Tuesday
An actually interesting mix of songs makes this one of the best episodes of the season. Elliott (1978) sings "On Broadway" in a creepy, goat-like manner, and is justly disliked by the judges; but does better on "Home," apparently by Michael Bublé, who needs to be punched in the jaw for being boring -- which is Elliott's entire wheelhouse, so he does a beautiful job. Paris (1988) sings "Kiss" by Prince, strangely, and causes epilepsy in 56% of the viewing audience. I blacked out. The judges freak out because it's too weird, and then she dresses up like the Kommandant of the Urban Outfitters Armed Services, Cuteness division, and sings "Be Without You" by Famous Crazy Person Mary J. Blige, and does a fine job.
Chris (1979) sings that "Oh Mama I'm wanted by the law" song "Renegade." It's boring and stupid and everything hateable about Chris, but to be fair, it could very well be an actual videotape of some other performance. He then sings one of those white trash songs that he loves so damn much called "I Dare You," but since I've never heard it before, his delivery seems very fresh and original, and the voice is much more confident. I have to say it's one of my favorite performances of the night, and my new favorite song. Katharine (1984) sings "Against All Odds" in a very shitty manner and gets called on it, then does the same thing as Chris and sings my other new favorite song, "Black Horse And Cherry Tree," while crawling blindly around on the floor like an adorable toddler. Is it possible that this show is partly about music? I've never just simply enjoyed the performances this much. It gives me chills.
Taylor (1969) performs "Play That Funky Music," a Bo Bice-style laziness song that requires no vocal talent whatsoever, while dancing more like an asshole than I've ever seen a person dance. He then collapses onto the stage and twitches and acts like an asshole some more. Later, he once more fakes out the category with "Something," because he is a fuckwad, but he does a really amazing job, if you don't look.
Should Go: Taylor.
Will Go: Paris, with Katharine and possibly Elliott on the Seal.
Wednesday
In the audience: Carmen Electra, Justin Guarini with some blond dude, and Melissa Gilbert. She just wears her SAG card taped to her head now. Also: a poster that says, "Ryan, will you come to my house for dinner?" I wish Ryan would come to my house for dinner. Nachos, perhaps? More sweating talk with Elliott, more booing of Simon by Randy. There's finally a group sing, of an entirely too boring song called "Together We Are One," in which Chris proves once again he has a great falsetto, Taylor twitches like he's being kicked repeatedly in the kidneys and is wearing a jockstrap or something, Kat sings completely through her nose without even moving her lips, and everybody finds "inspiration in a place where dreams are made." The song has a million different verses and solos, and it's terribly dumb lyrically and musically both. The pimpomercial is beneath comment except for the following Extreme Mad-Libs answers: "Hollywood Swinging." Paris in an orange wig and finger gloves. Chris dressed like My Chemical Romance's gayer older brother. Elliott looking like a homeless basketball fan. Stupid fucking Taylor looking like a lady at the scary club, with makeup and black leather from beyond Thunderdome. And Kat wearing the apparel of an actual streetwalking hooker, but since it's her, it just looks like a stupid Halloween costume.
Immediately afterward, the Top 4 will fly to Graceland to meet with Tommy Mottola for the menacingly-named Elvis Workshop, so week should be a train wreck. I'm saying right now Elliott's out. I got a feeling.
Taylor sang "Play That Funky Music" like a horrible spastic wedding singer, then "Something" like a pretentious drunk wedding singer, and so he is safe. Chris sang Styx and it sounded like everything he ever sung, and then broke his voice on the amazing "I Dare You," and he's safe. Good, actually. Princess P-Funk brought "youth" to "Kiss" but took a risk on Mary J. She's in the bottom two. Down to Kat and Elliott. Elliott sang "On Broadway" so nervously you actually peed for him, and then did a great job on some song I almost remember from my coma. Katharine rolled about weirdly onstage while rocking "Black Horse And Cherry Tree" -- the lyrics of which the entirety of the internet decided to go incredibly literal on, for some reason -- but screwed up "Against All Odds" royally. She's safe, and Elliott's in the bottom two with Paris, who is sent home.
Tuesday
A-Fed's in the audience with some scruff happening, generally looking more like the lost Carter brother than ever. Paula Abdul's hair makes her look like a guest star on Rome, it's awesome, and then something weird happens where...you know how sometimes we talk about Simon and Ryan making out? That was supposed to be between us. I mean, I'm not accusing you of anything and I don't want there to be a weirdness, but...I'm pretty sure Simon knows he makes out with Ryan, for some reason. I suppose it could be because he actually does make out with Ryan, or is planning on doing so sometimes soon, but that seems in all seriousness rather unlikely. Why, then, does he bat his eyelashes up this week, or trace his finger around his blunt British lips while smiling up at Ryan Seacrest so seductively? There's a finite number of possible things going on here, and while Occam's Razor supports HoYay, I honestly believe that Occam's Razor is wrong in this case, because British school always screws up the math on this. But I'm at a total loss as to what the hell he was actually doing. It wasn't an unattractive thing for a person to be doing, and whatever Simon chooses to do you know I'm cool with it, but it does cause talk and chatter. The theme is double: Billboard Top 10 Charts, and Year Of Your Birth.
