If you close your eyes Katie Stevens' speaking voice sounds exactly like James Lipton.
Katie explains a bunch of things to Ryan, some pointless some relevant, none of which I'm interested in, because her lip gloss is so shiny and pretty. Her secret is that she can say "Give me a kiss" in six languages. Including English, she clarifies. Then she does so, with the funniest little sarcastic quirk to her lip, and is generally just lovely and charming and like the greatest little sister. She tells us that, like Muffin Top from the auditions, she likes to jump in the air and yell at herself to be awesome. You gotta try this!
Katie's singing "Put Your Records On," which is a song title I have heard many times but I don't know if I've actually heard the song, ever. Isn't it by that woman that had the tragedy? Corinne Bailey Rae. She's really pretty. I remember I read this interview with her and I was like, "I should really give her music a shot." And then immediately I was like, "But I won't, and we both know that." That's kind of what this song is like. I don't know that there are any songs left that haven't been used to sell cell phones. Maybe they just all sound that way now. Apple does make a lot of products.
Randy tells her that the boring song wasn't really about her voice or her cuteness, and Ellen says that once again she has missed the bar at doing a "younger" song. Which only dorks like Randy and Ellen could honestly think that Corinne Bailey Rae is actually contemporary in any way relevant to a seventeen-year-old. Like, I don't know what the 2010 equivalent is, but if it's 1995 your dad could be forgiven for buying, like, a Natalie Merchant CD and thinking that he is down with the peeps. That would be adorable. And that's what Ellen is doing right now, and it's adorable, but learn a band that isn't Hannah Montana.
Kara's like, "Still too old, you old thing." Simon shares the Judgery's frustration that she tried to follow their notes and still failed to do anything worthwhile. Once again she's like, "There will be no more mistakes." Girl, week sing "Disturbia." That is my advice to you. Kara asks for something based on her feelings at this moment in her life; Randy says somebody under twenty. Katie can't think of any teenage musicians she enjoys, so Ryan's like, "We can start there, good." It takes a fucking village with this girl.
up is Didi, who Ryan just adores, and he asks her about the body language of the judges and how she was staring at them, and she talks about how she rooting for the guys and getting nervous about it all. They are pretty much in love; up on that balcony it takes on the vibe of leaning up against a bar. "I can talk for hours," she giggles, stopping herself, and he's like, "That's okay, baby." It's very awesome. Her secret is that she meows to warm up her chords, which is not really as cute as it sounds, and we remember her "indulgent" Michaelson awesomeness last week, which semantically threw her off. This week, it's "Lean On Me." Huh.
: Lilly, looking a fright of course. She tells Ryan her intention this week is to open her eyes. That's literally it. She says it seven times. Her secret is that she plays a bunch of instruments besides the guitar; the problem here is that one of them is also a guitar, and then also that one of them is a melodica, which is not really an instrument, and most of all that instead of just saying keyboards, she says she plays the Moog. What a wretch of a girl.
...Who will be squealing "A Change Is Gonna Come" like it's a magical spell intended to piss off Stevie Nicks while staring into the camera like the ghoul she is, playing the twelve-string, and rocking out generally while wobbling her warbletune voice. What is with these fucking songs tonight? Is this Season Two for some reason tonight? How obnoxious. When the light at the end of the tunnel is that somebody (Siobhan, fingers crossed) will be playing Coldplay, that's like the saddest feeling you can feel. Hoping for Coldplay. Ah, and out in the audience, the cameraman has finally located Vera Wang, standing with someone who is either Christian Siriano or a lesbian.
Randy is, of course, totally floored by Lilly's "It," as well as Ellen. They would totally buy a Lilly CD and listen to it on the way to the farmer's market and feel bohemian thoughts. Kara points out that she has had an official "moment" -- which is true, it was the best version of her we've seen -- but then goes a bridge too far by saying that Lilly is somehow going to make Idol hip. Like she says that. Simon calls her "relevant" and her pretty little lips purse up, and he tells her she oversang the middle of the song and that Crystal, her nemesis this year, is still better than her. But is she better enough? Lilly seems altogether more charming tonight but I don't have it in me to deal with that kind of ambiguity, so let's focus instead on the unraveled sweater currently doing time as her earring. She looks dead. She looks like a dead person.
