Wowee – this is utterly the
worst final three in Idol history. On one hand, you have a non-singer who's all emo rock stylings without substance. Then there's the screechy, over-emoting drama queen whose sense of self-importance is so great, she equates her Idol struggles with the Civil Rights Movement. And then there's the slightly dead behind the eyes wunderkind with little charisma and even worse aphasia than Paula. I thought last year's final three was of lesser quality (Blake really dragged down the average), but if you plopped Jordin into this mix (considering she's the weakest Idol winner ever) or Melinda, either would win easily (Blake, not so much – I would actually place him sixth out of six). But even worse than their lack of merit to being handed the title is the fact that they're all so friggin'
boring – it's like pulling teeth trying to write anything interesting based on what they're offering. The outfits are boring, the song choices are boring, and I haven't been excited by any Idol performance in weeks (the last one that transcended mediocrity was Jason's
Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and the last time I really loved a performance was Chikeze's
More Than a Woman– remember him?). That was back during the top twelve days. I think I can count on one hand the number of other good verging on great performances from the top twelve onward, and we're talking about 81 performances in nine weeks! Jebus! As a point of reference, Fantasia had more great performances alone. The saddest thing is that the most entertaining moment of the season was Paula judging Jason's second song before he sang it. Seriously
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Tonight’s ultra-rushed nine song affair was another in a long line of miscalculations by the producers and the network. If your agenda contains nine songs and three homecoming celebrations, let the damn show breathe! I guess Fox didn’t want to pre-empt Hell’s Kitchen (and in a way I don’t blame them – it’s much more entertaining than Idol), but it was on such a breakneck pace that contestants started singing before Ryan even left the stage. This show needs to be at least 90 minutes, and I felt cheated by the curtness. The only forgivable excuse to truncate the traditional homecoming parade recaps is that Syesha couldn’t muster up any sort of celebration in her home town, not even a high school pep rally a la Katherine McPhee, and they didn’t want to embarrass her. Trust me, that girl is too full of herself to get embarrassed.
Now, I’m no believer in conspiracy theories, but it almost seemed like the producers handed this round to David Cook by giving him the easiest assignments of the night and making it tough for either Porkchop or Syesha to gain any traction. The breaking news that Jeff Archuleta was kicked off the set creates the kind of controversy that may affect his vote count, as some voters may not want to reward Jeff’s assholery by proxy or may feel that the best thing for Davey is to knock his stage dad down a peg or two by having him leave the competition. The reason for the barring was that he coached David to slip in lyrics from
Beautiful Girls when he sang
Stand By Me last week even though he was told by the producers not to do so as they did not clear rights to the song. Davey’s performance ended up costing the producers a lot of money, and there were also complaints of Jeff’s behavior towards David and the other contestants backstage as well. So Porkchop already had a strike against him before even singing a note.
Porkchop – Little Davey kicked off the night (which was the second strike against him, as performing first at this point in the competition is the kiss of death), and they started by showing off his pep rally and his hometown mayor, the fantastically mustachioed and whimsically named Dan Snarr. I haven’t seen such a fancy, waxed mustache on a political leader since
Archduke Franz Ferdinand. If Snarr vacations outside of Murray, Utah, I would advise that he and his wife avoid Sarajevo as a travel destination. Porkchop Sr. was in the crowd as well, and perhaps the stress of the controversy led him to binge eating, as he started to resemble portly actor
Bob Hoskins. David took the stage wearing a Blake Lewis approved
Member’s Only jacket, and had to sing Paula’s choice,
And So It Goes (this being strike three, as Paula has never picked the song of the eventual Idol winner). Unfortunately for Davey, the song sounded like
Danny Boy crossed with
Fields of Gold, and that was the only memorable thing about it. I was a big fan of Billy Joel back in the day but I had never heard this song before, so this had to have been released after
The Nylon Curtain, (which was the last time I liked a Billy Joel album). The truth is, the song did nothing for me although it was technically very well done. And even though the licking has pretty much disappeared, Porkchop couldn’t help himself and got out
a single lick just as the performance ended. There are often instances when Davey’s smiles look fake and affectless, and it reminds me of the
archaic smile from
ancient Greek sculpture. Who knew they had Athenian Idol way back in the day?
Syesha – It’s kind of sad that Syesha’s homecoming segment was shot
in a Town Car. I am going to assume that neither American Idol nor Syesha had the juice to whip up a celebration for her Idol achievements. Syesha entered the stage dressed like
Ginger from Gilligan’s Island and gave one of the two the typical Syesha performances with
If I Ain’t Got You. This one goes like this – Syesha starts out strong, with a good, rich tone and solid pitch. Then she hits the middle and sounds sort of bored and mumbly, and starts to get pitchy in spots. I attribute this to impatience – she just can’t wait to sing the big, high part of the song, and gets bored with the verse or bridge she has to
slog through to get to the good stuff. And then… she starts screeching all off key and misses most of the big notes. Ugh. I don't understand why the judges like this.
