I notice the AFLAC commercials have gone to a full silent-movie format in the wake of our recent global tragedies. That seems like a nice way to do it, albeit a bit high concept, but the bar on creativity is high with insurance companies and the loss of Iago the Parrot is a heavy burden to bear.
Ryan, first of all Ryan asks what might happen when you combine the most infectious songs of history with the most dynamic singers of the nation. Which is like Mr. Wizard starting things off with, "What would happen if we built a rocket to space?" and then the followup, "Yeah, that would be bad-ass. Instead, let's watch crystals form."
I don't know why you would ask questions like that and then give us this show as a response, but damned if the kids aren't adorable wiggle-walking out onstage in a big crowd, with Ryan in the middle. Every time you think it's as Live as it's going to get, it gets even Liver.
Oh, and even though we don't have mentors this year, Gwen Stefani is hanging around. For Rock & Roll Hall of Fame night, clearly what you need is Gwen Stefani, fresh from her botched secret mission to shoot Wyclef Jean in Haiti. The very soul of rock and roll. Maybe she's their fifty-pounds-of-makeup mentor? Ripping-off-other-cultures mentor? Abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-the-pop-machine mentor? Cynical-and-stupid-aren't-actually-opposites mentor? But I still don't understand how she would or could possibly... Ah, this is an excuse for Steven Tyler to talk about himself.
Quick Quiz: Name absolutely anything that is not an excuse for Steven Tyler to talk about himself.
A: Trrrick Question.
Oh good, the coach is not Gwen Stefani but in fact it is will.i.am. I can't wait for will.i.am to tell us exactly what music sounds like. (Or really, I can't wait to see him deal with Jacob Lusk, because they are the same exact lady.)
I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE YELLED AT A GIRL LIKE THIS
will.i.am: "You keep showing up in the Himalayas and then not even taking a submarine to the bottom of the Atlantic you like diving in it and the compression I hear explode in your head and your eyes pop out: That's your range!"
Lusk: "Let's do it. Let's do the nasty."
(Immediately decides not to do the nasty.)
Iovine: "Jacob felt 'Man In The Mirror' was more who he is than 'Let's Get It On.' He is not listening to me and will.i.am, so I wash my hands of it."
Lusk: "If I end up in the Bottom Three this week it won't be because I defied Jimmy Iovine and that babbling idiot over there and switched songs halfway through the week. And it won't be because I didn't sing it good [sic]. It will be because America wasn't ready to look themselves in the mirror."
Lusk: "If I end up in the Bottom Three this week it won't be because I defied Jimmy Iovine and that babbling idiot over there and switched songs halfway through the week. And it won't be because I didn't sing it good [sic]. It will be because America wasn't ready to look themselves in the mirror."
Oh, fuck you, Jacob Lusk. Are you kidding me with this shit? "If I suck tonight, that's actually due to your deficiency of character." Let me ask you something before we bloop-bleep past this shit altogether: When you look at the man in the mirror, what is that you see? Because what I see -- admittedly looking at you and not myself in the mirror -- is: A giant scary lady with zero clues about himself at all.
Giant scary lady, doing a big fat-lady hip-sway-thrust dance, like some sass showed up and told you that this was a good idea and you should just feel confident and do whatever you wanted. It is chronicles of ridic. Even with the lady who wrote the awesome song singing backup, you just kind of want to punch him in the eye.
Another giant scary lady gives us his usual BS, J. Lo approves it, somebody yells and Lusk yells back at them, J. Lo laughs like she's not pissed that he interrupted her, Randy thinks that he sang the song because he suddenly realized "Let's Get It On" was about sex. I don't see how that could possibly be true. Maybe Randy would have trouble figuring that out, but that's it. And anyway, maybe it was the very all-time best performance of that song -- a song I actually have always enjoyed -- but I'll never know, because give me a fucking break.
"If I do badly tonight," he literally said this, "It's because the audience was too cowardly to look within." What kind of a motherfucker?
I ask you. It's okay to think that shit, but you never, ever say it. Because what it makes me want is for you to go home. No, not home: Nearly home, but just when home is inside, torn apart by pelicans.
