Grading the American Idol Season Eight Top 10 on the TiVo Multi-Bloop Scale

You know what’s the best? An American Idol season where the producers pick the Themes without paying attention to the musical styles of the contestants. We had Country Night last week and no one in the Top 11 is a country artist. This week we had Motown Night and barely 3 of the Top 10 have any business whatsoever of playing in that sandbox (and Lil peed in the sand). I can only assume that after Matt and Scott get booted, they’ll have Piano Night. Such an ass backwards season we got here.

This may be a hypercritical observation, but has anyone noticed the relative lack of passion so far this season? That we no longer have a search for the next great artist, but a search for the person who can act the most like the next great artist? I liken season eight to the season of Real World just after Miami, where the kids finally realized they were never going to top Dan calling Mellissa a bitch and Mike having a threeway in the shower and then jumping on comic book girl Sarah and her saying he “smells like broads”, and to go further back, the entirety of Puck, David blanket raping Tami, the life and death of Pedro Zamora, Neil getting his tongue bitten off and Eric Neis’s arms, so now the Idolists have stopped being real and started playing the exact stereotype they were cast as, without hesitation or conscience.

We’re a season and a half from a moderately talented black guy slapping Kara for having Lyme disease, three Idol finalists banging in a hot tub on day one of Top 12 week and Ruthie showing up drunk out of her mind and getting behind the wheel of a bus.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see Simon beat the snot out of the Miz.

Wait, what show are we blogging about? Anyway… yeah, a lack of passion. A soulless, dead-eyed cabal of mediocre singers, restless judges, useless Randy Jackson, Ryan quickly losing patience and a total Abe Froman group sing. You know Abe Froman, right? The Sausage King of Chicago?

Let us move post haste to the bloop review before I start a 700 word rant about how this show would be infinitely better if done on a Winnebago traveling across the country.

As I do every elimination week, I recap the performances 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 mind-numbingly long results show. Let’s start the blooping!

TRIPLE BLOOP

Megan Corkrey – Much as it pains me to relinquish my lone Idol Boof, I am disavowing Megan Joy. She’s gorgeous and kooky, but the dancing is now that uncomfortable and not cute kind of special needs, the singing is atrocious, her control is off the rails and she has no defense against any of it. She’s so much like Tai in Clueless during the “what do I do with this sweatshirt” montage, trying anything to make her dumb shit work and never realizing the best approach would have been NOT bringing the sweatshirt to begin with. I tried so hard to love her, but even Boof Love has its limits.

Michael Sarver – I never noticed this before, but Sarver has a total Buffy the Vampire Slayer vamp forehead when he sings. The eyebrows go up, the skull becomes cro magnon, the mouth moves like there are too many big teeth in it, and he forever looks two blinks from eating the crowd. If he put a claddagh ring on and wore a duster, Idol security would need to be on constant patrol for a petite blond girl with a stake, ugly leather pants and a complete inability to show leadership or diplomacy.

Scott MacIntyre – This has reached the “not funny, not fun” state. He’s just no good. And the judges have run out of kind ways to tell him he’s not a worthy Idolist, without hurting his blind feelings. His vocals trade off between sharp and flat, the song and performance was boring, he gave ANOTHER song choice excuse, which I didn’t buy, and there was even more random shenanigans in his judges critique. Paula brought props? And decided to run the bit in front of the BLIND GUY who’s standing up there not sure why the audience is suddenly laughing? Stay classy, American Idol.

DOUBLE BLOOP

Anoop Desai – Well that was some sloppy, somnambulant bullshit.

Lil Rounds – Sooooo she biffed it. I got the feeling she was caught up in the pressure of being the chosen one this week. The producers practically gift-wrapped the week for her, and she just buckled. Loved the homage outfit and hair, but she oversang the song, ran it too fast and constantly looked like Walt from Lost just before The Others took him. I half expected Randy to start screaming LIIIIIIIILLLL, while Simon pushed a “that was atrocious” button every 108 seconds. Kara was right, we expected her to pwn the week and the fact that she didn’t, well… let’s just say that the winner usually pwns their Chosen One Night. Carrie pwned Country Night, David Cook pwned lite-Alt Rock Night, Taylor pwned Old Man Night and a Kelly pwned In Five Years I Will Be A Whale Night.

Danny Gokey – The voice fit the Theme, the outfit matched the Spring print ads for Express. It’s Motown week and you can’t suit up, you pandering ponce? Fail! I can not sit through anymore of his “please love me” bullshit. The running around the stage, the woofing, the jumping in with the backup singers, the touching the crowd; it’s all so manipulative, plastic and wasteful. Completes supes totes Amateur Hour.

SINGLE BLOOP

Matt Giraud – I was juuuust about to knock him a bloop grade for doing ANOTHER piano performance, when he finally got up and used his bloody feet. Then, after watching him, I kinda wished he hat sat back down. He’s so tall and gangly, but with the button up shirt, tie and cardigan he looked so stiff, its like watching a mannequin do pilates. Thankfully, there’s such a thing as closing your eyes. When one does that all you notice is a smooth, soulful voice throwing down on a classic Motown track. I would take him in the Finals over Gokey in a heartbeat.

Kris Allen – Kris is really an 84% guy, isn’t he? He gets up, performs, it’s fine, you feel safe watching him, he’s not going to Lambert you, it will never be a trainwreck, but it will also never be transcendent. It’s better than middle of the pack, but nooooot good enough to get the “A”. You have to admire his consistency and low profile style; I see him silently passing over better contestants a la Jason Castro. And I see him disappearing from my world the second he attempts to sing in French with a mandolin.

Adam Lambert – This will sounds strange, but is it possible that last night, WE Lamberted HIM? It must be the guyliner and in the face bangs that cause the Rapey Eyes, because Adam looked like a legit crooner all cleaned up on stage. It was a fabulous turn for him. He showed that he can go mainstream, not offend the Red States, still deliver a knockout vocal without all the lights and sounds and mishegoss, and proved, once again, that as far as American Idol Contestants go, he’s light years smarter than everyone else. He’s the only one that gets how to win; it’s not about pure vocal ability, you have shake up all the peripheral stuff (staging, arrangement, etc.), but stay in the box for the vocals and then you can make the audience and judges love you equally. I will also quickly add that he needs a chemical peel worse Bill Murray and Seal combined.

NO BLOOPS EVER!!!!

Allison Iraheta – Confident, smooth, commanding and not at all Gokey-ish. I love that Allison gets up there and just belts. None of this playing to the crowd bullshit; she doesn’t need to because her voice is so ZOMG good. And when she does move, she stalks that stage like a cheetah, gives us the growl eyes and whips around her magenta hair. She’s like a Wild Thing. This is what we wanted Carly Smithson to be, but never got because Carly has desperation tattooed on her forehead and Allison is too young to understand what that even looks like, she just thinks Carly’s boots are cool. And they are. … THEY ARE!

The Bottom Three: Michael Sarver, Megan Corkrey, Scott MacIntyre

My prediction for who gets the axe: Michael Sarver

Bangarang!