broke it and the first try wasn’t aligned correctly (also unanesthetized)
• Country

Note that there are exceptions to the above – I love Willie Nelson and Hank Williams, and a lot of pre-1975 country music, but anything that is “new” country I loathe. Given my disgust/distaste/disdain for the genre of country “music” I feel I am unqualified to comment on the performances to any great degree, so this will be a short update. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Jordin Sparks: Sang the hell out of some country schlock.
• Melinda Doolittle: Sang the hell out of some country schlock that she had arranged to sound almost like a soul/R&B/Aretha number, albeit with steel guitars.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Phil “Nosferatu” Stacey
• LaKisha Jones
• Chris Richardson
• Blake Lewis

Facing Elimination:

• Sanjaya Malarkey: Back at the bottom where he belongs, and all is right with the world. Special Dishonorable Mention to his “Aunt Sanjemima” look, pictured at left.

Country Week is over, thank ye gods. Let us pray that Martina McBride has the flu and can’t perform tomorrow so they let Tony Bennett sing in her place.

J.Lo performed tonight and she at least had the guts to sing live – and it took guts to put her not-super-strong voice right out there on a show so focused on live singing. But she really has the spark and the fire to actually deliver a good *song* even if she’s not the world’s best *singer*. Nice to see a pro at work, and I like her more after her appearance here than before.

The bottom three were Chris “Timberfake” Richardson, Haley Scarnat-ho, and Phil “Nosferatu” Stacey – Chris got the quick reprieve from Governor Seacrest leaving two standing and the one who got voted off was:

• Haley Scarnato: No argument from me on her leaving this week, it was clearly time.

Now, the picture above is clearly a cheap (and un-retouched) shot, but Haley will soon learn (if she hasn’t already) that if she chooses to live by exploiting her looks then she has to accept that her looks are fair game. I would hate to see that happen, but my fear is that in two years we’ll be seeing her last-ditch attempt to extend her 15 minutes with a Playboy shoot. Apologies to Cat Stevens for the lyrical paraphrasing, but I think Ms. Scarnato needs to heed the sage advice of “Wild World” – now that you have to leave, take good care, I know you’ll have a lot of fine things to wear, just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware.

Tonight’s vocal coach was Jennifer Lopez. Curiously, nobody did any of her songs – the one who came closest was Blake Lewis who covered one of her husband’s songs. Were there rights issues to her songs or something? In any case, although I’m not a huge J-Lo fan, I have to say she was very personable and likeable and gave some very interesting and down-to-earth feedback to the performers. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Blake Lewis: Covered “I Need to Know” by Mr. Lopez. Great song choice (and great song, and I don’t particularly like latin songs). Blake showed peeks at his tattoos tonight and put on a very hot performance, definitely the best of the night.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Melinda Doolittle: Took on “Sway”, whatever the hell that is. She looked kind of like an African-American version of Mrs. Robinson in her little black cocktail dress and diamonds. Technically good vocals, but she’s not a vamp at heart and didn’t really capture the latin heat that was tonight’s target theme. However, it would have been a good performance for the female lead playing a nightclub singer in a Hope/Crosby Road movie (meaning good, just not latin-hot).
• LaKisha Jones: Covered “Conga” by Gloria Estefan, she wore a red and black, clingy dress. Not really a singer’s song, she just seemed to step her way through it by rote, no real heat or rhythym, nothing terrible but also nothing special.
• Chris Richardson: Took on “Smooth”, started REAL rough with him not able to handle the low key. And I never thought I’d say this, he doesn’t have nearly the funk of Rob Thomas (which is like saying somebody doesn’t have nearly the parenting skills of K-Fed – surprising to say, but actually accurate). Just a blase performance, no latin heat.
• Phil Stacey: Covered “Maria, Maria” by the great Santana in one of his recent duets. Phil is presenting a continuing enigma…he has reasonably good vocals, but he cannot look cool or smooth no matter what he wears or does…his look alternates between Creepy Serial Killer and Dopey White Poseur. And you can’t win AI with *just* a voice.
• Jordin Sparks: Covered “The Rhythym is Gonna Get You”. She continued tonight’s theme, which was “People Who Don’t Get The Latin Vibe Singing Latin Songs Awkwardly”. She looked pretty cute tonight, but no spark from Sparks.
• Sanjaya Malakar: Covered “Besame Mucho”, the only one with the guts/language skills to sing in Spanish. He sat alone on the stage at the mic – hit some very poor low notes, but overall not a bad performance. In fact, he captured some of the magic from his audition performance. In fact, I’m moving him out the “Facing Elimination” category. You did it Sanjaya. Mea culpa. You deserve to be on Idol.

Facing Elimination:

• Haley Scarnat-ho: Covered “Turn the Beat Around” – first of all she clomped around the stage like a pageant competitor counting off some hokey stage choreograpy. Absolutey NO latin-hot personality for the song, although she tried to create heat by continuing to show us all the skin she continues to show us. Here’s a tip, Haley – once the public knows you have it, hide it away and just give little peeks…much more alluring than shaking your tatas in our face week after week. Just a terrible performance. (Editor’s note: in a personally satisfying development, if I’m not mistaken, after her performance Ryan pronounced her name the way I’ve been spelling it for the last few weeks – you’re welcome, Ryan, feel free to send me a joke writers fee or something!)

Well, after all the slings and arrows I have to take it all back – Sanjaya did not suck tonight. His song choice was very nuanced – a Mexican song from the 40′s, most famously covered by the Beatles in their original auditions for record companies in the 1960′s, and his performance was not bad, with just some slight rough spots on the low notes. Classy song choice, classy performance.

That’s why I watch this show. Thanks for reminding me, Sanjaya.

4/4/2007 – Elimination Round, One Has to Go!

