AI6 – Round of 10 – Performances

I’m pseudo-live-blogging tonight. It’s 10:15 as I’m starting to watch IDOL, and I’m just going to type as I watch tonight, pausing here and there to type out my thoughts. It’ll hopefully be a quicker process, overall, than the usual one, wherein I write in a marathon burst after the show before I go to bed, trying desperately to read copious handwritten notes of questionable legibility.

One of these weeks, I’ll do an actual live blog. I’ve been threatening it for quite a while.

But for now, let’s go:

I love how the opening credits are EXACTLY thirty seconds long. It’s only one 30 Second Skip button to get through them all, with perfect accuracy.

Ooh, we ARE live: Ryan is racing through the judge introductions.

Gina looks like she cried when she met tonight’s guest mentor, GwenStefani.

LaKisha lucked out and got Donna Summer’s “Last Dance,” a song the Future Mrs. and I BEGGED not to have played at the end of our wedding reception. LaKisha is wearing a particularly colorful kitchen table cover and boots.

Oh, she attempted a spin. That was awkward.

Man, those boots have very high and very thin heels. I don’t now how she didn’t break one.

Is this really the kind of stuff I pay attention to?

Ah, well, she sang fine. A little karaoke, but I can’t call her pitchy or anything. She’s as strong as ever, but America isn’t going to fall in love with her enough to make her the big winner. And she went first this week. I might have to think of her for the bottom three at the end of the night. America takes people for granted sometimes, you know.

And, look, her bank got some free publicity! People in the crowd came from her place of employment, with the bank’s name front and center on their sign.

I was so fast-forwarding through the commercials until I hit that SPIDER-MAN 3 commercial. Peter Parker still looks like Frodo going after the ring, and like Luke reaching out for his light sabre at the end there. ::sigh::

WHOA! ZEB WELLS IS ON TV! Wait, that can’t be the kid writing Marvel comics, can it? The one who made his name making mockumentaries about superheroes for WIZARD contests? Holy crap, it is. He’s on THE LOT. Did I miss that announcement? I have to go post on the Pipeline board. Excuse me.

(Boy, this “live blogging” thing is going to take forever, isn’t it?)

Chris Sligh is asked about what he does in his free time and mentions something about hitting the bongo drums in his boxer shorts. Is that a Bill Clinton reference? Or, wait, was that Woody Harrelson?

Chris is singing “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.” Stefani tells us his timing is off. It’s a weird song to do for IDOL.

Ooh, he’s not starting strongly. He sounds like a pale imitation of Sting, with weird breathing and timing issues. This is not going to be pretty. He sounds so flat. . .

I don’t believe him at all with this song. It’s bad karaoke. And that Weird Al hair is starting to get to me, too.

He knows it sucked. You can see that look on his face.

And the judges are giving him hell.

Simon thought it was “a mess.” I can’t disagree with him.

Gina Glocksen gets “I’ll Stand By You.” Great song for her voice. Heck, it’s almost the perfect song choice for her. Give her credit for that. She looks emotional. But those boots are bad.

She doesn’t go for those high notes. She does a little rocker shout thing for them. I like that, actually.

Oh, but that last note got lost halfway through in a warble.

She seems exceedingly pleased with herself. I think it was a great vocal overall, so long as you ignore that last half of that last note.

Simon calls it her best performance. I don’t disagree. And he referred to “chalk and cheese,” which I’m sure Ryan will call him on – oh, there he goes. Ain’t live blogging fun?

Ooh, Train Wreck Boy is next. And what’s with that odd closeup to Ryan’s face on the way out to commercial?!?

Back from commercial, and LaKisha’s bank gets more free publicity.

The Hair of Sanjaya Malakar deserves its own spin-off series.  But for now, I’ll be content to discuss it After The Break:

Sanjaya Malakar is singing No Doubt’s “Bathwater.” I laughed when I heard it. No, seriously. I had to hit pause to type while wiping away the tears from my cheeks. He’s going to sing a No Doubt song to Gwen Stefani?!? I want to vote for the kid just for that. Look up “gumption” in the dictionary, go ahead. Is there a pic of a young boy, half-Italian, half-Indian? Yeah, I knew it.

Ooh, Gwen gets the zinger in, saying it’s a hard song, but he chose it, so good luck for him. Ouch.

What the $^%& did he do to his hair? He’s officially a parody of himself. It looks like he’s the No Doubt drummer.

He’s bobbing the hair. Ohmigod.

And then he forgot a lyric. Does anyone care? It’s all part of the charm with him.

Is this the Jump The Shark moment for IDOL?

YES. YES, IT IS. Simon is cracking up. Ryan is speechless, and can only call the hair “interesting.” That’s bad. And Paula can only criticize him for not going far enough.

Simon’s quotes of the week right here:

“I presume there was no mirror in your dressing room.”

“I don’t think it matters what we say anymore. You are in your own universe and if people like you, then good luck!”

