Dear Fox: saying "SO ECO-FRIENDLY" actually is the very, very least you can do. So thanks? I'm old enough to know you don't get anywhere with anything unless you can sell it, and somebody's paying for Fox's self-conscious green campaign, so who knows. Remember the '90s when recycling was super cool, and now it's just something you do? I guess it's like that. Al Gore invented everything, he's like Shakespeare or that guy with the peanuts.
Paula's sartorial nod to the disco theme is appreciated, although Ryan seems to think Simon's white t-shirt is just as respectable. We get a look once again at the Top 7, and remember that two of them are going home tomorrow. Ryan approves of Anoop's Vampire Weekend getup as usual, but I'm more impressed by Adam's return to the Thin Blemished Duke look.
First up and without further ado is Lil doing a thin vocal on "I'm Every Woman," thereby demonstrating that she is so tired of trying to figure out the judges' bullshit advice that she's not even going to try anymore. It's pretty horrific sounding, to be honest. She sounds like she just ran a marathon and lost a kidney on the way to the stage; on the other hand, the key change is exciting as ever, and apparently one of the women she is doesn't feel like shaving her pits.
Kara swears we wanted her to sing Chaka Khan, and that we were wrong to do so. "You've been every woman, on that stage... Every woman but yourself." Nice. Paula tells us that her voice is totally shot and that she didn't speak yesterday. Didn't help. Paula notes that, hot though she is, Lil has not located her inner goddess. Simon is sad because Lil is sad, and she tells them that she had fun tonight. This earns her a standing o for some reason, and babbles about that for awhile, and Simon's like, "Glad you had fun, because your ass is going home tomorrow." No kidding. Ryan asks what Lil's inner goddess thinks about that, and her inner goddess says that all four thumbs-down judges can go suck it. Her inner goddess -- or at least the woman that is speaking to us right now -- would seem to be somewhat deluded, but in her eyes you can tell she already knows.
Ryan and Kris talk about how mystifying disco is for a bit, and Ryan's amazed that Kris will be singing "She Works Hard For The Money." Kris explains, "It's about a woman who works hard for the money. So that's why I picked it." Oh, Kris. You don't have to be smart when you're that pretty, it goes both ways. Even Ryan is amazed by this vapid turn in conversation, but recovers well, and thinks it'll be one of those revision arrangements that we'll love.
And he is totally right. It's like a mashup of the song with "Long Train Running," acoustic guitar and hand drums, a little electric bass in there. Frankly it's super hot. I kind of had a hope, but I wasn't going to stake my farm on it or anything. Once he sets out the verse and chorus, you know where it's going the whole time, and it does. They drop various instruments out and bring them back in, which gives you a greater sense of movement than is actually happening, but his voice is absolutely perfect this week, like usual. It's very cool; I'd like to hear the studio version. Best of all is his face when it's over, because he's like, "That's right, it was awesome just like I thought."
Over much applause, Kara and her weird disco look are very impressed. She describes it as a "four on the floor" song that he reimagined to express himself as an artist. Paula calls it "classy Santana," a contradiction in terms, and lauds him essentially for cross-dressing. There are "lots of women who shop in the men's department," she says, but "not as many men" who cross the aisle. Way to say something insightful in the weirdest, most awkward way possible, but yeah. We were talking last week about how the coolest thing Maxwell could have done is sing a whole album of lady sister womyn daughter music covers, just go on a time-traveling tour through Lilith Fairs of the ages, and how awesome that album would be. Paula's lipstick is the color of Barbie's pimp's car.
Simon of course calls her nutty and she says that Simon also shops at the ladies' store -- in this case, La Perla -- and Kris gets sad because Paula just managed to shit all over the cool thing he just did for the sake of a cheap shot at Simon. Simon points out that he reversed the polarity from Lil's bullshitty karaoke thing, and it's great and all, but I just spent twelve weeks trying not to imagine Kris Allen in his underpants, and now they've got him in lady underpants, which is... You've created two separate problems now.
