Kittens, I know I said I’d be out of touch, but this is a little bit over the top even pour moi, no? Well, the universe continues to hate me, but the Idol gods love me because White Stevie is gone and not a moment too soon. I debated even bothering to recap last week’s shows at this late date, but I must get my licks in (and in the case of my sweet Anoop/Anouk I mean that literally. Yum!) So I’ll begin by doing the fastest run down ever of last week’s talent in no particular order and then I’ll tell you what I’m dying to hear the AI-lettes sing this week for Movie Night. Oh, and I’d apologize for flubbing the birth year’s last week, but really I picked better for most of the contestants than they picked for themselves so I don’t care. And we’re off, darlings!
Stale Leftovers
Allison Iraheta/I Can’t Make You Love Me – Fierce! That’s all. And Simon can kiss my sweet patootie. Ok, now that’s all.
Anoop Desai/True Colors – Give me a fuckin’ break, America. Anoop sings the one song that I most wanted to hear him sing and he kills it and still you put him in the bottom 3? Noodles, tell me it was a late April Fool’s joke. Clearly one of the top performances of the night along with Adam and Allison. Others may hate, but that sexy geek can just come right on home to mama. For real.
Kris Allen/All She Wants to Do Is Dance – Don Henley put out many fine songs in the 80’s. This was not one of them. Add in the oddly lethargic swaybots and Judge #4’s only relevant critique of the entire season on that jacked up arrangement and you have Kris’ dark night of the squeaky clean soul. Poor form.
Matt Giraud/Part-Time Lover – Chicken Little did it better, kittens. Hurt my ears. And the judges are seriously on that monkey crack when it comes to this kid. The hate train is back in full effect.
Danny Gokey/Stand By Me – It’s a waste of my time to comment. He is cheesy and gross and I wish he would go home. Don’t you? I knew that you did.
Lil Rounds/What’s Love Got to Do With It? – Well, nothing where she’s concerned, kiddies. And the wigs are killing me softly. Bad angry trannys! No loose booty for you. Can we send her home next? Who is voting for her and how can I get you to stop?
White Stevie Wonder/The Search Is Over – Yes, yes it is.
Adam Lambert/Mad World – He’s magic, y’all. And thanks to the pointless addition of Judge #4, half of America didn’t even see it live. Ryan’s poor little heart was breaking right before our very eyes. You know the judge panel has got out of control when even Ryan can’t bring the show in under the wire. Can we all just admit now that the Judge #4 experiment has been a huge failure and put her out of her misery? Because Adam is magic and that performance should be up there in the pantheon with ‘Tasia’s Summertime and Carrie’s Alone and Kelly’s Stuff Like That There and Elliot’s Song for You and Jason’s Hallelujah and J.Hud’s Circle of Life. And half of DVR/TiVo America missed it. That ain’t right.
Hot and Fresh Out the Kitchen
Tonight, tonight. Oh, what these kids could do! Surprisingly, there are things that I wouldn’t mind hearing from any of the contestants left in the competition. I really think this is one of the strongest top 7 groups we’ve had in a long, long while, noodles. Even the ones I loathe I must grudgingly admit have some talent. Since we once again have a theme that invites “Basically, sing whatever you damn well please,” I’m thinking that Adam and Kris have the potential to tear it up in a few hours whereas Lil and Anoop are in trouble. (My poor Anoop does better when he’s more constrained by the theme) Anyway, if they were smart, they might attempt some of these songs:
Adam Lambert
He will kill it no matter what. Of that, there can no longer be any doubt. And he has so much room to roam here, kittens, that I am on the edge of my seat. How can he not get the pimp slot again this week? I think it nigh unto impossible. I’d listen to him sing anything, but I think I might lose all bodily functions for a while if he sang any of the following:
Come What May (Moulin Rouge) – I have long thought that nothing could touch the perfection of hearing Ewan McGregor sing this to a dying of consumption Nicole Kidman, but I think Adam singing this might break me in just the right ways. Bonus points if he wears a bindi or henna tattoos on any part of his body.