Ryan thanks Sanjaya for the entertainment. My god, does he realize that he’s a joke yet? Even Ryan picks on him.

Haley Scarnato is next with “True Colors,” a great IDOL song. She’s looking more and more like Kat McPhee each week. I guess she figures long hair and legs are the key to her success.

I think the judges will hate it, but it was a very nice, soft, slow rendition of the song. It felt fragile, in a way, which is what the song could be if it really wanted to be. She went for the power in one appropriate place, but I’m afraid that the overall effect for most of America watching will be forgettable. I liked it, though it wasn’t nearly as powerful as Cyndi Lauper’s original, which I love.

Simon called it “sweet, but forgettable,” which is close to what I just typed.

Wow, this laptop is getting warm on my lap.

Phil Stacey answers the Coca Cola question and then goes with another Police song, “Every Breath You Take.” Gwen really really liked it.

His eyes are still dead, but his whispery vocal quality is working for him. He has to be careful not to lapse into a bad impersonation of Sting on this, and so far it’s mostly working. Ooh, that falsetto note got drowned out by the background singers, who sounded really good doing it.

Overall, a good performance. Better than Sligh, who he’s bound to be compared to tonight.

Simon thought it was very good. Melinda Doolittle took “Heaven Knows.” She’s clearly Gwen’s favorite. She’s wearing a sleeveless tunic (dress?), which almost helps to create the illusion that she has a neck. And the leggings will no doubt be bashed on Go Fug Yourself tomorrow.

The vocal is amazing. She didn’t miss a note. Etc. etc. It’s all the usual. She’s the best.

Simon hated the outfit, beating the Fug girls by a large number of hours.

Blake and Jordin are next after the commercial break. Ooh, they should be easy fits for Stefani’s stylings.

Blake Lewis is up first, with Cure’s “Love Song.” And Gwen is worried the beatboxing might distract from the melody. Haven’t heard that one before, Gwen. . .

Ooh, this is a good song for Blake. The kid CAN sing, and he doesn’t give himself the chance to show that off enough. This song looks to be the time.

GUITAR SOLO! No beatboxing. Wow.

Problem is, it’s completely boring. Even his hair is flat this week.

No beat boxing. Dangit.

Simon calls him the strongest guy in the competition, and compares him to Daughtry, who was locked into his own thing. He’s right. Blake will be out in fourth now, I suppose. But he IS the leading guy in this competition.

Jordin Sparks went with “Hey Baby Hey.” That’s crazy. Could be a complete train wreck.

So far, it is. Her voice is lost to the song. She’s losing her breath at the end of some lines.

Wow, that was awful. And she’s such a promising contestant, yet she just threw three weeks of goodwill down the drain.

Randy liked it, though. Weird.

Simon calls her the most improved. The sound in the studio must be a lot different than what’s on TV.

Sure, it was young and hip and fun, but it was a horrible display of singing skills.

Chris Richardson is closing out the show with a No Doubt song. If they saved him for last, it’s got to be “Don’t Speak.”

Yup, it is. Gwen refers to him as “vocal Olympics.” I AGREE WITH GWEN STEFANI. That statement deserved all caps. She’s dead on.

Oh, this is bad. Stefani made it such a sad sad song, with just a hint of sexiness. The power and the despair were there and made the song compelling. Chris is trying to act, but then he lapses into his boy band thing and gets really nasally and then his voice cracks, which he’d probably claim is part of his style.

Nope, still don’t like him.

In fact, it was a weak night, overall. I’m having a tough time remembering too much of it. Who won the night? Well, probably Melinda, but that’s an easy call to make every week. No, you know what. Forget it. Sanjaya is the winner of the night. Everyone else is a distant second. Melinda and LaKisha are seconds to Sanjaya’s hair. Gina comes in a close fourth to Train Wreck Boy’s fifth pony tail, then Phil Stacey with a solid Police song. Blake is just behind them and far behind the Malakar Mohawk, but not by much. Haley is not in the bottom but won’t make it far with songs like that. But she’s dang cute and that might get her through another week. Chris and Jordin had bad song choices and didn’t do much with them, for me. Chris Sligh joins them in the worst three song performances of the night.

Who’ll be in the bottom three this week? I think Chris Sligh will be there. We can’t keep making excuses for him and I think his charm-over-substance act is going to get old. I don’t see Phil going very far, even after a strong week, so I’ll put him in the bottom three. Haley’s skirt might just have been short enough to save her for another week, so let’s put Chris Richardson in the bottom three again. I just want to throw this out there, though — LaKisha could hit the bottom three this week. That pole position is a death slot.

Sligh goes home.

It ‘s almost exactly an hour since I started this experiment. I just live blogged a 67 minute episode of IDOL in 60 minutes. I love TiVo.

De Blieck Out!

This entry was posted on March 27th, 2007 and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.