Well, Tony Bennett couldn’t perform tonight – 80 years old and with the flu, too bad for all of us. Performing in his place was the incomprehensible Michael Buble, who looks like the bastard love child of Chris Farley and Rodney Dangerfield and sings like Bill Murray improvising the theme song to Star Wars. Does he really sell records?

In any case, the travesty of a mockery of a sham that is American Idol Season Six continues with the elimination of:

• Gina Glocksen: Well, I think the tongue ring did her in, and I have to ask her, was it worth it? I will say, however, that she gave one of the more heartfelt and classy goodbye performances that I’ve experienced. While watching it I felt like she was actually *getting* the lyrics of the song she was singing…”Smile, though your heart is breaking”…and if she had performed with as much feeling last night I think she’d have been safe. Well, that’s where life experience helps. Anyway, she didn’t deserve to get eliminated while Haylaya continues to survive.

So, another week, another complete miss by the AI voting public.

Why do I watch this show??

Tonight’s vocal coach was the incomparable Tony Bennett. So refreshing to have an actual singer after Gwen “LipSync” Stefani. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Melinda Doolittle: What a pro. Covered “I Got Rythym”, started soft and smooth, picked up the pace in the middle, and then went out with the big, big, big finish. Simply perfect.
• Jordin Sparks: Covered “On A Clear Day”, about which Mr. Bennett said, “She sang very much in tune, which is rare these days.” Amen, Tony. Her outfit was sort of like a hostess at an upscale family dining chain. Her voice, however, was pure gourmet – she *got* the song, she *sang* the song, and she *sold* the song. Wow. Double wow.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Blake Lewis: Covered “Mack the Knife”. He had the appropriate look and moves of a Rat-Packer crossed with a Beat Boxer. His voice was smooth, but he didn’t seem to inhabit the song, to feel it. He performed it well, but didn’t *sell* it.
• Phil Stacey: Took on “Night and Day”. He really struck the crooner vibe with his voice. Hit the big notes with a big voice. I liked everything about it except the creepy vibe I still get from this guy – strong performance, though.
• Chris Richardson: Took on “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (pointer for Chris – memorize the damn lyrics before you sing for a superstar like Tony Bennett!!). Had a nice Rat-Packer-Meets-Boy-Bander look, kept the vocal gymnastics pretty much in check. Technically solid performance, but didn’t sell it or swing it.
• Gina Glocksen: Covered “Smile”, and gave a suprisingly nuanced performance. However, the entire feel and story of the song is lost on the audience when the person singing it keeps wagging a toungue ring in our faces. A word of advice to Gina – I know you want to express yourself, but you also have to adapt to the material and the audience – take out the tongue ring next time.
• LaKisha Jones: I’m not sure what’s going on with LaKisha – she seems to have lost her oomph and pizazz. She’s performing well technically but she’s not selling me on the performances. I’m kind of grading on a curve here, because she has a big, great voice, but she’s just not using it to the potential she showed earlier.

Facing Elimination:

• Sanjaya Malarkey: Blah blah blah “Dancing Cheek to Cheek” blah blah blah. (Editor’s note: it doesn’t seem to matter what we write here about Sanjaya.)
• Haley Scarnat-ho: Covered “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, which would be like Sanjaya singing “Ain’t Untalented”. Her entire act and appeal is her sleaze factor and her willingness to wear barely there outfits. This isn’t “America’s Next Top Model” or “Girls Gone Wild” and she needs to GO.

It was disheartening to see this group so starry-eyed last week with Gwen Stefani and so blase this week with the legendary Tony Bennett. I weep for the future. Why do I watch this show!??

Well, there were no less than three travesties tonight, as follows:

• Travesty #1: The bottom two were Chris Sligh and Haley Scarnat-ho (Phil Stacey was in the bottom three, but got the early save from Seacrest). The picture you see to the left is Haley subjugating herself to the Dark Overlords who have ensured her continued survival and Chris Sligh coming to the realization the all votes are popularity contests, and he just lost. So poor Chris S. with the angelic voice has to head home – a travesty.
• Travesty #2: Ms. Gwen Stefani, alleged vocal coach and pop idol had the gall to LIP SYNCH her way through some cheesy number…wtf!!??!! First of all, how could the producers allow something this sacreligious on a show about LIVE SINGING!?!??!? Secondly, how could Gwen Stefani debase herself in such a fashion…is she really just a studio construct?? A travesty.
• Travesty #3: Oh, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan…how could you? First of all, it does a disservice to American Idol to shine the spotlight on the continued (and undeserved) survival of Sanjaya, who is clearly the worst of the bunch. Secondly, it’s just not cricket to highlight one of the contestants so brazenly and publicly to the exclusion of the other contestants. Tsk, tsk, tsk on Seacrest and the Idol producers for such pandering – a travesty.

Just to clarify, when you see my predictions on this page I am not attempting to predict who will be voted off, I’m voicing my opinion of who I think deserves to be voted off. I was pretty sure that Sanjaya was going to survive another week and also pretty sure that Haley would be back to grind for us another week, although neither deserves it. And poor Chris Sligh – he didn’t deserve to go home.

Why do I watch this show??

Tonight’s vocal coach was Gwen Stefani. Yawn. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Sadly there were no great performances tonight. Some were definitely better than others, but nobody shone through like a star. And it’s not that they’re all raising the bar and doing great – tonight was full of safe, boring performances. C’mon Idols, put your hearts into it every week!

