Yep, the big intro of the judges is here to stay. So dumb. They walk out onstage like the proud young ambiguous icons in the opener, and there's all kinds of applause, and it's insane. Kara is dressed like some kind of space senator, which is sort of awesome; she and Paula canoodle all cutely even though they were just backstage canoodling. Then there's this weird little blip where everything turns green and there are like six notes of some sort of jig and Ryan says that after a couple of pints this show might be enjoyable. Or something like that, I'm paraphrasing. I was raised to really, really hate St. Patrick's Day and what it stands for, but I don't want to fight about it so we're moving on.
Last week sucked for Jasmine and Jorge, whom the judges simply refused to save. I think at some point I'm going to hate the bait and switch with the Power of Veto, but I still think it's hilarious. "Sing, monkey! Sing like it matters! Oh, but it didn't. Ha!" That's humor. Plus, I heard that they already have the Top 4 decided (Danny, Adam, Lil and Alexis) so the six weeks are more about watching Megan and Allison dress like a concussed Betty Suarez and Emily the Strange With Boots Made For Kicking, respectively, and sitting on the edge of your chair hoping nothing fucked up happens to Scott on live TV.
As he does with Ryan, Simon has a special relationship with Country music. Simon's like, "I wish instead of two hours it was an entire week of this bullshit," and Ryan randomly goes, "Stand by for the lassooo." Realizing he's just been weird for no damn reason, Ryan moves on: this is the last one before the Top 10, who are again going to be on the tour, which I still haven't gotten around to attending, so make sure to vote because that's a big deal for them.
Tonight, we are celebrating the Grand Ole Opry. What that means is that I'm going to enjoy the songs way more than I think I will, and will more than likely get every single song title and songwriter wrong, because I don't know anything about this and sometimes these people don't enunciate. For example, I had no idea it was a radio show. I'm not sure what I thought it was, like a theme park or something, or a place you can go to somewhere but nobody really knows where, like Austin City Limits or Delaware.
Some Grand Ole People include Hank Williams I, Minnie Pearl, Pasty Cline. Of all of whom I have heard. Garth and Dolly and Loretta and some brunette woman and Clint and a man with a large face, and Randy Travis. And Carrie Underwood, who just got inducted and cried real pretty. I never knew I would fall in love with her so long after she was on this show. Randy Travis is involved in tonight's show in some way, and has had 22 No.1 hits. He used to look like a Sharpei and now looks like a funhouse mirror version of, well, House. I really like his voice, though. It sounds like when you were a little kid.
Things get off to a promising start as Michael Sarver admits that his song -- "Ain't Goin' Down 'Til The Sun Comes Up" -- not only sounds hellish from the title, but also contains, and I quote, "a lot of lyrics." I hate those songs with words in them, don't you? On the up, maybe his mouth will be so full of words that he won't be able to use it to make those searingly awful faces that fight the natural hotness so intensely. Listening to him practice, Randy Travis's forelock is sort of terrified by Sarver's possible inability to remember words; his very white teeth warn Mike not to sing too pretty, because he will fall off the carousel and never get back on, and then we'll just be watching some cute gigantic roughneck rolling around in the dust.
Then he "sings" the "song," and I don't know if he misses any words, but it doesn't sound awesome. Even the singing parts, he doesn't really seem to put much into. My God, this song. He looks and behaves exactly like a sweet, inebriated frat boy whose favorite song just came on the jukebox and he will be damned if everybody in the place doesn't get on their feet and acknowledge it. This is charming and a little aggro-creepy in a real life situation, but on this show? Just creepy. I never thought seeing somebody this smoking and this happy would be so ... troubling.
Simon didn't understand a single word -- although apparently "real" Americans did -- and compares it to Norwegian. I felt the same way, but I was not listening on purpose. He thinks it was a bit clumsy, and missed the point of this show: Mike's a nice guy and gifted karaoke singer. "If we were all perfect, we wouldn't need this show," Michael says, but he's not done being totally confused about how this show works. I'm not sure what Mike's saying, actually, but I think it also has to do with America or something, like, whether Palin's illiteracy has nothing to do with how much of an overeducated fag Obama is. That's the sense that I get from that little speech, which is truer than he knows: If you were perfect, you wouldn't have to whore yourself on this show, because you'd already be famous. But that doesn't help you now, because this shit is not bootcamp. This is your shot, not your workshop. Excellence Time has arrived.
