The theme this week is either "The 1960s" or "The British Invasion" or both, and I think the rule is that they're allowed to say "Beatles" but they're not allowed to sing any of their songs, thanks so much Michael Jackson. Instead of anyone interesting or relevant, we get Peter Noone, a cartoon of some sort, and "Lulu," an enigmatic (and, it turns out, awesome) woman who is like if you took Marianne Faithful and Twiggy and split the difference. Haley works it so damn hard, knowing she's up against elimination. She chooses "Tell Him," which Randy (correctly) says was an impeccable choice, and is about 75% naked, which Simon figures will be what everyone remembers. Noone lowballs us on Chris R.'s ability to sing the melody so much that when Chris is softly and sweetly on-pitch with "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," any potential boringness is swallowed up by his faked-up triumph over adversity. Rave reviews. Stephanie picks Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me," and her listless and utterly uninspired performance calls up the ghost of Nadia Turner, who proceeds to give everyone a beatdown. Noone's back with Blake, and he's super crotchety about how maybe little girls like all that spitty beatboxing Blake does, but he certainly doesn't. Once again, Blake's "Time of the Season" is more of a triumph of arrangement and vibe than actual singing, but this time the judges appreciate it. And then Ryan makes a fool of himself 100 times in under a minute, including trying to beatbox.
After some truly artificial haggling with Lulu over what she should sing, LaKisha settles on "Diamonds Are Forever" and makes Simon think he's watching an old lady sing. Phil sings a song called "Tobacco Road" that doesn't sound at all British, but that's probably okay since things are temporarily upside-down, evidenced by the fact that Phil's lower notes were way better than his power notes. Jordin chooses Shirley Bassey's "I Who Have Nothing." Two Shirley Bassey songs and no "Goldfinger"? This is bullshit! No matter, as Jordin's voice came to play. She was hitting some Melinda notes there. The judges love it, though Simon found the song gloomy. Sanjaya's "You Really Got Me" offers him an opportunity to forget about singing entirely, which is a good thing because he's actually interesting. Of course, that's all overshadowed by the batshit-crazy awesomeness of the hysterical crying thirteen-year-old girl in the audience who gets more airtime than anyone else and who I think got her own 1-866 number. The whole spectacle is maybe the greatest thing I've ever seen on this show. Gina and her awesome new haircut try on some "Paint It Black," and I thought she was great, but Simon strongly disagrees, and after four weeks of telling her to drape rocker affectations all over herself, he dings her for style-over-substance. Sligh continues to be a giant wannabe-Blake by singing the second Zombies song of the night, "She's Not There." He walks all through the crowd trying to cultivate an "of the people" vibe, but he only achieves "desperately glad-handing." And then he apes Taylor and yelps out "Fro Patrol" and is thus DEAD TO ME. Melinda is predictably great on "As Long As He Needs Me," but she makes Little Miss Sobshine lose it in the audience again, which makes it all worthwhile. Seriously, that little girl made this whole episode. I'm off to vote for her right now! Tomorrow: results. Going home: I'd say Stephanie or Phil, but wouldn't it be ironic if the only week Sanjaya was at all compelling, he got bounced?
So now that the eleven remaining contestants have cleared the hurdles marked "Auditions," "Hollywood," "semi-finalist" and "finalist," the arbitrary plateau they have to reach lest they be branded gigantic failures is to make the top 10. That way they get to be on the tour! At which point they'll spend all summer dealing with Blake's hair products, and LaKisha's crying kid, and Melinda's Gayles, and Chris R.'s groupies, and Phil's blood transfusions, and Haley and Gina's jealous boyfriends, and Sligh's...oh, man. A whole summer stuck on tour with Chris Sligh. You think he's gotten tiresome now? Anyway, sorry, Ryan's trying to tell us something. The top 10 is what our Idols seek, and they'll have to brave 1960s Britain to do it. This is American Idol.
We'll start with what Ryan looks like, as we often do, and while the gray tailored suit is nice, I suppose, if you're going to a wedding, I am not in love with the many-shades-of-eggplant striped tie. Then again, maybe Ryan's just very Catholic and wants to wear his Lent colors. HA ha ha ha! Right. Like Ryan Seacrest has beliefs. As the top 11 parade across the stage, Middle America's very own flesh bazaar, we see that Haley is wearing hot pants, Stephanie has chosen to get into the spirit of the evening with some go-go boots, Gina and Melinda have gotten their hair cut, Phil isn't wearing a hat (dammit!), and Sanjaya has gone back to his original floppy moppet hair, but he's given last week's tangle of curls to LaKisha, who wears it proudly. we meet the judges, and Paula's glassy-eyed and seal-clapping, so I guess it couldn't last forever. I feel like she's going all Algernon on us, like if I tell her how articulate and awesome she's been for the last month, she wouldn't even understand it anyway. When asked about how the contestants should deal with their nerves, she slurrily suggests they picture Simon naked. Ryan, as you might expect, gets all giggly and weird at this not-at-all-pre-planned remark, while Simon's all lean-back about it, because everybody wants his bitch-titted fine self.
So there's a theme, this week. And it's "The British Invasion," or so Ryan tells us. Which means Britain in the 1960s. And because they think we're stupid but they don't think we're that stupid, the retrospectical montage begins with The Beatles. What Ryan's voice-over doesn't say is that we won't be hearing any songs by the Beatles tonight, because Michael Jackson sold the rights to those songs to a fourth-grader in exchange for a glimpse at his belly-button. (Too much?) So, yeah, it's "British Invasion" week without the Beatles. week, look for Disco Night without Donna Summer or the Bee Gees. Instead, we're left to marvel at the awesome power of Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Searchers. And, okay, the Stones and The Who, and Dusty Springfield, and Shirley Bassey are awesome, and I'm sorry if this is your chosen musical genre and I'm just being an ignorant moron about it, but come on. The Beatles! Do the theme right or don't do the theme! Your season can live without the Peter Noone ratings bump.
