American Idol, Nach.
The finale is only a week away, and the contestants do their level best to underwhelm in the first half, apparently. Idol attempts to lift the mood by giving back while I contemplate a nap. The judges are ridiculous as usual. Kris Allen takes it upon himself to save the entire episode. Good times.
Danny opened the show with Terence Trent D'arby's 'Dance Little Sister', as chosen for him by Ms. Abdul. Go here if you, like me, had no idea what this was. I'm still trying to figure out whether Paula truly thought this would be awesome, or if this was her sneaky revenge on Danny for stealing her love of the dance last week.
Danny didn't so much sing as he shouted into the microphone. Plus he pulled out his spectacularly bad dancing, and, for some strange reason, some scatting that made me want to tell him, "No, no Danny Gokey. You are NOT Matt Giraud." Judges loved it vocally of course. Make a point to attack the shitty dancing. Especially Simon, who called it 'desperate'. Truer words were never spoken. I die of shock @ them giving him any criticism at all.
Danny was not the only one that had me pining for Matt, however (I say that like I haven't been pining for him all this time :P). Kris got behind the baby grand to perform One Republic's 'Apologize'. His fingers stroking the keys do not give me dirty thoughts. His performance is passable, although certainly nothing to write home about. I tune out for a moment to fantasize about Matt and his magic hands.
The judges were clearly not impressed, big shock. Randy and Kara, who chose this bit of fail btw, chastise him for doing it wrong. Simon chastises them for not taking time to work with him on the song, as he did for Adam, or indeed tell him what they were even hoping to see. My opinion of Simon is raised slightly. Kara makes a fool of herself by standing behind Simon with her hands clamped over his mouth, in mimicry of the way Simon had done it to Paula earlier (except he managed to get a cuddle in while he did it). Simon's eyes clearly say what his mouth cannot, "I am going to take this bitch DOWN once we go to commercial."
This is not starting out well at all. Surely Adam can save the entire thing by giving us a kick ass rendition of U2's 'One', right? I mean, Simon called Bono personally to clear the song for him. But apparently no, no he can't. It starts off strong, but then he too decides to climb aboard the failboat and drive the song into the ground with unnecessary vocal acrobatics (thank you, Michael Slezak of EW.com). Vocal acrobatics overwhelm beautiful lyrics. I glare at television, tune out to fantasize about Matt some more.
Judge's love it, of course. Adam is living Idol legend. I glare at television some more.
Good lord, the Idol Gives Back montage is a downright relief after that crap. Carry Underwood hands out mosquito nets somewhere in Africa. These fools do realize Africa is a continent made up of many countries, right? Frankly, I'm not sure they do. But they do realize there are giraffes and people dying of malaria there. But fear not folks! Mosquito nets are working! One woman and her child had totally never even had malaria before. Cue plug for 'So Small'. Not the Matt Giraud cover, unfortunately.
Back to the music folks. I had already given up by this point. Danny does nothing to change my mind about the fail that is this weeks show. He rearranged Joe Cocker's 'You Are So Beautiful' all by himself! Which is all fine and good, but... well let me put it to you this way: You know sometimes when you're having sex, and you're really not into it at all, so you start mentally composing your grocery list/redecorating the living room/wondering why you even bothered since apparently partner really isn't into it either? It was like that. Danny's face looked as lifeless as his voice sounded, and my mind wandered off to create it's own entertainment. But as this wasn't the first time this had happened yesterday evening, I can't hold it against him. As much as I would like to.
The judges loved it, naturally. Kara thought it was not only stunning but STUN-ING. STFU Kara. Simon's critique started out good, with Simon telling Danny he hated the arrangement and that the song didn't really need to be changed (obv). But then he went on to say that it was a 'vocal master-class'. Um. Really Simon? It wasn't bad, I'll give you that, but I think the word you're looking for is 'mediocre'.
At this point I'm ready to call it a night. Obviously nothing can save this shit, right? RIGHT?? Ryan announces Kris is going to perform Kanye West's 'Heartless'. I proceed to laugh and prepare myself for epic levels of fail during an episode that was already shot to hell. But then there was Kris with his acoustic guitar, ripped jeans, and I would like to imagine, blue thumb polish (seriously, how awesome was that? I don't know what you've done to this boy, Adam, but I like it!). He started to sing and I clearly had no choice but to sit down, shut up, and enjoy myself. Yes, that's right. This was amazing coated in awesome. A performance that was actually worthy of the final two (finally!). It was like Kris had gone over all the horrendously unfair and undeserved critiques by Simon last week and decided to give him the finger through song. He didn't bother to be awesome on Apologize because he knew he was going to blow us all away with his own pick.
