Final 10: Motown Night... Paula Finishes Becoming a Dude.

Final 10: Motown Night

Seacrest's "This...  Is..." intro kills about 5 minutes with all the pauses.  Then with the judge's intros, Seacrest's re-introduction, meeting Barry Gordy and Smokey Robinson... going to Detroit.  Half the show is over and we haven't heard a single song yet.  

I feared that Motown Night would be dismal because Idol has dismantled Motown songs every year since Season 1.   And I was mostly right.  We get tired re-hashes of played out songs and horrible arrangements.  Welcome... To.... Americ... an...  I...Dull.

Oh, and Paula's looking more mannish than usual.  It's as if some of that Adrenal-chrome she's been taking has disrupted her DNA.  She looks kind of like when Johnny Depp turned into a lizard in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."  But more manly.

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Seacrest informs us that the Idol downloads will be using the original Motown backing tracks.  I don't even see how that's possible for Glambert's deconstructed song.  Using pre-recorded tracks is par for the course as Idol takes one more step down the road to full-fledged Karaoke.  First they start using tele-prompters for the lyrically challenged in the Finals.  Then they use lip-synched Dance numbers.  And now pre-recorded tracks.  This show turns more into American Karaoke Star every day.  It was a quick transformation, kind of like Paula's sex change.

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Matt Giraud -- "Let's Get It On" as sung by a tragically un-hip Marvin Gaye.

Matt shows some of his pee-nism tonight and sings a cheesy rendition of the Marvin Gaye classic.  When Marvin sings the song there's no question what he's talking about.  When Matt sings it, "Let's Get It On" means "Let's hold hands and get ice cream cones."  Matt's sporting the ever so hip Idol Sweater-vest and Tie combo.  And his version of the song is watered down and partly off-key.  In particular his falsetto keening that Randy calls "Hot" is pretty painful.  In a blatant effort to stay around he practically shoves Paula's face in his crotch.  Matt... First of all she's a dude now.  Second of all you just need to wear your vodka-flavored panties and Paula is right there, man.  

Paula idiotically states: "Most artists over-do the riffing [Practically everybody on Idol], but your vocal riffing is respectable."  Say what?

GRADE: D -- Smokey Robinson said that Marvin would've loved Matt's version... but he's lying.

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Kris Allen -- "How Sweet It Is" as sung by Dave Matthews doing a Marvin Gaye cover.

Kris has his guitar again but his vocals are bland and mediocre.  How can anyone sing these songs with a straight face?  I keep getting flashbacks from every SINGLE Hollywood week ensemble with these things.  This song especially.  

GRADE: D -- Kris is back to being dull and forgettable.  Kara says this is the Kris we saw in Hollywood week.  Well, not us because we never saw Kris until the finals.  Also, how can she remember what he was like two months ago, I can't even remember him from last week when I liked his performance.

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Blind Scott -- "You Can't Hurry Love" as sung by Phil Collins and Billy Joel eating nachos (in other words, SUPER-Cheesy.)

Obviously Scott dressed himself this week as he's wearing skin-tight salmon jeans, a paisley shirt and a striped dinner jacket.  Come on Idol Dressers, this is so mean.  Stop messing around with the blind guy like this.  That's one ugly outfit.  Scott does the lounge singer version of this song and he goes for notes that he has no chance of ever hitting.  In other words, more Awesomeness from Scott.

GRADE: D -- Hey, it's Scott's hunky brother in the audience.  From now on I dub him "Chet."  Simon repeats the Idol joke about how they each need to "to become  a relevant artist."  How?  By singing 40 YEAR OLD CHEESY OVER-PLAYED MOTOWN HITS?  Hahahah!  That's a funny one, Simon.

In one of the funniest awkward moments of the night, Paula goes under the table as Seacrest freaks out, "You can't show that!" Paula innocently gets out some crayons and coloring books for Simon because "he's being a baby."  But then Seacrest has to explain what's going on for Scott... because he's blind you see.  "What else do you have under the table?" asks Ryan.  Paula proudly declares: "It's under my skirt...  It's my penis."  I might have mis-heard that, though.

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Megan Joy -- NOT the porn star, so don't be confused, guys.  She's still Megan Cock-ring to me.  "Once in My Life" by Stevie Wonder...  Is she TRYING to go home?  You can't sing Stevie Wonder songs on Idol... even when you're forced to, apparently.