So while Elliott's getting ready to sing his first song, I want to tell you about a conversation I had this week. It went like this: I was discussing the show with a friend, and the question came up about how come you never hear about Clay, or Ruben, or Fantasia, or anybody really, and why is that. And it occurred to me that my friend thought this show had something to do with music, that it somehow intended to locate and promote the "superstar" of its title. Now, I know you and I know better, but it weirded me out to think about that, and trying to get the message across that this television show is...a television show turned out to be really difficult. Perhaps you've made the same mistake, of trying to sell such a vulgar point of view. This friend of mine is very intelligent, and it's like...that the producers don't care about what happens to these kids afterwards any more than, say, I do. Obviously. The CDs and videos and magic music that they make is roughly the same as a WWF keychain or mix tape or commemorative chugging mug -- it's souvenir merchandise that the show is churning out, so you can remember watching the show, so that you'll tune in and watch the show some more. It's a t-shirt you can listen to. The focus is on ratings, like with all other TV shows, and on the soap opera that keeps us all tuning in, and the way that those contestants are dropped into the hopper every year and the judges and producers push it this way and that way and it's very compelling television, but it occurs in a bubble, and spending all this energy on the imaginary future of these kids is just a waste of energy, because they're on a game show, a stupid TV game show, and the most we can hope for is that Elliott's voice will get noticed, or that A-Fed will do some porn now that he is all grown up. That the reason it took Kelly Clarkson four years to make an album that was more than half awesome was because all she got from the show was networking. It's an itsy-bitsy, tiny leg up in the scheme of things, and all it does is get you face time -- and the contract you sign is so fucked up that you can't even really act on your own interests or get the payoff of that.
But I was thinking -- maybe confusion on this point is why I get the hate mail that I do, that I don't know anything about music or that I don't care enough about music or whatever; the concept that I should be watching this show with my music critic hat on, for some reason. I honestly didn't even think of that. And just generally, that thinking Carrie Underwood can thank this show for her success twenty years from now probably does a lot to explain the general hysteria that this show engenders. Or why somebody saying Taylor is stupid is somehow the exact same thing as calling you stupid, if you like Taylor, speaking of hate mail. I'm not saying you're stupid for liking Taylor -- he's hella talented -- I'm just saying all I have is my personal experience. He's going to fucking win. The most embarrassing one always wins.
Elliott Yamin was born in 1978, and the most interesting thing he can think to say about that is that he bit his nails as a kid, and he keeps doing it. He looked like Patrick Fugit as a child. What happened? ["I'm supposed to stop beating this dead horse, but: the avages-ray of isease-day." -- Joe R] His eyes were big as saucers and very dark and cool-looking. And now he looks creepy and dirty and less than viable. Particularly in the pre-package, where he looks like a serial killer. Like he's going to say, "And I'll chew your nails too, you rat bastards." The song starts, and he does a weird, stutter-stepping dance down a ramp to the stage and does some stupid scatting, but it's all so nervous and pushed out, it's like the Chipmunks, or like a cassette tape that's been gently pulled, like taffy. He's moving so fast and jumpy-like, and singing "On Broadway," which I hate anyway, and it's just very unsettling. It's also almost impossible to hear his voice, due to the fact that he's doing twice as many tricks per second than he needs to, so it sounds like Christina Aguilera trying to sing this song while going through an Episcopalian service with full Mass, like up-down-left-right-sing-stand-sit-down-up. Well, that's stretching the metaphor. It's like she's singing while doing Pilates on crack. But in any case, what you can hear is boring. Ace is out in the audience, and he...almost has worked out what's going on right now.
Randy says that in the middle of the song he really "got it together" and showed "beautiful tenor." Which, yes, his voice is very beautiful, and Paula agrees. She especially loved the vibrato at the end, and the richness of his voice. She gives him a "BRAVO!" and Randy agrees with the "bravo," and Simon says it's not his best. The fucking audience boooooooooos because the neon sign tells them to, and Simon explains that it was "disjointed," but that luckily, they're doing two songs this week. Elliott stares out at the camera with a creepy smirk as Ryan reads the numbers; he looks like he's going to go "heh, heh" like George Bush. How did he get so creepy? I used to feel sorry for him like the kid in your class that wore hand-me-downs and didn't always have lunch money, but now I'm just scared of him, because he looks like a drug-selling ferret.
In the audience, a group of young ladies is holding a sign that says, "Ryan, We'll Be Your Desperate Housewives!!" They already look bored, but not as bored as they will be once he marries them. "Princess P," he says, and introduces Paris, and then she talks crazy for awhile. She's singing a song that is "completely different" for her, because it's a song that "is not really a song that people can make a song." Which is pretty insightful, and true -- she's singing "Kiss" by Prince -- but doesn't explain why she's going to sing it. Or why she's allowed to sing it, considering it came out in 1986, and she was born in 1988, but whatever. All her baby pictures show her in ruffled dresses and stuff, and it's cute, because apparently she's never worn clothes in her life, just strange costumes. Which is awesome, and has always kind of been my favorite thing about Paris. So the Princess takes on the Prince, and nobody knows who's the taller one, and it's...like she said, it's not a song song. I love Prince more than almost anything in this world, but there are "songs" and there are songs. It's why I get so stroppy about Taylor, or Bo, last year. Or why I hate Queen, because they have two modes: too much song prog-rock, and not enough song arena-rock, and neither of those is working for me. Luckily, these songs are in the vast minority of Prince's catalog. Did you see him on SNL a few months ago? Man. He can do to a guitar what Tom Cruise can do to your faith in celebrity. Just brilliant. So she makes Beyonce faces and shuffles about, and "[she] just need[s] your body, baby / from dusk to dawn," and if you're comfortable with that, I'm happy for you. I, for my part, have no frigging idea what's going on here.
Doesn't do amazing things for her voice, this song, but I don't know. It's not a problem. If she were Bo Bice she'd probably have a giant pair of Stones lips hanging from her neck like a dollar sign -- instead, she's wearing a totally cute waistcoat-looking shirt with cap sleeves. When she gets to the "I wanna dance" part, she does this amazing krump move and then takes off for the stage. Rize, Paris, rize! Clowning on AI! ["That really was the strangest thing. It lasted for .003 seconds. Did her inner Lena Horne pitch a fit and tell her to cut that shit out?" -- Joe R] So strange and so funny, and just...I love Paris Bennett. Adore her. Randy says she was "doing [her] thing" and that he thought it was "nice." Paula says that she mostly loves when Paris sings songs from "the past eras," which...God forbid someone born in 1962 could ever understand that 1986 (or '88, depending) is about six "eras" ago, but whatever, I promised a friend there'd be no more spiteful jihad-on-old-people talk. Simon calls it "screechy and annoying," and her voice and the song did no mutual favors for each other, yeah. Paris babbles a tad vacuously at Ryan that she technically thanks Simon, because she "like[s] all the opinions!" She blinks cutely into the camera. She's going home.
