American Idol: Season Eight

Oh, TiVo Multi-Bloop, how I missed you so! On those long audition rounds when I yearned for your sweet mercy. In Hollywood Week whilst enduring the aural torture that was Bikini Girl. During the Top 36 when I kept fighting the urge to grab you and Triple Bloop the bejeesus out of Tatiana Del Toro. There have been many long days and nights since we last graded a bunch of wannabe pop stars. Good sir, it has been too long.

So it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the new season of American Idol. And to a new, ever-mediocre Top 12 (nee 13). I know your work this year will be as generous and philanthropic as ever. As vital as ever. Especially in regards to any video package where Allison Iraheta speaks, or any performance where Adam Lambert attempts to eye rape the world.

Let’s not waste time with pleasantries. Straight to the show review and blooping we go!

I absolutely love what Simon is doing with his reviews this year. Cutting through the bullshit and actually commenting on the emotional manipulation the contestants use is nothing short of brilliant. And you know I love the transparency of Idol declaring itself a puppet show and then detailing the how’s and where’s it moves the strings. Kris Allen, don’t bring out your wife so soon, you’ll lose votes! Sarver, the oilrig thing is not selling, change it up! Lil Rounds, stop trying to sing to Middle America, the Blue States WILL carry you! Danny, keep pimping the dead wife, we still love it!

God I love Simon Cowell. Can’t wait to see him start telling all the Momtestants to stop using their bastard children to endear us to them. Megan just may lose her epic fool mind! Paula, Kara, Randy, you were by turns useless, fugly and retarded. Work on that, hmm.

To the Blooping!

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

Allison Iraheta – I see Allison’s been watching tape of Amanda Overmyer; the trucker fashion, the janky hair, the broken glass voice and the oft-putting stage presence. It’s a potent combination that achieve two things, 1. It feels like a “good” “performance” when it isn’t, and 2. It has so much going on right in your face that it takes you till the next performer before you realized she kinda had the suck happening. Smart move, kid.

Jorge Nunez – Are we actually… allowed to do that with suit sleeves? I thought a bill was signed into law about that trend. No? Will Jorge need to pay Don Johnson royalties? Is this secretly a viral marketing way of getting Miami Vice back on the pop culture radar? Is Colin Farrell fronting this under the table? Cause there ain’t no way it was an actual MOVE in this competition. Picking the most boring MJ song in his catalog (Borge? Nunez?), singing it with half a pulse, letting his eyebrows swallow his entire face. I’m just gonna assume he’s trying to get kicked off, so I can let logic exist in my life again.

Michael Sarver – Can we put an embargo on the oil rigging footage? If he’s not gonna do a slow motion Ben Affleck in Armageddon 360 stand up while the President asks him to save the world, I could care less that he rigs oil. Also, when did we start letting Wedding Singers compete on this show? I felt like Michael was abouy to announce the cake cutting when he was done, or pull the Father of the Bride out on the dance floor, something reception-y. I also felt like I wanted to strangle is misplaced ass with a microphone cord and then cry over Drew Barrymore. But that’s just me.

DOUBLE BLOOP

Anoop Desai – You know the term “dress for success”? And the term “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”? Anoop apparently equates “success” with “1am funsies at a Frat Party”, and appears to want the job of “American Apparel register monkey”. I mean the jeans? The frakking jeans? On national TV? ReTIRE that sloppy shit. Does he even want to be ON this show? Has he at any point given us a reason why he WANTS to be the next American Idol? Anoop Dog is in the doghouse until future notice.

Matt Giraud – We’re just gonna talk about it once, then we won’t need to talk about it again. Justin Timberlake Lamberted Jason Segel and they produced a child. That child grew up to be Matt Giraud. OK. Great. Let’s never speak of this again.