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• LaKisha Jones: Took on “Let’s Dance” by Donna Summer, her performance was solid technically but I just didn’t feel any emotion or soul from her on this one, it felt like a rote performance.
• Chris Sligh: Took on “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by the Police, he still flashes his angelic voice in some parts, but his amateur stage antics detract from the performance, and I don’t feel that he feels or even likes the song. Nothing terrible but nothing memorable, either.
• Gina Glocksen: Covered “I’ll Stand By You”, my favorite performance of hers so far (which isn’t saying much). Her shiny, metallic outfit looked like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, George Jetson, and Alcoa and was quite distracting (and not in a good way). She definitely took her game up a notch and for that I give her props, but still not singing like a star, yet.
• Phil Stacey: Does Phil read this site? He stayed right on target with the Serial Killer vibe I’ve been describing by covering “Every Breath You Take” by the Police, one of the all-time great stalker songs. And why shave your head if you’ve going to wear one of your grandmothers knit doilies on it? Any way, I’ll begrudgingly say that he demonstrated pretty good vocals and will probably be safe.
• Melinda Doolittle: Melinda is sliding comfortably into the Gladys Knight category (in a good way). She covered “Heaven Knows” by Donna Summer – she might be developing a vibe that’s too old for the Idol voting public, but she did a great job with the vocals and sold the song like a pro.
• Blake Lewis: Covered “Love Song” by the Cure, he did a great job with a quiet, torchy feel, no beat-boxing, just pure, clean haunting vocals. Didn’t care for the song, but he did a good job.
• Jordin Sparks: Took on “Hey Baby” by No Doubt. There is no doubt that her look was distracting – gigantic hoop earrings, Pizza Hut tablecloth shirt, Japanese schoolgirl skirt, and grey Nancy Sinatra boots. She may have been trying to capture the eclectic vibe that made Gwen Stefani famous (and which I never “got”), but it just looked schizophrenic. A let down from last week’s haunting, powerful performance, this was flat, boring, hook-y tripe. Not horrible vocals, but just a mess overall.
• Chris Richardson: Covered “Don’t Speak”, this poor boy is paralyzed. His default style is boy-band-lite, but he’s really trying to become a melodic singer but he doesn’t feel it and doesn’t get it. So he sung the notes with very little soul or style, overall boring.

Facing Elimination:

• Sanjaya Malarkey: I loved this kid during the tryouts, but now we’re just torturing him and ourselves. Didn’t you see his faux-hawk? He’s *daring* us to send him home – he’s thumbing his nose at us and saying neener-neener. I give him props for just taking it all the way over the top with his new found infamy, but please, America, stop the insanity.
• Haley Scarnat-ho: Covered “True Colors”, pretty good through the first two thirds, she lost the melody and finished flat, but might have been my favorite performance of hers so far, but again that’s not saying much. And her style holds true to form – tonight she looked like the most expensive hooker at the Red Roof Inn bar.

Tonight was a let-down after last week – this group is like a cantakerous car engine…it keeps running, but it won’t catch fire and hit on all cylinders. Nobody was exciting – Blake probably had the strongest performance.

• Special Dishonorable Mention goes out the Sanjaya’s horrible Medusa-like faux hawk. This picture doesn’t do justice to the ridiculous ugliness of his coiff, which was pulled so tightly it made him forget his lyrics at one point.

Tonight the bottom two were Chris Richardson and Stephanie Edwards – again, what show is the American voting public watching? Both of these two are clearly better singers/performers than Sanjaya, Haley, Phil, and Gina. But there were Chris and Stephanie, neither of whom were good enough to win, both of whom were good enough to come back next week, and the one who went home was:

• Stephanie Edwards: She seemed genuine and likeable, and while her voice wasn’t a powerful instrument it was still pleasant and seemed to have potential. I would not have been sorry to see her go in later rounds, but having her leave tonight was really a bad choice by us, the voting public.

So, come on, people, make sure to vote for your favorites and remember that this is a singing competition, and while part of a singer’s talent is in their look, personality, and performance, the singing is the key.

Tonight was the Top 11, and the theme was the British Invasion. The coaches were Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits and Lulu of “To Sir, With Love” fame. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Blake Lewis: Wow, the Human Beatbox BROUGHT it tonight! He took on “Time of the Season” by the Zombies, and he mixed in a light sprinkling of beatboxing and a big dose of controlled, mysterious singing. Excellent performance!
• Jordin Sparks: Covered “I Who Have Nothing”, a big, BIG song. I was skeptical that she didn’t have the life experience to sing such a raw, emotional piece – she’s only 17. But SHE DID IT! Oh my god, she sang the HELL out of it and actually brought tears to my eyes. Ladies and gentlemen, a star is born!

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Chris Richardson: Covered “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying” and Peter Noon’s advice was right on – skip the vibrato and sing the melody, which Chris has never done before. But tonight he did it, and he has a beautiful voice. Controlled and rich, it was nice to hear finally.
• Stephanie Edwards: Took on “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”, which started with a big dramatic intro by the band which she needed to follow up with big, dramatic vocals, but her voice was tentative and shaky. I felt she didn’t like the song or really know what it was about. It was reasonably good from a technical perspective, but it was flat in parts, and she just didn’t sell it.
• LaKisha Jones: Covered “Diamonds Are Forever”, quiet and sultry, but no real soul or committment to the song that I felt. It was a reasonably good technical performance, but no oomph, and quite frankly a couple of flat parts. I don’t think she trusted the song, and it showed.
• Gina Glocksen: Attempted to take on “Paint It Black” by the Stones, tried to “update” the melody – I just don’t buy her as the tough chick, it wasn’t horrible, but the rest of the group raised the bar and while Gina did good, others are doing GREAT.
• Chris Sligh: Covered “She’s Not There”, good song for his voice, did great on the buildup, mysterious and torch-y, made a mis-step on the big refrain, he started shouting instead of projecting. Allllllmost great, but still good.
• Melinda Doolittle: Took on “As Long As He Needs Me”, not familiar with the song – not sure that out of the entire ouvre of the British Invasion I would have picked something so obscure, no way for the audience to participate in the song. Kind of a torch song, could be from a modern-day Disney musical-cartoon, it was just that cheesy. Terrible song choice, workmanlike vocals, but absolutely no spark or personality.

