The boys are all lined up in the white lights and doing the following: Danny is smarming and then going completely dead inside while you watch, Kris is staring into space waiting to be sent home tomorrow, and Adam is mentally doing his grocery shopping. Ryan reminds us that we're doing the hometown visits, which is good because I have to be nice during those or I get letters. The lady from Lie To Me is pretty, but not so thrilled to be there. I wonder if every Fox person has to show up at Idol some unknown number of times in order to keep their jobs. Maybe everybody there is fulfilling an obligation of some sort.
This is the 300th episode of the show. Jeez. I wonder how many of those I've written about. At this point probably more than half. That's disturbing. More disturbing: Randy's Gokey-esque blue plastic idiot glasses. Nice. And then there's Paula, sitting with her chair turned away from the stage for attention, and it's like coming home to see them all acting up like this. The Top Three come out wearing similar silhouettes: Danny and Kris in t-shirts under vests or whatever, and Adam with his shirt buttoned down to here.
Okay, so "the panel" chooses a song for each of them, and then they sing a song they chose for themselves. First up is Danny, who's annoying people at and from a radio station when his phone rings with a text message from Paula Abdul. Her song choice for him? "Dance Little Sister." Huh? Oh, come on. Everybody knows that song. "Dance Little Sister"? Hello? By the douchebag formerly known as Terence Trent D'Arby?
No? Nothing? Talked about himself like he was Kanye, which still freaks us out twenty years later because the only African-Americans allowed to be proud of their accomplishments in the same way as white people are boxers and some but not all football players? Looked like a lady? He had that song with the whistling, and long stupid hair? He wore hats? And he sang that other song, with the scary flute? You know at least two of his songs, I swear. There's the one with the whistling where he conjugates the verb "wish" sixty million ways, and the one with the flute that I thought was about scarification, because I was nine and apparently didn't understand metaphors. They were totally huge hits in 1987!
...Oh, no, sorry. This isn't either of those songs. That's not what I was saying. This song, you wouldn't have heard of. It has no qualities at all, just guitars doing stuff and a sort of droning loudness. Just like Danny Gokey! Paula justifies her choice by explaining that TTD sold a million copies overnight, and therefore Danny is magical. I see your point, madame.
Along those lines, and in keeping with the Palin card he's been playing so furiously lately, he interrupts the Judgery to explain that you have to "shake off the pressure" to move forward. Namely the "pressure" of the judges doing their jobs, which if you don't mind Danny would love if they would just stop doing it altogether. But on the off chance that they don't, it's not going to kill Danny's buzz, because whatever. Then he interrupts Ryan eleven times to act dorky and throw him off, because Simon and Paula -- meaning Paula -- are acting like assholes. "Paula has just punched Simon in the left breast," Ryan deadpans, and finally gets Danny's three telephone numbers out, despite Danny's hyperactive efforts to the contrary. The camera pans to Kris Allen on the edge of the stage and he shrugs. Eloquently.
And adorably! He got the text from Randy and Kara, who I guess together equal a real person, about his Judges' Choice: "Apologize." That's exciting. The Arkansas crowd goes wild. I can see that really working if he changes it up: big song, big range, big voice, big moment, as Kara says. She explains the dark, beautifully melodic line of the song, and how Kris can rock that. My heart starts beating very quickly because I still love this song so much, and Ryan stares into the camera with an indefinable awesomeness.
They've got him sitting at a piano, and it already sounds better than when OneRepublic and (who was it, Archuleta?) did it last year or whenever that was. Man, I was disappointed by that. The lights are all purple and sad because of how it's too late to apologize, and he gets to the first high note... and it sucks. But he'll bring it back! But then he doesn't. Then he makes a horrible sound, and finally finds his groove for awhile, before falling into the same traps again. This is a range issue and I don't understand why this is happening. Normally to hit hard notes he just contorts his face in that wonderful way, but maybe the range on this song is just too hard for even his face to help with. No, honestly, I think it's just that he, his voice, is not big enough for the great big song after all. That's sad. But then, he was always going home tonight.
