Grading The American Idol Top 12 On The Tivo Multi-Bloop Scale

The real game finally begins, as the American Idol Top 12 hit the big stage and tried to convince the country that we care at all about Diana Ross. Early grade: we don’t. I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Melinda Doolittle – Full on no bloop, put the phone on vibrate, close the iBook, drop the fork performance. I’m right with Simon who felt the song itself was dreadful, but the performance was dynamite. I dig her power, her control and her look. And I’m only 8% put off by her horse teeth. She’s an effervescent performer, utterly absorbing to watch. This is definitely her competition to lose.

2. Blake Lewis – The smartest performance of the night. Blake knows he has a smaller voice than most of the other singers, so he pushes his strong suit of showmanship and arrangement. The music was kickin, I didn’t care that the vocal was small and quiet, and the moves were right on. I was thinking it would be a locked up one bloop for Blake when I heard it was a Diana Ross night, but he pulled through. I put the TiVmote on the coffee table for this one.

3. Haley Scarnato – One bloop it so you can avoid the singing, but still take an extended opportunity to leer at the hotness of Haley. Girl brought it fly last night. I picked her as one of my horses, and though I don’t think she’ll get by on her voice (it’s thinner than Sanjaya’s flat ironed hair), she is easily the hottest, most camera-friendly contestant. And as Katharine McPhee will attest, kittenish good looks and a suspect voice will take you very far in a resoundingly LA-5ish finalist pool. Put it to you this way, Stephanie, Gina and Sanjaya the boychick all have better voices than Haley, but push come to shove, who would you rather watch week it and week out? Exactly.

4. Chris Sligh – A surprise bloop and a half for the de-spectacled Sideshow Chris. I’m always nervous when people known for wearing glasses try to fly sans specs, and Chris did nothing to help that concern. Kid’s got a slight case of the creepy eyes. Simon was right; he needs to wear the glasses. As far as the performance, I kind of enjoyed the Coldplay-Clocks arrangement, but for the most part I was bored. He’s a savvy player, but it won’t be enough once the heard is thinned. After the audition round I had him pegged as a Top 5-er for sure. Now I don’t see him beating any of the three divas, or Blake and Chris R.

5. Jordin Sparks – Bloop through the beginning, let it play for the middle and strongly consider one-blooping through the end. But I still love the kid; she has an energy and attitude that is unique to this season. Though she was damn boring last night. She’s a Top 3 female, but I wanna see at least two or three non-bloop perfs before I’m completely sold.

6. Gina Glocksen – Let it sit for the start, catch the drift, then double bloop right to the judge’s comments. She’s cool enough, I guess. I like that she’s the only traditional “rocker” of the season, and that she finally embraced the image (after all, she is sporting an Amy Lee-goth lite visage. What did she expect from us? Girl needs to talk to Avril about image misconception, as both of them are genre liars.). With Gina all you need to hear is a few bars before you get your fill. I give her three weeks before the Divas consume her whole during a commercial break.

7. Chris Richardson – One bloop for the ladies, two bloops for the dudes. I’m always a fan of the people who get off the stage and work the crowd, but I wish Chris’s walk on the audience side had been in service of a song or performance I care about. It doesn’t matter though because as “B-“ as I’ve thought he’s been the last few weeks (way to make me remember how obnoxious I find Jason Mraz), he’s a virtual JT Version 2.0 (now with less talent and more practiced stubble!). The girls drive the wagon train on this show, so get the Chris Richardson bloop train ready. It’s going to be running for quite some time.

8. Brandon Rogers – Dub bloops for the remainder of his run, however short. Unlike Melinda, Brandon steadfastly refuses to break away from the back-up mic mark. He’s too quiet, too shy, too quick to distract us from his lack of charisma with a beatific smile, and far too short on as Randy likes to say, the “Yo!” factor. I get the voice, I’m not a fan, and until further notice, I don’t care to see if it gets any better.

9. Lakisha Jones – I’m in the minority on this, but double bloop Lakisha and don’t worry so much on when you stop the FF. Was it me or did she seem bored up there? And very negative? I get a bitch vibe from her, and I’m not bowled over by her voice. Just because you can belt doesn’t mean you can dog the staging or the look. And I’m still put off by her presumptuous “And I’m Telling You” perf five days before Jennifer Hudson stuck Idol with a “suck it” needle and nabbed herself an Oscar. Just something I don’t like here. I prefer my divas with a nervous smile, Doolittle-style, thank you very much.

10. Phil Stacey – Let the trip bloops begin! He has a great, powerful voice on the big notes, and an utterly abysmal voice on everything else. He can’t begin a song, he can’t do the falsetto, and he has problems with any run that doesn’t include an arms-out Scott Stapp-like note. And this is all before we even begin discussing the alien head. If I wanted to watch a freaky bald singer, I’d cue up Britney’s Toxic video on YouTube. I don’t want to look at Phil, and I only want to hear about 1/14th of his voice. The mothership can take him back, for all I care.

11. Stephanie Edwards – A double bloop that moves to a snooooore, causing an accidental third bloop that you don’t regret when you wake back up. She’s in the back of the diva pack vocally, in front of only Lakisha in the looks department and I’ve never been able to get through even one of her songs without spraining an ankle diving for my TiVo remote (even Sanjaya kept me interested a few times, though that’s mostly due to him being a train wreck), or rolling my eyes and going back to my latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (memo to editors: Stephen King is not funny. Stop encouraging him.). As Ivan Drago might say, if she’s bootetd, she’s booted.

12. Sanjaya Malakar – A full-on, trip bloop, throw the TiVo remote in disgust, muse about what Sundance might have been, consider flaming Justin Guarini on a chat board because Sanjaya went there follicly, groan that the Idol producers couldn’t change the rules and allow Sabrina Sloan in as a seventh girl, check on Sanjaya’s nicely-racked sister’s MySpace page and finally hit play in time to hear the judges rip this kid bitch to shreds. He has GOT to go. I’d listen to the entirety to Taylor Hicks’s CD before willingly non-bloop a Sanjaya song. His voice is small, shy, effeminate in a bad way, karaoke in a makes karaoke look retched kind of way, and just plain boring. His hair drug him into the Finals. Phil Stacey should seriously consider waiting until Sanjaya cries himself to sleep after an especially salty episode of The Hills, and then whipping out his dome buzzer and Mr. Cleaning the poor boy’s noggin. Maybe a bald Sanjaya would finally snap the teenybopper girls back to reality and boot the kid the hell off my favorite show.

My prediction for who gets the axe this week: Phil Stacey (phone home…)

Triple bloop don’t fail me now!

Bangarang!

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