Well, that was a night of peaks and valleys, wasn’t it? The first night on the big stage was surprisingly kind to some unexpected contestants and the harsh mistress we all know and love to others. I know who I think should be taking a long walk off of a short pier, noodles, but who knows what you bitches will do? And the big twist coming tonight? Can it please be that Paula strangles Judge #4 with that weird piece of string Simon was tugging on whilst trying to undress her last night? (And sidebar: How cute was Ryan running over in his best big boy on TV suit to protect his man from Paula’s wicked ways? So, so cute. Ah, young love) But I digress, and we have a lot of heads to chop, so let’s keep it moving.
Peaks
Darlings, we started off so well last night, didn’t we? Ryan looked stunning and they re-worked the stage yet again, now with extra added bridges for White Stevie Wonder to fall off of if we’re really, really good and pray extra hard. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about the judges’ dramatic entrance until I saw Paula in all her feathered glory come all tipsy tumbles down the stairs. She’s back on that monkey crack, y’all! And still just as fabulous as ever. She even crushed some dreams with Simon last night, what? Sadly, one of them was Anoop’s which was totally undeserved, but we’ll get to that. And y’all, Paula and Simon haaaattteee Judge #4. Can I get a witness? The Dawg is the only one that will even look at her now. So, yes, straight out the gate the show was hitting a high note. Which led us into . . .
Our first look at the kiddies and apparently Simon Fuller not only brought over the crack addled monkeys from last year’s SYTYCD production and camera crews, he unleashed the coke whores and angry trannys from the wardrobe and hair and make up departments on the girls. Each and every one of them looked kee-razy. This show makes money by the assload. They can afford sane wardrobe people. I think I went temporarily blind from the glare off of Lil Rounds white, peg leg, high waisted pants. Why? It’s going to be a long season if they keep dressing these girls like this.
Lil Rounds/The Way You Make Me Feel – She was adorable in her pre-package and her kids are cute and I promise I’m not going to complain anymore about what a hot mess she looked in those white, peg leg, high waisted pants with the mauve top with some kind of growth sprouting out of one boob and the pink sparkly eye shadow (trannys!) except to say that she overcame all of that with the fierceness of this performance. This girl can sang, kittens. She sounded lovely (although Simon was right that the back half of the song was better than the first part). All in all, a lovely way to kick off the show. And of course Paula loved the outfit. She probably considered wearing it herself before settling down with her hot glue gun, lace, beads and feathers to destroy that white strapless monstrosity she wound up rocking.
White Stevie Wonder/Keep the Faith – I didn’t know this song, nor do I care to know it. WSW sounded alright, although he was sharp and a little bit wonky on the chorus. The back up singers sounded like ass, as they would throughout the night. Seriously, kiddies, what the hell is wrong with Ricky Minor and the band? If I cared at all about this fool, I’d have been hot that the arrangement was so milquetoast and the back up singers were so out of tune. There’s really no point, though, in even critiquing this performance. The show obviously wants him around to make some point about how everyone’s a winner and you can do it and there are no limits but the ones we create for ourselves and whatever other Hallmark-y Special Olympics point they are trying to prove. So, yay? WSW lives to warble another treacly song. Oh, and “You can be artistic, just not on this show.” Thank you, Simon Cowell. Truer words were never spoken. Damn, Judge #4 really knows less than nothing about American Idol. Where did they find that fool?
Danny Gokey/PYT – I both hoped for and feared that someone would pick this song tonight. Thankfully, it landed in the hands of Danny and his dead wife (and thank the gods that they did not go there in the pre-package). However, Danny’s pre-package re-confirmed how much I do not understand white people. Do y’all just sit around your living rooms having hootenannies on the regular? C’mon. You can tell me. Anyway, forget about dead wives or badly pierced friends or whatever else you might hate about Danny Gokey, haters. The man can flat out B-L-O-W. He broke it down. He is at Jill Scott levels of “hate on me hater”. Just too good for the show’s bullshit pimping to bring down.
And it was so far, so good, right? Three up and even White Stevie wasn’t heinously bad, just supremely annoying. But for every peak, noodles, there must be a valley. And we were about to nosedive into a deep one.
