Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Idol Chatter

One day of Passover, arguably the most important Jewish holiday, in the books but now it's time to once again be enslaved to American Idol's suckiness. If only one of them sang on key, dayenu:
  • Siobhan Magnus, singing Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire": When someone brings her pancakes, she just sips the syzurp. Uncharacteristically rough beginning from one of the favorites. Sleepy, and then it got worse... This was really freaking awful. I wish her mouth had been wired shut for this. This is a bad portent for the night. Ten not-so-great singers, ten plagues. Sounds like fate! Siobhan is the plague of cattle disease, because I can only imagine that a cow's pain-driven screams sound about as good as tonight's screeches.
  • Casey James, singing Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'": Way too smiley. He still has too much vibrato. I can't quite tell if I like him or not. He can play the guitar play well, but he doesn't really ever challenge his voice at all. I feel like he yells the songs. Just hard to take him seriously when he smiles as much as he did tonight. He played with his hair a bit tonight and earned himself the plague of lice.
  • Michael.Lynche, singing India.Arie's "Ready for Love": Solid, but boring. Par for the course for Big Mike. It was fine. I'll give him the plague of darkness, because I was unable to see once my eyelids locked shut halfway through the song.
  • Didi Benami, singing Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted": She looked kind of rough in the Usher part, even before she started crying. She has as much soul as the cast of Night of the Living Dead. Her voice is okay, but this was really Broadway. Her phrasing was awful and for a song that is apparently so emotional, it sounded pretty fake. Ryan tried to make her cry, which was obnoxious, but the tears came falling, just like the plague of hail.
  • Tim Urban, singing Anita Baker's "Sweet Love": I'm concerned that he's not going to do well by such a melodic song. Okay, to be fair, he wouldn't do well by "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Here's a tip-off: when the singer is off-key in the rehearsal video, you're in for a disaster. Not only did he struggle with key, as usual, but this is the guy with the least soul of any of the contestants. A list of people with more soul include Rasputin, the skeleton in an anatomy classroom, and Didi Benami. He's the plague of frogs, because his Idol career has croaked. Yep, I did that.
  • Between the interviews, the time-killing, and then Ryan being obliquely racist, I'm having a major problem with tonight's episode.
  • Andrew Garcia, singing Chris Brown's "Forever": I'm done with him. Sure, he was a little better than usual, but I'm still done. I expected him to beat up this song, but he didn't really abuse it at all. So often this year, he's given his performances a black eye to the point that I thought he should be arrested for domestic violence against music, but this week wasn't as bad. Still done with him. The plague of flies, because his music is just so much insignificant buzzing to my ears at this point.
  • Katie Stevens, singing Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools": One would think that Katie Stevens singing an Aretha Franklin song would be a really, really bad idea. One would be right. My wife notes that Katie was channeling Katherine McPhee a little bit and I totally agree. I was never a big McPhee fan (though she acted surprisingly well on Community a few weeks ago), but her voice was better than Katie's here. Just too much song for her. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was just not a good song choice. I'll say the plague of blood, because my blood ran cold when I saw she was going to be doing this song.
  • Lee DeWyze, singing the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose's "Treat Her Like a Lady": I said last week that I kind of liked Lee and I thought this was the best performance of the night. Not the kind of thing that wins this show, but very enjoyable. He did a song that nobody had ever heard before, which was a huge plus. I'm going to give him the plague of boils, because this was hot! That made no sense.
  • Crystal Bowersox, singing Gladys Knight and the Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia": I made the mistake of watching a clip of Gladys Knight singing this just a few minutes ago and there's no chance that Crystal can live up to that. I always think, when watching this show, that you have to take into account how these performances stack up (or often don't) to the original recordings. But, but! She may have even a better voice than I thought she did. A big change-up for her and it totally worked. As far as I'm concerned, this whole thing remains hers to lose. She's swarming these fools like a pack of locusts, so I'll give her that one. (I was going to give her "lice" originally, but her hair actually looked relatively nice.)
  • Aaron Kelly, singing Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine": Aaron's voice is big enough for this song, right? Right? Just another song that needs considerably more feeling than the young MPM is capable of providing. Singing a soul song with a hoodie and a Bob's Big Boy haircut. Out of control, rough phrasing, missing the key left and right. He's killing the show. He's the angel of death of the show. The last contestant gets the final plague, that of the firstborn (since I'm firstborn and I cannot stand him).

Lost Comments/ Questions:

  • As one would expect, it was a setup episode after last week's was so meaty.
  • I especially like it wheV
  • You know, the part when SuV
  • So, yeah, it was pretty grV

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