Previously: Nick was still and ever awful, My Ridiculous kissed the flame for the very last time, and Jes came face to face with her central issue, inspiring her to promptly lose her shit all over the place.
Presently: Nick, Jes, Scotty and Sonyae.
Nick: "I don't care where Jes goes, but she is going and I hope it harms her."
Scotty: "Looking at the numbers, Nick and I are about even for wins."
Jes: "Today is my opportunity to actually take part in this show. I better act super weird and hostile, since that's working for Nick. I guess the opposite of yourself is just the same thing, when you're totally vague."
Scotty & Sonyae: "Here are some runs we might sing some time."
Jewel: "Calm down, you guys. It's very important that you assume a professional stance so that you can meet my friend Perez Hilton. I call him 'my friend' because if you don't pretend to be friends with him, he will draw jizz on your face without a second thought. And then everybody will think you have jizz on your face, because people are stupid and think the internet is real."
This is just between us, okay, but I remember this one time we plugged our astrologicals into a website that said who your celebrity boyfriend would be, and Anna got Criss Angel, and I was making fun of her until I looked over and she seemed really calm about it, like, What are you going to do? That makes sense. I was struck by her honesty and ever since then I've viewed Mr. Angel in a more respectful way. You might say she freaked my mind.
And so in turn I shall freak yours: I feel the same way about Perez Hilton: I absolutely love him. (If this is not a mindfreak to you, please don't tell me.) I think he is smashing and I've never really had even the glimpse of a lock on why. I've certainly never admitted this to anybody out loud, but we're tight, right? And there are about three people reading this anyway, so I guess you've earned it, even if I can't explain it. Frankly, I'm afraid of looking at it too closely. It freaks my own mind. And yet, despite my feeling that we are soulmates, I must question whether "Celebrity Blogger/Music Executive" is even a job, and also whether it accurately describes ol' Mario exactly.
Perez: "I don't know why I'm here either! So I have dressed myself as Mr. Mxyzptlk."
Jes: "I think he invented music or something."
Jewel: "Write a pop song."
Perez & Nick: "We love pop songs!"
Nick: "I have been writing the same pop song since I was fourteen. And in those three weeks I have learned a lot."
Everybody scampers around writing pop songs and talking about how everybody thinks writing a pop song is easy but the truth would actually freak your mind. That makes sense, this phrase "deceptively simple," especially to somebody like me who is so naturally wordy that I basically joined Twitter as a spiritual exercise.
And I was thinking about this earlier in the cab, like, "Edge Of Glory" is a fun and a neat song, but the part where she just goes I'm on the edge the edge the edge the edge the edge the edge sounds really dumb to me, and thus I am no Lady Gaga.
On the other hand, when you're a scintillating person like Nick or myself, everything mostly sounds like pop anyway, so once again I don't even know what they're really talking about. One is put in mind immediately, of course, of the poet William Carlos Williams, a rural doctor who wrote his poems on his prescription pad, which is why they're like that: Form and function, goldfish attaining their proper dharmic size depending on the tank, etc.
Jes: "I won the Billboard World Song Contest this year for Pop. So I know how hard it is, but I can also take comfort in the precedent that represents, where I wrote a song one time."
That: Is a relief. My latest theory was that she had murdered the real Jes Hudak and taken her place for the purposes of meeting Kara DioGuardi, but it's much more comforting -- inspiring, even -- to know she just doesn't care about this dumb show. Think about it though, who would be a more perfect assassin?
Nick: "My pop song is about four people who write songs, and one of them deserves flaming death and the other two are not as awesome as me. It is based on my biography."
Sonyae: "What I pack, Scott lacks. And possibly vice versa, I bailed out of making sense halfway through this thought."
Scotty: "I would appear to believe that Pop means singing through my nose and conceiving a child through a process that is called 'sodomy.'"
Lady Gaga: "I think that you are onto something."
