Ryan is wearing a purple tie, and I have just enough Watchmen fever that now I assume anybody wearing a purple tie is dressing like Adrian Veidt, which is weird, but even weirder is how many people are wearing purple ties this week. Like, of course, Joel McHale did the same thing on Friday, but that was because he has the fever, too. There's a weird announcer voice that says all the judges' names and stuff, which is going to be irking you forever now, and then the judges disembark from some kind of dang spaceship and Ryan's like, "Simon likes to make an entrance, doesn't he?" And yes, obviously, although there's also a spaceship message here that isn't about Fantasia for once. It's either "Paula Abdul is from outer space" or "Paula's drugs are outta this world" or "Watch Race To Witch Mountain with the parts of your childhood George Lucas didn't rape!"
Then the entire stage goes crazy with lights and moving parts and everything moving around like a giant Aughra cuckoo clock. It makes Ryan pretty nervous, which is cute, but consider this: All that crap on that stage, it cost more than it is going to take to put a single one of your kids through school. So my advice is either start cooking meth now, or angle to become the American Idol stage, because those are ways you can make a shitload of money very fast, and you might even win an Emmy. Just a little advice from me to you, just in case your kids go to college before Obama makes everything free.
Kara pulls a total Paula and very clearly enunciates something that makes no sense; meanwhile, Paula is wearing the tackier-looking half of Björk's swan as a shrug over an ugly beaded top, and saying nothing of consequence. Ryan makes a half-assed segue from her rambling about the giant stage to a sort of sweet dig at how Simon's consumed with himself, and there's a lot of static from the idiot they have on the panel with them, and finally Simon reminds them not to forget the words, and not to be swallowed up by the ridiculous stage and all its moving parts. I mean, they're right in that the giant-ass stage is stupid and is going to make each and every one of them look like they're the 2:35 show at Knott's Berry Farm, but I don't see the point in worrying about it, considering they are the 2:35 show at Knott's Berry Farm. Slap some sequins on these bitches, and let's get to it.
Lil Rounds is wearing a Pink Lady-inspired outfit with a promtastic shoulder pouf and white jeans. She looks like she's going to be singing something only mildly irritating. Scott MacIntyre looks very nice, although his hair is less untamed than would be preferable, and he's wearing a cool military jacket. Danny Gokey is fucking disgusting, I don't even care anymore, while Michael Sarver is 210 pounds of sizzling fatback blowing you a kiss, and it still couldn't matter less what he sounds like. Jasmine Murray is wearing clothes that say to me, "Tell Him," that old song that Ally McBeal liked? I don't know if there's a theme but I hope it's "Songs Ally McBeal liked." Songs I personally liked that Ally McBeal also liked include Vonda Shepard's cover of "Walk Away Renee" and that time Robert Downey Jr. sang "River." Also, "Hooked On A Feeling," although I must tell you that hysterical pregnancies are not as fun as you think, especially if you are a man. Especially if the invisible baby then throws weaponry at you.
Kris Allen could be a farmer in those clothes, or a Pearl Jam fan, but not with that face he's got on him. He looks like the one IT guy you wouldn't keep a secret, or the quiet guy at Urban Outfitters that's always changing it to Prince Paul. Allison Iraheta is wearing fifty thousand of everything. If it's beady or chainy or stupid or clangy or awful, she's wearing all of them, so don't bother hitting Hot Topic tomorrow because they will be fresh out. Anoop is wearing a thin, oddly fitted cargo jacket over a shirt and tie, and very tight jeans. It's flattering, but very dorky. Jorge Nuñez is wearing even more diacritical marks than last week, which is even more irritating than his stupid face. Megan is wearing a dress and pants, the dress additionally has gross lace straps, thereby to ensure we see as much of her disgusting tattoos as possible.
OMG so many. There are so many of these jerks. After Megan Joy Corkrey's cute shoes comes Adam Lambert, still wearing so much pancake all over his face it's like the Pillsbury Doughboy got him this job, if you know what I'm saying, and I think you do, then Matt Giraud does a little dance that says, "I don't think I really deserve to be here either, but let's do this." Then Alexis does some strange little vamping move off the stairs and looks exactly like Crista Flanagan in an ugly sexy-overalls type outfit that only works if there's some kind of Fosse in our future, a prospect about which I am of exactly two minds. What in hell is the theme?