And it sounds way better in the theatre again, I'm sure, because it's so loud and bassy. I will totally be buying this, because the only problem is the upper register, and he'll fix it in the studio. He doesn't have the best voice of the three, but he's always had my favorite voice. It's too bad they managed to take chocolate and peanut butter and somehow combine them into last year's stale circus peanuts, that's quite a trick. It's solid enough to prove once again that he belongs here, but it won't get him through.
Randy says some shit about how Kris should be singing pop like OneRepublic, which is actually a total insult because that's not what Kris is good at or what he loves, and Kara calls this one merely "competent."
There's a long, long digression in which Kara correctly criticizes Kris for doing a sound-alike version instead of making a real creative move, and out of nowhere Simon calls her a hypocrite because Kris sang the song he was given. Which isn't the point, but they back Simon into saying that she should have rearranged the song for Kris, which isn't and will never be true, so I don't know what's up with that. I do know that I would give my left nut to have heard Matt Giraud sing that song, because he would have ripped it to hell.
Actually, maybe they think he's Matt Giraud. That would make all of this make so much more sense, if they just forgot who he was. Then Kara puts her hands over Simon's mouth, which would make me go Shamwow on a motherfucker. I mean, I like Kara more than anybody I've ever talked to about this show, I think she's great, but take your goddamned hand off my mouth.
What am I, Kelly Ripa? So then Ryan brings everybody back to being normal for a second by shocking them so hardcore, like he literally goes, "Check out this mindfuck: Simon Cowell picked a song for Adam Lambert." I almost started crying right there, because whatever he says they both know Adam's going to do something amazing with it, because they understand the show and the way selling things works. So outside a stripmall in whatever place he's from, Adam learns he'll be singing "One"! Yes, that one!
It's one of Simon's -- and my, and yours, and everybody's in the world, which is why it's one of Simon's, and my -- favorite songs. And he says, by way of praising Adam and sending him encouragement vibes, that Bono called him on Sunday to grant permission for the performance, and said it would be U2's pleasure. Of course, not even Ryan can resist a smirk about Simon's name-dropping, even though that's not what this was, but Paula makes it okay by blurting, "We have lunch!" Which is a callback to a similar conversation that took place sometime in the last five years, which for Paula to remember and perfectly reference is like if your little sister suddenly started insulting you in iambic pentameter.
I am so ready for this show to be over. I try to think about dealing with this year without Adam and Allison and Matt and Kris, and I literally feel sick. Seasons Two and Three would have killed my ass. So anyway, the performance is way too short, not only because it's a pleasure to listen to but because it jumps from the highs and special and memorable parts of the song without actually building to them. The song's a huge, huge thing, just gigantic in there, and this was like a little songlet.
I'm not sure, actually, that the heart in that gigantic room of a song is actually located in the bits that Adam kept, but maybe it's just a lack of building because I couldn't tell you where it actually is. The crowd goes wild, and either it's real or there's a great edit that makes it seem as though he and his father are having a total moment. It gave me chills either way, because A) when your Dad looks at you like that, you can automatically do anything, and B) if Adam was my son, I would look at him like that every second of every day.
Hey quick, ask yourself the name of the song that Danny Gokey sang. Yeah, that's what I thought.
So Randy, and I don't disagree, was not in love with the "displacement" of the melody, in his performance. Simon boos him, which act demeans every single one of us. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the precipitate. Kara calls Adam a "strategist" and praises his artistry and vision, pointing Simon to the disconnect of him calling her out for trusting Kris not to duff it.
Paula makes it all about Paula, who is finding it hard to be Paula because Simon is to her gloating, and then makes a little play on words about how it was one brilliant song, one superb performance, and one American idol that she's staring at right now. Droll.
Yeah, but the last part's pretty bold. Adam takes it in the whoa-inducing sense it was intended, and Simon makes a joke about how the song choice was excellent (Have you noticed he only makes these lame little jokes with Adam, and always goes, "just kidding!" afterwards? I think he likes making Adam giggle almost as much as he does Ryan) and says that it was a brilliant performance. He words his statement -- that Adam will probably win -- in a very smart way, which is by making it both negative and subjunctive, downplaying it by saying if Adam isn't in the finals week it will be "ridiculous," a theme he will continue to develop tonight: wouldn't it be fucking horrible if you didn't vote for Adam?