So riddle me this, Tyler Perry Durden: If liking the song is equivalent to self-improvement, and hating the song is self-destructive cowardice, what does avoiding the song altogether say about me?
Even after the break, he's still up his own ass about how making a change in the world starts with you-baby-you. Ugh, everything awful at once. I am tired of this merry-go-round with Jacob Lusk. If it weren't for Paul McDonald I would find it so much easier to turn on him, but I really like to keep just one enemy per year.
What I'm saying is that I'm not sure even being a worse person than Danny Gokey is worth giving Old McDonald a break.
OH BROTHER & HOLD MY EARRINGS CO.
Haley sings "Piece Of My Heart," and it's... Not terrible, but it's one of those songs where Simon would have to explain that there is no room in the world for another version of that song, especially if you -- as Haley has been -- have been compared to the person. Randy is going to say "Celine Dion" probably, if he gives her shit about this which he may well not, but Janis may even be a better example, because nobody actually sounds like her. The world would be a much weirder place if that were true.
Then the Judges all tell her she did a great job, so who knows. I hope Jacob Lusk didn't just permanently piss me off for the night. Ryan and Haley joke about how she hates will.i.am but I know she doesn't mean it. Perhaps the problem is mine. I just couldn't actually hear her singing because of the that-songness of that song. As through a cheesecloth, darkly. Any case, you know what that song sounds like? Like that is how it sounded. With extra face.
up, Casey and Lauren. Trust nothing.
Back from the break: Perhaps they are all drunk. They can't stop talking about how awesome they themselves are, while leaning heavily on the banister backstage. Haley looks stoned, Lusk seemed drunk. I hope they didn't wander away and leave their Coca-Cola drinks unattended. Not with Steven Tyler in the building.
TYLER PERRY'S WHY DID I GET MENTORED TOO?
Casey was going to sing "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" but will.i.am fucked it all up and he changed his mind to stop Iovine and will.i.am from dick-measuring over his corpse. It goes on and on and they talk about how Casey is obsessed with will.i.am and Iovine calls will.i.am "Momma" and will.i.am turns into Madea and Iovine apologizes for calling him that on TV and it's all very staticky and suddenly... I think Perez Hilton was very, very right about some things.
Perhaps this calls for a larger-scale reexamination of assumptions w/r/t Perez Hilton's assertions, historically speaking.
Casey sings "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" in a perfectly passable way, full of the Casey Things and lacking a great deal of the awesome intense face that they all call the Angries, and I guess he's just going for Cute Sweater Guy this week. At the least, you can't fault his pitch. I am in too bad of a mood this week to really delight in the sunshine of Casey and I don't want to drag him down.
Randy says firstly that Casey did CCR and Fogerty "well justice" and then says that Casey is making upright base cool. Which, Randy saying that undoes any possible progress Casey may have made on that front. Then Randy says it was "revolutionary," which is just the usual case of Randy not feeling heard because he has nothing to say so he has to say the most hyperbolic form of whatever.
Steven tells him to ride the bass around town, and everybody pity-laughs like they always do at his stupid jokes that make no sense, and we agree that nobody knows how to play the upright bass which is obviously not true, and J. Lo says she would even pay money to see Casey perform and then laughs like, "But please don't invite me to do that, because I'm just being polite." Without Naima to kick around, and with everybody talking over her so bad that we're going to run about five minutes short tonight, it's nice to see her getting a few licks in, even at my man's expense.
Ryan asks Casey about the pressure of being on this show and he babbles and whatever, either you are down with The Abrams or you will be first against the wall.
GIRL, YOU'LL BE ALL GROWDED SOON
Lauren Alaina is not yet growded up enough to hide the fact that will.i.am makes no goddamn sense whatsoever from making an impression on her face, so she just giggles nervously and waits for him to stop talking crazy. I admit, I was kind of hoping he would talk like his songs. You know, just like "Lauren you got retarded, l'chaim," or "Four, tres, two, uno! That was Alainalicious! You be up in the gym working on your bidness!" But it occurs to me that he is capable of being even stupider when trying to express himself through speech and not the opposite-of-self-expression that he is doing when he makes what we've all agreed to call "music."