The theme is watching Ryan's tiny little legs take him all the way down the line, which takes like an hour. Simon then explains that tomorrow is a double-elimination, and claps for the concept of putting as much pressure on them as possible. Word. Simon, I love him so much. "Good." He says it just like that: "Good." I hope the failures fail and the good ones excel, because that's the entire point of this show. And the theme is... Aw jeez. Michael Jackson.
The one, the only. Which, given my job here, is unimaginably difficult, because on the one hand I think NAMBLA jokes are hilarious, but on the other it's just so easy, because who doesn't think sexual abuse is totally hilarious? Like, what am I, a hack over here? But then, what's left... He's weird. OMG how weird he is, like, that's not that interesting. OMG he's weird and Lisa Marie and fucking people's kids and hair on fire and oxygen tank and Liz Taylor and the one glove thing and the sidewalk lit up and his sister's nipple and he was a werewolf.
Isn't that like everything? He turned into sand once in front of Eddie Murphy. He became a panther and touched himself on TV and nobody realized that's like 50 times as much money as was ever before spent on a cry for help, so they just talked about how weird he was some more. And I think that was like the last think his brain thought before it went bughouse, and nobody listened, and now's he a self-touching panther all the time and has mysterious fucked-up blanket babies that wear scary masks and don't have the benefit of any experience other than the lives he's giving them, which means they are inside a bubble inside the bubble that made him nuts, which is why they are going to go ten times crazier than Joe made him, and probably kill us all for real with biological weapons just to feel something. He's announced his comeback and formed a secret coven with Yoko Ono, but both of those things are just sad. I mean, what's he up to? He hasn't been relevant since, what, like 1992 or so. Hung a baby out a window, but I mean, who hasn't?
Lil Rounds can't stop having children, or dreams. That's all I caught from her intro because I was still consumed with thoughts of Jacko. And then she's singing "The Way You Make Me Feel" at the top of her shouty lungs. I really like this girl. This particular bout with her is sort of irritating, because the stage is swallowing her and it's making her shouty, just as Paula predicted. Her eye makeup looks like those scary girls in ganguro, which is interesting. And it's clear why she's in the first spot, because between the funness of the song and the funness of her and the fact that the stage can now create like diamond volcanoes that sparkle with magic whenever somebody pushes a button, it's a good start.
Kara agrees, and says now everybody's on shout. She is talking so fucking weird tonight, like this strange Catskills thing she's doing, but it's kind of exciting. I guess the stage is swallowing her, too. Paula praises her clothes and makeup; as a person wearing about six ounces of gold glitter eyeshadow, you have to take that as it comes. Then she says Lil sang like an angel, and Simon says that her outfit is stupid, didn't like the song choice and would like to fuck her in the dressing room. Then Simon and Paula do a little impromptu makeover that makes no sense about how she should wear dark colors of makeup instead of something, and use a powder puff. And it's like, there's Paula who generally looks astounding one way or the other, but does not speak English, and then there's Simon, who always looks like he smells like capers and pipe tobacco. Just stand there thinking about dreams and babies, apparently.
Then Ryan's like, "Don't call the sex line at the end of the show. Wait for me to tell you Alexis's number before you start voting for Alexis." He was twittering about this all day long today, about how IDOLS-13 goes to the Hot Horny Girls and what will we do about that. I hope nobody listens to him and everybody that likes Alexis gets a little prize for voting for her.
I don't know what this Osbournes crap is, but I'm in. I never thought I would see the exact double of my own family so lovingly represented onscreen until their show long ago, and now I think they are adorable and I'm into anything they do, except music. Actually, that's not true. I liked Kelly's album all right, and did not like her TV show with Sean Faris. So right there I just lied twice. If I'm even telling the truth now! Scott's parents are totally adorable, just like their whole family, and they talk about the whole blindness thing and his early music obsession, and it's pretty intense. Now he will be playing the piano and singing a song called "Keep The Faith" from Dangerous, which I don't even know. And now, two minutes later, I don't really know much more about it, except that any song actually containing the words "self-esteem" is off my list as a matter of course, because what? It's like you said "'Man In The Mirror,' I don't think people will get it. It sounds sort of ominous. Let's change it to 'I'm talking to myself in the mirror,' and that way nobody will get confused."