Facing Elimination:

• Haley Scarnato: Covered “Tell Him”. Oof, hated her ho’ look – it’s called a bra, honey. She demonstrated workmanlike vocals, but nothing special, kind of screechy, and she really went out of her way to jiggle her garbanzos at every opportunity. However, even their constant aerobatics were not enough to distract from her blase performance.
• Phil Stacey: Took on “Tobacco Road”. He still exudes Serial Killer to me, has anybody checked his basement or crawl space? Anyway, tried to do a Chris Daughtry-like rocking number, cavorting around the stage holding the mic stand, he just looked like a shaved, fey nerd trying to pretend to be a rocker. Just a silly performance, some good notes, but he sounded ridiculous in the ultra-low parts.
• Sanjaya Malakar: Took on the Kinks “You Really Got Me Going”, he just doesn’t have the rough, raw edge to pull off a song like this. He moued around on the stage like, well, like an idiot. He had one quiet part where I thought he might break on through to the other side and turn it around, but he lost it in an ineffective screech and finished clumsily.

I’m happy to say that we finally have an Idol competition this year. Up until this week the overall quality of performances has just been boring and trite, with some flashes of greatness. Tonight the bar really got raised, and not by LaKisha or Melinda as one would expect, but by Blake and Jordin who really took things to the next level. Finally something to get excited about this year!

Why do I watch this show? There they were on the stage together, Brandon and Sanjaya – neither are great singers, but Brandon has clearly outperformed Sanjaya on the big stage. Sanjaya continues to look embarrassed about his inexplicable survival, as well he should. But in the end the one who got let go was:

• Brandon Rogers: Well, he certainly wasn’t going to win, and he was in my bottom three this week, but, again, he was better than Sanjaya. The image to the left is Brandon’s face when he hears that Sanjaya’s deal with the devil remains in force.

So, another travesty by the American voting public as Sanjaya lives another day. Poor kid, it has to actually be painful for him at this point. And the sad part is I really liked this kid at the beginning, but he just hasn’t ever regained the charm and skill he demonstrated in his audition.

Here we go, the Top 12 on the big stage, with Diana Ross as the voice coach this week. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Melinda Doolittle: Sang “Home”, from The Wiz, which I don’t really know and there are certainly much better songs in the Diana Ross ouvre she could have chosen. Her voice is good, strong, and big. She sings like she has every right to cover a Diana Ross song, even if that song is boring and forgettable. Good, solid performance, but such a nothing song that overall the performance was smaller than her actual voice.
• LaKisha Jones: Took on “God Bless the Child”, originally a Billie Holliday song, then done by La Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, so LaKisha took on two legends here. She’s doing good with flashes of great – not quite the polish to compare to Billie or Diana, but then again even thinking to compare her to them says a lot. She is head and shoulders above most of the other Idol contestants – I’m looking forward to a potential Diva Showdown between her and Melinda in the finale.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Chris Sligh: Covered “Endless Love”, surprising choice, some kind of weird arrangement and rearrangement of the chords…making it, well, discordant…he still has a good voice, with brief glimpses of his angel-voice, but mostly it was hidden behind his…overt ecletic focus. He needs to pick a song with a strong, well-known melody and then just SING the %^$#%$ thing as written. He’s not an arranger and that’s not what this show is about.
• Gina Glocksen: Sang “Love Child”, in the clips working with La Ross she seemed to actually be singing it quite beautifully, while on the stage tonight she was shouting and flat – is the new, big stage and crowd just overwhelming the contenders tonight? Really flat and screechy, and maybe some audio problems with AI feed (or my TV or cable), she just was screeching like a banshee – very un-Diana-Ross-like.
• Phil Stacey: Covered “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”, and I have to tell you – some people can pull off the bald look, it makes them look tough and charismatic (like the dude from The Shield), but on him it looks like got on the wrong side of the Kremlin. That being said, this may have been his strongest performance yet. I still don’t see him winning, but he sang strong and hit the chord changes like a pro tonight.
• Blake Lewis: Covered “You Keep Me Hanging On”, tried to modernize it, overall was boring. His voice was technically good, but no soul, sort of like Michael Bolton (who is known around here as the Notorious NTAC). Very mechanical, no heart, no soul, just sort of blah. Not horrible and he’ll probably be back.
• Stephanie Edwards: Took on “Love Hangover”, starting slow and sultry, very nice. Slightly flat on the big notes, and I kept waiting for the disco break, but she kept it as a torch song and never took it to the disco beat part, which felt like a tease and a letdown. Good performance, should definitely be back next week.
• Chris Richardson: Sang “The Boss”, poor guy, just not nearly the voice or the charisma for the song, or quite frankly for the Top 12. He’s a poor man’s Timberlake with one difference…say what you will about JT, that boy can sing. This guy can not suck for short periods of time, but not for a whole song, he just doesn’t have the game. Not horrible, just boring and forgettable.
• Jordin Sparks: Covered “If We Hold On Together” (what? I never heard of it, why pick this rarity from the splendorous catalogue of Diana Ross?!?). Nice, clear voice at the start, but the song sounds like it’s one of those crappy Grammy winning songs from a Disney cartoon. It doesn’t matter that her voice is not bad, the song is sooo boring that I can barely restrain myself from using TiVo’s fast forward to end the misery. I like her, and her voice is good, she should be back next week, but please get some help in picking songs!

Facing Elimination:

• Brandon Rogers: He took on “Can’t Hurry Love”, which I love, and simply massaccred it. I don’t know if it was the big stage or the big shoes he was filling with his cover, but his voice was tiny and scared and shaky and I’m not sure that he actually hit any of the notes. Oh, and he did some simply terrible stage dancing during the break.
• Haley Scarnato: Took on “Missing You”, which is a really a singer’s song, started HORRIBLY off pitch and stayed that way…and what was the nighty she was wearing? Shrill and shrieky instead of smooth and powerful, forgot the damn words and then REALLY lost the melody and tried to shout it back, just a terrible performance. The finish was delicately and nicely done, but didn’t save the performance.
• Sanjaya Malakar: Covered “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, and there was indeed no mountain high enough to hide his hideous new look (hair permed and curled, and wearing earrings in each ear??? WTF!??!??). Thankfully, the mountains did not echo his horrific performance so we only had to hear it once. Please, please, please, America, send this guy home already!.