Which indeed brings us to our guest mentors this week. I've been struggling since Tuesday to find a proper allusion for what Peter Noone's face looks like. Like he should be on a box of Rice Krispies? Or in a Schoolhouse Rock video? It's the buggy eyes and the giant maw and the orange complexion...he's like a caricature drawing. Yeah, that'll work. He's like a caricature drawing...of Prince Charles. Yes. Okay, glad I got that out of the way. Peter Noone was in a band called Herman's Hermits, and they had some hit songs back in the day, "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good" being the one I've heard about. Really edgy stuff, I'm sure. Lulu, meanwhile, looks like Twiggy. That impression starts to go away once she starts talking, at which point she starts moving closer to Julie Christie, Marianne Faithfull, "I've smoked cigarettes bigger than you, Malakar" territory. So Peter's working with the dudes, while Lulu (who can still sing, it turns out) will work with the girls. Like the guys need to be disadvantaged any more than they currently are, whatever. Peter Noone bugs the hell out of me already. Clapping along to his own empty, saccharine song like a simple-headed person. He's going to be a horrible influence on Sanjaya, I bet.
Ryan begs us not to change the channel just because we've never heard of these songs, before kicking it to Haley's video package. She tells Lulu she'll be singing "Tell Him," and Lulu is very helpful in terms of making Haley not suck so much. She advises Haley to be more staccato in her phrasing, and Haley's just about wide-eyed that someone is actually giving her advice she can use for once. Lulu goes on to say -- and I'm paraphrasing but not at all exaggerating -- that Haley shouldn't worry herself with the fact that she's the worst female singer on the show, because there's a place for everybody in the musical rainbow. And...sing! So, onstage, we're re-introduced to Haley's new wardrobe choices for the evening. The hot pants are accompanied by a gold halter top that exposes her entire back. It's not trashy, in and of itself, but it's a part of Haley's new "shake it like you're about to get voted off" strategy that is both fascinating and sad. It's fascinating because it's kind of working: she seems to be having a lot more fun on the stage, the singing isn't all that crucial because it's not that kind of song, and if we're being completely honest, the girl is gorgeous. She'd be stupid not to promote that. It's only sad because her eyes tell us she's lying: she struts out into the audience with her fuck-me shoes, she shakes her ass at the cast of The Wedding Bells, she makes eyes at Simon at the judges' table, and all the while she keeps looking at the camera all, "Eh? How 'bout this? This working for you? I've been told you'll appreciate this. Will you vote for me now?" Owning your sexuality is an awesome and powerful thing, but you've got to actually own it. As it stands right now, as Haley actually shakes her boobs to close the performance, we own it, and that's too bad.
The crowd goes apeshit, of course, because they may not know much, but they know that Haley usually sucks, and this was Haley being super different than we've seen her before, so therefore this must be the opposite of sucking. WOO! "That was the perfect song for you," enthuses Randy, as he proclaims her "back in the competition!" He's right about the first part, completely. Great song choice. Paula feels like "the flirtation side of [her performance] was great," which is a perfect comment, in that it's accurate and yet wrong at the same time. Simon's shit-eating grin calls Haley a "naughty little thing" and says that while it was "young" and "fun" and "a bit shrieky," he's pretty confident no one is going to care about the singing. Well, no kidding; that was the point. Ryan tries a joke about Simon being in trouble with his girlfriend, but it doesn't land, so he goes to his default: shoes! How did Haley not fall on her barely-covered ass going up and down those stairs? "It's all about prayer," she jokes, in that way she has that makes me think she's a fun, cool person and not just some performobot.
So who's ready for some truth about Chris Richardson? Recapping this show means it's easy for me to get lost in the specifics of the minute and a half that they're performing every week. This Phil performance is awesome. That Gina performance is not. But in terms of figuring out who my favorites are, it's generally those whose performances I bother to seek out and download and listen to on my own time, shuffled in with my Elton John and Ron Hawkins and The Killers. So if you asked me who I thought were this season's best, I'd easily say: Melinda, Jordin, and Blake. And yet the only two whose performances I've bothered to listen to outside of this show have been Melinda and Chris Richardson. The unholy jumble of un-vocal stylings that was the "Geek In The Pink" performance? Can't get enough of it. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that, in terms of straight-up thumbs-up or thumbs-down evaluations, Chris has been as successful in currying my favor as Melinda has. I know. She's still the better singer; that's so obvious as to barely need mentioning. But as far as performing in a way that pleases the eyes and the ears, Chris is the shit. Does this impeach all my qualifications for being able to recap this show, much like my enjoyment of one Kellie Pickler performance last season did? Maybe. But, as we'll be reminded when Sanjaya takes the stage later on, presenting your musical bona fides in relation to this show is like producing your legal bona fides in relation to Judge Judy. It's a gladiator fight. Appreciate it as such.