Kara lets everybody know that he learned the song on the piano this week, and talks about how great it is when he's at the piano, which it is, especially with the band on top of it. She talks about the hopeful message that he delivers, which means she's encouraging that Danny Gokey crap here, too, and this season is going to be stupid, because he's going to keep being blind and singing these songs, and Danny's going to keep being bereaved and singing these songs, and it's just going to be like this hand-holding nightmare that will wake Republicans up screaming they were right about Obama, and then one of them will end, and America will have done something embarrassing again. I've been lobbying against irony for a long time now, because it's so '90s and I think earnestness is sexy, but I am telling you nothing is going to put us back in Curb Your Enthusiasm yuckiness mode faster than 12 weeks of that. Watch.
In addition to all that, Paula then introduces the songwriter, who loved the song. You know who didn't? Simon, because it's treacly and bullshitty and nobody knows it. Scott explains that he was trying to be artistic, as in obscure, and Simon totally says the truest thing of all time: "It's fine being artistic, just not on this show." And anybody who booed that, I frankly feel sorry for, because it's the most factual thing he has ever said, and you can't boo truth.
But it also leads directly to the thing I got so much hatemail for last week, which is that casting Scott MacIntyre on this show for this reason was a cynical, conscious and pornographic choice by the producers. Every single person up there is being marketed as a package, shoved into their boxes and left there, because this is not a competition, it's a television show. They don't care who wins. They don't care what order they sing in: they design the song order around what's impressive entertainment and the metrics of how to get people to tune in and stay tuned in at the quarter- and half-hour marks, and a big finish so at the end of the two hours we feel like something important has happened when in fact, nothing of the sort has happened. We contributed to the ratings of this show, and a bunch of people did their damndest to win on a game show that means nothing and will not help their careers in any way.
The show is accomplishing its mandate no matter who is up there, and have cast compelling types to keep us tuned in. Single black mom, simple earnest roughneck. And whether or not Danny Gokey has any business being up there right now, he's a package, too. And so is Scott. And the grossest part of all of it is that nobody's allowed to say that, because those two in particular are things you're not allowed to question, because that means you're being insensitive. I would rather be insensitive than stupid, and I would rather be insensitive than disgustingly cynical, which is what is happening here. The real test comes from them being able to stay inside their boxes and still retain some dignity, which the past winners have been able to do, and which I think Scott -- and possibly Danny -- will be able to do. So it'll work out in the end. But meanwhile, it makes me feel gross.
Paula yells at Simon that he seems to have forgotten that this was the biggest selling record in history in Norway. I think it's possible that he did forget that. Then he says it was old-fashioned. Now watch Ryan try to get Scott to tell Simon he's a dummy or something... Nope, he's turning Paula and Simon against each other, and she lies that he shook her hand on the truth of this dumbass song's Norwegian charting power. Sometimes Paula makes me think I am the crazy one, because what she's talking about with such conviction is so amazingly fucked up that I can't really be understanding it, but then everybody else just sort of nods and indulges her like it wasn't totally fucked up, or straight-up admits that they don't know what the hell she's talking about, and that's not satisfactory, either, because the real question, "What the fuck are you talking about?" never gets asked.
Danny Gokey talks about whatever. Whatever fake, earnest thing you're thinking, he's saying it, and his whole family is laughing hysterically and applauding him, no matter what stupid things he does. Whatever. Then he sings "PYT," which is a song that has never sat right with me, but especially not this neck-snapping, soul-stealing, tousled-hair rendition. Imagine if you will Al Green at the beginning, and then shouting, and then funky bass, the word "tenderoni," and a winter-weight suit bunching around his awkward shoulders. Paula tries to sing along with the title of the song and fucks it up, every single time. I will say that the man can work a stage, which is pretty impressive, considering everybody has seemed quite small. He seems normal-sized -- doing a strange chicken dance, but normal-sized nonetheless, and he has a wonderful voice that I enjoy hearing. Too bad about his horrible personality.
Paula calls him a true artist, because "you can hear somebody even with your eyes closed and know exactly who they are," which is somehow a gift that he possesses, and goes out on a limb to say that he is on his way to the Finals. Which he is. Simon's like, "Three out of thirteen on the first show, and you've won?" He admits that the vocals are awesome, "white guy with soul" in the Michael MacDonald way, but he should not have danced like such a goon. Danny agrees that his dancing is painful to watch, which is sort of endearing. Simon says he really liked him tonight, and that he was terrific. I don't disagree with those things. Kara says the word "joy" 100 times, and then Danny talks about church for a while, just so you know what's going on here.
