Simon, or as Ryan's now referring to him, "the genius brilliant amazing king of all media Simon Cowell," only liked three boys last week. I loved almost all of them, but it's Simon, I'm not going to start shit. Ryan's got that covered. Simon's only words of encouragement or advice: "Be better." Man, what if they were all totally awesome like last week, times some number? How fun. The theme: the 1970s. So I'm guessing week will be the 1980s, which is whatever, but how exciting in mid-March when they start singing songs from the future?
Michael Johns goes on and on for a million years about tennis, which is just as interesting as it sounds, and then goes into Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way," with that warbly shaky thin vibrato he sometimes sports, but heading into the chorus it's not at all as high or powerful as you might think from the quiet, rough beginning. Normally I would think it was a key problem, but his technique isn't the problem, and he's got good pitch. I think he's got the sickness, which causes him to bell-curve it out to either shouty/pitchy or whispery/stupidy, with just a few really sweet parts that hit the middle and give you the wonderful feeling you usually get when he sings. He looks a little pale; it's interesting, because Randy and Paula completely ignore the giant jigsaw puzzle piece missing from his voice, as though it's beneath comment. Simon points out that it was his weakest performance forever, and that it was a dumb choice of song. I disagree with the latter, but only because I can imagine him rocking that song a lot harder; Paula disagrees because she wants to fuck Michael. I'm not exactly quoting directly, but I'm not really making things up either. I just don't see how that makes his voice better.
Jason Castro: Will he do the exact same thing, with the whiny thin reedy "I love you" voice, while playing the guitar? Because that would be just fine. His interview package uses a lot of words to say basically that he likes music, and smoking marijuana, and hates giving interviews. The end. His performance of the Bee Gee's "I Just Wanna Be Your Everything" is...well, he's consistent. If you like his shtick -- and against all reason, I really do -- then it's more of that. Confident, sincere in that broken-sounding Rob Thomas way, preternaturally aware of the cameras, and inoffensive while still being memorable. I do feel that he means it when he says he wants to be my everything, which is rare on this show that you can even pretend they know what they're singing about. I just like listening to him sing, which is weird on its own, but especially when, to look at him, he's like the male Amanda of everything I hate. Also nice: the guitar totally accompanies the performance rather than being shticky, like he's doing it because he's more comfortable doing it. No solos, no bullshit -- just another instrument of a well-practiced set. Even when the band drops out for a few bars and comes back in, it's not too bad. Randy tells him he sucks and can't sing; Paula says she wants to fuck him, but admittedly also likes the interesting arrangement. Simon hates him, the guitar, the silly performance, and calls it "uncomfortable." I dunno, I was weirded out by the judges last week too. I think my standards are just really low because normally it's torturous because they're dumb kids singing dumb crappy songs, and now it's likeable people singing cool songs like grownups, so I'll take whatever I can get.
The delicious, non-nutritive margarine of Luke Menard is up , talking about how much he loves his a cappella group. Let's make a list of things that are sexier than a cappella groups. Oh, that was fast! What have you got? "Everything"? I see your point. He sings "Killer Queen," which is a song I liked just as much and found just as weird twenty years ago as I do today. See, I don't hate all Queen songs, just the ones you hear at baseball games. The song gets very fucking nasal at points for no good reason, but often enough that it kind of offsets his total hotness. My favorite thing to look at on this show is the end credits, always, and I'm not going to lie and say I hope he sticks around to whine beautifully for weeks on end. Randy likes it better this week than last, which who doesn't, and Paula reminds everybody that she fought to get him into the semis. Simon tells him this performance was a mistake because Queen is one of those weird bands with the Celine or Whitney thing where you only get compared to the original. He does correctly term it "theatrical" and "verging on whiny." Luke's just happy that the other two liked it; Ryan refers to him as "Dawson's Creek", and like, I don't even know what you mean by that, Ryan, but chill out. You're not doing him any favors, and/or you are preaching to the choir. Which choir consists, solely, of little old me.
Robbie Carrico looks filthy and babbles at length with Ryan in the red room, then tells us his secret, which is that he drag-races cars. Not that he was in a boy band that opened for Britney, whom he dated, but that he drag-races cars. Check out tomorrow night when Carly Smithson is like, "What people don't know about me is that I sleep with a nightlight!" Robbie, still hawking his whole "rocker" thing with the chain wallet and lice and whatever, sings a tepid karaoke-accompanied "Hot Blooded," while roaming around the stage like somebody put saltpeter in his soda pop. I have the illness that they had last week and I've been running a fever for like three days, and this is exactly how the performance feels: like you're barely committed to even getting across the room to make more tea, or cry. There is no heat, there is no blood. There is only schmaltz. Randy tells him to quit with the "rocker" pose, because his voice is not a rocker voice and he clearly isn't invested in selling the attitude. Paula says that you can't be telling Robbie who and what he is, that only Jason can say that for sure. Which would be valid if Randy hadn't given qualitative reasons for saying what he said. If Randy had said, "You're not a rocker, dude," she would be appropriate here, but instead Randy said, "You sound stupid and nobody's buying it." Robbie tells Randy that rock comes from within, so shut up, and Simon tells him to stop being defensive. He thought the vocal was "okay," which it was, but it was pretty cruddy and boring anyway.