HOOK TIME
Jes: "So See Through" is her hook. It is about how people are like so fake. Jes and Perez hate it. Also Nick hates it, I don't know if I needed to mention that.
Scotty: "DJ Have My Babies" is annoying and squirmy and not so romantic. While they like the hook itself, Perez thinks the concept is gross, because it is gross, and Jewel vomits. (Rainbows, but still.)
Sonyae: "Exit" sounds like a song Sonyae might sing, if you know what that's like. Perez loves her 'tude and personality because duh, but Jewel points out that there was not really a hook and it was more like three words, two of which were the word Exit.
Nick: "Boom Boom" is a song about things going "boom boom" which weirds out Jes and Sonyae but bothers Scotty a little because Nick knows what he is doing. Perez wonders what it is that is booming or whatever, and Jewel tells Nick to stop writing songs about what happened today because his life is not that interesting.
Jewel, verbatim: "All right, now Perez and I are going to 'gossip' about what we just heard."
Nice one, Kilch.
Perez: "The worst one by far was... Nick!"
The clouds part; everybody wonders what is ever happening on this show.
Jes Is: Overjoyed.
Nick Is: Disgusted.
Jes Was: Third place, unmemorable, whiny.
Scotty & Sonyae: Nearly tied, but then Scotty's creepy butt-baby song wins.
Sonyae: "Perhaps I should investigate this idea of having 'melodies' in my songs. I have not yet harvested that fertile fecundity."
Jewel: Tricks Perez into saying his name backwards, and just like that he's gone.
Nick: "When Jewel told us that we wouldn't be collaborating this week, I sort of shit my pants because that's my only contribution to society, being good at collaborating, for short periods of time, with people I have otherwise threatened to murder. So now I have to write a good song? That's bullshit! It stresses me out also because of the nonstop shit-talking I tend to do, as our nation's preeminent hater."
Jewel: "We've already given you a track, so all you have to do is write lyrics and melodies. Sonyae, I'm looking at you. Also, for no reason at all, there are Clovers in the atmosphere."
Yes, the Santa Monica High School cheer squad will be choosing this week's winning song, and the loser will lose (and that's your Finale, because guess what there's only one episode left). For real that's what's going on. We always say that Jewel just makes this shit up as she goes along: That's proof. Can you imagine if they'd done it like this every time?
"This week's challenge is empowerment. Your mystery judges will be a women's shelter. Don't let them down, they've been through enough."
"For the road trip challenge, your mystery judge will be these boxcar winos. First prize is you get immunity. Second prize is, you get stabbed."
Well. I guess this isn't the first time, actually: "For the dance music challenge, you will be surrounded by homosexual tourists with overbites. They have terrible taste, so don't stress out."
SESH (SO NAMED IN MEMORIAM)
Sonyae: "I'm going to sex these children up so they don't feel like I'm being condescending. Like how everybody thinks kids are into Twilight because it's romantic but really they like it because it's super gross. You know you're old, Generation X, when you can't tell the difference between Sweet Valley High and Flowers In The Attic."
Nick: "Well. Being a child myself I realized I should just wipe out the blink-182 song I was planning on singing, and go with Thirty Seconds To Mars instead. I'm really relevant and I am truly punk."
(His song is already pretty much perfect within five seconds.)
Jes: "I love being in the studio by myself, attempting to remember where I am and what I'm doing."
Jes, Five Seconds Later: "Who am I and what am I doing."
Scotty: "The track fit possibly well with my idea of giving birth out of an anus, but then I decided it would be more upbeat to sing about the nuclear apocalypse."
Scotty, verbatim: "What would you do if it was your last moment on earth? ...Of course [Of Course!] I would want... To dance."
God love Scotty. He is so great today.
Everybody's songs sound so pretty! I know it's just the track throwing me off because of how I am a philistine that requires only drumming, but the melodies are really pretty too. I'm sure Jes will do fine as well, if she writes a song this week.
WHEN KARAS ATTACK: SCOTTY
Kara appears in Scotty's session and it freaks his mind.