Sarver is from Jasper, the very worst town in all of Texas and maybe the world. One of his roughneck buddies says he doesn't look like an oilrigger today, he looks like a star. Aww. They talk about how he didn't have a dad growing up, which has caused him to think about his family enough and feel bad about his dumb, dangerous job. And now he will sing "You Are Not Alone," seated on the stairs, looking cheesy as hell, and making those really difficult-to-stomach faces that he makes. I like listening to him sing, and I like looking at him, but I really hate watching him sing. I wish he was like those YouTube videos where it's just pictures, but alas. He remains merely a man. A man making faces no normal person should ever make in public.
Simon says he's not the best singer on here, but makes up for it with "passion, heart," and the 110% he gives everything. Also with being hot. That helps, too. Danny has a much better voice, and if this were a singing competition or my job were to be unbiased, I would say that that mattered. Things being as they are, that would be a lie. Kara basically says the same thing as Simon, and then Paula makes a list: he's likeable, a regular guy with extraordinary talent, instinctively chose the perfect song, and also that "sometimes, when you pick songs that are kind of calm, it gives you, as an artist, room to color it up." Which is, I believe, a good thing, but who knows.
Mike tells Ryan he'd rather be on the stage than on an oilrig, and Ryan's like, "Better here than in the blue suit," and then Michael startles the shit out of Ryan by admitting that though the roughneck coveralls are "cute," they're not "that cute." Ryan almost does a WTF backflip, and Mike giggles. I think that he really does believe that Ryan is gay, and additionally that he is working Ryan's shit. What a fabulous development, and I hope it goes on forever, plus I can't say with any certitude that he is wrong about any of that. Because honestly, looking at them right this second, I think Ryan might be inclined to agree.
And! And, as though that wasn't awesome enough, I just realized this week is the halfway point. Forty recaps, and tonight is number twenty, and twenty is half of forty. Math.
Ryan and Jasmine. So tiny, so adorable, so uninteresting to watch them discuss the stylist Glam Squad. Ryan, sounding terribly interested, asks if she gets to keep the clothes. I guess now they just buy the clothes rather than giving them money for clothes, so they don't send it all to Bo Bice's weed dealer as in years past. Her family is as cute as she is, and they call her "Jazz," which is the best thing I've ever heard. I don't like it when people call me the family nickname, so I won't presume. But I would love to call her that.
She sings "I'll Be There," because you simply can't sing that song enough, people. I wonder if the judges will be kindly toward her for this one, because not only is it way covered, but also Mariah did it that time with that guy that used to be in these recaps, which could go either way... Dang, though, this girl can sing. She sounds better than she ever has, it's remarkable. I would not have thought she'd be one of the ones to step to the stage like that, but dang. She becomes gigantic. I am impressed. I bet Ally McBeal would love this song. You know Vonda Shepard covered it, she had to. The thought of listening to Vonda Shepard sing this song makes me drink.
The judges are actually just as thrown by how awesome that was, both the vocal and the performance. Kara suggests a half-step lower, which I agree would have been slightly more perfect, but whatever. Paula noticed some "under" patches going into the chorus, but blames the sound setup. I don't know what that means. Paula doesn't know what that means. Simon praises her mostly, calls it a little bit robotic and asks her to lighten up a little. He always wants you to act your age, but that's all he's got. Ryan approves this message, and then Jasmine is super pretty some more. up, Kris and Allison. Who are basically the same person anyway.
Now, let us unravel the mystery that is Kris Allen. On the one hand, he's maybe the hottest guy that has ever been on this show, if you're looking at straight-up hotness and bone structure. His parents are weirdly attractive, and his wife is freaking adorable, and they have matching kitchen aprons and the most awesome apartment I've ever seen in the world. Still don't know anything about him, but there you go. Then Kris plays guitar and dances around singing "Remember The Time," but does not turn into sand in front of Eddie Murphy. I really like his voice. Maybe it's not that he's the hottest, but he is very good-looking and a very charming person. He's like a boy-band person, but with a funny soul and a brain inside the husk. His singing faces are the opposite of Michael Sarver, because he looks like he's having the best day ever and not like he's shitting an angel with every line of the song. Also, his tongue has a mind of its own. Yeah, I think that he will be safe this week.