Iris (City of Angels) – It’s almost too expected from him, but I do believe that he could kill with this number.
White Wedding (The Wedding Singer) – Oh, what I’d give for a glammed out Adam getting down and dirty with some Billy Idol. Think of the places that he could grab himself, kiddies! The mind reels. Sex faces galore.
Kiss (Under the Cherry Moon) – Adam Lambert + Prince = Two great tastes that taste great together. Every loin in the place would spontaneously combust and Paula might actually climb onto the stage and copulate with the boy live on the air. On a side note, a Paula/Adam Lambert baby might be the most perfectly divine creature ever invented or might be the antichrist. Either way, massively entertaining.
Allison Iraheta
Manic Panic has done up tempo and now she’s broken our hearts with an aching ballad. She has nothing left to prove for me. Like Adam, I just want to watch and enjoy until the finals and then prepare myself for her sure to be a smash debut CD. She’s only had one teeny misstep in picking a lesser No Doubt song in Don’t Speak and still managing to deliver a decent vocal. This week, if she sings any of the following, even the crackheads in wardrobe won’t be able to stop her:
Evergreen (A Star Is Born) – I think our Manic Panic chola has an even bigger voice than she’s thus far shown us, noodles. We’re talking Barbara level chops. Yes, it’s true. Lil is not the true belter this season. Allison is. She could throw down on this song. It’s treacly tripe but the song is completely saved by the fact that Babs rips into it and eats it whole. Allison could do the same and deliver a vocal that would leave her beyond reproach, Simon.
Take Me With You (Purple Rain) – Happy, fun Prince! Who doesn’t love happy, fun Prince. This cut would allow Allison to show her younger, more playful side and quiet those critics who erroneously claim that she doesn’t have much of a personality, Simon.
Nobody Does It Better (The Spy Who Loved Me) – Because it’s true, Simon.
Anoop Desai
Kittens, he needs to resist the urge to retreat into frat boy party mode with some schlocky up tempo tune. He’s right in the pocket rocking a tenderly sexy ballad like he did with True Colors last week. This week, Anoop could get my digits and get in them jeans if he sang any of the following:
When You Say Nothing At All (Notting Hill) – Beautiful song for a beautiful voice. He could have Paula crying and we all love when Paula cries, no?
Kiss from a Rose (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) – Risky, I know, kittens. After all, it’s already been done, and well, on Idol this season and there’s nothing worse than being a pale imitation of a past Idol performance. That said, Anoop could spank this song and make it his bitch. And if he had enough balls to actually go there, he might create the buzz that he’s been sorely lacking and actually crack the Top 5 as he by all rights should do.
In Your Eyes (Say Anything) – Who doesn’t want a Lloyd Dobler of their very own, darlings? This song is all about wanting and passion and sex in the back of cars and love that makes you do the wacky, put on a ridiculous hat and fly off to Paris with an impossibly hot, impossibly wrong for you boy. Yes, I think Anoop could do quite well with this one.
Danny Gokey
I’m paralyzed by all the not caring, kiddies. That said, he does have a pretty voice. He should deploy it on one of the songs below and make himself slightly less annoying in the process:
Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) – I’m tired of the bombast, riffs, runs, gruff growly stuff. He needs to just sing a very lovely ballad, stripped down and bare and hit the actual notes as written in the song. He needs to sing it quietly and softly. He needs to show some subtlety and tenderness. He needs to not be on 11 all the goddamn time.
Up Where We Belong (An Officer and a Gentleman) – Conversely, he just needs to go ahead and Cocker it the hell on up on a song that can actually stand for that. Don’t try to soul-ize Jesus Take the Wheel because that dog won’t hunt. Get your gravel-ly, white boy rocks off by walking in the footsteps of the master. I actually think he may not be up to the test what with his penchant for always being just a hair under the pitch on every song, but what the hell? Let’s see if he could really bring it, noodles.
Let’s Stay Together (Pulp Fiction) – I dare you, Gokey.
