Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Programmed To Receive
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 5 | Aired on 01.30.2007
Anthony Adams cannot compete with Sparkles and Darold no matter how hard he tries, which is not hard. He sings "You Light Up My Life," in a way.
Lastly, we have Eric Mueller (23, West Covina CA), who we are told has spent the last two years training, to the exclusion of any real social life, which means he's got a lot riding on today. He seems pretty cute right now, a little stiff but seemingly human and only a little weird. Ryan likes him, right now. He talks about liking Staind and "Michael Jackson's featherweight vocals," which is the first indication something's going on here. He lets us know that he will be "breaking out of the mold" and that he likes to -- this is amazing, it's like: picture somebody behind the register at Target suddenly saying this to you -- take what other people do, "multiply it, raise it to higher heights, fluctuate and reverberate it, make the vocals blend in with the music and stand out with the contrast." At this point he begins to look a little crazier. He stares into the camera: "Let me take a breath a minute... Good." Ryan asks him how he prepared to be the best singer in America, and he mentions "programs" and practicing 4-5 hours a day, and how he's going to be "very big in his lifetime" and that nobody's ever seen anything like that in their life.
He is not lying. He stands with arms akimbo, singing spookily up in his nasal, his very pale blue eyes suddenly seeming to be white; he sounds and looks crazier and crazier looking, like an albino, possibly a ghost. I love him. He doesn't know what singing...is. What he's doing bears no relationship to singing at all. It's like if you got a little kid to explain "singing" to him, and this was what he came up with.
Simon begs him to tell us he's not serious. Eric admits that it was "a little loud," but certainly not unserious. Simon points out that it was super horrible high, and that he should sing in a lower register at all times so it's not quite so eerie. He tries again, still terrible, and Simon asks him to drop it again. He tries again, and finally he's like, "I'm not quite sure what you..." Randy accuses Simon of being cruel by making him do the scales like that over and over, and Simon's like, "What, like it sounded good before?" He sings again, though lower won't make it right, and it gets worse and worse, looking crazier and crazier, scary sounds making Paula's eyes go wild. It's not even words anymore, just sounds coming out of a quite impressively crazy young man. "Is that what you're looking for?" he asks, and Simon admits he has "absolutely" no idea what the guy just sang. It was apparently a Hilary Duff song, which adds this whole other awesome level to what's going on. Paula says not even Hilary Duff would recognize the song, it was so bad. Speaking of creepy teeth over your real teeth? Hilary's veneers are old news, but I still think about them a lot. You could keep a sewing kit in one of those giant woodchuck fake teeth of hers. Randy's without words; Simon tells them all to shut it because they're wasting time, and notifies Eric that he is "absolutely atrocious." Looking nuttier than ever, he nods at them: "I take my leave then."