She sings "Natural Woman," which kind of goes in the category above but is slightly more elastic, and actually it sounds lovely. I mean, she's dressed like Kelly Clarkson and P!nk had a lesbian baby, but she sounds nice enough. I'm so sure she has ever felt like a natural woman, she's like five, but if Scott can sing every song about his children or what it's like to be married to the same woman for over thirty-five years and still call home every night from being a trucker, and Thia Megia's whole entire thing was being a grandma with rockin' beats, and poor old elderly Karen from MySpace is this close to drawing Social Security, I guess Lauren can pretend. She's a grandmother, after all...
And then fucking Steven Tyler, for the third week in a row, brings everything to a screeching halt.
Tyler: "Lauren, I love you. Four months ago you came in here an immature little girl, and tonight you are a natural-born woman. You are so growded up."
I have literally not been this skeeved out by Steven Tyler in my life. A life lived mostly in the shadow of a skeevedness, it seems to me now, due to Steven Tyler.
My mom told me that in recovery you get the pedos and pervos and even though you may have some guys who are honestly trying, they still love those songs more than any other song: "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" and "Paper Doll World" and the "Young Girl Get Out Of My Mind" song, and whatever other things Steven Tyler is always saying. I did not sleep well, the night my mother told me this.
Jackson: "I haven't heard the other songs of the night, but..."
(Lie. Actual lie. I don't even know why you would lie about that.)
Lopez: (Does not even get a chance to speak. Nobody notices.)
Wonderwall: "Your look. Hmm. What's to be said about your attire. It's like you wanted to play dress-up in your mommy's closet, but your mommy left when you were little, so you went to play dress-up in your daddy's closet instead, and it turns out that daddy is a transvestite biker, and that's how you look."
Christian Slater: (Doing some kind of weird, sad Cool-Dad dance moves in the audience. Very little clue as to what he is doing there or what is happening; possibly is there to promote his new show, My Own Worst Enemy.)
Is it just me? I feel like this is the worst episode of this show in one million years. Everybody's just gross and Gwen Stefani is here and Steven Tyler is a pedophile and will.i.am is on the DL and Jimmy Iovine keeps trying to out him and everybody looks nasty and J. Lo is just kind of hanging out and not even Casey seems to know what he's doing and James Durbin is coming up and Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is just... The worst possible option you could give my man Durbin.
Like, what happens after Piano On Fire? What could possibly happen this week that didn't happen during White Trash Wrestling Federation Week and Piano On Fire Week? Singing while riding a motocross bike around inside a steel globe which is on fire. Swordfighting a wild boar on fire. Front handspring step-out round-off back handspring step-out round-off back handspring full twisting layout on fire.
Back from the break and Steven Tyler can't even handle the fact that Ryan is addressing, live, what is currently happening on the show, live, without pulling some kind of snoring, mugging, bullshitty routine, and then taking over to ask nonsensical questions about the balls of Ryan's feet and whatever. Jackson fucking jumps onboard about how Ryan may or may not be wearing deodorant, and then the crowd takes their cues from those two assholes and keeps interrupting Ryan and it's just like...
HUMAN EMOTION IS THE KEY TO OUR V FOR VICTORY
James will be singing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," which is a fairly awesome idea. So because it is a good idea -- have you heard the Prince version? -- will.i.am has a huge problem with that. Because he's done such a great job coaching the other guys so far. Or, you know, for the crime of trying to make actual music that is interesting or intelligent in any way.
"I've got a feeling that tonight's going to be a good night, that tonight's going to be a good night, that tonight's going to be a good night, that tonight's going to be a good, good night." Let's ask the poet laureate that wrote that one what he thinks:
will.i.am: "If it doesn't have a high energy level and totally moronic and repetitive lyrics, you won't ever be famous. My worry is that so far I've talked everybody else into shitting their pants onstage, so you're going to look boring by comparison."
Iovine, so fucking proud of himself: "Yeah! More like 'My Guitar Gently Sleeps'!"
will.i.am raises his pimp hand high to remind Durbin that he was the one who penned the classic lyrics "I want to party, I want to samba, I want to party, I want to samba" but James pays him no mind, he just makes his gorgeous way onstage and delivers probably the most beautiful performance we've seen from him. There are some pitch issues and some weird catches and... I mean, let's say some faces and leave it at that. The singing is not good, as Pia and the classic definition of the word "good" would define it. But on the occasion it takes off, it takes off.