Megan makes us proud.  Although she color co-ordinates her green Betty Rubble dress with her green eye shadow and green flower in her hair she's back to her awkward odd-singing self.  Her vocals are quivery, and she wanders behind the judge's table giving Simon ample time to ogle her like the lech he is.  Then when Megan gets back upstage she does an awkward step to the left, step to the right dance, showcasing her toothpick legs.  

GRADE: D -- Not up to "Rockin' Robin" levels of awesome, but Megan's brand of strangeness is fascinating and entertaining.  

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Anoop -- "Ooh, Baby Baby" by Smokey Robinson.

Anoop sings the song pretty well.  He has a sweaty upper lip the whole time.  Not bad.  That's all I got.

GRADE: B

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Roughneck Sarver -- "Ain't to Proud to Beg" as sung in EVERY SINGLE IDOL AUDITION EPISODE since Season 1.  Damn, am I sick and tired of this song.

Sarver promises to "Church it up" but it sounds the same bland, milquetoast singing that he does every week.  Sarver's doing the John Tesh Mega-cheesy version, however, with his silly grinning and off-tempo dancing.  I also notice that Sarver has holes cut out of both butt-cheeks of his pants.

GRADE: FAIL -- Simon declares that Sarver "has no chance of winning."  Then why did you put him in the Finals you jack-ass?  Kara tries to start a new Idol lie: "It's not about the singing, it's about  artistry."  Actually I thought it was about whoring for votes from tween-age girls.  But I could be wrong.  

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At this point in the show I groaned when I realized we still had FOUR DAMN SINGERS to go and 45 more minutes to suffer through.  Can we eliminate six people next week?

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Lil Rounds -- "Heatwave" by Martha and the Vandellas.  Or as Lil pronounces it, "Hee-Way"

I had a running argument with my friends whether Lil was wearing a wig or a weave tonight.  I think we all agreed it was a weave.  We certainly weren't listening to her sub-par vocals.  Lil still has yet to give a good performance to go with her "big voice" reputation.  I can't believe I'm in agreement with the judges when they said Lil rushed through the song and said she was shouting at certain points.  They did spend an awful long time kissing her (robust) ass for such a crappy performance.  "You sucked... but girl, you can SANG!"

GRADE: D -- Credit to Lil who finally found a dress that didn't make her booty look like a school bus attached to her hips.

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Glambert -- "The Tracks of My Tears" as sung by K.D. Lang.

Adam even looks like k.d. with his suit and greased back hair.  He actually sang a reserved, but pretty version of the song, even if he over-did the falsetto a bit.  That's our boy.  Nothing to add, really.  Lambert is the best singer in the competition and I hope he doesn't win so that he's spared the crappy career of an Idol Finalist.

GRADE: A -- Lambert shows the Idols how to re-do a classic.  Kara proves she can't count when she says: "I have six words for you... One of the best performances of the night."  Lady, that's 8 words.  Simon gets cheeky and "disagrees" with Kara and calls it "THE BEST performance of the night."  That's not really disagreeing with her, unless he meant that he was only using 6 words.

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Danny Gokey -- "Get Ready"

Another tired, over-played song.  Danny verges into Worster territory with his over-singing, clumsy dancing... including random pointing and imitating the Back-up Singers dance steps.  Danny can go from 0 to 60 in cheesy in 3.5 seconds.

GRADE: D --- He needs to try harder to get our votes.  

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Allison Ireheta -- "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" as sung by the Funky Temptations.

Allison gives another seemingly effortless amazing performance.  She has remarkable vocals and almost commanded the stage.  I liked it a lot.

GRADE: A -- Allison keeps convincing me that she should win the show... so she'll go home soon.  

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At this point in the show Paula's testosterone kicks in and she's grown a full-blown mustache.  That was the quickest sex change in showbiz history.  

So mostly miserable to bad performances with Allison and Adam giving stand-out singing despite the dead weight of the crappy theme of the night.  If there's any justice Allison and Adam will go on to have careers and not the over-pimped and underperforming Lil and Gokey.  

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Ugh, another Thursday results show.

Questions?  Comments?  Bring it.