Top 11: "We Could Move It Closer"

Randy Travis is here to coach the Idols for country week, and it’s time for everyone to mix it up and perform nothing like they did last week. It’s also time for tons of train wrecks, so I’m all about that. The show never realizes year after year that most of the contestants cannot sing country music well, so they insist on making everyone look foolish. I have no problem with this. Especially since our VFTW songbird hams it up and VFTW backup Adam Lambert is finally realizing his true potential.

Michael Sarver performs first and sings “Ain’t Goin’ Down Till the Sun Comes Up.” More like “I’m Fodder and the Producers Clearly Want Me Gone This Week.” He’s barely even singing the song into the microphone so that if he messes up people won’t notice. Lame. He does miss the words once, but it’s not as funny as I hoped it’d be. Kara missed the big notes from Michael. She means she misses his big note inside her cavernous song. Gross. Simon says that the song might as well have been Norwegian because he didn’t understand it. He also gives it a 1.2 out of 10. Michael adds the lame quip, “If we were all perfect, we wouldn’t need this show.” Nice try on the backtalk, but even that isn’t interesting. Goodbye, Mikey.

Allison Iraheta chooses “Blame It On Your Heart”. It’s 100 times better than Michael without even trying, but she seems out of breath while walking the stage. You can tell she had fun and gave a decent performance, but it’s nothing amazing. Paula wants Allison to experiment and become vulnerable, which is also what she said to Amanda Overmyer last year. No. No experimenting. Just sing what you’re good at. Don’t listen to the boozehound. Simon calls it verging on precocious, and Randy thinks it is dope. I still like Allison because she makes silly faces every week like the entire stage is on fire and she’s the only one who notices. Go, Allison!

Kris Allen sings “To Make You Feel My Love” and it’s boring as shit. It makes me concentrate on the stupid monkey faces he makes. I even think this guy is decent looking, and I can’t even concentrate on that. Just stupid monkey faces and boring with a capital B. The song doesn’t go anywhere. Of course, the judges love it for some reason. Simon finds it terrific and says that Kris genuinely has a shot at winning. Kris’s wife releases the button on Simon’s shock collar so that she can clap.

Lil Rounds wants to honor country music so she picks “Independence Day”. I thought it started off really well and that Lil sounds really good when she doesn’t scream. By the time she hits the chorus, she’s completely out of tune as usual, as the screaming returns (though not as loud as normal) and she gets really lost. Randy says the exact opposite of what I said. He only likes Lil when she screams big notes and hates her quieter moments. Probably because he’s an idiot. Randy also says that Lil should’ve sang “I Will Always Love You” instead. Come on now. The R&B girl finally doesn’t pick the stupid overdone “I Will Always Love You” during country week for once. I’m impressed that she tried something new. Don’t encourage her to be a stereotype, you unintelligible bowl of blubber. No one wants to hear that stupid song ever again, especially not on this show. Give the girl a little credit for trying something new… though yes, I know, Idol never rewards anything new. Simon then patronizes Lil further by calling her Little for his entire speech. What did this girl do to deserve this shit, piss in their Coke cups? First, the judges patronize her by telling her to sing the song everyone expected her to sing and would have yawned through. Then Simon purposely mispronounces her name over and over as if she’s not even a person. This is painful to watch.

Thankfully Adam Lambert steps in and saves the show. He’s not in assless chaps like he wants to be, but he’s definitely shaking things up. Randy Travis does not like him, stating, “I’m speechless. I don’t even know what to say about this boy.” How about, “VFTW VICTORY?” Adam sexes up “Ring of Fire” and takes the audience to his bedroom where he humps the daylights out of us with his eyes. Hilariously weird! He keeps writhing as the camera spins around him, then he reaches out to the screen to let out a whimper. This is truly what I expected of Adam when the show began, so I’m glad he’s starting to deliver. By the end, I feel violated, and I bet middle America has their mouths open in shock. Kara calls it strange and then says that his eyes were fabulous, though she pulls back when she says fabulous as if she isn’t supposed to acknowledge he’s gay. Earth to Kara, Adam just acknowledged it, stuck his dick in it, pulled it out, and repeated for 2 minutes. It’s all good. Simon calls it indulgent rubbish and says that people will be throwing their televisions out the window. Looks like Adam is finally lining himself up to be a future VFTW pick. Nice work, Adam! I love this guy. The more I watch his performance, the more I love it. A true VFTW standout for the season along with Tatiana, Normund, and “Rockin Robin”.

Scott MacIntyre decides to slow down “Wild Angels” and play it at the piano. This makes me realize he’s going to make every single song into a boring piano ballad. God, no. I always think, “Well this isn’t so bad,” but then it always gets worse. Paula tells Scott that he doesn’t need to use the piano every week because it separates him from the audience. Scott replies, “We could move it closer.” Dude’s funny. I like him! Randy says he’s looking for “crazy, unbelievable” vocals from Scott, but that Scott doesn’t deliver. Well if Scott can ride the sympathy vote a little while longer, VFTW would be happy to jump in and assist later on. Megan and Adam are far too awesome for us to really center on Scott yet though.