Gokey, I didn't catch what he's going to be singing, but I'm sure it's stupid. Oh, it's that song about do you remember that one night in September. I used to really like this song but now it makes me sad. And then Danny's voice kind of sucks for a bit, which is new. I mean, he's still obnoxious and dorkily hard to watch, and there's nothing musical or interesting happening here, but I don't remember his voice ever doing anything wrong before. He goes for places and does not find them, he tries for notes and cannot hit them, and runs around so his breath is all out of control. Maybe he's just distracted by Paula's dipshitty ass dancing around down at the front like a lunatic, but I don't know. It's the least impressive performance, vocally, I think he's done. I should be happier right now. In the middle of the usual Judgery rimjob Kara points out that it wasn't entirely memorable, but Paula caulks all over it with a whole thing about how his voice is sexy. Ugh. Simon says it was pretty good, but there wasn't much in the way of "star power," because it was awkward and clumsy and not entirely special. For real. He looks nice, though.
Allison's hiding on a burning fiery stage that spins around like Hogwart's behind a weird cheetah-print wall before it even starts, so you know this'll be weird. She's wearing about six outfits at once, all of them nasty. Okay so she's singing "Hot Stuff," and doing it as a rock song in the same way that "Black Cat" was a rock song. She really finds a powerful melody in there, and goes after it, but the song overall doesn't seem that complete for the most part. Halfway through there's a super weird bridge that gives her the chance to pull some Xtina-style acrobatics. I can't believe I actually feel like she's safe for once. That was really cool.
The Judgery is not convinced about the slower, sweatier arrangement of the song, but they love her vocals, which were pristine this week. Paula loves her lack of compromise and edginess, and liked the arrangement. She gives her props for her vocal creativity and the strength behind it, which is nice. Simon says she came into the week as an underdog no matter what, but calls the performance "brilliant." Oh, that's good. She is her usual verbally challenged self with Ryan, but he takes care of her really well even as she's falling into him on her heels at the end for no reason. You just gotta work around her, she's like five. And she earned at least six stupid moments with that one anyway.
Adam Lambert on disco night, dressed as an underworld groom. I have no idea what he's going to sing. I can't say I care. It's got to be fucked up and insane this week to get him forward, because of all weeks all eyes are going to be on him. I am certain that he will deliver, and my fingers are itching to go check out the internet and see what he's going to do, but then it'll be awesomer if he... Is this what it's like for people that love this show? I'm on pins and needles over here. Maybe it's just the constant awesome Glee ads.
Ryan's like, "So everybody's sort of doing the Adam thing this week, how are you going to go even more Adam on that?" By singing "If I Can't Have You," of course. Probably as a ballad, I'm guessing, like with the white lights, and then maybe he will go a little bit nuts on the song in the middle. That is not going to be totally exciting for me personally, but it does mean all focus is going to be on his voice, which is a good thing. I feel like sometimes he forgets how his voice is beautiful like angels ice-skating, because it's just plain more fun to wiggle your wang around all the time while dressed as a serial killer.
...That's pretty much exactly what happens, down to the white lights, and Paula sits and silently weeps the whole time. He does a little bit of the screech, at just the right time. He's pretty much just too good for this show, and the judges know that, and so does the audience, and it's sort of nice. Kara loves him, he's brilliant and raises the bar every week, and she compares him to "the guy from Saturday Night Live" mixed with Clark Kent. What guy? Mango. I'm going to say Mango.
Paula feels she felt his pain and that he performed surgery on himself or something, there's a hot druggie lumberjack cheering for him; Simon says he was expecting Donna Summer and instead he got a totally memorable, well-formed composition with beautiful and perfect vocals. Adam gives props to the person that helped him create the arrangement, which I'm sorry but I didn't catch, and Paula's still fucking crying down there, and Ryan calls her a "pool of Abdul" (+5) and then says up we'll be hearing "the song that could keep Matt to stay alive in the competition" (-5), which misspeaking throws him so much he looks suicidal (+1) so we're in the black.