So Chris -- oh wait! Before we get to Chris, Ryan is in the audience with Crying Ashley, who is...already crying, with Uncle Nigel looming over her shoulder like Phantasm. We'll get to her later, and at length, but currently she's in tears over...the commercials we just saw? Damn, those Cingular ads just don't affect me the same way. ANY-way: Chris. He tells us his goal this week is to "finally nail a song," which is cute, because: see above. I clearly don't care. He'll be singing a Gerry and the Pacemakers song called "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying." The interaction between Peter and Chris is awesome, because Chris clearly wants to be able to deny all his Timberlakean impulses and sing an actual melody for once, meanwhile Peter interviews to us all, "Yeah, not so much." Peter clearly fucking hates Chris and all he represents (that being: youth, beauty, and an arrogant spitting on the graves of Gerry and one or more of the Pacemakers), while Chris is all, "I am defying my very nature to satisfy you! Please stop calling me a loser!" Onstage, Chris is accompanied by his very own acoustic guitar -- because he's totally the Chosen One, you guys -- and is seated atop a Sensitivity Stool, so we know he means business. Now, here's where the show gets all Machiavellian and cool, because what they did with all of Noone's whining bitchery was to set up a situation here where success, for Chris, is not giving a memorable or fun performance, like he usually does, or to even give a great vocal. All he has to do is stay on the melody. So, like, he gets the first two lines out, and he sticks with it, and so the audience starts cheering. Because he sang seven words without trilling like an idiot! Well manipulated, American Idol. Hell, I'm proud of him too. He's not exciting like he usually is, but that's overruled by the fact that he's now achieving this fake achievement that we wouldn't have cared about if the show didn't tell us to. Chris is smiling all cute, like he's proud of himself. I'm proud of him too!
Randy calls it "another great performance" tonight, because last week he was grumpy as hell and this week he wants to be more positive. He says it was "beautiful" and Chris's best performance to date. Well...ah, I'll wait until Simon makes the same incorrect evaluation. Paula calls this song a "smart" decision, proving that she's still a little with it tonight. She also calls the whole thing very "sexy," and she's right about that too. Simon also says it's Chris's "best performance to date," which...it's his best vocal performance to date, which is notable and would have had the same impact if he'd said it right. "Geek in the Pink" and even parts of "The Boss" were better performances, all things considered. Anyway, splitting hairs. Well done, Chris. He tells Ryan how hard it was just to sing it straight rather than go running off all over the place. If anyone knows how hard it is to keep it straight, it's Ry-- you know...no. Too easy.
After the break, Ryan and Stephanie convene off to the side to answer some questions and sell some Coca-Cola. It's a fan question, so you know it's going to be stupid. "What is the hardest part about getting ready for the show each week?" And she doesn't even say "wrestling with Sanjaya to get some time in front of the mirror," so who cares? Ryan prods about a "different vibe" this week, so maybe something went down backstage, but Stephanie's not saying anything. Everybody's just focused! With Lulu, Steph reveals that she'll be singing Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me." Lulu says Stephanie reminds her of Beyoncé, which Stephanie takes as a huge compliment. No word from Lulu as to whether it was intended as a compliment. Now, as to the song choice: it's a great song if you sing it right. Unfortunately, and perplexingly, Stephanie sings it way, way wrong. Forget about living up to Dusty Springfield's version; Stephanie is falling far short of Nadia Turner's version. It was only two seasons ago, hon. People are going to remember and compare. One of her problems is that her phrasing is over-precise, which makes it sound amateurish. Her newfound ability to botch notes is an unwelcome development as well. She's been overshadowed by too many people on this show to be serving up bum notes at this stage.
Randy, due to the "pitchy" factor, decides that Stephanie is better on the up-tempo songs rather than the ballads. Paula says, "Great news first, because that's the way it is." As always. And as always, that "great news" is how pretty Stephanie looks in her tube dress and go-go boots. Hey, it's Paula, it makes sense. She would like Stephanie to go back to "having fun" because her spirit's kind of drifting away at this point. And I think I agree, if only because I can't remember when Stephanie had any kind of spirit, and I know she must have, because I used to really like her. Simon asks Stephanie how she thought she did. "I thought I did...well?" It's a loaded question, of course, because Simon's just lying in wait in case you start feeling your oats. He calls the performance "nightclubby" and "cabaret" and feels Steph's losing her "edge" and her "soul." The edge is one thing, but doesn't losing her soul make her eligible to host and/or judge this show? Simon misses the passion and rawness that apparently Stephanie used to bring, back when we all used to care. She takes this all like a total pro, of course, which is cruelly ironic considering she's totally mature and composed at 19, and yet that beyond-her-years quality is what the judges see as boring. Pity.
When we return, Ryan sells even more of his threadbare soul by hawking cell phones in front of God and everyone. Actually, I say "sells his soul," but honestly if anyone in the world would have written an elementary school essay about wanting to grow up and sell expensive things to bourgeois idiots on TV while dressed in a sharp suit, I believe it would have been Ryan Seacrest. He tosses the phone to someone offstage and nances about unconvincingly like he broke it, and Ryan? This is why you'll never make it as an actor. On to Blake!
Before we even get to the video package, Blake is already beatboxing for Noone, who is so perplexed and frightened of everything Blake represents that he cannot even articulate it. Take all the hatred he had for Chris but then mix it with the abject fear of not even being able to look down on the kid, because everybody's agreed that he's phenomenal. Noone calls all of Blake's machinations "business," as in, "don't let the business get in the way of the actual song." The song is "Time Of The Season," by the Zombies, which is a cool song and very Blake. Noone concedes that the young people will vote for Blake -- why, he doesn't say, but we're left to assume it'll be out of freak-out-the-old-folks solidarity. The actual performance is more of what made last week cool: an intelligent and musically curious guy doing some fun things with an old song, yet keeping it recognizable. I liked it better last week, I have to say. This week seems more affected, though that may be a byproduct of the particularly British phrasing of the original and how it's an odd fit for Blake. But then again, he's the Brandon Flowers of this show, and everybody thinks he's British, so who knows? He gets very into it with the eyes, especially on the "what's your name/who's your daddy?" part. The more I listen to this performance, the less I like it. The production is great, but vocally, he's annoying. I know I'm gonna lose my license for that, but it's true.