Alexis Grace decides to finally not dress like a 12 year old hooker and performs “Jolene.” Her version flat out sucks in a boring way that completely ruins the song with no entertainment. Lame. Her long high note was terrible and she eliminated most of the words that weren’t “Jolene, Jolene.” God, this girl is obnoxious. And if even I hate someone that performed poorly, clearly she has very few fans. Kara wanted her to have more of an edge and sing “Before He Cheats.” Paula says that we’re so used to down and dirty Alexis, that she was glad to see a soft side. Simon says that the performance will be forgotten in 10 minutes. So true. When asked if she would have changed anything, Alexis says she would have “put a little more dirty in there. Don’t worry, if I’m back next week, I’m gonna put some dirty. I’ll dirty it up.” Do you have to say this every fucking week? It’s especially painful because no one wants to see you “dirty it up.” I should make a bet that Alexis will say “dirty” again next week and rake in some major dough. Though I am  hoping against hope that this white trash snob somehow heads back to the trailer park this week. If not, no bother, her ridiculous performances are great for photochops.

Danny Gokey cannot get the words to “Jesus, Take The Wheel” correct in rehearsal. I was hoping he would mess up, but the second he takes the stage, all I notice is his ridiculous coat. It looks like he’s wearing a woman’s coat. It’s white, puffy, and absolutely hideous. It also makes him look even fatter than he is. I would comment on how Gokey has absolutely no connection to the song and that he just screams as much as he can without any feeling, but I am too busy staring at the ugly coat. It’s hypnotizing. Kara and Randy wish that Danny had screamed big notes for his entire performance and didn’t waste time building to them. I hate Kara and Randy so much. Matt Giraud apparently told Danny that his ugly coat made him look like he was going to jump out of an airplane. Matt, let’s make it so. While Danny is sleeping, stuff him in a crate. I’ll come around back, pick him up, put the crate on a plane, and push it out the window. This will save all of us from having to listen to him caterwaul for the next 9 weeks.

Anoop Desai does the “I’m trying to prove I can sing” shit that the bad singers always do after their last performance is ripped to shreds by the judges. He decides to do this with “You Were Always On My Mind.”  I have to admit, it’s much better than most of the singers tonight, so Anoop actually succeeded in his quest. It wasn’t hard to be better than the people tonight though. Paula says that this song fit him like a glove, unlike last week where the glove didn’t fit him. Simon says Anoop went from zero to hero. I was kind of hoping Anoop would really fall apart this week, so I was disappointed.

Megan Joy decides that “Walking About Midnight” will be her song for the week, and it’s pretty VFTW. She overpronounces or mispronounces half the words for comic effect and does her little birdy dance like always. It’s like someone who sings in another language and sounds awkward singing in English so it’s kind of funny. I don’t know what Megan’s first language is, but my guess is it’s either spoken by birds or the alien race on Jasmine Murray’s home planet. Megan will always continue to be delightfully quirky, and her vocals will always be subpar, so I still love her. It’s not as over the top as Adam, but still very VFTW worthy. The judges overpraise her because they need her on the tour to sell tickets to horny guys. No one with a libido is going to come see Lil, Alexis, and Allison, so Megan is that only draw. We’ll see what happens once she’s on the tour and the judges don’t care anymore. Megan coughs through the entire critique because she has the flu. The bird flu perhaps? Simon does get in an insult that the stylist is sucking away some of the fun from Megan (translation: show more skin). But the judges overall ignore her bad vocals and say she is good for the week.

Matt Giraud sings last and picks “So Small.” Great, another Farmbot song. Matt sounds a lot like Gokey, but much less annoying and much more listenable. So I’m OK with Matt getting the pimp spot. Maybe he’ll take some fans away from the Dead Wife Whoring Douche. Matt does have kind of a cool voice, and he does sing the song well enough. It’s nothing to write home about, but nothing on this show ever is. So his decent-to-good performance does deserve some praise. Simon says that Matt hasn’t gotten enough credit for his vocals, especially since he outsang Danny. Randy and Simon both compare Matt to Michael Buble, because they both have the “My face was smashed in by something” look that is all the rage these days. But good for Matt for going from fodder to possible darkhorse in a matter of a week.

I can’t see the bottom 3 being anyone but Alexis, Scott, and Michael. Those 3 left the smallest impression, and people never vote for boring performances. Who goes home? The producers want it to be a guy so that the tour will have 6 guys and 4 girls. Look at it this way, what does the tour already have that it can lose? Well it’s either the soul singer (Michael Sarver is easily outsung by Matt and Gokey) or the piano player (Scott loses out to Matt again). So it’s a toss up between Scott and Michael. My thought is that the blind storyline is more interesting than the roughneck story line, so the show will probably cut Michael loose. Though I would pay money to see Alexis go home and act like a fool. That girl is an idiot and is polluting my TV with her stupid dirty act.