As much as I am a Idol devotee—which means something in me died years ago to get to this point—I had no idea that we’d get both guys and girls this week. I really thought, “The boys of suckage will be on tonight, I wonder how much daydreaming I can do for a hour or so.” Instead, much to my excitement, I felt genuine excitement in that I was able get through it with some degree of happiness.
The big question is, do any of these kids really admire Diana Ross? I really pay attention to the level of respect during the pre-interviews, no matter how contrived those tapes really are, to see if it’s “Diana” or “Miss Ross”, “it was a honor” versus “I’m really going to listen to her advice because she’s a superstar.”
Then came the scary part: were they all going to ruin Diana Ross’ classic catalog? Would the boys make my ears bleed or would the girls shout or be pitchy? Basically, a little bit of all of above. The girls did, in Randy Jackson’s words, “okay,” and mostly nothing special, and for the girls, that’s disappointing. The boys have nothing to live up to, so when they are able to do decent, it’s a big deal. The mic problems didn’t help anyone, or maybe the producers were trying to give us a blessing this week.
Brandon not remembering all the words to “You Can’t Hurry Love” was really a major bummer for me. He started the trend of mostly everyone not being able to remember the words to songs. This is telling America that unless Top 40 continues to play you, your next superstar won’t have a bloody clue what’s going on. Let’s say Brandon’s not a Diana Ross fan at all, in theory (though I think he is). Even people who go shopping at their local grocery store know at least the words to one Diana Ross song, and it’s this one! Brandon has a Lionel Richie sex appeal vibe, without actually sounding that sexy or showing emotion.
Melinda Doolittle, is in a category all her own. She has the modesty that makes her genuine, as any bit of praise seems to send her into a orgasmic shock. I don’t know how many weeks it’s going to take for her to get it: Melinda Doolittle, you are that damn good. She was born to sing, especially R&B and Motown Music. This is the point in the show where I can’t help but think, “Try to follow that you poseurs, pretend like you can handle being here and like you want to win.”
As for Chris Sligh’s performance, I could take it or leave it. I’m going to leave this one up to my friend Dave at PhillyBlurbs.com to describe how he viewed Sligh’s performance: “Chris Sligh learned that perception is everything; Something as a little as a pair of glasses can make your image go from a lovable, pot-bellied yuckster, to the pudgy dork that bags your groceries at the ACME.” Nothing about Sligh tonight made me stop what I was doing (letting my dog out to go to the bathroom, a common thing for Idol columnists to do when they know the show is over, even if we have another hour to go), to think that it was remarkable.
Gina Glosken… God bless her. She’s sticking with what’s going to keep her star shining—her rocker girl image. Once she stops shouting through her performances and finds that balance, she will have achieved progress. Until then, she looks hot, and she will sell records if she rocks out (too bad there’s not a Joan Jett tribute night lined up). I just haven’t totally bought onto her taking chances with new material each week just yet. Not horrible, but not great. Regardless, very worthy of continuing forward.
Sanjaya… does this kid even have a last name? Does he have a personality outside of being young, with a 1000-watt smile? What the hell is with him taking on hairstyles of people? He ruined a perfectly good song, but what else is new. When the judges were struggling for things to say, and asking what Sanjaya thought, I was able to channel exactly what he was thinking. Sanjaya saw things in Technicolor and I don’t mean Michael Jackson’s Neverland, I’m talking about “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” from that horrible Disney movie, Song of the South. Blue birds on his shoulder and everything.
Haley Scarnato was worth remembering this week, mostly because she sounded better than any other time since we were stuck with her, and she looked great. More so, because she looked great. Whatever stylist who was left the task of working her image did a great job of not making her look like she was lost on stage. She’s sticking around, so let’s see if she keeps improving.
Phil Stacey doesn’t do anything for me. I’m sorry America. He’s not bad but he’s not that good, either.
Stand back… Lakisha Jones is going to be in her element. And she was, for the most part. She looked great and sounded great, but I felt like it was missing that one bold step into making it her own. I do agree with the judges, she has that control in her performance and that’s something that the other jokers should have been scribbling mental notes about since most of them can put on a performance anyway. Still, she could have really turned it on without going overboard, and she didn’t. Not her best but again, in her own league—it’s the Lakisha and Melinda Show.
Blake, who channels Justin Timberlake and Gavin DeGraw in every way, deep down has this vibe that he wants to produce his own records. I don’t know how that will go over in the politics of the music industry this early in his career, but the kid’s good and is a risk taker. This was either going to work or it wouldn’t. There is no lukewarm way to embrace his version of “You Keep Me Hanging On”. Perfect song choice for his personality, and I did like it, but I also agree with Simon—take away the personality and I wouldn’t have given this song a chance on the radio with his voice alone. Still, very safe in the competition, and he keeps the show fresh. At least if he was going to get voted off, he is the artist that will be able to go with his head held up high that he didn’t fake his way through an artist interpretation.
Stephanie Edwards is another one of those performers that I don’t panic about every week when I watch the show. There’s something about her singing that can be equated to cruise control. Stephanie does need to step it up though, eventually. Her strong stage presence and teasing of delivering the goods, but not the entire headlining peformance, like she did for lingering “Love Hangover”, will come back to haunt her.
Chris has good energy, with more channeling of JT tonight with “The Boss” and that’s really all I can say. I liked it and was probably the best performance from the boys, but again, there is nothing challenging Doolittle and Jones in what he’s doing.
The freshness for the women is Jordyn Sparks, as I’ve said before, someone who is going to continue to surprise a lot of people and make it into the finals is Jordyn. She’s likable, beautiful and has the voice to back up her cute personality. The song worked for her (though I didn’t need to know it was from A Land Before Time because I kept seeing her in a audio booth singing this) and I’m glad across the board she was given high marks from the judges. I was almost distracted remembering Vanessa Williams singing “Colors of the Wind”. Despite the “I can’t help but remember,” it was a great way to end a “just okay” show.
The results show was pretty forgettable too. Somehow America does it again and keeps Sanjaya. Is America going to give this kid a complex?
Thank you for reading; make your moment your breakthrough.