Scott MacIntyre – We’re not gonna talk about the voice or performance, because I think we all know the deal: he’s not blind, he’s not in the Top 12. So let’s talk about the pandering video package the producers whipped up to make their own little weekly Idol Gives Back. Check it: not only is SCOTT blind, but so is his SISTER. Can you believe the injustice! Vote for hope! Yes we can! A vote for Scott is a vote for the entire nation of sighted people. You will never need to help a blind person cross the street, or give change to a blind homeless person. Nope, American Idol takes care of your charity, and your karma, with a gift-wrapped box of “Vision Impaired WOW”. I mean, look, we’ve seen him triumph over his handicap, seen him simultaneously mock AND forgive Ryan for the Not Five Incident, and seen him bring back the white person mullet. Isn’t it about time we say thank you, send him on his way and focus on the more important special needs person in the Top 12, Megan Joy Corkrey?

Jasmine Murray – Now that is a photogenic family. With their round Cosby kid faces and group TV watching like Cuba’s family at the end of Jerry Maguire. They even had the little black child running around slapping pics of Jasmine on the frig and yelling “that’s my mofo”! And I could spend pretty much all day just looking at Jasmine’s Mom’s bangs. That’s some Beyonce shit right there. As for the performance, it was rough. Girl needs a better stylist, less eye make-up, the best vocal coach money can buy and ten hours in an isolation tank with every episode of TRL from 2002 playing on a loop.

SINGLE BLOOP

Kris Allen – I feel like watching him is like knowing what a Lance Bass solo album would look and sound like. The hair is great, the arms are cut, the height is diminutive at best, the desperation is teeming at the surface, the wife beard is standing just offstage and the actual MUSIC is an afterthought. A sweet, sweet afterthought.

Megan Joy Corkrey – The right song for her burnt acid voice and the right beat for her adorably dorky corkscrew bebop dancing, though the complete wrong choice for an actual singing competition. And did I catch her “cawing” at the end there? Unless she’s auditioning for the Arrested Development movie she needs to never do that again. In the ever. Of ever. Also? Ever. Was I completely sucked in by her hip shaking, billion dollar smiling and obvious appeal to Annette Funicello beach party movie fans? I was. But now I’m a bit worried Katy Perry is gonna show up and cut this girl.

Danny Gokey – Well that was spastic. And in the employ of every suck ass kiss up move in the book. Point the mic at the crowd! Point the mic at Paula! Dance like a dork! Go on runs for no reason! Wear glasses! I will be SHOCKED if at some point this season he doesn’t have some stupid words written on his hand, all David Cook-style (something like “Down With Poverty”). Listen to me close: I fear for a Gokey-Lambert, Soul v. Rape finals.

Adam Lambert – I know what he was doing is traditionally called “singing”. I can accept that he was performing words that have been written down and combined with a melody. But all I actually HEARD was this: “Hi there, I’m Lambert. Ooh, say, would you mind if I raped you? Cause I was really hoping to get a rape going tonight. And not just some G-rated raping, I’m talking like Monica Bellucci Irreversible raping. A level five rape. Where at the end, the term “raping” is changed to “Lamberting”. Would that be OK with you? Well, while you’re considering my proposal, I’m gonna go ahead and get started on that raping, OK?”

Lil Rounds – Remember the poster for the movie Angel Eyes? Where Jennifer Lopez was turned into a white person? And how it was completely inexplicable because her On The 6 Bronx Latin-ness is what we LIKED about her? That’s what went down on the Rounds tonight (minus the Jim Caveziel stalking). Call me un-PC, but I like my whites white and my blacks black. I want Lil singing Blige and Beyonce and doing it in a massive bedazzled denim jacket, layers of gaudy platinum jewelry and an out of control Soul Glo weave. I want to be scared she’s gonna cut me if I don’t applaud. I do NOT want her wearing lavender. And an entire Rose Parade float of fringe on her shoulder. Lil, please, go black deep. Never forget: Fantasia beat Jennifer Hudson.

NO BLOOPS EVER!!!!

Alexis Grace – Teaching your daughter to say “Seacrest Out”? That’s how you become my WIFE. Rocking the pimp slot with a fierceness? That’s how you become the next American Idol. Loved the hair, loved the look, loved the tone, control and pitch. Loved the stage lighting, loved the song choice. Loved it all. Love.

The Bottom Three: Jorge Nunez, Matt Giraud, Michael Sarver, Allison Iraheta

My prediction for who gets the axe: Jorge Nunez, Michael Sarver

Bangarang!