Kara notes the hotness, and also the wonder of watching him playing guitar, which was awesome. You couldn't really hear it, but he sure did look comfortable with it. Then she tells us that he spent a whole lot of time helping the other contestants this week, and he blushes. Paula says this is because... Simon is trying to undress her. Ryan beats a hot track over there, you betcha, and looks Simon dead in the eyes before caressing his face. That happened, I'm not lying about that happening. This whole time, Kris is up there making more adorable faces per second than some guys make in their whole lives. Anyway, he helped everybody, Paula says, because he knows the MJ catalog the best, and is super awesome, "adorable-sexy" (huge screams), and that Paula loves him more than anybody, because her one wish in life is to call Simon adorable-sexy, I think. Simon's like, "I don't know what the fuck you are talking about."
He calls the performance "interesting," and wonders if the song was right for the guitar. He says he's cute and fun, and then says that in terms of votes he should have kept his wife a secret for a while. That's hilarious and amazing. Wife is not fucking impressed. Then, just to remind us why he's fired, that other guy uses "cool" and "Jason Mrazzy" in a sentence while Kara undresses him with her eyes. Ryan's like, "Don't take marital advice from Simon," in a way that comes off kind of mean instead of creepy and flirty like usual. Not sure which is preferable.
So the one is the seventh one, but it'll be short because it's Allison, and she's boring and kind of dumb, but her voice is so amazing that there won't be anything to talk about on that side of things, either. She takes us to the furniture store where her career began and continues to this day, and that's very weird but makes sense in a way. The song she's singing is... I don't know what. It sounds like Ryan's sneezing or spazzing out in a Michael Scott way, no matter how many times I rewind. "Hivvidnabee." Luckily, it's going to be so awesome it doesn't actually matter what the song is called, because every song Allison sings is called "Allison Iraheta Is Fucking Amazing For No Reason." Oh, wait, I think I love this song. Yeah, I didn't remember it at first, this song rules. "Give In To Me." Obviously, obviously that's what it is. She's doing some kind of version of it that's even creepier than the original. You know I download, like, maybe three songs every season. Brooke, that Blake guy I loved so much. Cook, although don't tell anybody. That one "Alone" that Carrie did. But dang, that was fantastic. She is amazing. If there were a God I would totally high-five Him right now. "Way to go on Allison, bro!"
Paula's like, "How are you sixteen and also a total fucking rockstar?" Simon absolutely loved it, too. He tells her it's possible to lighten up a little, and she's like, "I'm not up here cutting myself, man," and then she's like, "Fuck, that was a weird thing to say." No, that was an awesome thing to say. That's the only thing she's ever said, and it was awesome. She's one to watch, seriously. I can't believe how much I love her. Kara's like, "You are such a rock star, it's ridiculous, and when you hit those high screechy notes, it's like the roof is coming off." You know what, I'm going to go watch that again before we continue. Which is saying a lot, considering we're now only halfway through, but that was so awesome I can't help myself.
Ryan and Anoop revisit that whole amazing thing we didn't see where he was out and then, surprise, he was in. I just hope he sings a real song this time, because I wonder what it's like when he sings. He says it's one of his favorite MJ songs, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. He talks about how being an only child was great because he got his totally awesome adorable parents to himself, which is like the cutest thing I've ever heard, and totally true. He says he wants dignity, and then sings... "Beat It." Well, that is a song, actually.
At first I was thinking of Weird Al and how I learned young you don't take classically trained dancers to a parking garage brawl unless you want the shit kicked out of you, but there's a pretty strong melody and not a lot of those Paula ooh-uh-wow-wow noises she likes so much, like I feared. The words are ridiculous, but you can get pretty far just singing with conviction, and that's exactly what he does: sings it like he's about to fuck up your face. I am in, to my own surprise. I'm on his side.
Paula is not. To a shocking degree. She calls the song "untouchable" and karaoke, for like the first time; Simon calls it "horrible" and "stupid" and lacking in aggression. I actually really disagree. He says it's like trying to be MJ and failing, and I feel like he improved on the MJ formula, because he sang it like a man would, instead of a weird alien girl. That's bizarre. Ryan asks Simon if having a Top 13 was a mistake, and he says that right now he does think so. Anoop bears the criticism fairly well, pointing out that they like his "energy," which I think proves that he does not understand about how some songs are songs and some songs are noises. Still, though, on the other hand he's almost totally safe so maybe this will push him even further down the line toward singing songs that are even more songlike.