So if Allison did the Adam arrangement, and Adam did the Matt arrangement, and Danny did the Anoop arrangement, and Kris and Lil did the same thing they always do, what does that leave for Matt? Especially if he's singing "Stayin' Alive," which if you sing it any other way, or frankly the normal way, sounds like a song about dying horribly. And does this mean that Anoop is going last? On Disco Night? And might that be the perfect storm worst thing to ever happen? Oh, I just crossed my fingers so viciously my knuckles popped.
So Matt takes it to a pretty cool proto-Timberlake place, I suppose. I think the time of the hat-as-personality has come and gone, pretty much, but there are weird slides into falsetto at opportune moments, pretty much totally slick vocals, great work bringing the backup ladies to the front since that's where they belong on this, and a show-stopper ending that seems to drive everybody wild. It's not tremendously exciting for me personally, but it's technically proficient and I do love Matt, so thumbs up.
Kara, for some reason, thanks him for bringing Disco back to Disco Night, compares him unfavorably to Adam, brings up his great dancing, and pretty much offers nothing. Paula compares it to bowling in some fashion, but I'm not familiar with that pastime and cannot offer much in the way of critique. Simon asks him to consider that in terms of Idol it was fine, but in the real world it was dorky and silly. You know, that's true. It's not really salable or marketable in any way. I was trying to imagine him headlining a tour while he was singing that and couldn't really do it. On the other hand, this show is actually this show and not the real world, so the only person who has to actually care about the real world is Simon Cowell, because nobody else has even heard of that place, or what happens there. Man, if you told Paula or Randy what things are really like they would shit.
Ryan sips out of Kara's drink and she almost slaps him, then pastes on the fakest scariest smile into the camera to cover up how pissed she is. Wow, Kara. Did not know a think about you which I now know. Anoop sings some goddamn song about something, sex or something, and it goes from being a ballad to being sort of Bryan McKnighty, with percussion from this century adding an amusing change to the proceedings. His voice is good, but the arrangement is doing most of the work. I mean, I can understand why this song about dancing the night away is the last one, because musically they've outdone themselves, but he fucks up on pitch several times, is still fucking irritating to watch perform, and doesn't really seem to understand that it's the arrangement making it good. Half the vocals were the best he's done in a long time, but half of them are weak.
Kara agrees that the beat was radio-ready and the best part of the song, and he takes this as a compliment because he still doesn't get this show. Paula likes his pink-on-pink banker's-collar look tonight, which would be true if his obnoxious face weren't perched up on top of it. Simon calls it "mediocre at best," hating on the version of the song and the arrangement and calling it his worst performance ever. Wow. Ryan calls it "pretty in pink," and whatever. I really do not like Anoop on a personal level and I am glad I don't have to deal with him socially, so I'm worthless for this.
Recap: Lil is going home, and doesn't seem to care; Kris found the five people who don't think he's sexy and made them think he was sexy; Danny Gokey is building desperation buttresses onto the fortress of desperation he's built over the last few weeks but whatever because his boss is a Jewish carpenter or whatever; Allison has no idea what the fuck she's doing and yet is very successful at it; Adam Lambert wins; Matt was not so awesome but at least pandered; Anoop was the least interesting part of his own performance. I wouldn't even want to guess at this point because I really feel like my personal feelings are going to get in the way, but if I were to do so, I would say: Matt/Lil/Anoop, and Anoop stays. It's like a reality truism that the first person to come back is the first person to leave, no matter how well they sing "Human Nature," and he's been boring the power-voters for way too long for this silly little ditty to matter now. I hope I'm wrong.
It's been a week of oldies and soft jams at the Brojo this week: cutie-pie indie boys Final Fantasy and Guillemots; the most perfect song of all time "Fire Baby I'm On Fire," which I could not find for you anywhere, by actual former Archie Andy Kim; tender revisitations of Bee Thousand and Under The Blacklight; trying to calm down enough to get back into Air Traffic which my horoscope says will be basically not happening until like June, not that I believe in that stuff; taking constant Airborne Toxic Event breaks all the while and generally acting more like this and less like this than I should be. See you tomorrow, by which time I'll have taken my whole song and dance to somebody else's house for a week of relaxation, baby showers and God willing the invention of the sugar-free French 75.