Grading the Idols: May 23, 2006

May 23, 2006

Hello Class, welcome to the final session of “Grading The Idols.” I am happy to inform you that although American Idol is coming to a merciful conclusion tomorrow night I will be back!!! Yes, I will be writing a weekly column mocking the gargantuan pot of half-digested bean curd that will most assuredly be “America’s Got Talent” also known as “The Gong Show Rip-off.”

The judges are Brandy, David Hasselhoff and generic English guy. Yes, you heard me right David “Knight Rider” Hasselhoff. The man who starred on one of the biggest turkeys of all time with “Baywatch” and said “You think that blows? I can suck ten times worse!” And signed on for a season of the horrible sucking chest wound of a TV show, “Baywatch Nights.”

I love “The Hoff” and it will be my great pleasure making fun of the Hairy One each and every week. So keep your eyes peeled for that. The show will stink but we’ll enjoy flushing it down the toilet.

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Now it’s time to get down to business. No, not my review of the most boring night of AI this season. Something much better. It’s the results of my pop quiz question: “Which is the wussiest song by a formerly rocking band?”

Here are the top three e-mails I received on the matter.

Soul Patroller 4 Life writes:

The wussiest song by a formerly rocking band has to be...

"More than Words," by Extreme. How can any band called, "Extreme," do a song like, "More than Words?" Maybe it stands for, "extremely lame?"

"Home Sweet Home," by Motley Crue is really wussy.

"Mama Said," by Metallica is so bad that I take back my choice of, "More Than Words," because Extreme was never nearly as rocking as Metallica and even though, "More Than Words," is wussier than, "Mama Said," "Mama Said," sounds like someone just took a hypodermic needle and took all the testosterone out of Hetfield's testicle sack...

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Andrew Collins writes:

"Babe" by Styx, written by the aforementioned nutsack deprived Dennis DeYoung. When Tommy Shaw was doing the songwriting, Styx rocked. When JY Young wrote the songs (Miss America, Snowblind), they pretended to rock, but the lyrics were so (unintentionally) damn funny it was more spinal tap then anything else.

my two cents...

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And finally -- Lisa Writes:

Too easy! It's obviously Mötley Crüe's Home Sweet Home.

C'mon Vince, what happened to Stick To Your Guns and Shout At The Devil? You're suddenly a dreamer with a heart of gold? "My heart's like an open book For the whole world to read Sometimes nothing-keeps me together At the seams" Only because your wussy ass caved to the power ballad brigade. Get back to rocking! Thankfully, they heard our collective groans and gave us Girls, Girls, Girls to make us forget all about Theater of Pain.

That's my story, and I'm stickin to it.

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So thanks for the e-mails everybody. The results are as follows:

Songs receiving one vote-

Bicycle Race - by Queen
The Flame - by Cheap Trick
Cryin’, and Crazy - both by Aerosmith
Winds of Change - by Scorpions (whistling solos are very wussy)
I Want to Know What Love Is - by Foreigner (very wussy, although Foreigner hardly rocked the song is about begging to get laid.)
What is Love? - by Van Halen - (truly wussy- The song seems like it’s advertising someone’s virginity)
Silent Lucidity - by Queensryche (A Prog Rock band scored their one hit with this wussified tune. And why is there an umlaut over the “Y” in their name? Doubly wussy.)
Patience - by Guns and Roses (ditto regarding whistling solos being a sign of definite wussiness)
Without You - by Motley Crue (ditto regarding the umlaut over the “o” and the “u” in Motley Crue)
With Arms Wide Open -- by Creed (yeah, big wussy for fake Jesus posturing)
Lick it Up - by Kiss
September Rain - by Guns and Roses (wussy piano playing by Axl, but ripping guitar solo by Slash)
Amanda - By Boston (It made my teeth hurt whenever I heard this song on the album)
Nothing Else Matters - by Metallica
Honestly - by Stryper (uh, did Stryper EVER rock? Didn’t think so, but good try)
Jet - by Wings (who said Wings never rocked -- “Live and Let Die, anyone?)
More Than Words - by Extreme (Did Extreme really rock? Yeah, thought so, but another good try)
Mama Said - by Metallica

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Songs Receiving two votes --

Babe - by Styx.
Forever - by Kiss
High Enough - by Damn Yankees
Angel - by Aerosmith
Home Sweet Home - by Motley Crue
Mama I’m coming Home - by Ozzy Osbourne
Close My Eyes - by Ozzy Osbourne

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And the big wuss-daddies, songs receiving 3 votes -

Beth - by Kiss
We Built This City - by Jefferson Starship (I kind of liked this song as a kid)
Open Arms- by Journey (I included my vote)

But the hands down winner with 4 votes, and my wholehearted agreement “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing (love theme from Armageddon)” by Aerosmith - a Diane Warren penned sucktacular suckstravaganza. This video was on MTV every 2 minutes and the song just suuuuuucked. Maybe this is the video that killed music videos on MTV for good. Who knows?