Valleys
Michael Sarver/You Are Not Alone – Kittens, one should never, ever sing a song where the primary association is with a half nekkid Lisa Marie Presley. That is just MJ song picking rule #1. Nothing from the Lisa Marie era. And worse than that, one should never attempt to do impressive runs and fall completely off the notes. It was painful bad. Painful. The only thing more embarrassing was watching the judges break their necks trying to keep He-Man Oilman in the competition. I honestly don’t get why they’re pimping him so hard. Their unrelenting cheerleading had at least one upside. Paula hated it, but she still tried to find a way to pimp it. So she broke out “color” and she did that thing where she gets into the middle of a word and realizes that she doesn't really know what it means or how it connects to her next word. "Instinct . . . ually perfect" Delicious. New meds, Paula? You’re forever our girl.
Jasmine Murray/I’ll Be There – Who programmed the bot to pick the one song guaranteed to make me absolutely hate her? I get that she’s young and country and apparently her family can be of no help to her because they let the wardrobe fiends put her in a mini-caftan that only Mrs. Roper could love, but someone really needs to holler at this young’un and tell her that she’s not X-tina. Nope, not Mimi either. Nor Whitney. She’s a cute young girl with spackled on make up and an OK voice. Like second soloist in the church choir level good, which is absolutely good enough to establish a solid career as a pop artist in this, the age of Autotune. But y’all, she could never sing this song well enough to erase Mariah murdering it on MTV Unplugged. And she’s not deep enough to establish the sweet connection that you get from listening to the young MJ pour his heart and soul into this little ditty. So why was she wasting our time? It was fine. She was mostly in tune. The big notes were too big for her, as always. She’s just supremely boring. And btw, kiddies, the judges hate her. Even Paula called her out for being under the pitch in spots. I don’t understand why they put her on the show. Felicia could’ve put her foot in that song. What a waste of a Top 13 pick. Still cute as a button, though.
Side Note: I am going to love Glee almost more than is humanly possible and it's going to be cancelled after like 3 episodes and that is going to break my heart.
And now so far, not so good, no? I mean, I was seriously worried because Kris was coming up next and he already had issues with Man in the Mirror. It wasn’t looking so good for the kiddies or for your faithful recapper. But, to my surprise, we stumbled up another peak . . . and Kris sparked the turn around.
Peaks
Kris Allen/Do You Remember the Time – As Simon would point out later, the cute wife in the pre-package crushed many a young girl’s dream last night. But it’s only been five months. Plenty of time for that marriage to fall apart after he dumps her on his way to fame and fortune. Also, more hootenannies. Damn, white people. WTF? So the beginning sounded much better, didn’t it? He was getting his little funky on. He was doing so much better than his first go round with MJ and the guitar cut down on the geeky white boy dancing by at least 70%. And then, so sad. So tragic. He completely missed the notes on the break into the bridge and he just . . . started screaming. And didn’t stop. Until the very end of the song. And Judge #4 claimed that he missed a few notes? Try all of them in the back half of that song. Idiot. So, the judges still don’t care about this fool at all and they babbled and picked at each other like a monkey tribe grooming itself on the wide savannah. But whatever, this kid is young and cute and the first half of the song was rockin’. I’m pretty sure he’s good.
Alison Iraheta/Give In to Me – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I love this Manic Panic chola! And now I love her chulo family, too. Singing at La Curacao? It doesn’t get anymore East LA awesome than that. And the girl can straight up sing. She rocked the hell out of this little known MJ song. It was a perfect choice for her voice and her whole vibe. And out of the ladies last night, she looked the least crazy. The boots were hot, and the hairdresser might’ve gone a little bit crazy with the flat iron, but on the whole, the look was working. And she is too funny. I’m in love with her “Yeah, man.” I hope to hear much, much more of it as the season progresses.
And then we were peaking, right? We’re peaking and look there, around the corner was Anoop. Yay, Anoop! That’s gravy, no? Except, no. Kittens, I was heartbroken. I got concerned when I saw him in his Members Only jacket doing the Thriller dance. I feared the cheese. And then he brought the cheese. And his friend, Loud PR boy came right behind him with the government cheese. And before you know it, fucking Tattoo Sleeve showed up and we were deep in the valley.
