Okay, this is typically the first week I begin watching American Idol. I simply loathe the humiliation of and listening to the "bad" singers, all the backstage "reality" tropes and basically anything except for the performance itself and "judging" of the performance. There's only so much Paula loopiness and retarded seal clapping and Randy "yo dawg" I can take, so I limit myself to following it from the 12 finalists through the bitter end. So all these performers were new to me, and my comments on them this week (and from here on out) will be based on what I've seen since last night.
First and foremost: What The Fuck is a "Sanjaya?" How did this off key, coma inducing joke make it to the final 12? Is this a result of that "vote for the worst" campaign? Holy shit he was bad. If he doesn't get dragged off the stage and shot outside the auditorium, there's something seriously wrong with America.
Diana Ross (and The Supremes) have a great songbook to choose from. Yet many of the choices were uninspired and poorly performed. Or even worse, mystifyingly arranged. Why so many sappy ballads? What about "Upside down?" "Why do fools fall in love?" "I'm coming out?" "Where did our love go?" "Baby love?" "Stop in the name of love?" "Back in my arms again?" "Reflections?" "Someday we'll be together?" Even the choice of "Love hangover" never got its climax! How can they ignore these classics? What do people have against anything uptempo? Ugh.
As for the attempts to "rearrange" a tune, and "make it their own," I wholeheartedly agree with the strategy, if not always the results. Yet twice last night, the songs were a complete botch. Worst was Chris Sligh's unholy merging of "Endless love" with the overrated, grating, self-important poseur sound of Coldplay (one of my most hated bands ever, right there with Rush and Yes). And I'm not sure what Blake wanted to do with "You keep me hanging on." Not uptempo enough to be a fun romp like the Kim Wilde cover, yet not true to the original either. Big missed chance.
How can three -- THREE! -- of these folks forget the fucking words? This is the first time out of the box in the finals, they've had a week to learn the songs, and they forget the words? Yikes. At least Haley had a short skirt.
I'd heard that the gals were prohibitive favorites over the guys, and nothing I saw last night dispelled that. Technically, I'd say the best I saw last night were: Lakisha, Stephanie, Melinda and Jordin. The performance I most enjoyed was Gina's -- though it will be interesting to see how far this "rock chick" thing goes.
Overall, I was really disappointed. Bad song choices, lackluster performances, stupefying rearrangements and not a lot of personality. Hopefully things will improve, but this looks like a dreary season thus far.
However, Simon was delightfully snarky, Randy toned down the "yo-speak" and Paula, though weeping occasionally, appeared somewhat lucid. C- for the whole show, and thank the gods for Tivo and the FF button.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
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Other than BSG, I don't watch many of the shows which typically draw your critical attention. However, thanks to the wife's love of reality television, I am an Idol regular.
ReplyDeleteLast night was quite bad. Some of these performers: notably, Sligh and Blake have had much better performances in previous weeks.
I decreed Melinda Doolittle to be your winner first week out of Hollywood, but all of the black girls are very strong singers. I suspect demographics will unfortunately lead to one of them being voted out before they should be.
Without question in my mind, Melinda and Lakisha should be the two finalists.
No one has any idea why Sanjaya is still on this show.