Final 13 Sing: "Caw! Caw!"

Howdy Everyone,

How is everyone doing today?  It's good to be in the Finals.  After endless bad singing and confusion about the stupid Wild Card rules, it's time for VotefortheWorst to reassert our muscle.  Yes, it's Voting Time.  I was hoping Michael Jackson night was going to be a huge train wreck, but despite only a couple duds, most of the performances were competent, well sung and nacho cheesy made with REAL American (Idol) Cheez, of course.

Oh, and for those of you who can't get enough Professor Chan I've started my own blog.  http://mysteryclubadventures.blogspot.com.  Me and my friends have started the Mystery Club Adventures.  It's a bit of strangeness where we opine on manly things and other bits of oddball trivia.  It's still an on-going process.  Hopefully you will join us.  

Okay, enough self-promotion, on with the show.

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Since a lot of the singing was pretty good this week Paula and the Shoddy Production Values gave yeoman's efforts to stink up the show and drag it down to Poo-Town.  Paula is back on her magic pills and my, did we missed drunk-stoned-muscle relaxed Paul-er.  

For some reason the judges are introduced walking onto the stage "dramatically."  But the aura of cool is immediately ruined by Paula's appalling gold lame' one-sleeve dress with the exploded remains of her beloved parakeet Percy splattered all over the front.  Then Shoddy Production Values tries to outdo Paula's tackiness when Portentous Announcer Guy introduces Ryan Seacrest in the dark.  Nice job, boys.  Keep up the quality work.  Spotlight Guy is going to have a stern speaking-to in Ryan's dressing room.

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Lil Rounds - "The Way You Make Me Feel."  

Tonight, every contestant refreshes us on their Sob Story via video package.  Lil Rounds has a family, and something about Hurrican Katrina.  I'm still amused at how apathetic Lil Round's husband is to this whole Idol thing.  He's too cool to give a rip about this show.  I love Lil Rounds' husband.  I feel the same way, dude.

Lil Round comes out, commands the stage and works the crowd like a pro.  She gives a good opener performance and hits the glory note for effect.  Tonight we learn that Kara is a glory note whore to go along with all the other whore-ish things she does.  She's a sucker for over-the-top cheese, glory notes, falsetto and vocal embellishments.  No wonder I detest her so much.  

GRADE: B -- For some reason Simon is Mr. Fashion Expert and rightly says Lil's outfit is "stupid."  Actually, Simon is pretty on point with his criticism this evening, so he's not giving me much ammunition.

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Blind Scott - "Keep The Faith."  

Scott finds a religious song from the M.J. canon of quasi-perv songs.  They plunk him down behind the piano.  He sings the song well.  Damn, they're not giving me anything, tonight.  I'm so disappointed.  Scott's playing this Idol game hard, venturing into Gaspy Archuleta' Jesus-Fan territory.  And his video package reminds us that he's Blind.  Man, this guy is in it to win it.

Kara Horndogs: "It was magical, seeing your instrument at your fingertips."

Simon gets the most honest line of the night with "It's fine being artistic, just not on this show."  I agree with him, but I just didn't expect him to admit it on TV.  Simon's complaint is that the song isn't as well-known as other Michael songs.  Because "Billy Jean" or "Bad" would've worked so much better for Scott, huh Simon.  Hey, now that I think about it...  What about "Man in the Mirror"-- "I'm LOOKING at the man in the mirror."  Maybe "Black or White."  "It doesn't matter if you're black or white...  Because I'm blind.  I couldn't see you anyway."  Yep, Simon's right again.

GRADE: B -- Scott wasn't vocally as good as Rounds, but he's appealing to Haus-Fraus AND Religious Haus-Fraus now.  If Scott keeps this up I'm confident he'll be in the Finals, like I originally predicted.  

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Danny Gokey -- "P.Y.T."  

This is one of those quasi-perv songs I was talking about and Danny was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  Or Paula to a Harvey Wallbanger with Oxycontin chaser.  Vocally Danny's pretty good, it's just his stupid hitching up his pants dance move and extended "Nah, nah, nah" vocalise part that gets on my nerves this week.  Danny's getting his Karaoke on, with extra gouda.  

The most astonishing thing was how they did NOT mention Danny's dead wife in the Video package.  Instead emphasizing all the good ol' times with his fam'ly, down home.  That was strange.