Lucky for Blake, the judges apparently feel guilty for being such fuddy-duddies last week and have decided to make it up to him right now. "Brilliant!" says Randy. "Massive 'Yo' factor!" Paula cedes the entire season to him, right then and there! "Siiiii-monnn!" sings Blake in anticipation of Cowell's reaction, which seems both nervous and cute. Simon says it was a million times better than last week. Incorrect, to a staggering degree, but he's trying to save face and balance the universe here, so I understand. He couldn't exactly say, "It turns out, last week you were actually great, but this week you sacrificed your vocals to the production." How would that have been fair to Blake? So Simon gets away with one there. "Strongest performance so far"? Not. Ryan takes the stage and barely gets his boilerplate question out before he moves on to what's really on his mind: how does Blake move his body like he does? Good question, girlfriend! This all culminates in Ryan "spontaneously" busting a move or three while Blake just happens to start laying down the beat and Paula, like, preemptively gets embarrassed for him. I'm preemptively embarrassed for all of us right about now. "Who's your daddy?" asks Ryan, to Blake, because he can no longer resist. Blake is like Fedorov and Will Makar times a million for Ryan, because this one's legal.
LaKisha sing-songs to us about how she knows "absolutely nothing" about '60s music. Lulu helps her narrow things down to two songs: "Diamonds Are Forever" and "You're My World." Lulu immediately likes the latter option better, and in her interview says she thinks it would be a more "soulful" option for LaKisha. "You know, I should go talk to her," she realizes, completely out of the blue. And then she suddenly just gets up to go talk to LaKisha, just like that. What an awesome coincidence that the Idol cameras were able to capture Lulu's revelation like that! Also...actually, hold on. I have to go compose a letter to Santa Claus and another to the Easter Bunny, and then sign some documents (I'm purchasing a bridge, y'all! In Brooklyn!)... Okay, I'm back. What was I saying? Oh yeah, Lulu and her totally spontaneous idea. Lulu sings "You're My World" for LaKisha, which really just makes me want to hear Lulu perform more than LaKisha. She says she's not sure if she's totally convinced LaKisha yet, and then she's all, "Watch, 'Diamonds Are Forever' turns out to be Simon's favorite song, because that's totally how he is." I want to get wasted with Lulu, I think.
Back onstage, still in the dark as to which song we're going to hear, Ryan gives us a "clue": LaKisha's wearing "about a million dollars' worth of diamonds right now." Shhh! Kanye West will hear you! I'd say Leo DiCaprio, too, but you know he's one of those people who doesn't watch TV. Anyway: "Diamonds Are Forever." From that one Bond movie...what was it called? It should be noted that this song is from 1971, not the 1960s. Meanwhile, as I said in the recaplet, "Goldfinger," from 1964, was sitting right there. Waiting to be rocked. Regardless, LaKisha's wearing a pretty green dress and her hair is all big and curly. There are mirror balls reflecting light all over the place, like it's time for the Prom King and Queen to dance. So the song is all about how this lady gets off on diamonds. And at one particularly suggestive lyric -- "they can stimulate and tease me" -- LaKisha actually, like, traces an outline of her breast. Put the baby to bed, it's Idol After Dark! It's a great song, if not a terribly exciting one. LaKisha's voice isn't bad, but her eyes are completely dead, and a lot of this performance has to be in the eyes. Not to mention how she seems to be just treading water until she can hit the last big note. I hate that. If all you care about are your big, belty notes, pick a song that's full of them so we don't have to sit around watching you look bored.
First things first, Randy confirms with Simon that "Diamonds Are Forever" is indeed not his favorite song. I try not to think too much about Simon's aesthetic tastes beyond what's going to make him money. That's just stuff I don't want to know. "Unchained Melody" is supposed to be one of his favorite songs ever. The rest of that list can't be anything I want to hear. Randy says, save for the end, he "didn't feel enough LaKisha" in the song. The crowd boos like crazy, because for the sixth season in a row, they fail to grasp the concept of "judges." This is what happens when you have to bump Civics to make room for Intelligent Design. Paula says it was not only a good song choice but a smart song choice, because singing about diamonds means they let you wear diamonds. She wants to know "how many millions'" worth of ice LaKisha's wearing. LaKisha's like, "How many millions? Uh, one. One million." Damn, Abdul, way to make a million dollars' worth of diamonds sound disappointing. She slurs that LaKisha shouldn't let Simon "bodyguard you," because Paula and Randy will. Whatever, Paulachnaya. Simon wants to banter about the diamonds some more, and it's inarticulate and weird -- he doesn't think they're worth a million dollars? There's maybe an inside joke? No idea. Simon dubs the performance "LaKisha in fifty years' time." I think he means the hair, but I can't be positive. Simon has his triggers, and before this show drives me into an early grave, I pledge to figure them out, but I think when he calls the contestants old ladies, he means the hair. Randy and Paula give Simon shit for critiquing the wardrobe, like Paula didn't just make wardrobe, like, the main criterion in her critique of Stephanie. Not that she remembers back that far, I realize.