Scotty: "NO!"
Kara: "Look at my serious matte lipstick and talk to me like a person."
Scotty: Does.
He sings the song and instead of getting the DJ pregnant, now the DJ is making him-making him-making him crazy-crazy-crazy.
Kara: "What if your song had real lyrics?"
Scotty: "You're making me second-guess my song. Why do you hate me?"
Kara: "Just try to be honest instead of dealing in platitudes."
Scotty: "I feel injured."
WHEN KARAS ATTACK: NICK
Nick: "Kara, originally my song was called 'Boom Boom' which, as you know, that's a very good thing for a song to be called. But then the judges got really judgy."
Kara: "Okay. And?"
Nick: "Now it is about how even if you are not dating a person, they are the first person you call. The song is called 'First Call,' and it is about my personal neediness being such fathoms deep that you feel like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio* just contemplating it."
He sings the song and it's less lovely all the time, because Nick can't sing and doesn't believe people even actually sing.
*(N.B. The first thing Google autocompletes when you look up the spelling of "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio" is mary elizabeth mastrantonio feet. Just so I'm not the only person who knows that.)
Kara: "How's the hook feeling?"
Nick: "Not so great right now."
Kara: "It's nice that you're attempting authenticity at this time. I feel like it would be counterproductive to point out that your whole life is about attempting authenticity, though, which is itself a contradiction in terms, so let's start with a good hook, okay?"
Nick: "I am not interested in following your advice and will be ignoring the hook. What I can do, though, is creepily sexualize our relationship because I can't stand the idea of your authority over me, even in a mentorship role."
Kara: "Yeah, just like every other day of my life. Come back when your balls drop, kid."
WHEN KARAS ATTACK: SONYAE
Sonyae: "My song is called 'Exit.' Basically I just say that word a lot."
Kara, verbatim: "What you have is the Gift of Concept."
Sonyae: "As oft-discussed, I don't have any melody to speak of. Ever."
Kara: "I was going to say that."
Sonyae: "You have rocked my existence to the core."
Sonyae suddenly is flailing in the weeds and weeping at the console even though Kara merely said the same thing that Jewel, Perez, and everybody on this show every single week always says, including Sonyae herself. I really hope this one isn't the one where Sonyae cracks. I don't want that one to even exist.
Although speaking of breakdowns, it's sort of chilling that we break for commercial after three of these Kara sessions, meaning we could very well be dealing with ten minutes of Jes in a minute. Immediately the image is of Jes pressed against the cornered ceiling of the recording studio, screaming in Aramaic, everything's on fire, Kara's down there saying Our Fathers in Latin trying to calm her down. One wonders not whether but how closely this will prove correct.
WHEN KARAS ATTACK: JES
Jes, verbatim: "I'm so not into fronting..."
Awesome.
Kara: "It's neat that you have such pretty melodies, but like every week your lyrics are just kind of self-pitying and fronting in that P!nk way that you still seem to believe is empowering and not just sort of gross."
Jes: "Yo."
POST-KARA SITUATIONS
Scotty: "My confidence is completely shaken. I will draw on my experience with Jordin Sparks."
Nick: "My confidence is completely shaken. I will draw on my extensive experience being in heterosexual relationships with 100% bitches. Women are the worst!"
Jes: "My confidence is completely shaken."
Sonyae: "[No idea. No clue at all.]"
Jes: "I like collaborating because it allows me to synthesize other people's ideas without contributing in any way."
Sonyae: "My entire family is diseased and on fire."
Jes: "I am better than Nick! Why don't people just know that without me having to demonstrate any skills?"
Nick: "Not to freak your mind, but high school was kind of tough on me."
Scotty: "I painted high school with amazing at the time, I'm going to paint it with amazing today. And if some guys get pregnant in their butts, well, It Gets Better."
Hip Vice-Principal Who Can Talk To The Youth: "Yo peeps I got to tweet you with some mad hot beats you knowmsayn yo."