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I would’ve suggested that “Unforgiven II” by Metallica was the wussiest song coming from one of the heaviest rocking bands ever. And although Ozzy “Iron Man” Osbourne did release some wussy songs I think “Dreamer” a pale imitation of John Lennon’s “Imagine” with Ozzy weeping about Global Warming has got to be high on the wuss factor.

Thanks to everyone that e-mailed. That was fun. Oh, was there a show on tonight? I already forgot about it.

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Tonight’s show was sleep inducing as we heard Taylor and McPhee go through the paces on two songs they already sung before. Snore. And then each of them was forced to sing their craptacular American-Idol produced songs that sucked as much as you could possibly suck without creating a black hole that tears apart the very fabric of time and space to pieces.

Instead of doing a song by song review I will look at the head to head match-ups to see who SHOULD come out on top tomorrow.

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Song #1

Katharine Mcphee sings the “Cherry Tree” song again against Taylor’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Livin’ in the City.”

McPhee’s cherry tree wasn’t as funky or as fresh the second time around. She sang it fine but that spark of fire from the first performance just wasn’t there.

Taylor was soulful and remarkably restrained the second time around compared to the spastic original performance. His vocals were strong and Taylor’s controlled exuberance was a delight. Simon says Taylor destroyed McPhee in round one and I agree.

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Song #2

McPhee sings “Over the Rainbow” and Taylor sings Elton John’s “Levon”

Katharine sings her dull beyond belief “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” from her knees. It’s not a coincidence that 2/3rds of McPhee’s songs are sung when she’s on her knees. The crowd actually cheered when Katharine hit the chorus because this was the bizarro AI version of “Rainbow” with no melody, so nobody knew which song McPhee was even singing until halfway through. McPhee sings it fine, but as per her usual performances, her emotion and mock-seriousness was a put-on. I didn’t buy it.

Taylor on the other hand exudes genuine emotion and soulfulness on “Levon.” Taylor seemed earnest as hell both times he sang this song and he does a great job again. Simon says Katherine won this round, but he’s just saying that to keep up the fake tension. I think Taylor sounded more confident and professional, beating McPhee in round 2 as well.

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Round Three

Here we have the introduction of this year’s American Idol produced “Songs About Dreams and Angels with Wings of Hopefulness.” Needless to say both songs were horrible and I won’t bother to mention the titles. Let’s just call them “Pile of Crap 1” and “Pile of Crap 2.” For some reason (Makin’ Money) American Idol forces it’s Final two to sing atrocious faux-religious, quasi-gospel numbers that they hope will drive home who is the real Idol. These songs make me want to pull a Van Gogh and take a scissors to my ears, except that even that wouldn’t make the awful sounds stop ringing in my brain.

McPhee sings “Pile of Crap 1” which is too low for her. She also gets punished with painfully bright lighting which does her no favors, and a skin-tight dress that’s tight in all the wrong places. It makes her ass look like it goes from her knees to just below her shoulders. Anyways, the first verse is all one note that unfortunately is outside of McPhee’s low register and then she goes off-key for the rest of the song. Or maybe the song is supposed to sound like the musical equivalent of a steaming turd set out in the sun all day. I can’t say for sure.

Behind the scenes Taylor apparently balked at singing “Pile of Crap 1” so he was rewarded with the chance to sing “Pile of Crap 2.” This was a good decision as “Pile of Crap 2” is a terrible song, but has the good sense to start slow and build to a shouting/singing crescendo at the end which Taylor goes to town on. He actually sings the song as if he means it, which suggests to me that either Taylor is a brilliant performer able to turn the worst tripe into something meaningful, or he really believes in the song, which proves he has no taste, but at least he’s a professional performer who puts his all into it.

So both songs are awful but McPhee’s performance is far worse and so based on performances alone Taylor should crush McPhee in the voting. But we all saw Bo Bice get taken down last year, unfairly, so it’s anybody’s game.

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I just would like to say it’s been a pleasure for me writing this column and I hope you guys had as much fun as I did. Your e-mails have been outstanding and I thank each and every one of you that wrote to me, or just gave me psychic messages of pleasure.

If you need your next dose of the Chan keep an eye out for my column on “America’s Got Talent” coming to Vote For The Worst.com this summer, where we try to rig Simon’s OTHER show. Go Hoff!

Keep the e-mails coming. Love you all. Peace and Prosperity to each and every one of you. Even the people who wrote mean things to me. I still like you too.

Best wishes,

Chan

If you would like to contact Professor Chan about this article, you can reach him at vftwchan@gmail.com