Ryan calls LaKisha over to the Moon Café stools, so they can whisper and conspire and be weirdly territorial about each other for the fifth consecutive week. Ryan asks how it feels not to be lavishly fawned over for once. Oh, you know those are my words, not his. Like Ryan would ever make an unkind implication about LaKisha. LaKisha's cool about it: "You take the good with the bad and the ugly." Ryan is delighted by this piece of homespun wisdom, and then quickly snaps his head to the side all, "I know which judge is which!" Ryan, you're getting overstimulated. Better go lie down while Phil performs. He asks once again for a more specific response to the criticism, and she says, "If I sound like this in 45 years, I think I look good." Leaving aside the fact that 45 â 50 and "sound" â "look," it's not a bad off-the-cuff remark. From the judges' table, Randy goes "touché," and Simon smiles. Ryan then asks Simon why he didn't like LaKisha's dress, and Simon's like, "You're the clothing expert, fag," and Ryan's all, "Not tonight, bitch," and we've literally seen this before, so we'll move on.
Phil -- hatless, unfortunately -- will be singing a song called "Tobacco Road," which is more of a style of song than an actual song. It's like a country song sung in a blues cadence. And somehow this all fits into a British Invasion theme via a group called the Nashville Teens. And their version of this song is awful, and you can tell Peter Noone thinks so too, because he says that Phil's version was better. Phil's version is better, but that's not necessarily a compliment. Remember how Phil never used to be able to hit the low notes, but then was spot-on when it came time to belt, and that made his performances schizophrenic nightmares of divergent quality? It's actually completely the opposite here. He only really sounds comfortable when the song gets super low, and yet he spectacularly blows it on the high notes. Also the opposite: he starts off strong and ends weak. It's unpretty. Phil without a hat on unpretty. He's running all over the stage and carrying the mic stand, and the camera is flying all about, and it's all reminiscent of a Chris Daughtry performance. Except for the voice, obviously.
Randy dithers around about how he likes Phil's upper register (he fails to mention how that awesome upper register called in sick today) and ultimately deems the performance "pretty good." Paula compliments the choice of song and says she liked listening to the "various ranges" of Phil's voice. It's like they both recognized what was wrong with the performance and were still determined to speak of it as a positive. Simon speaks the truth, in his own way, by calling it a "third-division bar band performance." He says the problem was that there was no "grit" in Phil's voice, and that song required said "grit." The day anyone on this fun-for-all-ages show displays anything close to "grit," I swear to God. Phil says something I can't quite make out...it sounds like he says, "I'm so not disagreeing," but Simon's response ("Well, you were a bit") doesn't track, entirely. Regardless, Simon says he worried about how safe Phil is going to be this week. Phil's wife doesn't like the sound of that last part, not realizing that Simon just energized whatever fan base Phil has to vote like crazy for him. Ryan asks Phil about how much being in the bottom three last week freaked him out, going into this week. Phil rambles about wanting to pick the right song and have fun, and having exhausted all avenues of making needy pleas to the judges, Phil instead makes a needy plea to the audience, asking them if they had fun. Phil, your unending craving for approval demeans us both. Even Ryan looks at him condescendingly. Ryan Seacrest! Thinks you're too ingratiating! Think about that for a second, Phil!
After commercials, Jordin is answering another fan-generated question, this time "What song title best describes you?" And since no one has yet written a song called "This Giantess With Her Huge Smile Will Devour Us All," Jordin instead opts for "I'm So Excited" by The Pointer Sisters, because it's, like, her catchphrase. She says it all the time! In hair and makeup, in rehearsals, everywhere. "How do you feel about the show tonight?" Ryan serves up. "I'm so excited!" Jordin obliges. "How about the rain tonight?" Ryan asks. "Don't like it, it'll ruin my hair." Don't joke about that, Jordin. Sanjaya's taking this Best Hair competition seriously, and he's pulled back into the lead this week. In the video package with Lulu, Jordin is (prepare yourselves) enthusiastic: "She is the sweetest thing and she's so cute!" Which is easy to say when you could pick the lady up and tuck her neatly into your pocket. Lulu is crazy about the song Jordin has chosen: "I Who Have Nothing," the second Shirley Bassey song of the night. "It's so dramatic," Lulu enthuses, and considering the dramatic songs always come across best on this show, I'm with her. Jordin tells us how great it was to have Lulu go all Tough Love on her, and we see a little of that, Lulu snapping about timing and projection and other shop talk. Jordin says it's "so empowering...and I don't even have a boyfriend!" Lulu says she's bound to have one now.
The dramatic lighting and dramatic violins prove Lulu correct as Jordin begins to sing. Remember how amazing Jordin was last week? Times ten this week. Unbelievable. Controlled and powerful and dramatic, and she's really selling the song. And it doesn't look all that precocious on her. I'm not too familiar with the song, but just from listening to it, you can tell there are some big notes on the way, and I cross my fingers that she can hit them...and then she hits them. Does she ever. The crowd goes nuts, because even their stupid asses can tell the difference between what they're supposed to think is awesome and what is actually awesome. Randy calls the song a "very tall order" (heh) and says it was "very controlled" and one of the best performances we'll see tonight. Paula praises Jordin's range and then says that, 17 or no, age doesn't even matter, because "a good singer is a good singer." At this, Simon blatantly turns towards Ryan and gives a wink, which I suspect is about Paula just blatantly contradicting everything she's ever said to Sanjaya. Or an invitation to his boudoir, I suppose, is always a possibility. "You sang it beautifully," says Simon, "but I feel like jumping off a bridge." Simon does hate those songs where bad things happen to people. I think that's so funny. But despite the song being "gloomy" and "depressing," she did "sing it beautifully." That's the kind of understatement Kelly Clarkson would get during the early weeks of Season 1, so that's encouraging. Ryan takes the stage and needles Simon about the "gloomy" comment, saying that to get the song, "you have to experience love with someone other than yourself." Normally I'd say something about the innuendo Ryan constantly brings up, but in this case...I think he's kind of right.