After the performance Paula gets choked up, of course and sends Danny to the Finals.  Wow, this show is really into honest judging tonight.  Also, I was zoning out when I thought I heard Simon joke that Gokey was like Michael Jackson, "a white guy with soul."  But after rewinding he was talking about Michael McDonald.  I thought Simon was making a funny about the Esteemed Idol Guest.

GRADE: B -- Danny did his thing.  I'm just not buying his thing.  

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Roughneck Michael Sarver - "You Are Not Alone."

I fully expected Sarver to suck big donkey wang, but his singing was pretty good.  Sure, Michael is to cheese what Paula is to cheap booze, but he wasn't bad.  I was expecting him to screw up and he didn't.  And he's as mealy-mouthed as ever.  I think this is what he sang instead of the chorus: "Ooh err ah a hoone."  

Paula was crying again.

GRADE: C+ -- Roughneck Michael gets a C+ basically for not stinking up the joint like we thought he would.  He sang a Disney-fied version of the song, but his fans should be voting.  Right now he's got the Blue Collar-Family Values vote.  

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Jasmine Murray -- "Remember The Time."

Since Jasmine doesn't have much of a sob story she's out with Seacrest, and explains how the Idols get a personal stylist, a make-up artist and a hairdresser.  Whew!  I feel no shame about insulting their outfits, make-up and hair any more.  

Jasmine sings well.  She's a little tentative in the beginning, but she shows off her pretty voice.  She's flat throughout the song, especially belting out the high notes, but with a little training she'd be a pretty good singer.  

GRADE: B -- Momma Murray wins the Wig War over Paula, again.

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Kris Allen -- "Remember The Time."  

Kris channels Dave Matthews with his guitar-playing, crooked mouth and spastic dancing.  He's finally getting some face time and developing a persona on this show.  So good for him.  He sounded good too.

Kara Horndogs: "Don't take this the wrong way, that was kind of sexy."  

Paula Horndogs: "There's nothing wrong with sexy."  

Kris' wife is far from amused when they cut to her reaction shot.

GRADE: A -- Kris makes a good second First Impression.  Paula mentions how he helped the other Idols with their Michael Jackson arrangements tonight.  Okay, that's one strike against him.  Randy calls it "a very well job done."  Randy is to English like what Paula is to sobriety.

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Allison Irehata "Hiven to me" (says Seacrest)  It's actually "Give In To Me."

Allison does another good, raspy performance.  She has a powerful voice and keeps it mostly in check on this song.  They're pigeonholing her as "the rocker" now, which may inspire Allison to horrible performances down the road.  She did channel a little Amanda Overmyer in her performance, though (in a good way).  My only knock on Allison is that she looks the least comfortable on-stage of the performers tonight.  She also does a bit of the old Idol poopy dance.  

GRADE: B -- After her nice job Allison starts babbling about not being depressed (Simon called her performance a bit depressing.)  "I mean, I'm not cutting myself or anything." she retorts.  Yes, there's our girl.  Paula gives her the "lock the lips and shut the F' up now, girl" motion.  I'll give Allison a B+ for goofiness.

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Wow. So far all of the performances have been pretty good--  Until now.

Anoop Dawg - "Beat It."  

Sadly I could tell Anoop was going to go here.  Anoop looks like he's trying to get sent home with his tenative, un-funky performance of an un-singable song.  I mean, NOBODY really knows the words to this song after the "Beat it, beat it" part.  

Paula wakes up from her drunken stupor to make sense, albeit briefly.  "This song belongs to the artist.  It's a bit of an un-touchable song."  I agree, but not because the song is so amazing.  It's a dancing song.  There really isn't much space to show off the vocal flourishes that the Idol Judges like.  And no matter who sings it you get flashbacks of a young Michael Jackson in zippered, red leather jacket during the height of his 100 million albums selling glory.  This song belongs to 1983 and Anoop doesn't sing it ironically, which you'd expect.  

GRADE: D -- Well, it's what I expected.  Anoop doesn't earn the FAIL because sadly he wasn't hysterically bad, just mildly so.