Oh, the whole time, he's crying also. It's kind of hot. It kind of makes you feel like Tasha Yar.
So the Judges thank him for doing something interesting or cool instead of jumping onboard the horrible carbon-copy played-out cliché-fest that is this episode, which is cool. Then they thank him repeatedly for crying, which is totally not.
Randy was always kind of like this, panderable, cult-susceptible, not just willing to be patronized but actually grateful. And maybe you'd think J. Lo would save them, but then Steven Tyler is such a goony gullible moron that she'd get outvoted anyway. So gross.
week I'm going to cry and give a shoutout to my dead grandmother and make up a hand signal incorporating both of those things, like a tear going down my cheek, but with arthritis fingers, and then at the end of the gesture I'll flop it over onto its back like a sad crab: Dead grandma. Listen to this bullshit:
Tyler, absolutely verbatim: "James, you know, not only did Beatles write great songs, but George Harrison did as well, and you know he wrote that, and it's really good to see that not only does your guitar gently weep, you know, but you did as well, and to let that out, I agree with all of them, that's really a proud moment for you."
Everybody: "No idea what the fuck you just said, but welcome to being Paula Abdul."
Ryan: "Tell the truth, why are you crying?"
Durbin: "My family or something?"
Ryan: "Can you name the emotion you are feeling?"
Durbin: "Is it called Crying?"
Ryan: "One more try."
Durbin: "Is it called Family?"
Ryan: "Oh, honey."
Scotty: (Smarms at the screen.)
Ryan: "Yeah, so did you know Elvis was in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame?"
People: "How come Scotty gets to sing country every week?"
Duh: "Because trashy people are mostly what watches this show now? Like how every single reality show goes through that cycle?"
ALL PRAT/ALL PRATTLE
will.i.am says some dumb thing about combining country and rock and how great Scotty would probably taste, and Scott's like, "I honestly have no idea what the fuck he is talking about, but I'm going to go ahead and sing more country on this show." Then he sings "That's All Right Momma," an Elvis Presley song, exactly like Elvis Presley.
I hate this episode so very much. I hate having the same goddamn conversation more than once, no matter what conversation it is. That's like my one personality trait. But this is like just the barfiest songs you've already heard a million times, sung in the barfiest copycat way possible, and it's like sometimes you can pretend there is a relevance to this show and sometimes you're not even pretending, but this is like... It's not even like you can see the seams. It's like you can see the contents of the show's colon.
And a thing I don't like to think about is: There are probably more people who enjoy that -- enjoy hearing the songs they've already heard in the ways they've already heard them -- than not.
Jackson: "That was SO FRESH AND ORIGINAL! You are NOT A ONE-TRICK PONY!"
Tyler: "I used to think you were all hat, no cattle. Then I realized that I have no idea what that phrase means, so I shut my stupid old ass up."
Lopez: "You seem like a hip-hop artist. Are you a rapper?"
Scotty: "What the fuck are any of you talking about."
Ryan: "After the break, Pia's going to do something crazy. It might be dumb, it might be a trainwreck, but probably it will be technically proficient and completely unworthy of comment."
GET YOUR LOVE-DRUNK OFF MY HUMP
Ryan: "Christian Slater, how much do you love American Idol?"
Slater: "Ever so much."
Pia will be singing "River Deep, Mountain High," as soon as will.i.am stops talking about... He literally, a huge part of his vocab is sound effects. "Whap pow," he says, and Pia's like, "I totally know what you mean." Just the dumbest man. Something about her humps, possibly.
Iovine: "Pia's going to get pissed tonight!"
Nope, obviously not. Obviously that's not what's going to happen, Jimmy.
...Well, she's wearing trousers. That's pretty revolutionary for old Pia. But then she sings exactly the same as always, always, always.
Actually it's like a romper + culottes, I don't even know if there's a better way to say it because they're gathered at the bottom, okay, so there's this whole Gen. Jinjur's Army of Revolt thing happening. It looks like a high schooler's idea of like a Yigal Azrouël pantsuit, maybe ca. 2010? It looks like she painted on cheetah marks with fabric paint. Tonight Pia is 90% lovely lady lumps, and the rest is R. Crumb tree-trunk legs all of a sudden.