Chris was born in 1979, and photographic evidence proves that he's been making stupid faces his whole life, and his eyes have always been just this empty, so that's...now, I guess, he makes no faces at all. He "always wanted to be in the spotlight" and now here he is! Because if there's one think I think when I think about Chris, it's "star quality"! He sings Styx's "Renegade," and before we talk about that: I loooove Styx. These are the kind of third-date things I feel comfortable telling you. And I do love them in a third-date, Journey kind of way, like: I don't think it's all that hipster or counterculture to admit you love Styx -- well, rather, I do, but I don't think of myself that way particularly. I do know that I was born in 1978 and I've never really seen That '70s Show, but that when I listen to Styx, I feel like I was reincarnated from a teenager in the 1970s, and I look back on my teenagerhood in 1976 with a Generation X kind of fondness. Like how Tommy Kirk makes me remember my past life as a roller-skating drive-up restaurant waitress in '50s Fresno, who died in a convertible accident on the 101 heading into LA, and the last thing she heard was an old Polish man calling for help. I'm telling you all of this because -- I want you to think I'm crazy! -- no, because honestly, what the shit is this song? It's just like every other fucking song he sings, and he sings it just the same way he always sings it. How many ways do you say it? I already owe Rumpelstiltskin back babies, so I can't get him to spin anything out of Chris's fifteen-hundredth exactly-the-same performance, so what. I'll tell you about my made-up reincarnation experiences. (Actually, those are the only two. Well, I may have been Robespierre, but that's it.) Whatever, boring, shots of him being vacant and of his trashy family in the audience, whatever; Nikki McKibbin loves him, the end. There ya go. She's my Rumpelstiltskin for this week. The fact of her.
Randy says we've "got a real hot one tonight," Paula says nothing whatsoever and for once I don't mean that descriptively, Simon says it was the first good performance of the night and a great song choice. Actually, what he is says is that it was "a million times better than the first two performances." Which is true, and you can smell the money when Chris sings. But he's...going to be the lead singer of Fuel. God has decreed that he's going to be the lead singer of Fuel. He's not a "superstar" any more than Paris is a fighter for the Weimar Republic. What he is, is fucking talented, and fucking boring, and fucking perfect for being the lead singer of Fuel. And the worst possible thing for him would be to win this shit, because that's a pair of not-particularly-lushly lined handcuffs that would keep him from earning the middling success he deserves. Ryan asks if he feels like he's "hit [his] groove," and he pats Ryan's shoulder like this: Pat, pat, pat. Somewhere, Homophobia Jesus is like, "That's close enough, Chris." Out to commercial, as Taylor...throws gang signs? At the risk of just silliness...what possible gang could Taylor be a member of? "Insane Clonazepam Posse! Represent!"
Katharine comes in, and they talk about her "wardrobe malfunction." Joe didn't tell you our whole conversation at that point, but I do believe I shrieked, "I saw her glory! Her womanly glory!" Lord knows why he'd leave that part out. ["Enough people saw her womanly glory on TV. No need to be telling tales out of school, Ryan. -- Joe R] So anyway, she lost a button at a weird time and her slit-skirt went to Santa Claus's house when it was supposed to stop around Barbados. She giggles that she hopes she didn't offend anybody, and he says that at least now America knows she wears boxers. For some reason I find that comment really, really sweet and funny. Like he likes her so much, but since she's a girl he has no idea what's going on under her clothes, so he'll just make a boy joke and hope it carries across. I love Ryan Seacrest, but he's got a real Steve Carell "bags of sand" vibe sometimes. He talks about how she's "strapped into" the black dress she's wearing currently, and she kind of is but not in a bad way, and she says it "feels like a trash bag," and he tells her it looks much better than a trash bag. Word. He kicks to the package, and she runs across the stage in this way she has, I don't know if we've discussed it. She's like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, where there's a lot more rev-rev and hustle than there is actual movement: like, her head's down, and her arms are bent, so if you took a still shot it would look like she was running full-tilt, but she's really not. This is a sign of being affected. And adorable!
Kat's baby pictures are exactly what you think: future living-doll star of stage and screen, and lovingly shot, from the shooter's perspective; and camera-staring, focused, hardcore and adorable from the subject's. Katharine was born in L.A. in 1984, and didn't cry in the delivery room, and spent her childhood being "very serious." Again, boring. The most interesting thing about this discussion is how incredibly hung over she looks in it. Which, I'm so sure, but that's exactly how she looks. She sings "Against All Odds," very nasal on the first verse, and very irritating regardless, because the only person who can cover this song and sound like he's not trying to take over the world through narcolepsy is my man Ben Gibbard. But you know, at least she's singing it like Katharine, and not exactly like somebody else would. It sounds very "Katharine McPhee," although if you've not heard the song a billion times before I admit that this is maybe a subtler hair-split than necessary. The important thing, really, is that it sounds like total shit.
Wow. I mean, you've got glory notes going painfully awry, you've got sharpness when flatness wouldn't be so noticeable...you've got notes that are not actually the notes she's trying to hit, and going sharp to make up for going flat is only going to work on people who think of chromatics and harmony in terms of math, which I'm told is apparently a minority perspective, and it just makes you look stupid to the people that are listening to it linearly and not working it out like some kind of autistic algebra problem, which apparently I do and it took somebody twenty minutes to explain to me why that's not acceptable in a performance, even if the math works out in the end. And even if the person singing is so pretty that your eyeballs get tired, and they get the cameras in a show-dog way nobody else on this show seems to...I don't know, the more I write, the more fucking awful it gets. STOP! You're butchering this song, as they say. It finally ends, and Randy's like, "Check it out." Which is never good. He says she looks amazing, but it was the wrong key, and there were lots of problems at the beginning which became only "okay" at the end. Basically, that the key was too low. Like we needed to hear more squealing, and that would have made it better. Even Celine Dion sings through her nose most of the time, so why you throwing shade, but also: why do people like Celine Dion in the first place? (Besides "Treat Her Like A Lady," I mean.)