Like Paula, Kara liked the harmonica player and the fact that he remembered the words, but she did miss the "big notes." He responds that "notes" and "singing well" are some of his priorities, but tonight they are not the main priorities, because country music is about "havin' fun." So just so there's no mistake, what we've learned from this first performance is that in order to sing country music well -- and the audience will have you know they agree -- you are not required to sing, nor to do so well. Technical ability, emotional connection or complexity, remembering the words of the song: none of these are essential. Least of all, we're told, is excellence. And you wonder why I fucking hate it? Because in fact, the "notes" of the music are pretty much just like the parsley of country music. And you know, by that ever-so-exacting standard, Sarver did a great job.
Except really, no he didn't, because country is a complicated idiom and has about a thousand things to watch out for, such that non-devotees such as myself don't even know how to watch out for them, because to my ear for example it all sounds like the exact same amount of bullshit. But I believe and respect that there is good/better/best in country music, which hierarchy automatically implies that it's possible to be good at it, and even as a dilettante I can tell you that Sarver was not good at it tonight, and that in fact he is wrong on this one. Because part of having fun is or should be about being awesome, and you can't substitute one for the other when they're both necessary. Which is not to say that my honeymoon with Sarver has ended, but I definitely need him to cut down on the beers, because we've got parasailing in the morning and right now he's just acting like all the boys I left behind when I moved to the big city, with big dreams... Just to find out the only way to make it in the big city is to shake it, and that's what I do. At the Coyote Ugly.
And I mean, shut up about Mike already, but if I'm going to bitch and moan about country music, there's not really a better time because he embodies why. ? Allison, who will sing Patty Loveless's "Blame It On Your Heart," shelearns from Randy Travis that Patty would love to hear her sing this song. Patty is soooo pretty, okay, but on the other hand here are some lyrics of the song: "So blame it on your lying, cheating, cold deadbeating, two-timing, double-dealing, mean, mistreating, loving heart." And here I thought it was Alanis Morrisette that invented Lists Of Things Are Songs Too, when it was country all along.
Oh, you know who I do like? I can't remember her name but she looks like my tiny gorgeous English teacher from junior year, and she sang funny pun songs about love, like, "Cryin' Over Spilt Perfume" and "Cleopatra, Queen Of Denial." She had an album, I'm being told, called Above & Beyond The Doll Of Cutey. There's a story there, not that I will ever endeavor to find out about it, but that's cool. Pam Tillis. Now that's a career.
Other songs I would not mind hearing -- but may or may not actually be country songs -- are all from that weird genetic gay primeval part of the brain that makes you like certain things for no reason. And I would point out that, as you know, I am loathe to lay claim to any kind of gay cliché, but this is undeniable, like the Olivia Newton-John thing. (Oh! Olivia Newton-John.) Also: "Your Nobody," "Jolene," "Morning Train," "Fancy," and possibly "9 To 5" if it didn't suck. (I say Anoop, if somebody's going to.) And then the following list: anything by Ricky Scaggs, Eddie Rabbit, Juice Newton, Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks, that band that sings "Elvira," or my favorite living songwriter, Karla Bonoff. (Or Chris Gaines, because I heard that actually he has changed his name to DAUGHTRY but you can't tell anybody because it's like performance art.) And since that's like eight-six hours of music right there that I love, I would hasten once again to point out to you very strenuously that I fucking hate country music.
Lil talks about how much fun it is with the other guys, because they quote "spend quite a few time together." Not a public speaker by nature, I guess. She spends quite a few time talking about how she doesn't know any country songs except from movies, and is afraid of throwing too much R&B onto it, because she wants to honor the countryness of it all. I bet you thirty dollars she's singing that song about the carnival and then the mom blows up the house.
OMG she totally is! "Independence Day"! I forgot about Martina McBride entirely when I was thinking about country music, and they snuck it up on me. And I don't know how they did it either, because they always sing this song on this show. I feel like there was one night some year where three people all sang this same song on the same night is how much they sing this song on this show. You can't mix it up with the song about the cancer and the shoes? At least that one's funny. Or that Martina song about "Special Ed" or whatever his name is, the kid on Halloween? "God's Will." Or maybe somebody will sing that song about Jesus driving your car. Maybe Gokey, but it would be awesomer if Scott did. God, what's Megan going to sing? "Feed Jake," or that song about swinging on the porch that I love so much. No, probably "My Dingaling" actually. Whatever's weird and dumb.