David – Cookie drew the Simon choice which is fortuitous not because the songs are good (which isn't always the case), but because Simon ends up praising the performance as a vindication of his decision making skills. Which is exactly what he did after
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. The thing is, the effusive praise was undeserved because it was mediocre at best, showing off his weak upper register and it was dreadfully slow and plodding. The only change up to the song was to have the drums and band kick in for the finish, which is pretty much the same trick he uses for all his arrangements. And while some people are bothered by Porkchop’s tics like licking and gasping, I am put off by Cook’s
angry chimp face, the one he busts out in
every single song whenever he strains to hit a semi-high note. David also has weird facial tics during the judging, like this one where he looks like comic book western hero
Jonah Hex.
Porkchop – Forgetting the words to
We Can Work It Out was definitely the low point during his Idol tenure, but I would argue that this version of
With You was Davey’s worst performance
ever. It started out by sounding like he was singing, “My boobs” instead of “my boos”, and the whitebread delivery clashed with the R&B stylings of the song. It was like listening to the Rapping Granny from
The Wedding Singer. It sounded like he was forgetting the words throughout the song, and it was just a shaky, stinky, unrehearsed pile of poo. And as if it couldn’t get worse, David’s pants were embarrassingly ill fitting – I mean, I though only girls were supposed to get
cameltoe. Did he borrow the pants from
Ramiele?
Syesha – The dress looked
very familiar – for a second, I thought she just took it out of Kristy Lee’s closet. Before
Fever even started, they cut to the chair set up in the middle of the stage, and I knew we were in for the other typical Syesha performance, the one I hate so much that I needed to get a drink before watching it. You see, the fact that there was a
chair onstage meant that she was going to do one of those vampy, campy, skin crawlingly awful cabaret numbers, the kind with more mugging than the Bronx circa 1977 and the terrible choreography that Syesha can’t even pull off because Syesha flat out can’t dance. And this is exactly what transpired, but to such a greater degree than I thought possible that I was embarrassed watching it and too distracted to even hear her singing. It was amateur night at
Lucky Chen’s, a performance so nauseating and idiotic that it was easily the low point of the evening (Porkchop notwithstanding). What kills me the most is that Syesha lacks the grace, rhythm, and coordination to look like anything other than a nervous stripper, and the fact that she repeats this act over and again speaks to her unshakable (and misplaced/delusional) faith in her abilities.
David – Your typical Cook performance – very slow and mumbly beginning, then the drums and band kick in, and he
strains and strains for notes. This one, like Baba O’Riley, ended abruptly due to time constraints. The only entertaining thing about the segment was the
sign held up by the old ladies in the audience. It was hilarious on multiple levels – for one, a Cougar should be at least somewhat hittable, but this lady was a grandma. Second, the Cougar is on the prowl for a young looking hottie – but David is balding with a potbelly – doesn’t that sound like the description of an age appropriate gentleman? So funny… and yet so deluded and sad.
Porkchop – Strike four coming up! The third time was the producers’ choice, and they saddled Davey with syrupy treacle of
Longer that triggered snoring noises all across the land. Though technically well sung, it was just musical pabulum. Even
the outfit was boring. This is not going to make Daddy happy.
Syesha – What in the name of Antonella Barba was that? Another craptastic producers’ choice,
Hit Me Up was so far out of Syesha’s wheelhouse that even she sang it like she didn’t want to be there. Off key and arrhythmic, it seemed at times that Syesha wasn’t even singing so much as talking her way through it. It was so bad that Syesha was told, “I don’t know if this is going to be good enough to get into the finals.” And this was from
Paula. Daaaag! Syesha responded with a
withering bitch face (although no one does withering bitch face like
Kat McPhee), but that morphed into
Bill Cosby face (maybe she was thinking about Jello Pudding), and then finally she turned into
The Grinch, with a malevolent smile that seemed to suggest, “Bitch, I’m replacing your oxycontin with testosterone pills.” And Paula didn’t even feel the need to apologize! That might have been the harshest critique from Paula
ever. Syesha's rise to the top three has been fueled by two things: 1) long, flowing locks (there was an analysis that concluded that everytime she sported a 'fro she ended up in the bottom three and everytime it was down she was safe) and 2) cleavage. Of which there was none tonight. Biiiig mistake.
David – I actually find
Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing to be a treacly piece of crap, the kind of song that, if not for the Aerosmith "rock and roll" version would have been relegated to the second page of Celine Dion’s set list. And yes, it was slow and mumbly at the start with drums and the band kicking in at the end, covering the
strained notes. Ironically, he missed the last note of
Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing. It seems hardly fair that the other two contestants had to suffer through their producers’ choices but David was given this song on a silver platter, complete with violins and a light show. If he does win this thing, it’s difficult to not notice the number of nudges and breaks he received tonight. I assume it was all coincidence, but it sure didn’t feel like there was a level playing field out there. For those of you keeping count, that’s a full 90 songs with a paucity of memorable performances (and no additions from tonight).
Worst. Season. Ever.