Ryan is sitting between his mother and grandmother, and tells his Nana that she can't date Randy, because he's married, and then tells her to shut up. "I'm teasing you," he says, grabbing her hand, and it works out to be adorable again. Then Jorge talks about his dead grandpa and the chaos that it created in his family; being on Idol has pulled them back together. And he's singing "Never Can Say Goodbye," which is one of my favorite Jackson 5 songs, although there's no better time than a live show to sing "Thriller" and turn into a werewolf. I would totally pick up the phone for him if he did that. His facial expressions and the general way he has about him are still excruciating, but his voice is super-amazing on the song. [Now that you mention it, why the heck did nobody do Thriller? Anoop did the zombie dance at one point and totally got me excited for it. - Z]
The judges worry that it wasn't emotional or "connected" enough, although Kara thinks maybe this is because he had to learn the song. Just like everybody else did. Paula explains that she has "mad love" for him, and asks why he chose the song. He admits that it's not his natural style, but he wasn't going to sing "'Bad' by Michael Jackson," and Simon explains that in a way he did: Jorge's out of his depth and old-fashioned, and Simon couldn't wait for it to end. I think Simon should have closed his eyes the whole time like I did, because that made it awesome.
I'm totally weirded out, though, because I never like the songs on this show. I like Ryan, and I like Simon, and I like the occasional moments of awesomeness, but I have loved almost every performance tonight and the judges haven't, so yet again I think they're being kind of dumb, but for the opposite reason than usual. I'm especially surprised that Simon didn't like Anoop or Jorge, because I thought they were both... Well, you can't really sell that. I can see Simon hating it on that level, like, nobody's going to run out and buy either of those as singles, en masse, and I guess usually I care so little that I'm looking at it that way.
Don't worry, Simon: as sure as the seasons' perennial progress, this show will wear down my soul over the three months until I'm back to hating more things than you, and that's comforting. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying the proceedings more than I have any year besides maybe last year, so that's fun for me personally. Or maybe I just always like the show at this early point in the season, I could believe that. I don't actually remember them once they're done, like, I don't even remember Blake's last name or how Semifinals have ever worked, so it's possible I've liked the show before. I don't know, did you hate all the songs tonight? I really don't. MJ is like that one overplayed cliché thing that I actually feel kinship to, instead of being like, "Bleh, Queen and Aerosmith aren't pretty in my ear, you hacks" or whatever.
Megan has always been beautiful, and has beautiful genes in her family. Her pretty, pretty mommy talks about the divorce a little bit, and she cries about her kid a little bit, and talks to him on the phone. He's super-cute. Mom says Megan's doing all of this for him, so it's okay that she's being momentarily destroyed by having to be away from him. Usually the parents say this and it sounds really defensive, like they've gone on the Internet and seen all the assholes saying you can never leave your child alone for even five seconds without turning him into a mass murderer or whatever, but in this case it doesn't sound defensive at all. She sounds proud. That's cool, and it makes me feel better about the many clichés that Megan accidentally wandered into at such a young age. I wonder what Mom thinks about the tattoos, though.
"Rockin' Robin," even with the little dances she does, I hate to death. She looks like she's having an emotional fear breakdown in the middle of things, I think she forgets some words, the little dances stop looking funny and weird and just look stupid, and her voice goes from weird and intriguing to shrieky and horrible and desperate. That sucks, I was really looking forward to her doing something cool and then she did the dumbest fucking thing she could think of. Oh my goodness it sounds terrible, man. And then at the end she goes, "Caw! Caw!" like just to let you know she meant it to sound horrible. It's gloriously WTF and almost earns back my respect. What on earth is she thinking?
Kara's like, "Well, I guess that is your personality, which is nice." Paula calls out the "quirky and unique" tone of her voice, and though she doesn't despise the song choice like I do, she feels like that main thing about her didn't come through. Then she assures Megan she is pretty enough to be safe this week, but really should be earning it vocally instead. Word. Simon totally hated it, from song choice to "clumsy and awkward" dance moves, and thinks a newer viewer would call us all totally nuts for even having her up there. Seriously. There was no Megan there, just her sucking. Simon points at the smoking hot Gordon Ramsay in the audience, and Ryan can't hear what he's saying because he's not miked, and Simon's like, "He doesn't know what he is talking about anyway."