Looks like it’s becoming a two diva race with LaKisha and Melinda – will the rest be able to catch them before they break away from the pack? I hope so, I’d like this competition to start getting more exciting!!

Why do I watch this show? There they were on the stage together, Sanjaya and Sundace – neither are great singers, but Sundance has clearly outperformed Sanjaya on the big stage. So Seacrest of course drags out the final elimination until “after the break”, and when we get back he tells Sundance the he’s going home, and Sanjaya is safe for another week. Sanjaya is actually starting to look embarrassed about his continued survival, as well he should. Here’s the final butcher’s bill for tonight:

• Antonella Barba: Finally!
• Sabrina Sloan: No argument on this one.
• Jared Cotter: No argument here, either.
• Sundance Head: In and of itself, Sundance getting eliminated isn’t a miscarriage of justice. But when it came down to him versus Sanjaya, Sundance should have gone through. Please, America, send Sanjaya home.

Well, we finally have our breakout Idol contestant for 2007 – it’s Melinda Doolittle. Stylish but not glamorous, pretty but not stunning, charming but not phony, confident but not arrogent, and with a set of pipes like a church organ played by Billy Preston (that means good). Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Melinda Doolittle: In her breakout performance she covered the Peggy Lee song I’m A Woman (also famously covered by Bette Midler). It’s a big, bold, brassy, singer’s song and Melinda sang the HELL out of it and made it look easy. Let’s put it this way, when she finished I had to go find my socks. Her performance was the best of the night, and of the week, and quite frankly of the season. She’s a real damn singer. Look out.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Jordin Sparks: Took on Pat Benatar, Heartbreaker, she did okay but reminded me what a powerful voice Benatar has. Jordin was just a bit too weak and flat, and tried to have a “rockin” attitude, but didn’t quite pull it off. She finished strong – overall a workmanlike job, but unmemorable.
• Stephanie Edwards: She’s starting to have the sound of a real singer, but she can’t maintain the vocal quality through the entire song. The low parts sounded out of her range and she was flat on a big run near the end, but she was strong on the big parts. She was flat on the big ending notes, but it was alllmost a really good performance.
• LaKisha Jones: She borrowed Sanjaya’s hairstyle and caught a little of his voice, too, because she started flat and tentative. She got better in the stronger parts, but still kept slipping into shouting instead of projected singing. No WOW factor, but she finished with beautiful control. I’m still waiting for LaKisha to hit on all cylinders and show us how good she can really be, because I think her voice is good enough to really wow us.
• Gina Glocksen: Another forgettable voice, she did some supposedly rocking number, but she shouted instead of singing. At least it’s different, a rock girl song, but it did nothing for me – wasn’t horrible, though, and her original bad-rock-girl schtick will probably keep her around at least one more week.

Facing Elimination:

• Antonella Barba: Wow she looked just like Sanjaya from last night (see below)!!! Are they the same person? They both displayed the same flat, quavery voice. Her performance was TERRIBLE tonight, off-key, and she just completely lost the melody all over the place. However, she looks the part and with her notoriety she might be back next week regardless. I will give her props for not going slutty on the style to play into her controversial pics, but please, America, put poor Antonella out of her misery, and me out of mine, okay?!??
• Sabrina Sloan: She was flat on the opening notes, shouted in the powerful parts, but definitely looks like a pop tart. The big finish was screechy and unmemorable. She doesn’t deserve to be in the Top 12.
• Haley Scarnato: Started off-key singing some lame anthem. Her voice was weak, and she hid behind the harmonies. Just a flat, shouting performance.

Nothing to talk about tonight but Melinda Doolittle. She has set the gold standard for this season – let’s see if the other boys and girls step up to the challenge!

On a note totally unrelated to the competition I have a question – separated at birth or lazy stylists? You tell me:

Wow, the men were one big snoozefest tonight – there were some workmanlike performances, but nothing…nothing…that was memorable or worthy of the top 12. Here’s the dirt:

Strong Performances:

• Sigh…nobody was strong this week…some were better than others, but nobody wow’ed.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Blake Lewis: Did some ska-like song – didn’t know the song but it was really attention grabbing and interesting. He showed a lot of style, but still needs to amp up the charisma. He’s got a good voice, a unique style, and an interesting personality, but just needs a little something extra to really stand out.
• Chris Richardson: Known in our house as Justin Timberfake (courtesy of Mynagirl) – he started with some rough notes, had some good runs, but he seems to save his vocal talent for the gratuitous vocal gymnastics and then plods his way very boringly through the actual melody. I’d love to hear him sing a song with a strong melody without the Mariah-like contortions. Solid singing, but needs to bust out with some kind of personal style of his own.
• Jared Cotter: Covered Stevie Wonder (If You Really Love Me) – his voice started flat and small, was better in the middle, but you could see he was straining to try and handle the song, and then he just flat lost the melody in the refrain. Good, but not memorable, and definitely didn’t make it his own.
• Brandon Rogers: He covered “Celebrate” by Rare Earth – and he brought the rocking funk! He wasn’t completely smooth and looked like he felt a little uncomfortable with the song choice, but he worked it out and delivered a solid, unique performance.
• Chris Sligh: He sure can sing, but WTF was that song? In a singing competition you need to either sing songs that people already know, so they can know you’re singing it well, or sing something new or rare that just blows people away with how undeniably great it is on the first hearing. This song just blew. Still, he sang it pretty good but it was a horrible song choice for a national singing competition – save the eclectic, self-indulgent crap for your second album, Chris.