Valleys
Anoop Desai/Beat It – Noodles, I still love Anoop. I love his pre-package. I love that he was the cutest baby ever. I love his parents being completely confused and culture shocked by the whole AI machine but totally supporting him in all the Anoop-y things he’s doing. And I don’t think the performance was nearly as bad as the judges made it out to be. Having said that, it was pretty bad. I mean, he was in tune for the most part. And he’s such a sexy, hot geek. But was it kinda corny? Kinda karaoke? Well, yeah. But on a night of Michael Sarvers and Megan Corkerys, this draws the judges ire? And Simon bitching about how they shouldn’t have even put him through to the Top 13? When you let Jasmine “Package Princess” Murray through? Yeah, the judges have lost their damn minds. If there’s any justice, Anoop will live to make them eat every one of those nasty words. But seriously, pick better songs, son.
Jorge Nunez/Never Can Say Goodbye – It was the definition of cheesy, 70’s lounge singer. And he went right back to being Loud PR Boy, screaming his way through the song and over emoting with the eyebrows and the out of control facial expressions and oh, my! Darlings, it was bad. He continued to display an adorable personality both in his stereotype re-affirming pre-package and his kind of broken English post-performance interview where he insisted that he couldn’t just jump on stage and sing Bad. (Although, come to think of it, that could have been totally awesome) He’s incredibly likeable and he made Paula say “mad love” which was wrong in all the right ways. But he shouldn’t be on this show.
Megan Corkery/Rockin’ Robin – We’re being punked, right? This is a joke. I don’t even have the strength anymore, family. It’s literally impossible for me to hate her more than I do at this very moment. Rockin’ Robin is a song you teach third graders to sing for their Spring Fling Pageant. It’s the kind of a song that’s not really a song. Like all of her songs have been. And she proceeded to sing it horribly, out of tune, screechily. My stars and garters, she even screeched “Caw caw” at the end of it! She has no lower register. She has no falsetto. She has no range. Yeah, she can’t sing. And she’s not all that beautiful. So, yes, Simon and the rest of the judges, we do think that you have gone completely nuts. Another wasted Top 13 slot. If she doesn’t go home this week (and I’m afraid she won’t go home this week, y’all) then next week Tattoo Sleeve has to pick a real song. One that requires actual singing. Ya heard?
And dammit, we were so deep in the valley at this point, I thought we’d never see daylight. But it’s always darkest before the dawn, no? And two contestants I love and one I hate made sure that we ended the first performance show of S8 on a peak.
Peaks
Adam Lambert/Black or White – I frikkin’ love this kid. All haters need to fall back. He’s has magic in those tight pants, noodles. Entertaining, can sing his butt off. Please recognize that this kid is the truth. There was nothing I didn’t love about that performance. It was by far the best of the night. He didn’t even need the pimp lighting. He probably has his own natural follow spot that just hangs around illuminating the magnificence that is him. As it should be. As it should be.
Matt Giraud/Human Nature – I have to give it to him. From his intro package with his beautifully mixed race family to his perfect song choice, to the way he tore it down on this song and brought that sexy JT/Robin Thicke thing and totally justified his out of proportion swagger. He was amazing. This performance was fire. And oh, how it burns. Bitterest gall. Goat voice worked it out. I reserve the right to resume hating him at any moment. But for now, strangé. He brought it the way it should be broughten.
Alexis Grace/Dirty Diana – Shutting it down in the pimp slot. Another perfect song choice. And I thoroughly enjoyed her performance. Drunk Paula continued to prove her mettle as the best judge of the season by noting that the song was slightly oversung, but really, it didn’t matter. She was great. And since they were overtime, the other judges didn’t get much of a chance to pile on. Alexis and her unreasonably cute baby and her black strapless bubble short onesie should easily live to see another day. She can really sing. And once she realizes that what makes great singers is their ability to provide a lot of different textures in their voices, to sing it low and sweet or hard and rough just like Ike and Tina promised us, she is going to really be a force. And kittens, she taught her baby to say “Seacrest out.” I will love her forever for that alone.
And then we were out. I don’t know what the surprise twist will be. I hope and pray that it’s not an SYTYCD style sing for your life as some have speculated because I’m more than ready to see the back of Jasmine and Tattoo Sleeve. We’ll see. I’m still holding out for death by strangulation and an end to the Karababble. Come on, Paula. I know you have it in you.
Until the pimpmercial, y’all.
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