Well, me, anyway. He definitely blew me away. Picture me frantically searching my nightstand for a pen to write down his numbers while telling the husband, "No, you don't understand how fucking brilliant this is." Yes, yes, I was going to vote for Kris, anyway. But if I had gone into this with the sole intent of voting for the most worthy contestant, he still would have gotten my vote.
Even the judges had to agree, and you know they were ready to gun the gas on the bus and take the poor boy down good and proper. Randy finally realized that Kris has the potential to be a relevant recording artist (no shit, you think?), Kara wanted to know why he didn't do this on apologize (um, because your song choice was a bad one?), and Simon took a big bite of crow and admitted that it had been foolish to write him out of the competition (or something like that).
And finally we wrap with Adam in the pimp spot, as per usual. Adam, the cheeky bastard, decided to show Gokey how Aerosmith should be done. Good on you, Adam! I'm not going to lie, I would have been all right if he'd decided on an outright fuck you and done 'Dream On' instead. But regardless, I was glad Aerosmith got it's redemption. Even if Cryin' isn't my favorite Aerosmith song ever. He did a good job with it (the back up singer? not so much). It wasn't even close to his best performances, nor do I even think it was especially worthy of a top two spot until I consider Danny's still in the running, but it beat the hell out of that crap he did to 'One' earlier.
The judges, of course, loved it. Randy told us Adam is a rock star... blah blah blah, Kara blah blah blah, something about setting the bar so high he should be getting frequent flyer miles from Paula (lol, seriously, that's the performance in which you choose to pull out that little bit of crazy?). And in the most amusing moment of the entire show, Simon all but got on his knees to beg viewers to vote for Adam. You think he's got a hard-on for Adam? Yes, yes I do. He wants Adam to win so bad he can't even stand it.
Which leads me to believe that the reason Simon wants Kris gone is not because he thinks Kris is no match for Adam (as he told Fox and Friends), but because he knows damn well he's the only one left who can give him a run for his money talent-wise. Danny, not so much. The only thing he's got going for him is a loyal fan base with horrible musical taste. But as the other contestants are picked off one by one, their voters have to go somewhere, and only the most bitter choose to go with Danny. All in an effort to give Idol a big fuck you and saddle them with an irrelevant recording artist who makes Taylor Hicks look like the best thing that's ever happened to 19 Entertainment. Yes, I truly believe this.
I look forward to tonight's results show with a mixture of dread and hope. Will Kris be able to pull it off and take his rightful spot in the top two? Will Adam get a shock booting that will make Simon weep (and maybe even me, I have to confess)? Or will Danny finally do what he should have done ages ago and get the hell off the Idol stage? I'm certainly hoping for that last one.
Danny opened the show with Terence Trent D'arby's 'Dance Little Sister', as chosen for him by Ms. Abdul. Go here if you, like me, had no idea what this was. I'm still trying to figure out whether Paula truly thought this would be awesome, or if this was her sneaky revenge on Danny for stealing her love of the dance last week.
Danny didn't so much sing as he shouted into the microphone. Plus he pulled out his spectacularly bad dancing, and, for some strange reason, some scatting that made me want to tell him, "No, no Danny Gokey. You are NOT Matt Giraud." Judges loved it vocally of course. Make a point to attack the shitty dancing. Especially Simon, who called it 'desperate'. Truer words were never spoken. I die of shock @ them giving him any criticism at all.
Danny was not the only one that had me pining for Matt, however (I say that like I haven't been pining for him all this time :P). Kris got behind the baby grand to perform One Republic's 'Apologize'. His fingers stroking the keys do not give me dirty thoughts. His performance is passable, although certainly nothing to write home about. I tune out for a moment to fantasize about Matt and his magic hands.
The judges were clearly not impressed, big shock. Randy and Kara, who chose this bit of fail btw, chastise him for doing it wrong. Simon chastises them for not taking time to work with him on the song, as he did for Adam, or indeed tell him what they were even hoping to see. My opinion of Simon is raised slightly. Kara makes a fool of herself by standing behind Simon with her hands clamped over his mouth, in mimicry of the way Simon had done it to Paula earlier (except he managed to get a cuddle in while he did it). Simon's eyes clearly say what his mouth cannot, "I am going to take this bitch DOWN once we go to commercial."
This is not starting out well at all. Surely Adam can save the entire thing by giving us a kick ass rendition of U2's 'One', right? I mean, Simon called Bono personally to clear the song for him. But apparently no, no he can't. It starts off strong, but then he too decides to climb aboard the failboat and drive the song into the ground with unnecessary vocal acrobatics (thank you, Michael Slezak of EW.com). Vocal acrobatics overwhelm beautiful lyrics. I glare at television, tune out to fantasize about Matt some more.
Judge's love it, of course. Adam is living Idol legend. I glare at television some more.