Facing Elimination:

• Sanjaya Malakar: Again should be facing elimination – he started with a very shaky voice, and with his straightened hair he looks likd a cross between Prince and Gilligan. He was better this week than last week, but that’s not saying much, and AI voters should do some justice and get rid of him now. I still like the kid, and think he has talent, but he’s not keeping it together…maybe next year.
• Sundance Head: Sorry to say this as we’ve been rooting for Sundance, but he took on Pearl Jam tonight and just lost. The song was just way to big and raw and rough for him, and he was sporting a dumb looking faux hawk to go with his billy goat chin hair. He started super-flat and his voice was weak throughout – he seemed to be going for the Chris Daughtry vibe, but he just doesn’t have the voice or the aura to pull it off.
• Phil Stacey: Just a completely stupid look with a stupid-looking hat (was there a fishhook in it??), the opening bars were terrible. He sounded like he was crying and couldn’t sing – his voice got slightly stronger near the end, but his voice was still cracking and he was giving off the very strange serial-killer-thousand-yard-stare-vibe, so much so that the judges even commented on it (finally, I thought it was just me).

Our favorites tonight were Blake Lewis, Brandon Rogers, and Chris Sligh – but none of them stepped us as an unquestionable star. Guys, you better get it in gear for the Top 12!

Well, Idol voters have shown their unpredictable side for the first time this year. They got some right, got one VERY wrong – here’s who got voted off this week:

• Nick Pedro: Can’t argue with Nick getting eliminated, his performance this week wasn’t very strong. Nick went out proud with a strong rendition of his performance song, better than his take on Tuesday – in fact, if he had sang as good on Tuesday as he did tonight he’d probably still be here.
• Alaina Alexander: I had her pegged to return, but just barely. Can’t argue with her getting eliminated. She was so overcome she became one of the rare Idol ejectees too overcome to perform her song – she cried and hugged the other girls and sang the last bar or so through her tears.
• A.J. Tabaldo: The first mis-step by the American voting public. A.J. may not be the very best, but he definitely outsang Sanjaya Malakar. I like and have been rooting for Sanjaya and am happy he gets chance to redeem himself, but he didn’t deserve it based on last week’s performance. I hope he takes advantage of his reprieve, and too bad for A.J.
• Leslie Hunt: No surprise here, she didn’t have a strong performance and had an awkward stage presence and mannerisms.

Looks like the men were stronger this week. The women weren’t bad, but last week they kicked the men’s asses, and this week the men outsang them, but just by a bit.

Strong Performances:

• Melinda Doolittle: Sang My Funny Valentine which is a big risk as it can reallly come across as corny and cabaret. She started rough with an awkward low run, but she sang through it and showed very nice control. She projected without screaming and kept her big, powerful voice restrained, but barely, so that we could see just how powerful it would be if she let it loose. She needs a bit more self-confidence, but if she keeps singing like this, and the judges keep raving, she’ll start to believe. Then the rest of the contestants better watch out.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Gina Glocksen: Sang a Heart song, didn’t come near the Wilson sisters’ voices, flat and pitchy, screaming in the high parts, hiding behind harmony in some parts, just didn’t do it. Not horrible, but nothing special, however the judges seemed to like it, go figure.
• LaKisha Jones: Sang Midnight Train to Georgia, taking on Gladys Knight, shooting HIGH, started pitchy, did okay in the stronger parts, but not bringing it. She’s doing it justice, but not making it her own – she won’t be eliminated, but not nearly as good as I expected from her.
• Jordin Sparks: Oof, flat at the start, got stronger, with a pure, clear voice in the middle parts – still shaky in the low quiet parts, but hella good in the big, strong parts, beautifully controlled finish. Should be safe from elimination.
• Stephanie Edwards: Looked a lot like Fantasia (on purpose, it seems), weird song, never got going melodically. She did okay, but the song didn’t go anywhere – kind of sung/spoken, not a singer’s song. She hit the big note near the end but overall the song had no tempo or melody, strange choice for singing competition, not bad but didn’t showcase her talents.
• Sabrina Sloan: Another microphone tapper, which I find very distracting, her voice was flat in the big parts. Not sure why she dedicated a song called “He Fills Me Up” to her grandmother? The whole thing was like figure skating compulsories…she did a good job technically, but it was boring and predictable.
• Alaina Alexander: She started shaky and too breathy – she may have been going for stylized but it just seemed like she was gasping. The song was some generic, trite anthem and she hid behind the harmonies – her voice was not big enough for the power parts, flat and pitchy, and she kept running out of breath.

Facing Elimination:

• Antonella Barba: Started horribly off-key and shaky, stayed off key for most of the song. Very pitchy, she lost it and didn’t get it back until 3/4 of the way through the song. Then she nailed a high run and finished strong, but probably not enough.
• Haley Scarnato: Not nearly enough moxie to pull off Queen of the Night – she tried hard, but too hard, with awkward stage antics. She demonstrated workmanlike vocals, not bad, but unmemorable…hard to make such a hooky song boring, but she did it. Very off-key run in the middle and she’s just not comfortable with this “rocking” persona, felt fake.
• Leslie Hunt: Started quietly with good control and tone, but I kept waiting for the song to get going. Her voice was not quite big enough for the song and the weird, contrived scatting in the middle was just awkward and distracting and she had a really weak finish. It felt like she tried for an eclectic big voice but instead delivered a tortured small voice.

Melinda Doolittle was by far the strongest contender tonight. LaKisha can really sing, but she didn’t bring it tonight, but should stick around to the later rounds.