Tyler: (Says nothing of interest, of course, remembering to add the usual "I masturbate to you" and "I possibly am masturbating to you right now" and "your only real worth is as a sexual object" comments that he gives every female contestant. Especially the underage ones.)
J. Lo: "That was quite nice. And up-tempo! But I wish that you would stomp around more. And listen to Tina Turner. And learn to dance like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. You could always be more amazing. See, sitting to Steven Tyler has made me realize how far we have to go as a culture, and how much harder women have to fight to be taken seriously. And I fear that you may not make it, based on lacking the native intelligence of even your seafaring mammals."
Pia: "I just can't wait to get home to watch Bones. Turns out I'm the kind of person who watches Bones. So now you know who watches that show."
Jacob: "BUT WHAT ARE YOU WEARING."
Ryan: "Randy Jackson's friend Todd Rundgren, ha-ha. You're friends with Randy Jackson."
Todd: "Not cool, bro."
Steven: "Not cool, bro."
Liv: "Not cool, bro.*"
*(But like in Elvish.)
REALLY HAVE YOU EVER REALLY REALLY REALLY EVER LOVED A REALLY
Stefano will be singing "When A Man Loves A Woman."
Bless.
will.i.am: "This is how to sing about men loving women."
(It seems to involve refusing to sing anything, acting snotty, and checking your text messages. Which given the songs he writes, probably that is what he thinks singing is.)
Stefano: "I totally get that. That's exactly how a man loves a woman."
will.i.am: "I got this great new song idea, it's called 'T-Mobile Customer Service, How May I Help You.' It's about partying and whatnot. In the chorus it's just the sound it makes when you walk into Express, over and over, and some rapper going ohhhh shiiiiiiit, ohhhh shiiiiiiit. Hopefully we can get the xx to give us a sample that is actually most of the song."
Stupid Fucking Americans: "That is totally relevant to my paradigm! will.i.am, you have done it again. Thank you for the new soundtrack to my jubilation. I cannot wait to get started binge drinking to this song."
Stefanowise, the lip-licking returns and the voice is a full nine octaves higher than usual, but hey, sometimes that's what it's like when a man loves a woman: Sometimes it sounds like a man being loved by another man. From behind.
Lopez: "That was quite heterosexual."
Jackson: "It was like you were giving somebody a handjob. And I think that somebody was will.i.am, based on how I can't stop telling you you should have done everything the opposite of what he told you to do. Tyler, have you anything to add?"
Tyler: "I like the old-timey. Keep playing with that."
Jackson: "...So, no?"
Lopez: "Thanks for at least letting me talk."
Ryan: "That was very virile and masculine how you were shadowboxing backstage before the performance."
Stefano: "Sometimes you have to do that when you love a woman."
Ryan: "I know that."
Stefano: "We both know that. Men know that."
ibid., aside: "Seriously though, what are we talking about? Is this code?"
"OHHHH SHIIIIIT" BY THE BLACK EYED PEAS FT. THE WEEKND & OLD DIRTY BASTARD & JAMIE FOXX (THE MARK RONSON/NATALIE MERCHANT 12" WITCHHOUSE REMIX)
Paul McDonald will be singing Johnny Cash, of course. Will he sing it like it's music?
No, he will sing it like he is a senseless panicked gerbil, squeezing through a tiny space so frantically that its guts come squirting out of its butt, and then a small child finds it in the morning, dead and cold, with guts coming out the butt.
True story. Happens every day. Happening right before your eyes right now on live television. Iovine says that nobody is cooler than Johnny Cash but not even Iovine saying that can really stop Johnny Cash from being cool. But Old McDonald will try, won't he? Grinning his Hep C grin through an entire song about murder and suicide? You bet your gerbil butt he will.
And okay, it is not that bad. It is the only thing of Paul that has not made me want to make that face of the girl in the Rebecca Black video the entire time, like I am being murdered just out of sight. If this were the first time I was hearing him, I might be tempted to think he was a human being with a mother and a father like the rest of us. Paul doesn't really have a filter on the tricks he uses to get you, he will do it any old way. But I'm too wily for him this time.
