American Idol S8 Finals Ep11 Better than Seussical

Kris Allen for the win, kittens! I wasn't even really paying attention to Lil's pimp spot debut because Kris blew my whole entire mind. That was an amazing performance by the dark horse cutie of the season. It was tender and heartfelt and just overall gorgeous. Too bad it had to be surrounded by about 50 minutes of crap (Adam being exempted as always for being 100 different flavors of awesome with a somewhat lazy and self indulgent performance).

Can we now just admit that the whole Judge #4 incident has brought bad juju to the entire season? Because she sucks and is incoherent and useless and makes the show run over and is just generally a boil on the butt of humanity, we have to get judge critique rationing? Umm, hell to the naw! Just pull the trigger and get rid of her already. She has zero value add. Poor Ryan. I can see that this is taking its toll on him. He couldn’t even work up any real head of steam when he was needling Simon last night.

But on to the show, no? Noodles, I frikkin’ love Quentin Tarantino on Idol. If we must have a fourth judge, why can’t it be him instead? He seems to actually have watched more than one episode of the show, understand what it’s about, and give relevant and honest critical feedback to the kids. It was like bizarro world during his mentoring clips. Too bad that most of the kids didn’t listen to him. Let’s get the two worthy contestants out of the way and then we’ll deal with the rest.

Thing One

Kris Allen/Falling Slowly (Once) – That was awesome. That’s what I’m talking about, y’all. I loved, loved, loved it. That sexy white devil brought it the way it should be broughten! Really, darlings, I was stunned. I just. . . I had no words for how much I enjoyed that. Kris really does have a pretty, pretty voice. Lovely tone. Unlike Idiot Randy, I didn’t hear any major pitch problems, there was maybe one flubbed note early on, but the falsetto was in fine form. Sadly, the performance was wasted on the Dawg and Judge #4 (who I reluctantly had to agree with on this one) and so Kris did not get nearly the props that he deserved for taking a risk, picking the perfect song for him and then singing it with tenderness and passion and delivering the performance of the night. The sexy is most definitely back.

Adam Lambert/Born to Be Wild (Easy Rider) – How much of a superstar is this kid already? Well, kiddies, my mom thinks he is yummy and was lamenting the fact that he bats for the other team. Yes, that’s right, darlings. My mother would like to tap that, and she started out thinking he was a weirdo screamer alien rocker kid. As Paula said, this fool is dancing in the path of greatness and rainbow sunshine all the way to the final. I agreed with Simon that this performance was a little bit indulgent and potentially polarizing, but you could tell that Adam was having a blast. This kid is really feeling himself and it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. Effortlessly headbanging with the band, coaxing the panties off of the swaybots and just generally being sex on wheels up there. Hell, yeah! He’s already a rock star.

Thing Two

Allison Iraheta/I Don't Want to Miss a Thing (Armageddon) – I’m pretty sure that if Judge #4 is Satan, Diane Warren is one of her chief devilish minions, maybe Azrael. And they made her go first. Why does the show hate her so much? I mean, yes, she got the pimp treatment with the violins & co. But honestly, she’s the very definition of under the bus. And with all that, kittens, I have to confess that I didn't really care for the performance. It’s too sad. She flubbed the words; her pronunciation is, if anything, getting worse; and the key was way too low. And her voice sounded tired this week. I mean she always has that cigarettes and whiskey rasp, but this week, she sounded hoarse. Like she needs about a month's rest and lots of tea with honey and lemon. Darlings, it was by far her worst performance (although it was still better than almost anything that some, like Matt, let’s just toss a name out there, has ever thrown down on the Idol stage) And of course now the judges decide to pimp. Well, I won't complain too much. They're about a day late and a dollar short, but I'm for anything that equals Allison pimping.

Anoop Desai/Everything I Do (I Do It for You) (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) – As soon as Ryan said Robin Hood in the bumper to the break, I knew that Anoop would be bringing us this big ol’ block of gubmint cheese. Dammit. I hated this song choice in every way that one can. There is just no way to make a good impression when you are singing a song this inherently bad. And Anoop was out of time at the beginning. It was very odd, almost like he couldn’t hear the band at all. Well, kiddies, he didn’t sing it badly. It’s just that the song sucks tremendous amounts of ass and it was boring. And what the hell was he wearing? When I first saw him at the top of the show, I thought he was rocking a denim vest, which sadly might have actually been better. Y’all, I have decided that Anoop has no taste in music. Or rather, that he has the taste of a 50 year old, 'gator wearing, country ass black man for whom Freddie Jackson is the height of R&B fabulousity. He really needs someone to guide him to the right songs. Dear Anoop, Call me! I will hook you up. Love, Me.

Nothing

Matt Giraud/ Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman (Don Juan De Marco) – Not one, but two Bryan Adams songs? Why so many songs from the cheese master?