Good lord, the Idol Gives Back montage is a downright relief after that crap. Carry Underwood hands out mosquito nets somewhere in Africa. These fools do realize Africa is a continent made up of many countries, right? Frankly, I'm not sure they do. But they do realize there are giraffes and people dying of malaria there. But fear not folks! Mosquito nets are working! One woman and her child had totally never even had malaria before. Cue plug for 'So Small'. Not the Matt Giraud cover, unfortunately.
Back to the music folks. I had already given up by this point. Danny does nothing to change my mind about the fail that is this weeks show. He rearranged Joe Cocker's 'You Are So Beautiful' all by himself! Which is all fine and good, but... well let me put it to you this way: You know sometimes when you're having sex, and you're really not into it at all, so you start mentally composing your grocery list/redecorating the living room/wondering why you even bothered since apparently partner really isn't into it either? It was like that. Danny's face looked as lifeless as his voice sounded, and my mind wandered off to create it's own entertainment. But as this wasn't the first time this had happened yesterday evening, I can't hold it against him. As much as I would like to.
The judges loved it, naturally. Kara thought it was not only stunning but STUN-ING. STFU Kara. Simon's critique started out good, with Simon telling Danny he hated the arrangement and that the song didn't really need to be changed (obv). But then he went on to say that it was a 'vocal master-class'. Um. Really Simon? It wasn't bad, I'll give you that, but I think the word you're looking for is 'mediocre'.
At this point I'm ready to call it a night. Obviously nothing can save this shit, right? RIGHT?? Ryan announces Kris is going to perform Kanye West's 'Heartless'. I proceed to laugh and prepare myself for epic levels of fail during an episode that was already shot to hell. But then there was Kris with his acoustic guitar, ripped jeans, and I would like to imagine, blue thumb polish (seriously, how awesome was that? I don't know what you've done to this boy, Adam, but I like it!). He started to sing and I clearly had no choice but to sit down, shut up, and enjoy myself. Yes, that's right. This was amazing coated in awesome. A performance that was actually worthy of the final two (finally!). It was like Kris had gone over all the horrendously unfair and undeserved critiques by Simon last week and decided to give him the finger through song. He didn't bother to be awesome on Apologize because he knew he was going to blow us all away with his own pick.
Well, me, anyway. He definitely blew me away. Picture me frantically searching my nightstand for a pen to write down his numbers while telling the husband, "No, you don't understand how fucking brilliant this is." Yes, yes, I was going to vote for Kris, anyway. But if I had gone into this with the sole intent of voting for the most worthy contestant, he still would have gotten my vote.
Even the judges had to agree, and you know they were ready to gun the gas on the bus and take the poor boy down good and proper. Randy finally realized that Kris has the potential to be a relevant recording artist (no shit, you think?), Kara wanted to know why he didn't do this on apologize (um, because your song choice was a bad one?), and Simon took a big bite of crow and admitted that it had been foolish to write him out of the competition (or something like that).
And finally we wrap with Adam in the pimp spot, as per usual. Adam, the cheeky bastard, decided to show Gokey how Aerosmith should be done. Good on you, Adam! I'm not going to lie, I would have been all right if he'd decided on an outright fuck you and done 'Dream On' instead. But regardless, I was glad Aerosmith got it's redemption. Even if Cryin' isn't my favorite Aerosmith song ever. He did a good job with it (the back up singer? not so much). It wasn't even close to his best performances, nor do I even think it was especially worthy of a top two spot until I consider Danny's still in the running, but it beat the hell out of that crap he did to 'One' earlier.
The judges, of course, loved it. Randy told us Adam is a rock star... blah blah blah, Kara blah blah blah, something about setting the bar so high he should be getting frequent flyer miles from Paula (lol, seriously, that's the performance in which you choose to pull out that little bit of crazy?). And in the most amusing moment of the entire show, Simon all but got on his knees to beg viewers to vote for Adam. You think he's got a hard-on for Adam? Yes, yes I do. He wants Adam to win so bad he can't even stand it.
Which leads me to believe that the reason Simon wants Kris gone is not because he thinks Kris is no match for Adam (as he told Fox and Friends), but because he knows damn well he's the only one left who can give him a run for his money talent-wise. Danny, not so much. The only thing he's got going for him is a loyal fan base with horrible musical taste. But as the other contestants are picked off one by one, their voters have to go somewhere, and only the most bitter choose to go with Danny. All in an effort to give Idol a big fuck you and saddle them with an irrelevant recording artist who makes Taylor Hicks look like the best thing that's ever happened to 19 Entertainment. Yes, I truly believe this.
I look forward to tonight's results show with a mixture of dread and hope. Will Kris be able to pull it off and take his rightful spot in the top two? Will Adam get a shock booting that will make Simon weep (and maybe even me, I have to confess)? Or will Danny finally do what he should have done ages ago and get the hell off the Idol stage? I'm certainly hoping for that last one.