Jes: "Taio Cruz is here! He's like the black Mark Ronson, in that what would be mediocre in America somehow becomes amazing when British people do it. The same reason Lady Gaga and Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow all talk like that. It's also why Lindsay Lohan continues to flail in the mire, because she refuses to knuckle under to the Anglophile Cabal and talk like a jackass just to appear relevant. In other news, wotcher guvner, wot wot?"
PERFORMANCES
They play studio versions of the songs for the whole gymnasium, so the regular awkward feeling of watching the artists and mentors and judges listen to their own songs is compounded mightily by the 100% Clive Barker horror of watching teenagers attempt to enjoy things while being filmed. (Exempt from this skin-crawling scenario, not that I needed to mention it, is Keith Naftaly, who looks both divine and perfectly serene.)
You're already checking in literally every second with literally everyone around you at all times, right, as a kid, but then put a camera on it? And famous people? And you're meant to be listening to a song and deciding right then and there whether you like it or not? I predict half of these children will call home sick by the time we're done here. It's possible I might not make it my own self.
Nick's song is like... Oh my God these kids. Okay, just don't watch. Listen.
Nick's song is fun, although the verses are very staccato in a way. That. I. Don't. Love. Which is whatever, the track is really good and I can already tell I'm going to be completely lost on this whole experience. But there's a lot of delightfully dorky dancing, and even Nick's generally hateful vibe cracks. Which is lucky, because there is a ginger boy who hasn't quite become hot yet that could Nick a run for his miserable money. Hate to think what would happen if they had a dour-off.
Jes: "I have to beat Nick! How come? Because this is a competition? Because I am devoted to my career and my art? Because excellence is something for which I hold myself accountable every single day? Ha! No, it's because he made Johnny go home."
Just, ugh. Full-throated Cold War-Era Charlie Brown AUGH. And not to mention that no he didn't. I like to imagine a Future Jes, hopefully not in the too-far-flung future, who blushes whenever this show comes up, because of what a limp dick she is. "Man, I was a jive sucka back then," she'll say. "Good thing I learned to love myself and my richness of talent and incandescent intelligence. I was really hamstrung before, with all that sucking I was doing. Not owning even the dirt beneath my own two feet really hindered my success for awhile."
Jes's song is lovely, fits the track beautifully, and manages to be about her hipster love affair in a way that doesn't particularly ping any trouble spots. It's pretty perfect pop, honestly. I hope she wins. She does a cute dance; a boy booty-grinds in front of Keith, which cracks him up, and the lonesome ginger even cracks nearly a smile.
Sonyae's song is sinister in a way I think the kids might like, because it's nervous-making, and altogether it's a fun thing. Also, it's possible that she might win because all the kids -- excepting Miserable Ginger of course -- start pointing at the exit every time she says "exit," which as previously noted is like one million times, and everybody knows that you have to make up a dance if you want to be famous. You have to superman that exit.
Hot DJ That I Would Not Mind Getting Pregnant If We're Being Totally Honest With Each Other: "Scotty's song is called 'World's Last Spin.'"
Sonyae [sic, as usual and forever]: "That's fars out."
The children all lie down on the floor as if they are planking, but there is no planking yet: They are just bored. But eventually it kicks in and everybody starts dancing around and enjoying themselves and singing along, and it is The Worst.
Hot DJ makes them vote, and we learn how voting works for a while. It's fucking awkward.
Nick: "That process was fucking awkward."
BACKSTAGE
Everybody: "Who knows what kids want? They are so mysterious, as we are all 22 years of age. Being intensely self-centered, when we're not stabbing each other in the back and crying about if boys like us, we couldn't hope to understand what high schoolers are like."
Nick: "I just barfed eleven times. Please don't tell the others. My even-tempered professionalism has served me well so far in this competition."
I get so worried they're going to forget to remind me to Shazam that I've started just Shazamming at all times.
