OK, it’s almost live, because I just got down to the basement and am fast-forwarding through American Idol on the DVR. With any luck, and the blessing of my usual succinct snark, I’ll catch up to a current performance before the hour is up.
Brandon Whatever: You can’t hurry love, but you sure can put it to sleep with such a boring performance. He picks it up a bit at the end, but he is this season’s Kevin Covais when it comes to gesturing while singing. I think his repertoire includes (1) the outreached hand and the (2) outreached hand palm down as if singing “on the down low.” To his credit, that’s one more gesture than Kevin Covais had.
Melinda Doolittle: Solid performance, although I don’t think she was meant for high heels. Somewhere out there a drag queen is walking effortlessly in stilettos and singing worse than an American Idol audition reject on a very bad day.
Randy says something but I am distracted by the ample bosoms attached to a young woman behind him. Yo dog, listen listen, move your fat head so I can see the boobies.
Paula provides further evidence that doping should be outlawed for judges in singing competitions.
Simon is very kind. The end is near.
Chris Sligh: Hmmm, maybe re-arranging the song wasn’t the best idea. I could have sworn he was about to sing a Coldplay song when it started out.
Randy read my mind on the Coldplay tip, yo dog. Paula said something, but Fiona was talking. Simon is spot on: the song got murdered. Too bad, because I’ve enjoyed Chris’ performances up to this point.
David J nailed the Coldplay copycat-ism too. Word, dog.
Gina Glocksen: She gets better looking each week, although “American Idol rebel” is an oxymoron, but this didn’t really work for me. The arrangement was kind of dull, the singing not her best, and not much in the way of spirit in the singing. Let’s see what the judges say. Randy? Paula? Simon?
They seem to agree. More or less. And I do this without the drugs, Paula.
Sanjaya Malakar: Dude, Farah Fawcett called from 1977 and she wants her hairstyle back.
That comment was made before I saw his “performance hair.”
He sings like he really wants you to believe what he is singing, even though he doesn’t. He doesn’t sing so much as whine.
Paula talks about him - his sweet soul - how he always smiles - as if she’s talking to the gimpy kid who just lost the Special Olympics.
Haley Scarnato: Nice dress. Taking a page out of the Katharine McPhee playbook. Now if only she’d get to the page where Katharine and I make out lots (sure, I wrote that page and snuck it in, but it’s a good one).
Hmmm.
Ummm.
With that dress, I’m not sure I can give a fair assessment of the singing. I didn’t find it particularly good, which means it was probably worse than I thought, seeing as how visions of cleavage danced in my head for much of it.
I think Simon was doing the same.
Speaking of Yabos: Jennifer Love Hewitt in her Hanes. Yum. And out of them? Yummerer.
Phil Stacey: Much better than anything Phil has done to date, except for what sounded like a Peter Brady puberty squeak on one note. I’ve been down on Phil, so to speak, since the beginning, but I might have to change my mind on him after this performance.
Good job, my Elfin friend. Buen jobbo.
LaKisha Jones: She makes it look effortless, doesn’t she?
Love the way she moves between moods and tones so easily, adds her own vocal stylings to certain elements of the song, takes control, and makes you forget about Haley’s chest as if it never existed.
Randy agrees. Paula offers more useless fluffy advice. Simon tells everyone but LaKisha and Melinda to take their balls and go home.
Blake Lewis: Odd performance. The arrangement was miles beyond the one Chris Sligh came up with… but every time I think he’s gonna go big with it, nothing happens. It just sort of sits there. Odd.
Stephanie Edwards: Decent job of singing, although the LSD Technicolor vomit dress distracted me. She’s one of the better singers tonight, but pales in comparison to Melinda and LaKisha.
Simon concurs. And Simon, I do this for free.
Chris Richardson: Last week, Julie helped me out by pointing out, in my pondering that Chris looks like a monkey, he looks like Curious George.
Can’t really comment on the performance as I was going back to the old WWR to find the Curious George comment. However, what I heard while click clacking away didn’t inspire me to look up from the keyboard.
By the by, thanks to Kaf for the new monkey logo up top, keeping the site feelin’ real, yo, while I work on a new design (when I, uh, get around to working on a new design). So, in the immortal words of Randy - who once played bass for Journey and he won’t let you forget it - “yo dog, listen, listen, thanks, dog.”
Jordan Sparks: Solid performance all around, although I think LaKisha is the Queen of Tonight. Only real complaint is that Jordan’s voice starts to fall apart in the lower register, but she stays away from it for much of the song.
You know, the worst apart about being a woman standing next to Ryan Seacrest has to be that it makes you look big. Maybe they should have Ryan phone in his hosting duties. No offense, Ryan, I’m not exactly tall (and I know how you stop by here so very, very often).
Guess that’s it for tonight, folks.
See you for the elimination tomorrow night.
Man, that sounds way too biological, doesn’t it?
Update: For no good reason at all…