Oh, shit! It's Katelyn doing Coldplay. This is going to be what Michelle refused to give me, I think. Only I'm actually looking forward to watching it, instead of just wanting to talk shit. Although the way this night is going, she'll probably sing "The Scientist" and make it sound like a Norah Jones song. How terrible.
Ryan's like, "Man, you guys are sucking. Katelyn, do you plan on sucking?" Katelyn's like, "I am going off the chain, probably. We'll see." That wasn't very exciting. I'm starting to get scared. She says she's not going for "epic," but in fact for "intimate" this week, which means it's going to be totally boring. She's studying sound design, which is interesting. That's a certain kind of girl that's into recording science, and I can see her being that girl. We revisit how Kara said Katelyn secretly called her a "bitch," and how adorable it was when Ryan got so scared. And yes, we'll be doing "The Scientist." At the piano. Callllllled it. I hope it's good, though.
The piano is white, which is nice. Her voice sounds good and she looks really beautiful, and does that "connecting" thing Kara always talks about. Actually, this might be awesome. The lighting is very diffuse and white, it's a really neat little scene. She's got like a Janis Ian/Carole King controlled-passion thing that I really like, with the added bonus of being incredibly hot. A few dropped notes, and icky at the end, but altogether it's pretty much enchanting. I think this is the kind of mind that would have done last week's song as performance art, like I originally thought. That's nice.
I certainly didn't think I could sit through that song, but I think it was up there with Lilly and mostly Crystal, for best of the night. I'm glad. Sometimes "understated" is a scary word, but sometimes it works. Randy was impressed, but both he and Ellen were worried by the slowness of the song ("People can't vote if they're asleep," she says) -- but Kara loved it. Good! She breaks it down in detail: Great voice, great flexibility, but won't stay in her lane. So she's so, so good at whatever she decides to do, but you have no idea what she's up to at any point, which I guess makes them angry. Which is good news, because that's right, but bad news, because that's exactly what led Brooke White's pet unicorn out into the parking lot and beat it to death with a common garden shovel.
Simon asks if she's heard Natasha Bedingfield's version, which she hasn't, and I think that earns her points because they are similar which means she sounds professional? He calls her "corny" which pisses her off, but ultimately he says she's back in the race. She tells Ryan she's corny because she's been playing with bands and now has to get it together to deal with the stage and cameras and stuff. I feel that. I mean, no excuses no regrets, but any cop-out that ends with "I guess I'm trying too hard" ends up not being a cop-out. I think probably Katelyn, and Siobhan, would be the most interesting people to talk to. I wonder if they get along. I can't believe I actually care about these people's interior lives this year. I just can't imagine Katelyn and, like, Michelle having a conversation. She seems really focused, and smart about her shit.
Paige acts nuts and annoying some more, and we learn her secret: Her eyes aren't actually purple. She also likes to color with crayons... Aaaand we're done. Nope. Not watching that.
So "Walk Away" is a very interesting song for Paige to sing. She has a great voice, and this could be really good. The band sounds silly and dorky, but it's all about the voice anyway... And she sounds great. That makes me happy. I'm already grateful to her for not singing Rogers & Hammerstein like everybody else, but this sounds good. She misses her chance of taking the chorus up as high as she could, which makes me wonder why she started low, but then the end of the chorus sounds like thin ditch-water, so that explains it. I thought her range was bigger than that. She hits some great big notes at the end, but out of the chest so it sounds like a man singing like a lady, really loudly, but then later she does some register stuff that's actually pretty. She ends the song on a performance move -- literally walking in the direction of away -- and it's cute.