Kris Allen
The sexy wolf turned back into a cute puppy last week. Just when this kid was growing on me, too. Well, one bad week after progressively getting stronger and stronger is not going to make me turn on him, but my favorite baby faced killer could definitely stand to make a comeback with one of the following songs:
Everybody’s Talkin’ (Midnight Cowboy) – He can get that pretty, sensitive singer/songwriter vibe back. He’s much better with a guitar. And the ballads take away the possibility of the crazy bad white boy dancing he unleashes on the up tempo stuff. It’s even got a kind of country feel that could rope in some of He-Man Oilman’s voting bloc.
Blaze of Glory (Young Guns) – Kittens, I know JBJ night was an atrocity. And I know that this song is cheesy. But I love it so, so much. And I think Kris could bring that little sexy swagger to it that he’s been letting peek out these last few weeks. I can’t really explain it, just a feeling.
Secret Garden (Jerry Maguire) – This song is sex in musical form. It’s so gorgeous. The very definition of “Make love to me” music. Kris would be perfection with this song and all the little girlies could pretend he was singing this just to them and not to that increasingly monkey faced wife of his.
Lil Rounds
Let’s face it, she’s toast, if not this week then surely the next, right? But since she must sing tonight, here’s what I could stomach from her:
The Way We Were (The Way We Were) – I want Lil to do the Gladys Knight version, not the Babs version. Gladys is the perfect example of a great female black singer who is not a belter. No one would argue that Gladys can’t blow. But not in the way that Patti blows. Not in the way that Whitney or Mariah blows. And Lil desperately needs to learn that having a good voice does not depend on the sheer volume at which you can sing. You also have to do pesky things like hit the right notes and have good phrasing and breath control and interpret a song with originality and emotion. If she sings this song like I know she could, like Gladys did, she might even be able to get herself legitimately back into this competition.
Let’s Hear It for the Boy (Footloose) – Let’s have fun, young mom Lil. I’m sick of her singing lite FM classic ballads. This song is just throw away pop fluff, but darlings, isn’t she like 24 years old? Life is a throw away pop ballad at 24, and if it isn’t, heavens to Betsy, shouldn’t it be? Lil seriously needs to lighten up or risk giving Carly Smithson a run for her money in the Desperation Sweepstakes.
Stormy Weather (Stormy Weather) – Lena Horne couldn’t sing. That’s a true fact, boys and girls. But she owned every inch of this song. How? She felt it and she made you feel it. She stayed true to the melody, hit all the notes, stayed in tune, didn’t try to sing outside of herself and she sold it with her interpretation. Her phrasing was impeccable. Listen to her intonation. How she takes her breaths. Where she pauses. Little things that turn this song into a classic. Lil needs to learn how to be a song stylist. And all in a week, too.
Matt Giraud
We could just toss him on the Danny/Lil trash heap of wasted potential. He had one good week where he brought it and fooled me and eleventy million goat voiced, vibrato overloaded , shitty weeks. Why should this week be any different than most others? Oh, and Justin Timberlake would eat this fool for lunch and still need a snack to tide him over ‘til supper time, darlings. Does anyone credible deny this? No, Judge #4 does not count.
The Way You Look Tonight (Swing Time) – If he sang it straight, seated at a baby grand in a lovely suit (or even a tux) and with some sincerity, it might be pretty terrific. But we all know that he would never do that, so let’s move on, shall we?
Que Sera Sera (The Man Who Knew Too Much) – Not the Doris Day version, y’all. Think the Sly and the Family Stone version. Don’t know it? Take a Listen and then tell me that, as much as we hates him, damn vibrato boy couldn’t kill it? Kittens, you know that he could. Dammit.
You Never Can Tell (Steel Magnolias) – Clever, witty, vocals right in this fool’s wheelhouse. Noodles, if he would just listen to me, Matt could actually have a decent week. My only consolation is knowing that he won’t, therefore I can go on hating him with impunity.
We’re already live on the East Coast, y'all. Have I missed the mark?
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