Jackson, verbatim: "Yo Paul baby I got three words -- I know that's a little rough for the Dawg -- I got three words: I loved it."
Tyler, verbatim: "Paul you're such a crazy character, man: A perfect imperfect boy."
(...What? Rewind.)
ibid., verbatim: "Paul you're such a crazy character, man: A perfect imperfect boy."
Lopez: "No, totally. I totally agree with that statement."
What the FUCK is everybody talking about? Am I just hearing them wrong? Is this like some kind of backwards-aphasia House disease where they're talking normal but I'm hearing them talk all crazy? That is going to be rough if it's true.
DON'T EVER SLANDERBEEK MY NAME AGAIN
Some goddamn hoedown happens onstage and Ryan realizes he kept the show too short this week, and Tyler's already unbuttoning his shirt to get his mic off him, and Jacob Lusk keeps trying to booty-grind on Ryan, which is hilarious, and Scotty is acting like a weird butler robot, and Casey is spazzing out and oh... This must be what it's like every week in real life, after the show. All that nervous performance energy and still the people staring at you, so all of a sudden you're doing high kicks or pretending you're a marionette or MMA sparring with Pia or whatever, just getting completely out of hand. Only instead of one person geeking out like that, it is ten or twelve people at once. What a fucking flesh-crawling debacle.
You know how the end of Saturday Night Live you have to turn it off so fast or else you have to see them awkwardly hugging, and shaking their heads like No I can't hear what you just said I didn't catch it, it's loud in here, say it again? and eventually smiling and nodding and just pretending they heard whatever it was Julian Casablancas was urgently trying to tell them, and fucking Andy Samberg trying to get everybody to look at him look at him look at him tell the same joke a hundred times in a row, and the host just wants to leave so bad because improv people are the hardest to take of all the kinds of people that there are, and like, Miley Cyrus and Elliott Gould having to pretend they know of each other? It's like that, but times one hundred bajillion. Ryan, if you love me you will never let that happen again. Throw that tiny little Wonderwall body on the gears if you have to, but I was unprepared.
Anyway: If you didn't like Jacob Lusk, it's because you are a pussy. No other reason. You did not accept the therapy that he offered to you through song, and your character is a little worse for it, and both Jesus and Bono have already signed off on this so forget your appeal: You have been Lusked and you have been found wanting.
Haley forewent sound-aliking Janis Joplin but didn't aim any higher than her, meaning it was a mishmash in the end that went nowhere and cared nohow, but still she has a pretty voice and so much more face than most Americans.
Casey tried to be your boyfriend, but had to settle for the Sexy BFF Zone this week, due to his innards being so recently replaced by a length of rubber tubing and a little brass engine.
Lauren gave birth to her great-grandmother while scratching out a soulful whatever, and then just minutes after the delivery Steven Tyler tried to fuck her great-grandmother-baby. Like he was a Quileute.
Durbin stuck out by not sticking out; it wasn't great, but at least he cried... I mean, tried. He tried.
Scotty did neither, Pia likewise; they just did more Scott and Pia. For those that like those kinds of things, it was the kind of thing that they like.
Stefano perpetrated a fakely intense intensity to cover up the fact that he is having a May-December affair with will.i.am. It gets pretty weird. Some words get thrown around that a lot of us wouldn't be comfortable using, let's say, but whatever gets you going.
And Paul's tics, as usual, overpowered anything he could possibly ever be trying to do, but at least he proved himself the poseur PBR-swilling Johnny Cash fan he's clearly always been by singing a Cash song while being trod on by a cow.
Who will win? Who will be in the Bottom Three? Who will go home? No idea. I couldn't possibly tell you this week, because it was a season in hell -- maybe for just me, maybe for all of us, I can't even tell anymore -- and when I try to even think about what happened, I just get the shivers.
But I do know this: If they figure out a way to bring will.i.am back yet again week, I will throw such a fucking shit-fit that when I look at the man in the mirror I probably will see Paul McDonald staring back at me. Frankly, I don't want to give Jacob Lusk the satisfaction.
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