Okay, so you have the awesomeness of Lil, plus the very beautiful song, and that equals pretty much excellent. You can hear her reigning herself in, somewhat, which makes you wonder what could have been. There are song-choice quibbles of the Get In Your Box variety, which lead to stupid places like "I Will Always Love You," which would just lead to the Don't Touch The Greats whining, so fuck it. Simon tries to call her "Little" and not "Lil" sixty times, and then calls her a failed wedding singer. Lil tries to explain that she was demonstrating range, and she interrupts him and it gets weird and she screams her name at him, adorably but tensely, and then he says she should have done like a Biggie "Every Breath You Take" kind of R&B rewrite, just to keep us awake. Valid. Ryan calls Simon "the lil' judge," which again is too weird for Simon to even acknowledge, and then is Adam Lambert doing some kind of fucked up hoodoo some more.
Ryan asks if Adam's going to go the same route as Lil, showing some reverence for the style and demonstrating self-control, and Adam's like, "Fucking what?" Ryan points out the total polar opposition of Adam and Randy Travis, and Adam refers to him as a real "gentleman." The idea of Ryan Seacrest sitting there talking about how Adam and Randy Travis could not be more different in every single way especially the ones you're thinking of is exceedingly skeevy. Then we watch Randy Travis stare into the abyss of crazy that is Adam, and wonder if he's going to live through it. Randy asks if he knows "Ring Of Fire" from Johnny Cash, and he says he's going to sing an arrangement he heard that has an "Eastern influence." And I mean, let's all line up for the chorus of "how dare you butcher" and all that, except for how Johnny Cash was the king of crossing genre covers and loved that shit. He would have laughed his ass off before the song even started, and probably would have grinned his way through the song itself. But we do love our little moral victories.
Randy Travis is completely flummoxed and maybe terrified by Adam Lambert, or at least doing the polished version of confusion and gay panic that a lifetime of being a well-known Blind Item can teach you. They try desperately not to cry having to talk to each other. Randy calls him a "very nice guy" and a "great singer," nailpolish notwithstanding, which makes me think he's intensely heterosexual and not at all gay, which is probably just a coincidence and not a really sad thing about the industry coming true right before your eyes... And then, of course, things get super effing freaky.
It is... I hate this, because he makes me talk like Paula because people words don't work for things that are essentially otherworldly, so every week it's difficult to describe without resorting to these weird labored metaphors. So -- beyond saying that the Jeff Buckley vocal resemblance gets stronger every week and somebody needs to mention that already -- like... It's sort of like what if that movie Queen Of The Damned were not only real, but interested in slipping you a roofie and selling you on the black market. He screeches out some kind of artsy orgasm and nearly pulls his shirt up over his head, and then just starts wailing like some forgotten homosexual Greek myth about sailors that never come home. It's... Totally awesome. Of course. I feel weird and crazy, and entertained. Those sudden register shifts used to freak me out with Jeff Buckley too, like, "And now I am a lady... And now I am a dude again." I can't imagine how uncomfortable that must have been for lots and lots of people.
But also even if this were Emo-merican Idol, that was still fucking drastic, like, I don't know that the scariest Punky-Colors bisexual weirdo vampire in Westwood would find this less than totally WTF. Or what if you went on a blind date and it turned out to be with Freddy, and then the date went really well and you had to be like, "Unique fashion choices and burned flesh aside, he has a real charisma. A real way about him." Or have you ever read Perdido Street Station? It's like if Pennywise read you a chapter from that while wearing a corset and garters and then tucked you into bed, like, "Sleep tight!" I can't stop thinking about it. It makes sparks on my eyelids when I try to wish for something else.
And you know, I always had fun with the whole Sanjaya "No Future Punk Papaya God of Anarchy" thing, but now? Not even that funny, because it's like the prophecy is coming true. I feel like Blake and Sanjaya started down a certain road where this show can just go fuck itself, and now Adam is making that happen for real. Any other year I would say that this is the show breaking right in front of you, but God knows. Maybe Twilight really did just move us all along the road toward Candyland and we're finally going to admit just how fucking weird we all are, like, if we all do it at once nobody has to feel funny about it.
