Grading the American Idol Top 6 On The Tivo Multi-Bloop Scale

Sometimes it’s OK to be wrong. Those times are when you thought someone didn’t like you and it turns out they did. Or when you assumed a movie would be terrible and you actually ended up enjoying it. Or when you don’t think you’ll find the right type of internet porn for your particular mood and then BAM, the internet comes through like a perverted champ. Or, in the case of American Idol, when the collective stupidity and hostility of the American voting public awakens to their own absurdity and end the reign of the long national nightmare named Sanjaya Malakar. If I had to be wrong AGAIN, I was glad to be wrong last week. It’s not ironic when I say this: Sanjaya out!

I’m not an insensitive person. I can appreciate people trying to do good. But something just rings a touch… false about Idol Gives Back. Maybe it’s the thunderous corporate sponsorship whoring. Or that the show itself is so superficial that the mere idea of them striving for depth and meaning is patently ludicrous. Or that we were a wacky water cooler hairdo from Sanjaya playing a part in this farce gala. But I just can’t seem to get behind the hoopla. It all seems so… fake. Ryan Seacrest is not Anderson Cooper, as much he wants so badly to be. And Paula and Randy don’t exactly strike me as people who care about anything beyond their wardrobe and residual rate. Simon comes across as the only real sincere person up there, and that’s because his frigid public persona has more emotional places to go than a former pop star and the bassist for Journey. But seeing Simon marvel at a food bank only goes so far. I hope I’m awed by the charity of the stars in tomorrow’s big benefit concert, but I’m leery. Here’s hoping I don’t throw up in my mouth the first time Ryan mugs for the cameras with some poor starving African child. This is American Idol, indeed. (blech)

But ANYWAY…. On to the bloop bloop review.

I liked that there was no mentor, as it would only have dragged down the pace of the show. Not to mention seeming quite tacky. However, I was really hoping to see Blake work with Bono. The level of potential awesomeness would be nearly unparalleled (the only thing that could top it would be Melinda dueting with Aretha, which I still think may happen in the finale). Hopefully I’ll get my wish tomorrow night. I enjoyed all the performances for then most part. The theme helps calm the Idol contestants down. They tone down the theatrics and just sing, which is a welcome reprieve after the vocal rollercoasters that were Latin and Country week. If we get solid performance nights for the rest of the season, this may go down as the best season of American Idol ever. Despite the Universe of Sanjaya.

As stated before, 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 – She’s not even competing on the show anymore. She’s on such a different level of the rest of the singers that it’s not even funny. She looked like she’s been ruling the stage for twenty years. That was a pro doing a pro’s work. Absolutely flawless, powerful, emotional, STRONG performance. Compliments don’t do her justice. If she isn’t making records twenty-five years from now something went horribly wrong. This girl will be THE voice for some time. She’s putting on a clinic and her skills are free. Did I bloop her? Sha, right!

2. Jordin Sparks – Blake may have been officially penciled out of the finale with that performance. I wasn’t as over the moon as the judges (really Randy, the best in six seasons? Carrie and Fantasia are gonna bitch slap you for that shit.), but I was impressed. I liked her tone, her control, her fantastic final note, and thought she looked beautiful. The package may not be as polished as Melinda, but what’s inside is just as rich. Aside from Melinda, who at this point is really just warming up for her World Domination Tour, Jordin is the only Idol contestant actually gunning for the win. She seems to be getting better, where as Blake seems to be hitting a plateau. If she can keep up these bloop free performances I think she has a real shot at the finale.

3. Blake Lewis – Blake must really be the chosen one if the Idol producers went out on got him a John Lennon song. Too bad it wasn’t really worth the money. Simon was completely on the nose with his criticisms; “Imagine” is canon, and Lennon is to male Idol contestants and Mariah and Celine are to female Idol contestants. Blake was never going to compare favorably to the ex-Beatle, so his only recourse was to be as sincere and schmoopy as possible. And he succeeded in that regard. But I found the performance bland, boring and flat. And I was slightly offended by his outfit. You want to sing a song of that caliber on a theme night like that, you have to dress to impress. Blake looked like he was going to the club, instead of performing on a benefit show. Tacky, son. One-bloop’s worth of tacky. And I wouldn’t even mention this but I took Chris to task for it, what was with Blake looking down after every line? Is that his “sincere” pose? Is it just a bad performance habit? Why aren’t these kids learning to control their amateur bullshit? We’re four months into the competition!

4. Phil Stacey – The show was called Idol Gives Back tonight. And yet Phil declines to give back by covering his ginormous alien noggin. Stingy bastard. Phil Stacey hates poor people. True story. He also hates our eardrums, because there he goes again slaughtering a bunch of defenseless low notes. A week after he got praised for going country and he botches a Garth Brooks song. Unbelievable. Send the Bat Boy home. Or at the very least, double bloop his draggy, sludge-filled vocal. Simon is right, Phil doesn’t have a bad voice, per se, he has bad tone. If he had song the way he sang last week he’d be rubbing shoulders with Melinda up top. But the tone choice he went with sounded like a second-rate Michael Bolton. And Michael Bolton is a no-talent ass clown, so Phil wasn’t exactly starting from a great place.

5. LaKisha Jones – Again with Lakisha yoinking an Idol’s song? This type of musical thievery is punishable by death in certain cultures. I’m just saying (Did you notice that even Randy and Paula pointed this out? When you can’t bank on Randy and Paula for support, it’s time to change tactics.). Well, at least the song was in her wheelhouse. She still doesn’t look connected to the show, but she did sound better than she has in the last month. The right wardrobe, nice hair, classy performance, if a touch shouty (just saying…). And I still wanted to bloop the hell out of her.

6. Chris Richardson – Stop bopping your head! That better be an unconscious nervous tick, because if it’s not, then dude, you need to get right. Everytime you tic away from the mic it only serves to show pull you out of the emotions of the song. And when you’re taking on a voice of the emotional magnitude of Eric Clapton, you have to focus hard. Let me put it this way, if Chris had sung Layla the way he sang Change the World he would have been booed off the stage. And I think the judges let all this crap slide because of the brouhaha that went down last week, vis-à-vis Virginia Tech. That was a double-bloop performance. I don’t care if Simon, Paula and Randy want to gift him some slack, Chris needs to do much better because once we kick off Bat Boy, were coming for his nasally, buzz-cut head.

Bottom Three: LaKisha Jones, Chris Richardson, Phil Stacey

My prediction for who gets the axe: Chris Richardson

The Jay’s Prediction Record: 2 for 6 (a measly 33% – I gotta right my prediction ship)

Bangarang!

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