Back from the break, Ryan's in the audience with Peter Noone, asking him, essentially, how he's been able to work miracles and make the guys sound good this week. Which is pretty disingenuous, considering we've heard Chris R., Blake, and Phil so far, who have been far from the bottom of the guys' barrel. Whatever. This whole segment is just an excuse for Ryan to characterize Noone's advice as "being positive," as opposed to a certain other negative nancy who may or may not be at the judges' table. Simon does that thing where he pretends to ignore you when he's angry. It's so stupid, not least because Noone has actually been tremendously negative about the guys' abilities, beneath that simperingly smiley veneer. "It isn't a singing competition," Noone opines, "it's a voting competition." Which is 100% correct, but Noone arrives at it via his endless "Sing the melody!" campaign, which contradicts what he's saying entirely. He also seems to think it's still 1964 and that the guys have to make the girls in the front row think every word is being sung to them. Live in the now, Noone! The boys think all the words are being sung to them, too.
This all leads us to Sanjaya. Poor Sanjaya. A national punchline. He fully admits, in his video package, that he had no clue what song he was going to sing. He narrowed it down to "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks and "I'm Into Something Good" by Herman's Hermits. To no one's surprise, neither sounds good, and Noone's already got a migraine about how he's going to advise this kid. I think he ultimately boils Sanjaya's choice down to this: either sing the Hermits song and be boring as usual, but at least he stands a chance of getting the vocals right; or else sing the Kinks song and freak everybody out and be interesting for once, but risk looking like a damn fool. And he's right, but it's really no choice at all, because Sanjaya looks like a damn fool every week anyway, so why not blow some people's minds in the process? To wit...
...Sanjaya takes the stage, and the band striking up the familiar guitar chords of "You Really Got Me." Even before he starts, you know this is going to be awesome. Sanjaya does not disappoint. For one thing, since it hasn't worked for him so far, he throws the whole idea of "singing" right out the window. He's just hopping around and yelling and sounding so incredibly unconvincing as a rocker that it's almost a kind of rebellion. It's actually the most punk rock thing this show has ever seen in its pure "Fuck you, if you don't like my singing, why don't I just yell and scream like an idiot instead?" He's terrible, of course, but in a wonderful, wild way. ["I have to disagree; I think he was just straight-up terrible. Then again, I associate this song much more strongly with Van Halen, and putting Sanjaya side by side with Diamond Dave... deep sadness." -- Sars] And he's making children cry! Yes, we get our first cutaway to Little Miss Sobshine, who we'll later learn is Ashley. And Ashley is a "plant," I guess, in the sense that she started crying like this when she got to see the dress rehearsal and thus Uncle Nigel gave her a ticket to the live show and then sat behind her to ensure she'd freak out at the correct intervals, but still: it's pretty damn fortuitous that they were able to stumble across a freak-out crying girl on British Invasion night. So Ashley cries, and the home audience laughs their asses off, and Sanjaya runs around the audience and sings in Paula's face and actually projects his voice for once, and I'm not even lying when I say that it's his best performance. Not to mention being a train wreck of "Covais sings 'Part Time Lover'" proportions. That's all I can ask out of this show: if the singers aren't great, at least let them be as awful as this.
So Ashley freaks out some more, and the cameras linger on her for a million years, before we hit the judges. Randy's laughing his ass of, because really, what the fuck was that? But he says Sanjaya "came out of [his] shell" and gave his "best performance to date." Yes and yes. So weird. Paula says it was a lot of fun to watch and she hopes Sanjaya had fun too. "I think," says Simon, "that the little girl's face says it all." Ashley smiles at this and looks embarrassed. She handled her press tour on Wednesday and Thursday much better. She'll be guest-hosting on The View by week, at which point Rosie will call her out for not supporting Frenchie Davis and then Trump will offer her Ivanka's Viceroy chair on the Apprentice finale as a way to get back at Rosie, and she'll be married to Larry King before the year is out. All because of Sanjaya. I hope he can live with himself. Ryan takes the stage and ventures the opinion that the thinks Ashley, rather than being afraid and appalled by Sanjaya, actually liked him. She smiles and nods vigorously from the audience. Ryan makes Sanjaya go into the crowd and give her a hug. Which he does, and he's very sweet about it. Man, we're never getting rid of him.
up is Gina with her hot new haircut. No more of the Joan Jett shag for her. She's also decked out in leather, which means she's continuing to follow Simon's directives to dress as stereotypically "rocker" as possible. She tells Ryan that there have been so many great performances tonight "and more great performances to come," and Ryan needles her for talking like a FOX promo. Seriously, Gina, that's Ryan's job. Gina gets her fan question: has the Idol experience made her stronger? She says it has, because despite all the pressure and stress, she still has to go out and perform every week. She talks about "the critiques that we see on blogs" that tend to "get you down." Aw, Gina, you know I love you. Ryan avoids what the "blogs" are saying about him, which is probably for the best, and we kick it to Gina's video package. She's going to be singing "Paint It Black," and Lulu thinks it's a great choice. Gina hopes she can do it justice, and Lulu's like, "I'll tell you if you don't." Gina sings it once, and Lulu wonders if she couldn't kick the key up half a step. Gina interviews that she never thought of doing that, but Lulu sold her on it. Lulu's magical. She's approaching, dare I say, Tim Gunn levels of helpfulness. She urges Gina to get very dramatic and to "devour" the song, and Gina is quite impressed with Lulu's stealth rocker side, which I think translates to "her growly voice." See, kids? Cigarettes do make people think you're cool.