(Fashion Side Note: His pants were sooo tight, y'all. Why? It's wrong. Wardrobe crack whores, please make it stop. Only Adam can pull of those tight ass pants and that’s because it’s as close as he can come to being butt nekkid all the time as the gods intended without getting arrested, mkay?)

God. The goat voiced vibrato was back in full effect. And why the addiction to vocal runs? I blame Mimi and Boyz II Men and other 90’s era R&B titans. Kids grew up not appreciating the perfect simplicity of a held note. Find a note, hit it and hold it. It's not hard, youth of America. You know, noodles, he sang really pretty when he sang it straight. And he had some moments of very nice falsetto there. And then, oh, he just let it get away from him as always. The whole performance was so hot and cold. But I finally got it on goat boy, y'all. He totally thinks he's a much better singer than he really is and it’s so sad for him. Special note to the Dawg: For me for you, this was your shining judge moment of the season. You totally made sense. Thank you, Randy Jackson. Judge #4 continued to be a useless tool. In what universe is Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman a rock song?

Do y’all remember that Dr. Seuss book, Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now? The one where the narrator begs this creepy kid to go away and finally, after a million pages, the kid goes? And then there was this story that really Dr. Seuss had written that book about Richard Nixon and then some Washington Post reporter reprinted the poem in its entirety replacing the name Marvin K. Mooney with Richard Nixon and it reflected perfectly the post-Watergate mood of the country? Do y’all think that Dr. Seuss could’ve secretly written that book about Judge #4, sensing how much we would hate her? I mean, look how well it works:

Kara DioGuardi will you please go now!
The time has come. The time is now.
Just go. Go. Go! I don't care how.
You can go by foot. You can go by cow.
Kara DioGuardi will you please go now!
You can go on skates. You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat. But, please go. Please!
I don't care. You can go by bike.
You can go on a Zike-Bike if you like.
If you like you can go in an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO! Please do, do, do, DO!
Kara DioGuardi, I don't care how.
Kara DioGuardi, will you please GO NOW!
You can go on stilts. You can go by fish.
You can go in a Crunk-Car if you wish.
If you wish, you may go by lion's tale.
Or stamp yourself and go by mail.
Kara DioGuardi, don't you know?
The time has come to go, go, GO!
Get on your way! Please Kara D!
You might like going in a Zumble-Zay.
You can go by balloon . . . or broomstick.
Or you can go by camel in a bureau drawer.
You can go by bumble-boat . . . or jet.
I don't care how you go. Just get!
Kara DioGuardi! I don't care how.
Kara DioGuardi, will you please GO NOW!
I said GO and GO I meant . . .
The time had come
So . . . Kara WENT.

Noodles, let’s all pray that the last line of this poem comes true very, very soon.

Danny Gokey/ Endless Love (Endless Love) – Frikkin’ Gokey, darlings. “I play guitar, too! Look at me! Look at me!” Really? He's so fucking cheesy. And the show is only encouraging the cheese. They are not just embracing the cheese. They are promoting the cheese and the disgusting, ghoulish, spectacle of publicly grieving for the whole world to observe. It’s abhorrent. I can’t with this one. So he took a song that’s nothing but clichés and he made it even worse with the staging and the harp and the stool and the stupid hand gestures meant to mimic heartfelt sincerity for his dead wife (against the very sane advice of QT, I might add). And he was way off pitch again. Some more. And he filled the song up with unnecessary runs and vocal tics and killed whatever small amount of charm it had going for it. And he screamed at me the entire time. Stop screaming at me, Gokey. Why are you angry with me? I’m not the one who made you this intolerably contrived. And yet the show will not get off this fool’s jock. Even Simon softballed how bad this performance really was and lied that his voice sounded great. What? Paula got Simon hooked on that stuff, y’all. The only plus side to this nonsense was that someone took away that fool's glasses and gave him a haircut and he was rockin' the nice 5:00 shadow and he looked hella good. What? All of a sudden, all these kids are fine.

Lil Rounds/The Rose (The Rose) – And Lil got the completely undeserved pimp slot. And the wig. Kittens, the wigs are killing me softly. She seemed perfectly fine with her short and sassy cut. It suited her face and her personality. And know, we get third rate Remi Yaki weave that you could find in any Sally Beauty Supply across the country (Hey, Carly!). Let’s do this quickly, because there’s really not much to talk about here, is there, darlings? It was a horrible song choice for her. She flubbed the words badly. Of course, she fell right off the pitch in the transition to the “gospel” part. And it was boring again. Some more. So, so bored now. And the judges continued to talk about everything but her actual singing. Go home, Lil. I think you’ve disappointed me most of all.

That’s the whole kit and caboodle. Tonight, we lose one more and then we are only a week away from Top 5! If it’s anyone other than Lil or Matt, I will be displeased.