Not to mention that, in the reality check scenario, he's just the Beast Man or Triclops action figure anyway. So. Randy says it's a "wild choice" and that he felt like he was "in a bar" and had "had a couple," and basically what we learn here is that...Randy has nothing to say. Paula says he "dressed the part" -- and can I just say that the way he is dressed, combined with his hair, makes him ultimately undistinguishable from one Bill Clifton, of Midland Texas, who sings beautifully and can play any instrument and should be in my living room, singing and playing the guitar, and not on the TV. Which does, I admit, make any kind of critique much more difficult when it's Taylor onscreen, because the resemblance is uncanny and all I can think is, "I love you, Daddy," but on the other hand, my Daddy doesn't put on a weird act like he's a spastic retard at any time I can think of, so it's easy to draw the distinction when all is said and done. Sometimes we yell, "Shaaaaaaaron!" when he's being particularly unhelpful or confused, but that's not exactly a shout-out either. Paula, to Simon, addresses a weird comment about: "Funky white boy? Funky? Boy? White boy?" which somehow is actually funny, because she's weird, but also -- what are you going to say about Taylor? It was funky. He's white. It's funny. The song isn't called "Play That Fake Retard Music, Fat Boy" or anything like that, so you have to go with what you've got. Simon says again it was like a horrible, horrible wedding performance, and that he "liked the end, when [Taylor] collapsed." Now that I can't tell the difference between my dad and Taylor Hicks, my involuntary response is to worry that Taylor has the gout. Ryan and Taylor fall down on the stage, legs in the air, squealing. Hmm. Ryan skoootches over, so they can be in the shot together, and Taylor grins and has rouge all over himself, and keeps finger-gunning at the camera. Ryan says he likes the shirt. So does my dad, from whom he borrowed it, and I will say this and not bring up my dad again ever: They both have that hair. They both dress like that. They both like bluegrass. They both have kids in college.
Elliott's second song. A little girl comes running cutely down the aisle behind Ryan -- and gets yanked back by her caregiver -- as Ryan says that theme two is now "any Top Ten Billboard Chart this week." Which...here's the thing on that. I don't begrudge Taylor his lies, or whatever, but Billboard has about eleven hundred charts each week. So you've taken a theme which makes some kind of sense, and through vagueness and restating made it into a theme about as restrictive as "Songs With The Word 'Heart' In The Title" or "Songs Recorded In The Twentieth Century" or "Songs On The 2GB iPod Of One Marc H. Of Paramus, NJ." Meaning that, as comforting as it is for the supporters of some performers to say we're all technically within the rules this week, those are...rules that mean nothing, so who cares. Ryan tells us how Dan Powter is at #1 on...some meaningless chart...because he performs the inapplicable song that we hear about the having of bad days each week when a person is eliminated. Which was co-written by Mitchell Froom, if you're taking notes, which I guess proves all by itself that Suzanne Vega is a fucking genius -- as if we needed that explained to us. So basically, the theme is: any song ever written, and then...any song ever written. I love when the contestants get to express themselves like this. Ryan tells us about how the commemorative CD for this season will come out one day, and that the Billboard Charts and this show are almost the same thing.
Elliott sings "Home," by Michael Bublé, and he sounds really beautiful, of course. And it's incredibly boring, of course, and the song is stupid, and it's sad. And Elliott is doing a good job of being fake not-nervous, but he's still nervous -- just less so than a few minutes ago. The best way I can describe Michael Bublé is that if I ever met him, I would say, "Bublé, I know this thing we can go hang out and do together, and it is called 'Fight Club,' and the rule is that we can't talk about it, but I'd love it if you'd be my partner." "But wait, where are we?" "Trust me, this is going to be totally awesome." And if he pussed out or got suspicious you could just say, "Michael Bublé, this is what guys do." And he'd have to believe you, because how does he know?
There's a cutie in Elliott's family, which I didn't know, but I don't know the relation. Elliott and Ryan get lost onstage, and creep around like creeping fucking creepers, which Paula thinks is less scary and more hilarious. Randy loves how "tender" this side of Elliott is, like usually he's all cock and fists; and Paula feels the meltingness of the richness of his voiceness and his lackingness of exfoliationness that causes him to have an on-camera fuzziness, a.k.a. dirtiness. Simon says that he would never have chosen a lyric that had to do with "I wanna go home," but that whole stupid paranoia conspiracy line of stupidity is pretty played at this point, so nobody pays him any attention. Simon worries that the song has not enough "of a hook," and if you are implying that "no hook at all" means it's less catchy for those of us who've never heard the song because we've never experienced the total beauty and almost overwhelming manhood of Michael Bublé, I can't disagree, you little British cupcake. "I'm just a little bit concerned. Now, run back to Ryan." Love that. Like Ryan's their hot blond daddy, and the scary daddy is off being a mogul, but in the end having two daddies will benefit them. And he's cute when he runs back to Ryan. That's what the cops said, too. He tells Ryan -- the Nathan "Pierced The Toast" Lane of this couple -- that he really never, ever knows what's going on, because he's so dreadfully nervous all the time! And you know what, they've all been struck by nerves this week for some reason we might never know, and that's awful, and I wish I knew what it was, because it makes it less beautiful to watch and thank God for round two, which is awesome altogether. But does it make me a hypocrite to say my God Elliott I bought the excuse the first fifty times, but at what point do you give yourself the option of not being nervous? Because has there been a week where Elliott hasn't explained that his already perfection would be even more perfect if we weren't a part of this equation? I feel like I personally have given him more than a fair amount of scratch paper for that. So now that everybody's going to ask for a pass for being shitty due to nerves, I somehow hate Elliott more, even though I know that's unfair. If this had to do with music, he'd be my pony all the way to the end. Ryan's like, "Well, you're definitely sweating now!" RYAN! No more sweating talk! Nobody has any feelings about his performance, because if you can have "feelings" about a Bublé song, you're dead inside, and dead people can't vote.