Well, the men definitely took their game up a notch compared to last week, when there were no real standouts. Tonight was a much stronger night and it was enjoyable to watch them begin to grow up onto the big stage:

Strong Performances:

• A.J. Tabaldo: Song opened quietly, and he showed good voice control and projection, the song got stronger as did his vocals, he sang the song and projected his personality and showed remarkable stage presence. Much improved over last week, overall very strong.
• Jared Cotter: Took on Marvin Gaye (Let’s Get It On), which is basically shooting for the stars. Started OK, a little bit flat in the middle and he hid behind the harmony vocals for a bit, but he sang it out and really did a good job. The song was bigger than him, but not by much. Good, solid performance.
• Chris Sligh: His hair was even wilder than normal, his voice is still angelic, didn’t love the song choice, but he sang the hell out of it. Definitely a contender.
• Sundance Head: Did Mustang Sally and went for the good-time-rocking vibe. He didn’t start strong, but he worked up to it and finally got rocking. Very nice rock-scream near the end, not too many singers can do that and not sound screechy or stupid, but he did it. Overall a good solid performance.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Phil Stacey: Boring, toneless, no charisma or stage presence, workmanlike vocals, like good karaoke, unmemorable, but for some reason the judges liked it. Wasn’t terrible and I doubt he’s facing elimination, but did nothing for me.
• Blake Lewis: Hated the stupid outfit, and he didn’t project his voice. He did some beatboxing in the middle that was actually very nice, but overall his voice was not nearly as full and mature as last week. In my opinion based on the singing he should be facing elimination, but I think he’ll get enough voters to his eclectic style to keep him around at least another week.
• Chris Richardson: Nice hoodie from the Old Navy “hip-white-guy” collection, not a bad voice, still sounds very derivative of Justin Timberlake, but he seemed to start to feeling his own style as the song progressed. I wish he’d stray from the boy-band sound, though.

Facing Elimination:

• Sanjaya Malakar: Wore a daring hat, but didn’t bring the game to make it look cool so he just looked like a little kid performing in his dad’s clothes. His voice was too quiet in the opening but he showed good control, the song was a swinging oldie and he tried to swing but failed. He couldn’t catch that Rat Pack vibe and the whole thing fell flat.
• Nick Pedro: Sang Fever, started with clear, strong voice and a nice tone, too quiet, though, and he needed to project while still staying controlled. This is such a woman’s song hard to open my mind to a male take, but he needed to cut loose and didn’t, very flat performance for me.
• Brandon Rogers: Chose Time After time, another traditionally female song. Had a rough start and in the big parts his voice was hard to hear among the background harmonies. Not horrible but I think the erratic performance coupled with the odd song choice could put him in danger of elimination.

Sanjaya was really the only clear choice for the Facing Elimination category – Nick and Brandon could both easily be back next week but my guess is one of them will join Sanjaya on the sacrificial altar.

Well, the first results show of the season is done, and here are the first batch of ejectees:

• Rudy Cardenas
• Paul Kim
• Amy Krebs
• Nicole Tranquillo

Can’t argue with any of those choices, but the quality of the competition is pretty low this year so these first rounds are going to be fairly un-dramatic, unless the voting public really gets stupid and starts voting off the few talented performers early!

Strong Performances:

• LaKisha Jones: Wow, she sang the HELL out of that song from Dreamgirls!! Stage antics were a touch cheesy, but her voice transcended everything else, and everyone else tonight. Easily the best tonight.
• Gina Glocksen: Took on the song “All By Myself”, which is like a singer’s decathlon, high parts, low parts, quiet parts, powerful parts, and she did it! Really made the song her own, effortlessly. Not perfect, but surprisingly mature and refined, definitely a contender.
• Jordin Sparks: Had the hubris to try a Tracy Chapman song (Give Me One Reason), had a good, strong voice, not quite the age/wisdom/life experience/pain to really nail the song, but still sang the heck (but not the hell) out of it.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Melinda Doolittle: More Aretha here, she alllmost has the voice and soul for it but she sounds a little old, kinda like watching Gladys Knight. Definite potential, but needs to modernize just a touch.

Facing Elimination:

• Stephanie Edwards: Quiet and tentative beginning, kind of torch singer, but quavery and weak and off-pitch, she ended up on her knees in a very contrived bit of stagecraft and was slightly off pitch on big final note.
• Amy Krebs: Good song choice, started kind of flat but shook it off in the middle, voice not quite big enough for the runs or the song and the end was nasty, completely off-key.
• Leslie Hunt: Didn’t have 1/10th the voice or soul to cover Aretha, and her gangly stage antics were distracting. Pitchy and forgettable.
• Sabrina Sloan: Voice WAYYY to small, who do these girls think they are taking on Aretha?? Do they *listen* to Aretha before they try? However, something must be wrong with my speakers or hearing because the judges *loved* her. I didn’t hear it.
• Antonella Barba: She looked like a pop star but also made me realize what a great voice Steven Tyler has. She covered that crappy Aerosmith song from Armageddon – watching her trying to fill out the song was like watching a little kid clomp around in her mom’s shoes, it’s cute but not really a talent.
• Nicole Tranquillo: Ugh, she copped a fake black voice and attitidue which did not work. Her voice was kind of okay but just workmanlike, thin in the high ranges, and she ended up shouting instead of projecting her voice.
• Haley Scarnato: She looked more glamourous than in her short-shorts during the elimination show, sang some sappy anthem, displayed a medium voice, ran out of breath, and did one of my least favorite stage moves…the squat’n'sing, where the singer squats down like they’re doing a heavy lift and then tries to raise up their voices. Also known around here as the poop’n'yodel.
• Alaina Alexander: Sang Brass in Pocket by the Pretenders, but her voice was too delicate and quavery, she lost it on the high notes, completely lost the pitch, lost her breath, lost her confidence, started shouting at the end.

Well, the girls were WAY better than the men this week – unfortunately the rules say two guys and two girls get voted off, *not* the four worst singers. If it were the four worst it might be an all-male-vote-off. Tune in here tomorrow night to hear the voting results!

Strong Performances:

• Sad to say, there were no standouts in today’s performances by the top 12 men. Some were stronger than others, but all verged on mediocre. Is it opening night jitters or just a less-skilled batch of men than in recent seasons? We hope it was just jitters, but don’t really see any strong contenders from the men at this point. See below for more info on each performance.