So Gina takes the stage, and while this is far from a typical American Idol song, I think she does quite well. Truly. Nobody else agreed with me, in the universe, so I expected to watch it back and see all the bum notes I missed while I was dazzled by the light show and the haircut and whatever else apparently kept me from seeing the truth, but...there weren't that many. She was strong, she kept her voice decently modulated, she didn't sound screechy or overwhelmed. I thought she was great. Randy...does not agree with me. He thought, as a vocal, it was "just all right." He does appreciate her kicking over the mic stand, though. Gina's response -- "Hey, gotta do something" -- makes me laugh. "That mic stand ain't gonna knock itself over." Paula says it was "miles better than last week." See, I don't recall her being all that bad last week either. Is this going to be a problem? Me not seeing Gina for the terrible singer everyone says she is? Paula then makes a lame attempt at a joke regarding how Simon must loooove "Paint It Black" because he's wearing...charcoal gray. It's not your week, Paula. Just lie down and we'll tell you when Gwen Stefani gets here. (Gwen Stefani! Jacob gets Diana Ross and Gwen Stefani while I'm stuck with Peter Noone? Un! Fair!)
Simon paints it mean and says that there were "moments of pure torture in that vocal." Poor Gina's face just falls apart. He dubs it "style over substance," which...it's stupid to get angry about this show, but that's about as close to outraged as I've been all season. Every single week, the only thing Simon has ever cared about, regarding Gina, was whether she was dressing the part of the resident rocker chick so that the show could set her apart from the diva brigade. He wasn't wrong, by any stretch, but to now all of a sudden slap her wrist for "style over substance"? That's some fucking balls, is what that is. So now Gina's crying, and Ryan shows up, so you know he's going to make it worse. He wants her to talk shit about Simon, of course, but she still respects Simon the most. That's why she's crying in the first place. "He's honest," she says, "and I appreciate everything he says. I think America..." And then Ryan tells her not to finish that thought, because the rest of that thought is "...listens to what he says and tends to agree with him, so I think I'm fucked." And good for Ryan, at least, that he didn't let her hang herself by giving America permission to not vote for her. The judges then squabble for a while over semantics and which one of them is giving Gina the best advice going forward, even though all they're saying is "sing better." Gina says she had fun, and you can tell she still thinks she did well, as do I. That's why I voted for her. (No, I didn't.) (But I would have, if I ever voted.) (No, I wouldn't have.)
Chris Sligh and his lack of chin are , as they attempt to disarm Peter Noone in Sligh's preferred way of disarming people: talking ironically about how hot they are. Oh, dial it back, would you please? He mentions that Noone won "Sexiest Artist Alive" in 2001. 2001? I'd float the possibility that it was a poll for Braille Home Journal, but you'd still be able to hear him, right? Of course, Noone is just as willing as Chris to use sarcasm to deflect any real insight into his personality, so he talks of paying off the judges and whatnot. Boys, boys. You're both ugly! Problem solved! In a really hilarious moment that kind of gets glossed over, Noone snatches the lyric sheet away and asks Chris what the song is actually about...and Chris just freezes up, mute. He's saved a second later by a kind edit to an interview clip, which is too bad. Noone reminds us that Chris got dinged last week for his slack-ass arrangement, and he hopes that doesn't make him hold back this week.
The song Chris has chosen is "She's Not There." Well, sure. Blake chose a Zombies song, so naturally Sligh did as well. This is a Talented Mr. Ripley situation just begging to happen. He starts things off in the middle of the audience, literally walking in between people as he's singing. Some of the people high-five him and look like they're enjoying themselves, but most of them just look uncomfortable, which is how I'd look. Please don't sing things into my face as you pass by, sir. This whole "man of the people" routine feels very forced, and after five weeks of Chris playing the game and working the song choice and revealing so very little about himself to the public, it feels like a cult of personality thing. The singing, in and of itself, is pretty good. He loses steam a bit at the end, but it's a very respectable rendition of the song. As he walks toward the stage, he passes someone holding a sign that reads "Bringing Chubby Back." He's so unconventional! Let's vote for him and feel good about ourselves!
Randy notes Chris walking out of the crowd, and how crazy and weird that was. "It's like a concert in here!" he enthuses. Randy goes on to say how it started out rough because Chris was "ahead of the beat." And...doesn't Chris get dinged for that every week? Why can't he get that fixed? But Randy thought he ended it strong. Which is, of course, the exact opposite of how I saw things, but that's apparently the secondary theme of the week. Chris looks momentarily perturbed, before giving a froggy smile and moving on to Paula. Paula...loses what's little of her mind she brought with her tonight. For one thing, she says Chris is dressed much better than he normally does, despite the fact that he's dressed exactly the same as he always is. That's one. Then she says, "Feel free to be more personable with the audience." At first I thought she was being sarcastic, because short of giving everyone individual hand-jobs as he passed, what else was he going to do? But listening back, it sounds like she's serious. Will someone put some flowers on Algernon's grave? Paula's not going to remember. "What else could have done to be more free with the audience?" Simon asks, because he's with me. Sligh butts in on the judges' horsing around, which is stupid, and he agrees with Paula, which is stupider. And then he adopts this "you dumb asshole" tone of voice and explains that he was singing a dark song. "It's about a girl who's not there!" he says, omitting the "hello?" that naturally follows such a sentence. Also: very perceptive. "She's Not There" is about a girl who's not there. Can't get anything past Chris Sligh.