Paris is dressed like Der Kommandant of the Independent Republic of Cute, armed with violent cuteness: stained satin cargo pants, epaulets, the whole thing. She sings Mary J., "Be Without You," which is the "too strong for too long" song you like so much, and gets bleeped at the beginning of her Mary J. Blige song, like she's saying she's been through shit, when you and I know what she's been through is closer to SHHHHHHHHH and not shit at all, because she's five. However, you and me and Paris are the only ones who know that, and the white kid on the bleep button is the only one who doesn't. ["Paris changed 'be my girl' to 'be my boy' on 'Kiss.' Like she'd even approach a cuss word on TV, white kid on the bleep button. -- Joe R] Didn't Mary sing this on Oprah? I take a moment each day to hope for the best, for Mary J. Blige. Even though I don't technically know who she is, I feel very warmly toward her. "She knew Biggie. She looks like somebody's mom. She had problems."
I can never remember anything about her except that she can't sing but she's great to listen to. Not unlike Paula. Anna: "I remember that on Oprah, she suddenly had problems, and it occurred to me that her making up of words was more than just a fun game, and more like she was crazy." Jacob: "Leave those situations at the door; she's a modern-day Lewis Carroll." I mean it: without her helpful neologisms and wordsmithery I couldn't navigate a day of "hateration" in what I privately define as my "dancery."
And yeah, I remember she had no problems and then on Oprah she suddenly had problems, but (a) Anna's already smarter than me and (b) Mary J. Blige is crazy, is the problem. She thinks we're in the Matrix, though, I remember that, because that's when I decided I was in her court forevermore. I wonder if she worked that one out yet. She makes up words; I can't question or deny her that right. It's not so much a song, again, due to Mary J. being...not so much a singer, in the common sense of the word, and Randy tells her this was a "big risk" because it's "Mary's joint," "Mary's vibe" -- but that she nonetheless "rocked it." Trans: "Karaoke." Paula says it's...I don't know if I transcribed this perfectly, but I think what she's saying is that it's "different" to "catch that vibe" like "Mary has," but Paris "got it," although Paula was hoping she would do her own "Paris flip on it." Simon tells Paula she got it wrong and that Paris did rather well, and the neon monkeys in the audience cheer and shit themselves. And Ryan tells her how good it would feel if he were her, and demonstrates by throwing his lovely arms about his lovely self, and smiling at her two-foot-tall self, and I maybe fall sideways because he's awesome as the judges continue to fight.
Paxton redid the scenes from Twister, but about DirecTV? Does he need money? He should be doing this in a cowboy hat. I love him now so it's weird. He's like the lost Pullman/Baldwin...but also kind of a girl. No, like, a boy still. Like that. I really like him. The only one of that clone group of same people is Jeff Daniels. I adore Jeff Daniels. But after him it's Paxton all the way.
Anyway. It's "time for the rocker's second set," and you know what that means. Chris, singing your ideal white trash mix tape. What makes this week's selection awesome is that...you know that very yelling song of the words "Let's Go!" with Little John? That your quarterback little brother would have be the season-wide theme song. Like, for example, my brother did last year. Because it has screaming, and it has yelling, and it has excellent Ozzy. And I don't know if I told you this, but I went to wrestling with my friend Ryan once, and I drank beer, and I got so into it that I scared a trucker on the level below us, and he put his hands over his child's ears, and I felt bad even though we were at wrestling. That's Jacob and competition, though. So I will always love the "Let's Go" song, and thank you to this show for giving me another song to love, because "I Dare You" by Shinedown is the most wrestling-y song I've heard in a good long while. (And immediately after I typed that line on Wednesday, I got eighty emails about how it's actually the theme song for some kind of wrestling. Awesome.) So anyway, Chris gets very eyeliner, vocally. Immediately. "Hehhhhhhh-lo," he husks.
I like this song. I wish I had time to hear music in my ears, between all the writing. This week, it would be like: Frou Frou/Imogen Heap, the Bravery, Joni, "Live Through This," the Go! Team and...Chris, or Shinedown. That's a lot of Tinactin in the middle of a Venus Shaving System shaving party. It's weird, because I know for a fact that I have never heard this song before, and I like it, which means that I owe a huge thanks to Chris, and now it will always be a Chris Daughtry song. I'm listening to the original right now, and I love it for the same reasons of Maynard and Deftones, but I'd prefer to hear Chris singing it. How weird is that? Maybe the best part is how it has the effect of making it seem like something more than the fake bullshit that it is, because it's like when you were little: like he's making up the words on the spot. Like he's singing you a song about how he dares you to...something. I don't know. Something romantic and trashy, I would assume, that gets you married before you're thirty. I said I liked it. Not that I am the Shinedown scholar of all time. Thanks to Chris for singing fucking awesome for once.
He's a bit scratchy, and not in a good way, at the end -- but it's not the throatly apocalypse that the judges make it out to be. "Your voice is giving out," says Randy, and "It wasn't the best" he's done. Which is stupid (and possibly an active de-pimp) because the whole point of Chris is that his voice sounds like shit automatically, so it sounds beautiful even when it sounds like shit. I have problems with Chris, but this is not one of them; he sounds the exact same amount of magical no matter what he's singing. I was in high school from what...1991 to 1995? I'm genetically predisposed to love this voice. It sounds specifically like an entire hormonal symphony called "high school." Paula says it's not her "favorite song," but that she still loves him. Which is...the total opposite of me in every way. That's the best fucking thing he's done, because at least it sounded like "Chris Singing Like Something," and not just "Somebody Singing Like Duh," and that's the difference. "Whoopee," says Simon. Ouch. "Your voice is going, but...great first song, so you're going to be fine." Does nobody love this performance? I have never heard a song that I...I don't know, I said this in the recaplet, but it's for real: never, in five years, have I been contented to just fucking sit back and watch this show happen. I've never just enjoyed the sounds going in my ear holes this much. And I know I just got very pretentious about how this show isn't about music, but my God. That was fabulous, and the one is fabulous, and of ten songs, I actively was bored by three total, and the rest of them I just closed my eyes and listened and smiled. That's gotta mean something.