Good Enough to Return Next Week:

• Philip Stacey: A bit flat and toneless, he’s really working the serial-killer vibe with me, he showed a powerful voice in the louder parts, but overall a cheesy performance.
• Blake Lewis: The human beatbox stayed strictly melodic tonight, picture Sting crossed with Freddy Mercury crossed with Ryan Seacrest (all three in both look and sound, assuming Seacrest is no great singer). His voice cracked during his first falsetto run, but he recovered, and he had a couple of other short rough patches, but each time he sang through them – seemed like opening night jitters. May be our favorite so far based on tonight’s performances.
• Sanjaya Malakar: Started shaky, but still flashed his very pretty, smooth voice. However, he didn’t project his voice or his personality, and tonight’s Stevie Wonder song was too big for him. He needs to cut loose, relax, and swing for the fences. Still has great potential, this felt like opening night nerves.
• Chris Sligh: He was shouting a bit, kind of flat, but still a good strong voice and control. Didn’t like the song selection but that’s fixable. Looking to see how he does as he gets used to the big stage.

Facing Elimination:

• Rudy Cardenas: looks better clean shaven, no charisma, workmanlike vocals.
• Brandon Rogers: Bland, stylized Michael Jackson song (Rock With You), nothing memorable.
• Sundance Head: Covered “Nights in White Satin”, could have been a home run, but was super cheesy, he was shaky and nervous, and he needs to shave that Amish-Paradise-Meets-C-Everett-Koop abomination from his chin.
• Paul Kim: Toneless and shoeless. Hopeless? We’ll see.
• Chris Richardson: Basically a Justin Timberlake bobble-head doll. Cute for five minutes, but what’s next?
• Nick Pedro: Good first 20 seconds, hit a big flat note, didn’t recover.
• Jared Cotter: Lifeless, soulless R&B romantic ballad, toneless, screechy, no charisma.
• A.J. Tabaldo: His hair is cut like a mental patient or electric chair victim, no charisma, flat on the big notes, song and performance were boring and trite.

Well, that’s it for the guys, I hope the girls do better tomorrow night so we have somebody we can really root for!

Well, the Top 24 have been selected, and here they are:

Here are the Final 24!!
	A.J. Tabaldo: This is his fifth Idol competition, his voice is ok but unmemorable, he’s one of those stuck doing vocal runs and tricks instead of singing the notes on the page.
Alaina Alexander: Kinda loopy, doesn’t have the voice and/or confidence to stand out from the crowd…yet?
	Amy Krebs: Seems like a strong, semi-unique voice, we’re waiting to see more from her.
Antonella Barba: Forgot her words in Hollywood (what is the deal with that???), but has a nice voice, still waiting to see how she does.
	Blake Lewis: Human beatbox with spikey, blond-tipped hair, good voice, not sure about him yet.
Brandon Rogers: A good but not very unique backup singer trying to move to the front. Seems generic so far but a solid voice.
	Chris Richardson: Very “Boy Band”, not my cup of tea, nothing particularly wrong with his voice but I do not like that strange, falsetto, quavery kind of sound, probably because I’m an old fart.
Chris Sligh: Funny guy, looks like a cross between Hagrid and Jack Osbourne, with the voice of an angel. One of our early favorites!
	Gina Glocksen: Booted in Hollywood Week in Season Five, she’s back again in Hollywood this year. Nothing to write home about, I fear the same fate awaits her this year.
Haley Scarnato: “Some shrill hoe-bag in shorts” was Mynagirl’s considered opinion. I agree.
	Jared Cotter: Enh, kind of a middle-of-the-road voice, sounds like it could have potential but nothing special yet.
Jordin Sparks: Good audition, a little subdued in Hollywood, could blossom or crack as the competition proceeds – seems nice so we’re rooting for her.
	Lakisha Jones: Mother of a three year old, we were moved to tears when she and her daughter cried when Lakisha made it to Hollywood. Good voice and we’re rooting for her!
Leslie Hunt: Kind of mousy, working too hard (you can see her doing the math in her head as she sings), but good tone and vocal control, waiting to see if she thrives in the pressure cooker.
	Melinda Doolittle: A backup singer trying to step up to the mic, she has a good voice, but not great, at least not yet. Potential for the voice coaches to work with, however, but not knocking our socks off yet.
Nick Pedro: He left the competition voluntarily last season, has a silky smooth voice but not yet showing any…pizzaz.
	Nicole Tranquillo: Not a bad voice, but nothing special so far.
Paul Kim: Shoeless Paul Kim sounds like he could win a karaoke competition in a major city, but his vocal stylings don’t appeal to me.
	Philip Stacy: Decent voice, kinda looks like a serial killer, has a new baby at home, but hasn’t really set himself apart.
Rudy Cardenas: Why do singers on AI have to do all those stupid vocal runs and quavers? I hate that. That’s what he does. If he stops I’ll let you know if I like how he sings.
	Sabrina Sloan: Seems like a nice girl, but nothing special voice-wise so far.
Sanjaya Malakar: Here’s one desi that should make it to the next round easily, yaar! Picture a teenaged amalgamation of Jim Morrisson and Babu Bhat, with an interesting, smokey voice and a unique appeal that seems genuine. One of our early favorites!
	Stephanie Edwards: Seems nice, strong voice, still not sure about her but like her and am rooting for her.
Sundance Head: His name sounds like buying votes at a film festival – and his voice hasn’t been too strong since his audition, but we’re waiting to see how he develops.

Tune in next week for more updates!

Related posts:

1. American Idol: The Top Eleven Sing the Beatles
2. American Idol 2004 Weekly Scoreboard: Fantasia Wins!!
3. American Idol 2006: Mynagirls American Idol Dashboard and Commentary