RUNWAY
Jewel: "How great was our terrifying idea of making teenagers choose the song?"
Everybody: "So great, Jewel."
Guess what, it's Sonyae. Sonyae wins. The Judges all agreed with the teens. Kara loves her pop thing, Jewel loved her concept about exits and how they supermanned the exits, and Sonyae says that she was totally thinking about how people would probably dance to it in an exit-pointing fashion. Taio Britishes at her about how the best music is always the lowest common denominator. Keith is wearing the cutest shirt.
Kara & Jewel: "Scotty, you would have been better off with the DJ make me crazy thing, because your triumphant lovely melody was undercut by the creepiness of your apocalypse words."
Kara, [verbatim, and how magnificent]: "Not everybody thinks the world is ending."
However, there's so much to love about Scotty, and Keith calls it "blissfully melodic" which is itself blissfully melodic when he says it.
Nick also gets loving praise, which makes him start crying. It's marvelous.
Jewel: "These are my favorite lyrics I've ever heard you write... I felt like you were talking about you. This sounds like somebody's telling you the truth."
Keith: "That's all we ever wanted, Nick. To hear what's actually going on in you. Could have been catchier, though."
Kara: "[Micromanages after the fact, in grand Kara tradition. Not that she's wrong, just that it's so funny and exciting when you can see the actual computer that is her brain.]"
Nick, of course, only hears the worst bits. Doesn't change the wonderful things they're saying.
Keith loves Jes's hook, Kara and Jewel approves how Jes is growing in a glacial fashion. Taio says some crazy shit, as compared to saying something simple and lovely, and Jes laughs nervously. Kara calls her out for being juvenile like always, and Keith calls it a junior high or elementary song, because that's what it was.
We discuss at the Judges' behest how everybody feels about everybody's songs, and it's interesting like always when this happens on a show.
Scotty: "My song was catchier than Nick's."
Nick: "Clearly I didn't 'beat' him -- in the technical bourgeois sense that I lost this round -- but in another context that exists only in my head, I am the victor."
Jes: "Nick's melody was like whatever, and my song was more commercial."
BACKSTAGE II
Sonyae sings her song at them as they return -- annoying but believable, if not quite understandable -- and then is patronizingly glad for them that they all got judge love.
Everybody In Private, Even Nick: "I am shitting it, man."
Everybody Out Loud: "It was so great how they liked all of our songs. I really love that about all of our songs, that they were all beloved."
Everybody In Private, Even Nick: "I am maybe going home at this juncture."
Everybody Out Loud: "Doesn't it just feel good to get so much praise? I felt like they were saying they didn't want to choose between their children, and our songs were their children. Out of their butts, in some cases."
THE WORLD'S LAST SPIN
Scotty: Without further ado, he is of course moving to the Finale. It's not even worth remarking on, really. He's wonderful.
Jes: Great pop melodies, but too juvenile and silly as usual.
Nick: Wipe that motherfucking face off your face and hear me when I say your melody was nothing special.
And then?
NICK GOES HOME!
Wow, dude. Even Nick cannot muster a single response except to hug her in congratulations and stand there feeling bad. Jes, of course, shrieks and hops around like a goblin and runs backstage screaming, shocking the glitter off both Scotty and Sonyae.
Judgery: "Nick, this week was a breakthrough for you. We are fans. You finally found your true stuff and your personal wonder, but left out the strong melodies that got you here."
Nick: "[Whatever is tone-deaf and off-putting, whatever refuses to read the room]."
Judgery: "You just couldn't let it go, could you? Don't let the door hit you in the punk rock on your way out."
week: The three friendliest, classiest, most easygoing people attempt to confront their own failings and celebrate their awesomeness. Then they all break down crying and lose their shit. Then Leona Lewis shows up, bleeding all over everybody as usual.
Meantime: No, I think we covered it. I love the hell out of "not everybody thinks the world is ending," though. I would honestly like it to say that on my tombstone. I don't know what else to say. What a perfect sentiment.