Adam talks about how he fled NYC to the West Coast, and that it has been rough as hell. He says if he'd done it five years earlier, he would have been killed by the horrors of LA. His adorable parents are like, "It's good to be happy with what you're doing, and also to make money." This little package has done more to make me like him as a person than all of the wiener-wagging freakshow cabarets that have ever existed. Way to go, show. And now he will be singing "Black Or White." My theory is that he will do it in some fucked-up way and I will go apeshit because that's what I like, but then I can't imagine this song without that signature guitar riff, which pretty much defines the song. I do know that I'm not deleting this off my TiVo when I turn in this recap, like I usually do, because at least three people have been asking me without any irony, on a weekly basis, when "that guy is going to be on that show" again. Which means the rockband hipsters and violinists of east Austin, at least, are on Adam's side.
Okay, I've been searching my soul tonight, and it's like this. Adam Lambert is not attractive to me in an actual way. Like, as a normal person he seems awesome, but onstage I get that same ooky feeling as Freddie Mercury, or looking at David Bowie's balls in Labyrinth. And I remember that lots of people thought he was attractive in that movie, and I think maybe this was in the same way as Adam Lambert, and either way I don't really get it. But the best way to say it, and I think you will know what I mean when I say this, is that Adam Lambert makes me feel like a young girl who has just discovered gay boys, and wants more than anything to see them kiss each other.
You know the feeling? Not explicitly sexual, just this extreme sense of intrigue and fascination. And it's not good or bad, this feeling, but sort of dangerous and simultaneously waaaaay over there where it can't touch me or implicate me in any way. I don't know what the young, straight male equivalent is, although I posit that it might also be Adam Lambert.
See? Words, again, fail to properly and entirely express what Adam Lambert is like. We are struggling here with the limitations of the genre. I will say that there is catwalking, and just enough emphasis on the romantic parts of the lyrics that you realize the whole song is less a protest against monochrome colors like I always thought, and more about interracial dating as an expression of something or another. There are some explosions or something, and everybody in the audience goes insane the whole time, and all the lights are black and white. (Which ones? Doesn't matter.) And there's a part that is sort of like the apocalypse.
Paula keeps telling the contestants to "take it all in," and for once the crowd is so fucking out of their minds that it seems like a good thing to say. "Never in the history," Paula says of this show, have we seen anybody so comfortable onstage and performing. "Your innate ability to know who you are as an artist, and marry fashion with music," she says. They're both crying pretty hard at this point. I can't imagine what it is like in that audience right now. Something between Oprah and right before an electrical storm. I think I would love to be there, because insane crowds really do it for me, but I also think afterwards I would sleep for a week, grouchily. I'm getting tired just watching these people gnawing on their own arms and pulling out their hair like this.
And then Simon drives them even fucking crazier by pointing out that Adam is in an entire different league from the whole other 12, which makes him and Paula cry even more. Dude, if Adam Lambert won this show I would buy the world a Coke. The judges continue to freak out on him and tell him he could break the charts if he made a record today, and nobody can even fucking handle it, and Kara's like "you invented entire notes" and "I hope Michael Jackson is watching tonight."
Right before Adam actually combusts, Ryan runs in and does the Ryan thing that he does, which is stand back and stare him in the eyes so he doesn't crumble onto the stage with how intense everything just got, and Adam immediately calms down. Ryan holds one hand on the small of his back and gives the numbers, and Adam chills out just long enough to get the hell off the stage. I don't think I need to watch the actual performance again, because it did make me nervous a little bit, but I am totally rewinding the judges' panel. That was awesome.
In the bump, Matt G is applying makeup to the artist, instead of the other way around, and then there's a cute video of him playing topless table tennis with his dad and talking teenage shit, and his mom crying about how great he is. Aww, I like that. And he's singing "Human Nature"! My favorite MJ song of all time! And his voice is so perfect for it! And he's going to play the piano! I keep forgetting about him because he's like the Elliot, like the not-so-noticeable/very-talented one, but this is a treat just to even imagine. Let's watch.
It's absolutely amazing. There are some jerky notes, and the instrumentation overpowers the piano, but his voice and his performance are super amazing. And he totally does the falsetto bridge, mostly acceptably, at the end. Okay, now I know for a fact I don't want to be there, because I would have flipped out. The vibes coming out of the TV at you are exhausting. The judges totally love it and freak out on him, so much so that they don't have much to say because it was so awesome. Simon says it was difficult to follow Adam, but a good meat-and-potatoes performance. The crowd is so out of their minds that they just chalk this up as unqualified praise. Of course, they also saw -- as I do right now on rewatch -- Simon bopping along the entire time. I love this show so much when it's good. I wish it could always be good.