So Simon felt that Chris didn't have a problem with the audience, actually. "You did your thing," he says, parroting Randy. The camera cuts to some moron in the crowd with a "FRO PATRO" sign that isn't just a little annoying. It's SO annoying, for eleven reasons at least. Not the best vocal, continues Simon, but fun and "showed personality" (not really, but it's easy to think so) and way better than last week. Ryan asks about the dangers of weaving your way through the crowd, and Chris is all, "It's hard because I'm clumsy and also, you may have heard, chubby." Okay, Chris, I'm going to go take a nap. When you feel like you've sufficiently informed the viewing public of your chubbiness, you give me a nudge. Ryan asks whether Simon tried to grab the mic stand as Chris was passing. In trying to pantomime "grab" Ryan inadvertently makes the "jerk-off" gesture. I hear that, dude. Then while Ryan's trying to do the only thing he's supposed to do and read the phone numbers, Chris is yelling about some "Dave" person, and then he goes, "Fro Patro!" DEAD TO ME. Simon doesn't care, he's still laughing about Ryan making the jerk-off gesture. One more to go!
Melinda, like everyone else this week, thinks the '60s were a hundred million years ago, before there was electricity or Coke Zero. What, oh what, will she choose to sing? She hunchedly (it's a word now, folks) tells Lulu that she'll be singing "As Long As He Needs Me." Man, poor Nadia Turner. Everyone's stealing her act tonight. Lulu loves it because it's a torch song, and she tells us Melinda got lost in it, which in this context appears to be a good thing. "She could tell that I meant the words," Melinda tells us. "As long as my guy needs me, I'm gonna be there." I went back several times, and I'm pretty sure she says "guy" and not "God." It certainly makes more sense. God's God, you know? What does he need you for? (Don't email me.) Lulu, hilariously, is like, "All I ever hear about this girl is that she's a backup singer and nervous and shy." No kidding. At least she's not telling us she's chubby, though.
Ryan reminds us that "As Long As He Needs Me" is from Oliver!, though he doesn't mention that it's the third song falling under the Shirley Bassey umbrella tonight. And once again, no "Goldfinger." Sigh. So I should probably talk about the haircut. The bob on Melinda is not the best look. When you have a giant face and no neck (love you terribly, girl, but...yeah), it's probably best not to accentuate the fact that you have a giant face and no neck. I'm no hairstylist, but I do know that much. So Melinda is brilliant, as usual, and after five weeks, the horrifying thing is that we're so used to her singing at this level, a performance like this is kind of boring. A non-event. How fucked up is that? Anyone else delivers something this good, we'd be passing out in the aisles. But it's Melinda, so we kind of need more. The awesome thing is, I think we'll end up getting more, and often. Little Miss Sobshine update: still crying. Good to know she has absolutely no taste and that Sanjaya and Melinda make her cry the exact same amount. Refine your musical palate, little girl!
Melinda takes the applause more in stride this week. There's less of that "Who? Me?" stuff, at least. Randy calls it the best vocal of the night, and Paula praises her ability to tell a story with her vocal. Simon, meanwhile, is STILL flabbergasted by how nice Melinda seems. He keeps saying it like he's impressed, but the fact that he hasn't let this go after five weeks makes me wonder if he isn't a little angry at it. No one's this nice! Call Gina a bitch! Back-talk Randy! Simon says her "impeccable vocal" turned a bad song into a sensational one. Man, one day someone is going to write a Broadway show about how much Simon sucks, and he's going to deserve every bit of it. His hatred for all things musical theatre is hilarious and more consistent than any opinion he's ever held on this show. Ryan asks if this is indeed the real Melinda we're seeing, all perfection and humility. "This is it," she says, "I wish I had some more for you." Oh, we're fine. Well, maybe just a light scandal. Speeding tickets, or an unkind word about one of the singers you've backed up. No need to go all Vasquez on us or anything. Melinda gives one last shout-out to Lulu (she deserves it), before Ryan kicks it to the rundown:
Rundown! Haley in her short-shorts. Chris R. being very impressed at how he's sticking with the melody. Stephanie sounding like total shit in the short clip they provide here. That couldn't have helped. Blake getting all breathy about "Who's your daddy?" LaKisha showing off some ice with those dead eyes. Phil and his dirty shirt still not quite getting how to hold a mic with all five fingers. Jordin hitting the hell out of her big note. Joe R standing up and applauding that last part. Sanjaya flipping the lid off this whole season and making everyone cry. Little Miss Sobshine getting robbed of her rightful place in the rundown. Gina sounding...kind of crappy in this clip, which I believe is still culled from dress-rehearsals, so maybe that's what Simon was talking about? Why is this still bugging me? Sligh being kind of unwieldy and uncoordinated, hooping around and singing about a girl who's not there. And then Melinda closing with that big final note, as she tends to do. Back on the stage, it appears we've come in under time for once, which means Paula gets to shout out Peter Noone and Lulu, and Ryan gets to call Ashley up to the stage where she belongs. "How cute," says Ryan. Cuter still are Blake's antics behind Ryan's back, flashing his digits and such. Yeah, yeah, on anyone else I'd be annoyed. You earn a pass by being awesome, that's the way of the world. Ashley collapses into Blake's arms, a bawling mess. Then Jordin has to stoop eighteen feet to reach her.
And then -- OH MY GOD, I almost forgot about this part. So Ashley is up on stage, acting a mess and getting to hug everyone. And then the camera cuts to this even younger girl in the audience, who's got nothing to hug but the cheap banner she's holding up. And the sour milk look on her face -- a look that says, "Oh no that bitch did NOT just cry for two straight hours and get to meet Blake and Jordin while I behaved myself like a sucker and got squat. HELL TO THE NAW, Pigtails!" -- is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Forget Little Miss Sobshine, this girl's getting my vote.