(Speaking of being fucking awesome, get a hold of Dolly Parton's cover of "Stairway to Heaven." It's about six minutes long, and I wrote the last few paragraphs listening to it, and it just gets more awesome minute by minute until you freak out. I had no idea. I've probably had that in my library for a year and never listened to it. Just do yourself a favor and listen to it. Yeah, I know covers are gay. Do it for me. ["Seconded. It's really good." -- Sars]) Ryan asks if Chris can feel any of that supposed "strain" on his voice, and Chris admits that he's done the song now five times, just today, and screamed unlyrically every time, and moved himself another whole six places down the game board toward nodules, so probably yeah, he overdid it. Ryan asks if he's got the fatigue happening, and he says, "Maybe...I'm singing more than I've ever sung in my life." And you know? I'm actually pulling for him right now. That is weird. I hate that, where you think it's like this and then it's like this and all of a sudden you're asking the awful guy at the record store to tie you to the Murphy bed. This show keeps you on your identity toes. Or at least it should.
Katharine is...on the floor? "ONE TWO THREE!" she says, and then...crawls around on the floor and looks totally cute. I love that. I love the whole performance. She is beautiful and the song is, for lack of a better term, the kind of on-your-knees song that requires this kind of performance. She looks lazy after about two thirds of the song, just because how many ways can you freak out and dance around while dancing on your knees. Given that I spend around ten hours a day dancing for a ten-month-old, to everything from Vivaldi to Christina Aguilera, I can tell you that no matter how creative and/or slutty you are, there's about a ten-move limit to what you can do on your knees. Less, since Kat's not slutty in any way. The song is #9 on the adult chart, and it's called "Black Horse And Cherry Tree." What is this song? It's very exciting. Maybe these charts know what they're doing. There are two men sitting on what we'll be told tomorrow are called "box drums," and playing them. This is awesome. She still hasn't stood up. She just keeps locomoting around on her knees and singing, left and right and up and down. She's so gorgeous.
The internets go crazy about the subject matter, which the songwriter (the brilliant and gorgeous KT Tunstall) has said any number of times is about making a good choice vs. a bad choice. I guess you can make up your own interpretation if you're not interested in what the songwriter herself actually had to say. What I get is that the Black Horse is a bad idea, and the Cherry Tree is a good idea, a pure idea, but by making the choice for innocence you don't go anywhere in particular -- your heart dies -- and though that's nice because cherry trees smell fabulous and look most incredibly perfect, you don't move or learn or change if you pick them over the horse. So if you pick Dawson or Angel or whatever, welcome to life inside your diaper; but if you pick Pacey or Spike, welcome to being somebody else's diaper. And those are your options. And yet, no matter how many interviews Tunstall gave, most of the internets seemed to assume that the song had some kind of PJ Harvey deal to do with getting fucked and pregnant and having abortions and giving children up for adoption left and right, which I guess is fine too, although Kat's smiling performance is either interesting or completely dumb in that case. I could go either way, but at least I read the songwriter's commentary first. ["You would. Fucking Cylon. -- Joe R]
Randy says it was "more like the Kat" that we grew to love than we've seen in a while. Agreed. "There we go! Come on, man!" Paula loved the kneepad choreography and intimacy of the performance, and Simon loved how her toenails matched her top. "This is a strange show...Taylor's lying down, you're on your knees..." He does say that it's a good choice of song, that it showed more personality. I just think it's awesome. Between Kat who I love and Chris who makes me yawn, I have TWO new songs to love this week. Ryan tells her it was "well done," and that she seemed comfortable during the second performance, and they chat about the box drums.
Taylor dips to the left. After commercial, he sings "Something," a Beatles song from 1969, and how dare you say he's pulling a "letter but not the spirit" on the theme when he was, in fact, born in 1969. Whatever, that whole thing is stupid, because anybody who would care one way or the other has already written off Taylor as a fuckwad, weeks ago, so the Taylor apologists are just yelling at each other about how "He didn't cheat! But he didn't technically cheat! The PTB let him do it therefore Taylor is the best!" But the rest of America is so bored with his one-note ass that they're really just yelling into an empty echo chamber. Enjoy. Learning to read is almost as fun as not being an Elliott Yamin fan. You choose. I mean, I personally think it's pretty fucking easy to see what the category is really about -- make us care by singing something from this week -- but if you're too good, or too cowardly, to actually make the attempt, I can't blame you. There are plenty of people talented enough to actually take the theme on and rock it. I get why you might be scared to do that, but frankly, I think it would be nice to hear that amazing voice do another kind of song. It's not so much that I insanely love Katharine as that Taylor and Chris fucking aggressively disappoint me every. Single. Week.
So the bass drum is going absolutely awesome crazy -- it sounds like you're in the theatre to King Kong -- and the whole performance is really good. I mean, this is what he's best at, so I had high hopes the second Ryan said "Beatles." It's a cheat, but whatever, it's going to sound good. The usual weird dance moves, and pretentious "I'm oh-so-feeling-it" faces and teasing of equilibrium, but altogether it sounds very lovely. Particularly if you don't look at him, prancing around like a fucking idiot, it's wonderful. At the end, you can tell he knows he rocked, which I love. I love that face.