I'm just glad they played him after Adam and before Alexis, because really it's just like the show started with Adam anyway, and Alexis is obviously going to do something amazing too, so it's a nice little triple-shot where he stands the least chance of being swallowed up. Still I wonder, because -- let's just rewind and watch it again right now -- I have no idea if anybody loves this song as much as I do, much less everybody, and he's the one in that weird Chris R/Timberlake niche that is everything and nothing at once, which always does really well but also gets you lost sometimes. I don't know. Maybe this crazy stage and giant theatre are the best thing that ever happened, or maybe it's the switch to HD, but I don't think I've ever just enjoyed an episode this much. I mean, I don't remember half of what we just saw, but I know I liked it. If you think about the Gwen Stefani episode right this second, it's like two different shows starring the same people.
Last is Alexis, and once again Ryan is like, "Jot down her number when I give it to you. Do not attempt to remember it or extrapolate from the other numbers: do exactly as I tell you. Trust me." Which of all the solutions to the Hot Horny Problem, I didn't think Ryan Nattering would be the one they'd pick. Why not just do a one-time thing where all of the numbers are something else? I mean, it's fairly elegant, because I trust Ryan Seacrest more than anything because he's the captain of this boat, but I think with any show -- especially one with this many viewers, especially one with this many stupid viewers, present company excepted -- the answer to "How do we stop them being stupid?" should be "Take away their option of being stupid" and not "Ask them politely not to be stupid."
Alexis is the cutest and has the cutest people in her life, and her daughter is cute. And she's singing "Dirty Diana," a song I've loved longer than Allison Iraheta has been alive. I wonder if her tiny self can pull it off. It makes sense that it's at the end, not necessarily for the performance but just because it's one of the more intense songs in the catalog, up there with "Give In To Me," and they can do insane things with the lighting... Which they do. And her herky-jerky movements actually totally fit the song, like a Fantasia kind of freakout thing she's going for. Actually, I like this a lot.
Her look is perfect, the band's sound is very full, the song is totally dramatic, so the only thing she had to do was insert herself into it and connect to it at that heightened level. Alexis's growly, hardcore, bluesy voice works really well with it. I don't know if people will love it, but I like it. She seems like she's play-acting a little bit, in places, but not at all as many as I feared. Every time she makes a weird move, she follows it up with something that makes sense, either another move or something vocal that earns it back. It seems very polished, but not over-rehearsed. I am dying to find out what people, including the judges, thought about that. I think it's appropriately dark, and she raised herself to the level of the song. That's really great.
Kara loved it, and calls her "naughty"; Paula liked it but tells her to watch the oversinging, and Simon says it wasn't as good as she thought it was. I think I know what he means, because she really threw herself into it ass-over-teakettle, but I think she did okay. I certainly wasn't excited about it going in, although knowing she was the last of the night made it more exciting than perhaps it would have been. Ah, well. I bet it does really great in Norway, whatever the glittery fuck that means.
If anything happened after that, I didn't see it and probably you didn't either, although I heard there was some kind of twist involving the judges that is separate from the double-elimination thing. Maybe they'll pick the songs for the few rounds or something. That would be cool. So what have we got?
Way at the top I've got Adam and Allison, and Matt G. I think Alexis was great, but I don't know how well she's going to do. Danny, Jasmine and Kris are going to be fine, and I actually really enjoyed Kris and Jasmine, but I think Danny and Lil and Scott made less of an impression on me than him, or than they should have, by virtue of the songs they chose. Michael, who knows what is happening there; Megan was horrible but in kind of an awesome way, and they can't both leave, can they? And then Anoop and Jorge pretty much didn't bring it, although I enjoyed their voices very much.
I can't even begin to guess how it's going to shake out this week, though, because of the Danny/Scott factor and the fact that we all probably have MJ songs that we're especially attached to, that are different for everybody. I'm glad nobody sang "Bad" or "Billie Jean," because that would have been boring and gotten them unearned votes. I wouldn't even bother running an office pool this week, because there's just a lot of information we don't have yet. Eightball says "UNCLEAR" at this time, but this time tonight we'll know if anybody even needs to bother against Danny or Scott -- though I guess if you don't like their style of singing you could say the same about Adam and Allison, that they're coasting on a thing people respond to instead of actual talent. Mostly I'm just happy with how talented and fresh this crowd of folks is turning out to be.
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