Ryan pokes Simon again about the namedropping and then dicks with him, asking if he helped Adam put that together the way he said Kara should have done with Kris, and Simon blows him off. Meanwhile, Adam's too sincere to even see the joke there, or else just didn't hear the precursor to it, and immediately goes into his usual babble about how beautiful the lyrics are. Which, don't put too fine a point on it, Adam, because we can all agree that the song gives us a good feeling, but the lyrics are not something you should be urging the audience to look into. You Adam'd when you should have Danny'd, and just talked about how inspiring and American and dead-wifelike the song was.
But first, more of that nonsense, with an Idol Gives Back update that amounts to Carrie Underwood tottering around Angola handing out mosquito nets to kids while some unbelievably shitty cover of "Africa" plays. I mean, maybe I would like it, I like boybands and such, but playing "Africa" over this is just gross. Carrie recites a bunch of facts we (hopefully) already knew about malaria, how horrible and preventable it is, and awesomely says that because kids are the only people you can trust, they're giving the kids the nets and training and letting them take it from there. She asks some people if they've ever had malaria, and the translation is roughly "No bitch, I'm standing right here talking to you," and she goes, "Awesome! That's because of my mosquito nets." What a trainwreck this is. She says the word malaria fourteen more times, and then we learn that Exxon-Mobil paid for her to go do this. At least she didn't make them dance through a graveyard this time.
And way to go, Exxon-Mobil! Decent of you to invent ethical carbon trading. What's the going rate now, like five cute Angolan kids for every dead soldier? That seems fair.
Danny looks nice in a vest and very pale -- or very thin -- shirt, but then opens his mouth and fucks it all up with a detailed breakdown of just how he chose his song. Basically, I'll paraphrase, basically what he did was make a list of songs, and then consider them, and then eventually settled on one. That is one scintillating narrative full of twists, Gokey. But the real twist is the song: "You Are So Beautiful."
Barf, barf, barf. Orgy of barf. Circus of barf. Battalion of barf.
Ryan makes fun of the stupid girls in the audience for getting excited about this awful thing, and then a guy plays an acoustic guitar while Danny sits on a stool and sings the song. Every time he hits a note of any kid, the audience shits. He goes on about how she "turned this boy into a man ooh yes it did," and 1) Um, no it didn't, demonstrably, but 2) this is so cynical it's like, if for some reason his wife came walking into the theatre right now they'd take her out again. It's droning and boring and saccharine and stupid and lame and sad, but he sounds good. I mean, it's no skin off my ass. And the last high note is quiet, and very beautiful.
Danny shakes the guitarist's hand, and Kara says -- and it's valid -- that he managed to do everything this second time that he refused to do on that first shitty song. Paula has been left "breathless," but suggests that the song is built in such a way that he was able to intelligently add R&B and gospel sounds to it without damaging the structure, which none of them managed on the first round. Simon thinks the song didn't really need rearranging, but found the vocals to be "masterclass." Ryan's pleased for him, but this takes a sour turn as he asks Danny a question, causing Danny to answer him.
It's a pointless word mess about how he just had to do what he had to do, no analyzing, no thinking, just do it. None of that judges' commentary or thinking about how he could improve or possibly pull his head out for a sec, because that would not be keeping it real: do you see what I'm talking about? He just had to come out onstage with a "fresh mind and a fresh heart." (How about now?) "I did what I did, you know what I mean?" Yeah, I know exactly what you mean: Nothing whatsoever. Just like always. He makes a heart with his hands at the camera, and then taps his heart, and finally shuffles away. Odious!
Kris is wearing a sparkly top. That's hot. When Ryan asks what he's doing and how he chose it, Kris laughs and says it "just came to him." And what was it? "Heartless," by Kanye West. Kris Allen will be singing Kanye on the American Idol stage. Man, this is either going to be terrible or my favorite thing that ever happened on this show. We will see. The Fray has a pretty good cover of that song, maybe he'll do something like that. That would be pretty fabulous. And anyway, I hope it's so awesome no matter what because he is going hooooome.