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Jorge Nunez - "Never Gonna Say Goodbye"

Jorge kills this song dead.  He's got a nice voice but he clearly doesn't know what to do with this song, except for making hunchbacked head movements, and furious faces.  Too bad the song was so boring or we'd give Jorge some VFTW love.

After the song Ryan chats with Jorge's Aunt.  She tries to put the moves on Randy.  Aw, honey you know the quickest path to Randy's heart is with a Double Whopper with cheese, and extra gravy.  

GRADE: D -- Kara begs for more vocal embellishments.  I want Jorge to get off TV now.

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Good grief.  There's still 4 people left to sing.  An entire damn Michael Jackson album is only 45 minutes.  I need some uppers, or whatever's in Paula's sippy cup tonight.  She literally-- can't-- form-- a-- complete---thought.  It's painful to listen to.  But funny.

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Megan Cock-rey -- "Rockin' Robin"

Holy crap.  In an entire catalog of #1 Michael Jackson hits that spans over 40 years in show business, and THIS is the GODDAMN song Megan picks?  It's astonishing in it's stupidity.  Clearly Megan wants to be sent home to be with her son.  Once again, I wonder why Idol can't spring the $20 bucks an hour for a baby-sitter in L.A.  Megan probably saved Idol $50,000 in royalties by choosing this song out of the public domain bin, or wherever it was molding.  Sheesh.  

So Megan sings this grade school song while doing her Chuck E. Cheese shimmy dance.  She has a big cheesy grin and it's just AWESOME!  I'm going to have to watch this a few more times.  I'm not much of a "bad song choice" guy, but THIS is the epitome of terrible song choice.  "Rockin' Robin.  Tweet.  Tweetlie-tweet!"  It's amazing really.  After the song is over, and you thought all the damage was done, Megan does a bird imitation: "Caw!  Caw!"  That's not even the right bird noise, girl.  Two bars into this song and I said: "Well, Anoop is safe."

GRADE: Megan gets the first glorious FAIL of the Final 13.  "Caw! Caw!"  And you know she's our Votefortheworst Baby!  VOTE OFTEN!!!

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Adam "Over The Top" Lambert - "Black or White."  

How do you top "Rockin' Robin?"  With volume, power screeching and earnest conviction on a stupid song.  Adam minces, he struts.  He does his Axl Rose- like scream-singing.  It's a mile over the top and cheesy with extra cheddar on the side.  This is where Simon should've busted out the "this is a bit indulgent."  But of course the judge's LOVE IT.  It's such a loud, ugly performance naturally these simpletons fall for it.  Paula stutteringly declares that Adam commands the stage better than any of the previous Idols.  Simon says that Adam "is in a totally different league."

GRADE: C -- We like the over-the-top singing.  It's the over-the-top pimping that we can't handle.

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Matt G. (as Seacrest calls him.)  "Human Nature."

Odd choice.  Matt Giraud's video package shows the Giraud clan gathered around the TV to watch ping-pong videos.  I'd rather watch Matt play ping-pong than hear him sing again.  What did this song ever do to you Matt?  He plays his piano of course, but the mix is bad so we can't even hear him playing.  Actually the sound mix is way off the whole night, as the little bells and tom-toms are deafening on this sing but I can't hear Matt's pe-nisting skills.  Matt does all the falsettos and vocal gymnastics that we've come to know and loathe from Idol contestants.

The judges love it, of course.  Paula horndogs: "It's sexy.  I'm blown away."  

GRADE: C -- I'm still not seeing what's so amazing about Matt.  

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AND FINALLY...  Alexis Grace.  Not because she's great.  But because she's last.

Alexis brings her dirty-ness again.  I'm not sure why.  She sings "Dirty Diana" which was written expressly for Michael so he could pretend to like adult females.  The song consists of the words "Dirty Diana" over and over.  Alexis grinds and cavorts, but she has the body of a 12 year old boy.   Oh, hey...  I guess Michael would like her performance after all.

Kara Horndogs: "You're a naughty girl and I like it."  Of course she likes it, she created this "sexy" Alexis monster.  

GRADE: C -- And I'm done!

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Yikes.  I think the first 8 plus Lambert are easily safe.  If I'm Megan, Anoop or Jorge I'm sweating right now.

So that's that.  There were moments of hilarity, but it became punishing after the first hour.  

What did you think?  Who's going home?  

--Chan