The judges talk, but it doesn't really matter, because he just keeps doing that pouty moue with his face that entire time -- you know the one, the "I guess, but my fans and Guarini's disagree" -- and it's very irritating. "There are some personal touches that make this bearable" is a true phrase that is said. Randy calls him "the Beatles Lite," but Paula calls it "daring" and that he "moved it tenderly." Gross. Simon makes fun of him for faking this song into the category, and the fans all whine and bitch about how it's a technicality, but mostly that's because they themselves haven't heard a new song in the last year, and whose fault is that really? Much easier to pretend that you and your tastes and the things you're comfortable with are just...better, without really extending much of an opinion beyond that. "I like Elliott and Taylor because they sing songs I've heard a billion times, and I'm self-satisfied and fat on my own self-satisfaction, sooo..." Simon tells Taylor the most important thing of the night, and we can only hope he listens: "With all your barminess," he says, "it's easy to forget you're a very good singer." Which no matter how many recaps I write somehow evades the more illiterate fringes of Taylor's fanbase: You act like an asshole so very much of the time that it's hard to remember you're incredibly talented. In response, Taylor shows a lot of class by: going "WOO!" and shaking his head, pretending he's deaf and screeching, going "WOO!" and shaking his head, and jumping, and jiving, and wailing, and screaming, and acting like a retard. So you see how wrong we've been about the "barminess." He babbles to Ryan about the Beatles in some way, and Ryan just tries to get out of there, and Taylor screams about the Soul Patrol, and the fake goddamn smile piercing its way into your heart with its plaintive cry: "I will die alone!"
So remember this: Elliott was creepy in a beige suit and singing like Belinda Carlisle, then sang a very boring song very beautifully, as ever. Paris Vonzelled it up with a screech and a shimmy, then addressed her army of cuteness with some nonsense words about having been X for Y long. Chris got crazy unoriginal with "Renegade," ironically, and could have been doing any of his Memorex performances from before, but for once the recapper didn't recognize the song, so it sounded like God's own angels. Kat sang a played out song and sounded maybe the worst she ever has, sadly, and then was amazing and professional and loved life and was amazing without standing up. Taylor didn't sing a song, just grapevined around and shouted like an asshole, then did a really good job while making hideous faces and acting pretentious.
Wednesday
Asked how things went, the judges say they loved it last night. Simon in particular calls it "erratic, but good." Which I'll cosign -- it was both. He gives himself nine out of ten, and Ryan fake-smiles. "Who's headed home, of the Top 5?" he asks. Remember when there were like 24 of them? I kind of...don't. I remember the people that are here. Maybe that should always have been a clue. Out in the audience, Carmen Electra gets a holler, and there is a poster that says, "Ryan, Please Come To My House For Dinner." I must admit that in the lavender shirt, striped lavender tie, and pinstriped suit, I can't say I'd have to make too many apologies if he showed up at my house for dinner. I do like him an awful lot. His eyes look a different color, tonight; he's still got the bags under the eyes he so often has. Paula looks really happy and pretty, Randy boos when Simon's name is called, yet again -- grow the fuck up? -- and the Idols are weirded out.
"Chris, how're you doing?" Chris is doing: Well. "How has the competition changed, Taylor?" Taylor feels that the competition has changed in the following way: "Well you know it's just everybody is so talented and you know I'm just I'm glad to be these guys are great they're all talented every one of them." Oh, okay, says Ryan. He asks Kat about the hardest part last night, and everybody in my house screams "SUCKING!" and then she...basically says the same thing. The first song was clearly "the most challenging," considering she ruined it. She Elliotts that she "suddenly felt the pressure this last week," but whatever. I'm just happy for an explanation to put my universe back into perspective because I'm so obsessed with this show and how perfect she is. Paris says she's "always hyper anyway," and that having the audience there just adds to that. She says she loves to watch the others perform, and is honored to be singing on the same stage as them. Aww. Ryan asks if Elliott sees himself sweating it out on the Kodak theatre stage, and Elliott laughs like a husk of a person, because he's answered this question exactly one hundred times, and it's still not funny.
Group sing! Ryan kind of punches Elliott as he walks onto the state, and Kat gets lost and runs -- in that run I mentioned earlier -- head down, like a cartoon, back across the stage. God she's cute. They sing a song called "Together We Are One," which is so bad I'm going to do something I rarely do, and suggest an alternate song for you to listen to while you pretend to watch, or actually watch, what's going on here, and in this case it would be "Survival," by Yes. If I was in charge of the American Idol, oh what an Idol it would be. You know I hate prog rock for the most part, but sometimes it's called for. So Chris walks, all rough-and-tumble and ungay, to the stage, and breathes into the microphone like a Foley actor for the Blair Witch Project. Luckily his falsetto is...fucking GOOD. Who knew? It gets out of the whole zip code of his nose and into the region of awesome. Then Taylor twitches and jerks, like he's being hit in the kidneys, for no reason. Katharine sings out of her nose -- again, not unlike the horrifying and skeletal Celine Dion. I don't know what makes one thing better than another thing. I do know, however, that this is a stupid goddamn song. Something about "finding inspiration in a place where dreams are made." The end, dude. Elliott (a) doesn't know the words, and (b) still and always looks like a meth dealer. Exfoliate, Yamin. It's not gay, it's just attractive. The song goes on and on and on. Elliott takes a solo, and works it, and is boring and he looks dirty -- all the time -- and Paris takes the front and rips it to shreds. The backup singers get a little play even though there are five hundred of them. Taylor's crotch is killing me. Is he breaking in a new kind of underwear? Is he part camel? What is it really? Kat and Paris halfheartedly hold hands toward the end, and immediately drop them because what do they care, and in the audience, Melissa Gilbert and Justin Guarini clap, and onstage Chris and Elliott embrace. Together, they are one. Together, they amount to something bad.
There's the same Kelly Clarkson commercial again as last night, about how Ford makes you feel like you're listening to her first album and her very excellent second album...never happened. Don't worry, I'm not going to freak out on you about how good "Just Missed The Train" is for a single -- I just don't get the math at all. It's pretty boring. Hope she has something better up her sleeve for record three, or else she should have just waited a bit until actual inspiration showed up.