Kris Allen then does my favorite thing that has ever happened on this show. This is exactly what they were talking about, and he totally did it. I don't even know if I can describe how fantastic it is. He takes the mashup/cover surprise out of the equation almost immediately, like the novelty wears off really quickly because it's so actually good. I don't even like the original song, but damn. His voice is beautiful, his guitar is inventive and fun, the whole thing is great. I almost feel like he could get through based on this one. Am I being nuts? Clutch play, dude. He deserves it, suddenly.
That is my favorite thing of this entire season, even the really good Adam ones and the several great Allison ones. Done. That's like the "Love Is A Battlefield" or "This Is Where I Came In" of this season. Was not expecting that. Look what you did! I am so proud of him. I can't believe he did that. Where did it come from? What if he won? I switch. I switch sides. I love Kris the most. The audience can't believe he pulled that out, and won't stop clapping, and Randy says it was better than Kanye's and the Fray, because you know Randy loves the shit out of the Fray.
Kara's like, "How come you didn't do that before?" Um, how come he didn't do that nineteen weeks in a row? Kris is kind of like, "How could I have done the same slow acoustic thing on 'Apologize' when you knew I was going to do that?" Which is a good point. Kara's all over it, and Simon says that he thought earlier that Kris was a total write-off, but "that, however, has all changed after that performance." Exactly.
Ryan cracks Adam the hell up with this little list: "You've done Queen, you've done Cher..." Of course, this is a joke setup because Ryan knows what he's singing, but at the moment he's saying it I was like, "Leave Britney alone! I hope he fucking says Gwar." In fact, he says Aerosmith, which is like the real Gwar, because they are monsters, and the song he's singing is "Cryin'," which... huh. That's like a song.
Lots of songs, actually. Is this the one where Alicia Silverstone bungee jumps with the finger, or the one where she makes out with Liv Tyler? (Remember when Garth was so scared of the leprechaun that he saw the leprechaun in Alicia Silverstone's blurred-out finger? Was that real? It sounds like something I would imagine.) I wish Adam Lambert and David Cook would drive a tractor over Danny Gokey while I logged photobooth time with Kris Allen. Oh, and animal crackers. There, now you know everything I know about Aerosmith.
And it's great. It has that whole blockbuster sensibility they like at the end of the show, and his voice is so much better suited to doing this stuff. Screechy is not lovely for a song that's meant to be lovely, but is very good for a song that's not very special. The camera does the swoopy thing, even, and the crowd goes wild, and it's almost but not quite as amazing as when Cook did the Aerosmith song and won this show. I guess I just don't understand Aerosmith until these boys explain it to me in my own language.
Kara's like, "How do you even sing like that and then talk the day?" and welcomes him to the finals. Paula talks crazy. Simon tells him that it's easy to assume he'll sail through that people might get stupid and not vote for him, and he urges nobody to get stupid. That's like the third time Simon's been incredibly transparent about his agenda this season, second time this episode. He must really care about this. I know I do. My buddy Karen has a good theory about Adam and Simon, which is that Adam is adept at giving Simon exactly what he wants, sometimes I think before Simon knows what he wants, and that this is the genius of Adam, because Simon knows everything and is always right. I want to be on a team with Simon Cowell like that, how fantastic would that be? So very.
Playlist, besides the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs I'm not allowed to like: A. C. Newman and Jason Molina; Passion Pit and Ruby Isle; and Benoît Pioulard.
Tomorrow: Jordin Sparks and what is sure to be at least three pages about what's wrong with Katy Perry, but I have no freaking clue how the votes will go. Danny was sucky-good like he always is, and Adam continued to manage making himself more accessible, but Kris pulled out a serious Namath out of nowhere. I've been so resigned to the obvious Danny/Adam of it all that I can't honestly consider Kris making it, but that really would do something to my insides if it happened. I'm going to go listen to it again right now.