: Gokey, singing ... Carrie Underwood. If it's not the Jesus song I'll eat my hat. And if it is, I'll send so many hate rays in so many directions that neighbors will find their microwaves working at tiptop efficiency for a week. I almost think it would have been funnier if he'd gone with "The Dance," but maybe he's finally clicking to just how tacky this show's been about his situation and has decided to scale it back himself. I hope that's what happened. So yeah, he cries and schmoozes all over Randy T, and yes, it's the Jesus song, and biffs it like sixty times, pissing off Randy and laughing like the biggest amateur for a good long time before finally getting there. Randy's like, "Hope he doesn't fuck this up, but the parts he knew he really rocked." He loves Danny's soulfulness and means his voice, which is funny because I hate Danny's fake-soulful soullessness, but love his voice.
He sings it in a giant white jacket like a boyband video, and does all kind of b-boy moves with his hands like Marky Mark. His heart does not seem to be in it, but my question would be how on earth do you even pretend to be into this song. His voice is so perfect it's ridiculous, I will grant you, but then I like a lot of music where the singing is not that good, and hate a lot of music where the singing is just this perfect. Basically it doesn't matter how much I like his voice in theory, because he's a mystery wrapped in a bullshitter and I have no desire to lick the Tootsie Roll Pop enough times to get there.
Kara liked it once it kicked in halfway through, and I think both Danny and I agree that he could have cut down on the unending narrative of the verse to get to the chorus. Paula loves the way he builds to the story, and rightly says he couldn't start out yelling all awesome like that for it to matter. Which is funny, because that's the normal Paula critique and the normal Paula response to that critique. Simon totally agrees, and rags on his stupid polar expedition outfit, and Danny giggles his way through a total Cool Story Jeopardy Teen about this hilarious time Matt G compared him to a skydiver, then babbles at Ryan about nothing in the world forever, because he's so boring it's unbelievable, and they finally get things moving again.
And just how will Anoop be annoying me this week? Well, he's picked "Always On My Mind," which is actually not a bad start. At least it's a song, which puts paid my theory that Anoop doesn't sing those. Randy T's worried because of Willie Nelson, who owns the song forever, which made me laugh because against all reason for a second I thought he was going to say, "It's hard to hear this song without thinking of the Pet Shop Boys." Luckily, Anoop proceeds to blow Randy T's mind harder than anybody so far besides Alexis, and that's really nice to watch happen. He gives him technical notes far and away more precise than what we've heard him saying to other people, which always catches my eye, and then it's on.
But then, oh, Megan makes me so, so sad. She's wearing a bronze-toned outfit and makeup that would look really pretty, if her breasts weren't hanging out there like week-old fruit well past the sell-by date and she weren't doing her characteristic waddle-shimmy, causing the unbound weightiness of her giant boobs to go sloshing around on her like those barrels of brandy Saint Bernards carry in case of emergency. It's so gross and so very sad that the vocals -- which are weird and original and very pretty, just like almost always, and cartoony-irritating just like always -- stop being the point and start being a distraction from the mesmerizing attack of the breasts. I don't think a person on this show has ever grossed me out in this particular way, but man that is intensely gross.
And not in a "boobies are gross" way, because they're not. As cool as I am, I have no particular fear of women -- although I admit that breasts have to do something special for me to even notice them. No, I'm talking about these exact breasts, in this specific costume, doing this precisely Lovecraftian bullshit. They are so in your face that they stop being erotic and start being medical, which I would submit to you is in this particular instance not Megan's aim. I don't think she's trying to say to us, "See, here! I possess secondary sexual characteristics, mammary glands, and the ability to lactate! See how I conspire with nature and gravity to defy your fetishizing oral fixation!" Or even, "They're not dirty pillows, Mama, they're called breasts and all girls have 'em." I don't think that's her message. "Self-esteem is a river in Egypt," perhaps, or "I am a sex worker."
Kara's surprising in that she's like, "I love how you're such a winner, because you have the flu." Megan coughs her way through this entire Judgery, BTW, just so we know, and Paula lets us in on how she went to the hospital even, like earlier today. Simon says that the flu has helped her voice considerably, but points out that her styling is "sucking away" unquote from the quirkiness. So that we can see alllll the areas of quirkiness now getting sucked on, some genius camera man pans up her entire body, making sure the upper ten quarts of breast are still visible onscreen. I can't believe nobody's gone the Bikini Kill route with this yet. I can't be the only one whose knee is jerking here. Then she woo-woos unselfconsciously, proudly raises the roof, and smiles stupidly before wandering offstage. Can't blame all of that on the flu, can you?