Back from commercial there's the pimpomercial, this week to the tune of "Hollywood Swinging," with two turntables and a microphone...at the corner of "Holly" and "Weird." So I'm out.
I'm sure your grandpa thought that sort of wordplay was fucking hilarious, but come on -- you and I are more flexible than that, right? Hollyweird jokes are on the same white trash level as, like...I don't know. "This Isn't Burger King -- You Can't Have It Your Way!" or whatever. Timely and chic as homophobia. Taylor acts like a jackass in the back of their car, and that weird dog is around again. Elliott looks like a fucking homeless person, and if you can illustrate the difference, I'd appreciate it. They stare at the weirdness of Hollywood and then get out of the car looking weird: Paris is wearing an orange wig and finger gloves; Chris is wearing a top hat and cane and those gay wristbands and looks like a non-sexy uncle of Bert McCracken. Elliott is, I think, Dennis Rodman. Or at least the sixty chains, Israeli gay army boots, orange hair stripe parts of Rodman. Yucky. And there's Taylor, who looks like a fat hooker Beyond Thunderdome, with lipstick and eye makeup. He doesn't look like a guy, he looks like a lady. Katharine, my favorite, I feel like she's my little sister, looks like she's dressed up as an actual Rodeo Drive prostitute, and if you're stupid you don't understand the difference between a ho costume, which is funny, and an actual ho costume, which is about earning money. And if you're that stupid, I sure do hope you email me about what a misogynist I am. Anyway, I could shoot Taylor in the head so easy. I wonder if that makes me good for the CIA, that idea of just being able to shoot certain people in their spiked shoulder pads without any guilt.
Ryan says he'll never wear shoulder pads again. What's that about? Once again, it's not about shoulder pads, but about the horror of somebody wearing shoulder pads, but that whole "thing" versus "looks like thing" dichotomy can be confusing. He says that everybody said Paula was "the best of the three, last night," and I can't even remember, because there are nights where I'd agree and I don't remember if last night was one of them, but it's nice. I kind of agree. Especially for her -- it's nice to be told that you're doing the job for which you were hired. Ryan jokes with Simon about how the polls always say he's doing the best job, and God forbid the polls say yes, so blah blah blah, even though...he is.
Paris sang a song that's not a song, that she fully admitted was not a song. Simon hated it. Then she sang another song that's not a singing kind of song, and she didn't do anything new. Chris sang Styx, but it was such a Chris song that nobody cares. Then he was awesome on a song only Jacob liked. Taylor sang the Beatles while making hideous faces, and was told by Simon that acting like a total fucking idiot distracts from his wonderful voice, but then the other song he sang nobody could sing well, because it's not a good song for this show, so nobody was actually right. Kat sang "Black Tree" and was totally awesome -- Simon said it was "strange," but basically I think "good," but that was just song two: on "Against All Odds," she was horrific, a mess throughout, and she knew it. Elliott was so incredibly nervous to watch that you could pee, and then he sang about wanting to go home, which was very nice from inside your nap.
After this live episode, Ryan tells them, there's a private jet waiting to whisk them to Graceland for a very special Elvis workshop with Mariah's ex Tommy Mottola. Except for Paris, who's going home. I hate Wednesdays because they take someone obvious and make it seem like you're crazy for thinking it, when in your heart of hearts you're right and you know you're right. Taylor started as a "wedding singer," then showed "tenderness," and he's safe. Question: Can he make like one normal expression? Chris: "Outstanding," but his voice was strained on the second song. Which the judges have been asking for every fucking week. Whatever. He's safe. Good. Princess P-Funk: they liked the "youth" on "Kiss," but the Mary J. song was a risk, and she's in the bottom two. He brings her down. Elliott urges the crowd to clap for her, and that's sweet. She then, I think, hands Ryan her gum. Yikes.
She sings "Kiss," and whatever, works the stairs in some serious heels and says "Hey!" to somebody in her family, I think. It's very cute. She's actually nicer tonight because there's humor in it, instead of just that Chihuahua obsessive jumping around. Her voice does nicer things, as well. She krumps again, which is always excellent. Her mic pack falls off during this unnecessary performance art, and Ryan grabs it and follows her around like a bridesmaid while she dances, and the whole time, he's standing behind her trying to reattach it, and he can't, and she dances so cutely and so obliviously. And that's American Idol. The end.
Justin and some cute blond guy clap. Make out! It's down to Elliott -- who looks brutish and scared and tender -- and Kat. Ryan talks and talks, and then Kat is safe and Elliott's in the bottom two, and he sings "On Broadway," and I wish it was better than the original, but it kind of wasn't, because he's always the same amount of nervous, and then...it's gotten to a place where I can't even look at him anymore. He looks like a mechanic. Like an apprentice mechanic that gets crapped on by the more senior mechanics and takes it because being a mechanic is whatever and he's got kids to support. I don't know. He looks like he smells like cigarettes. Listen to the Radio Soulwax remix of "Emerge" if I'm doing a shitty job here. I remember weeks where I thought he was kind of cute but I can no longer get there because the desperation is another mask in front of his face. Kat dances like a dead person, dancing without thinking, as she listens to what I admit is Elliott sounding terrific on a song I didn't know you could sound terrific on. He really does have amazing eyes.
Afterward, Elliott and Chris have no faces, and Ryan admits that it's Paris leaving us tonight. As was obvious for awhile now. There are tears already in her eyes as we move backwards, to her amazing audition -- come on, best audition ever, still ["Word." -- Joe R] -- and Rod Stewart loves her, and the guy who sang "Mandy" loves her, and Bocelli, and Queen, and who could second-guess that, that huge fake smile. So sad. She dances around to the stupid hateful Bad Day song, because what else can you do, and suddenly we're deluged by a hundred memories of how awesome she used to be, and then the double-powerhouse of Elliott and Taylor get way up in her area onstage, and we're done.