Final 3: Kara's An Idiot and Simon Hates Her.

Welcome to the Final Three Week.  I can't say that I was all that excited for the "Judges pick a crappy song, Idols pick an even crappier song" themed night.  And after experiencing it, I am even less excited to suffer through the 18 hours of the Idol Final next week.  Since the judges all but anointed Adam the champion this week any thrills for the Finals have been killed.  I'll still watch, hoping for a Tatiana/Normund duet... and some VFTW moments when the Idols get out-sung by their older, more famous and more desperate duet-partners.  Simon practically begged us to vote for Adam.  But then again, the Idol winners have been a foregone conclusion ever since Clay Aiken nearly uprooted Ruben as the people's champion, no small feat uprooting the Velvet Teddy Bear after inertia sets in.

At least Kara and Paula were off their meds tonight, as they both were mostly incoherent and pandering, in their own ways.

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To start the show Ryan references the Adam Lambert VS. Delusional Girl video.  I saw a video online where some chick bum-rushed you.  We'll talk about that later."  

I saw a video online featuring Gokey that Ryan suspiciously does NOT mention.  (Hint: It's on our front page.)  

Danny Gokey -- "Dance Little Sister" by The Artist Formerly Known as Terence Trent D'arby.

In the bio video when Gokey gets the word he's being forced to sing this unknown TAFKATTD the local DJ asks him, "How do you feel about singing that?"  "I don't know, retorts the razor-wit Danny.  After being dealt this doozy of a song I'd be feeling pretty screwed.  It was minor hit for Terence, reaching #30 on the charts before most Idol Voting-tards were born. (Thanks Wikipedia.)  

I laughed out loud as the opening line of the song is: "Give up the ghost that's haunting you."  Nice job song-picking, Paula.  It plays right into our VFTW wheel-house by simultaneously reminding the Gokey-Heads about Gokey's dead wife and also boring the living crap out of the rest of us.  Gokey is in full-on shout mode from the start, and only lets up to do a vocal scat-sing break down with an awful saxophone player that's even more out of tune than Gokey was.  

And his awful non-dancing is always good for a laugh.  

GRADE: D -- Not bad enough for VFTW contender-ship.  

Second Song: "You Are So Beautiful" as sung by Taylor Hicks doing his Joe Cocker impression.

Gokey the schmaltz king is immediately drawn to the dreariest, hoakiest song available.  One bar in and I want to puke.  He's so over the top and earnest and wearing tight pants.  He's just pandering hard for the old lady vote.  Each of the three Finalists know where their bread is buttered and are trying to out Easy Listenin' his opponents.  

To give him credit, he found a song that he sounds good on and also reminds us of his dead wife.  

Randy is so blown away he goes full 'tard repeating everything in triplets.  "You can really, really, really sing" and "Mad, mad, mad vocals."  

Paula says the song allowed Gokey to "do your magic to it" as I throw up again.

Simon calls it a "Vocal Master Class" and I throw up a third time, showing my solidarity with Randy.

FINAL GRADE: FAIL -- With the two dismal performances, added to his primal scream from last week, Gokey should be gone.  So that means he's a lock for the Final Two.

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Kris Allen -- "Apologize" by One Republic.

From Wikipedia:

    "Apologize" is the most legally downloaded song in US digital history with sales of over 4.3 million digital downloads in the US alone."   And: "Apologize" was the biggest radio airplay hit in the history of Top 40 radio in North America, racking up 10,331 spins in one week. The song held the number one position for five months..."  

I just have to say sometimes it's a blessing to be old and out of touch if it means I never have to hear this dreck again, let alone 10,000 times in one week.  

Kris is trying too hard on this tuneless, drippy song.  His performance is affected but he's not bad.  This is the kind of song the Evil Idol Record Producers would want him to sing.  Or rather, they don't give a crap what Kris sings as long as he sells 5 million copies of it.  

The fun begins when Kara moans about how Kris played piano and how she really wanted him to play acoustic guitar.  Say what?  Kara is a big moron for wasting her breath griping over which instrument he should be playing.  Simon calls her out on her crap by suggesting that she should've told Kris how she wanted him to sing it.  Kara gets pissy and defensive and comes back with "like you've ever arranged a song before."  I could almost see her clawing at Simon's eyes.  Paula needs to be restrained.

Paula says Kris "hit a bum note, and unfortunately it was really loud."  Because it's okay to hit a bum note if it's really quiet.  Either way, Paula's an idiot because the song sounded fine to me.  Just boring and generic, which isn't Kris' fault.

GRADE: C+

Second Song: "Heartless" a Kanye West song as covered by The Fray.  Well played, Mr. Allen.  

Of course Allen is playing acoustic guitar on this song, which explains why he didn't do it on Kara's choice.  Kris does a good job of re-doing a weepy modern rock version of a badly sung rap song.  Kris definitely wins the Reality TV Strategist of 2009 for his gambit.  It's always a good thing when the Idol out-sings the original version.  Once again Kris Allen crooked-sings like the dickens.  He's affected and mumbling, and makes funny strained faces, and he's not bad.  My only gripe is how Kris hits the big chorus and yet the song still doesn't go anywhere.  

Of course Kara loses her mind, because she wanted Kris to go Jason Mraz acoustic on HER song.  But she's a nitwit.  At least Kris picked a contemporary hit for two different artists, unlike Gokey who picked a dreary song that was 35 years old.  

GRADE: B  --- Simon all but declares Kris as the 2009 Runner-up to Adam Lambert, so he did a good job.

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Adam Lambert - "One" by U2.

Adam starts off with the Easy Listening version of the song which was pretty good... but he must've started his Idol Acceptance speech one minute too soon, as he launches into pained shrieks in the second half  of the song, and the performance falls apart.  He's still miles ahead of Kris and Gokey in terms of stage presence and dramatics, but he was especially shrill on this one.

GRADE: B -- Adam gets to sing the best song of the night, and does both a weepy, dreary ballad AND an over-the-top shriek-fest all in one minute-45 second span.  

Second Song: "Cryin'"... One of the "great old songs" by Aerosmith

Oh, yeah, this was Adam throwing down the gauntlet on the Gokester.  He said, "bitch, this is how you do Aerosmith right."  

Adam finally queens out on the song, with his sneering and prancing, but I think the sheer awfulness of the song overwhelms him.  It begins as a bit of a mess with the background singer trying to out-shout Lambert in a completely different key, then Adam takes it from there and screeches and squeals through the rest of the song.

GRADE: C -- Definitely not one of his best, but he gives his fans what they want.  And then Simon begs for some more votes.    Bonus points for Lambert for going for the humble "Kris and Danny are really talented, anything can happen" line.  He's lying, but he sounded earnest saying it.

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And that was that.  Three pretty good singers wasting their talents on mostly dreary songs.  Yep, that about sums up Idol Season 8 for me.

So, what did you think?

--Chan