Top 24 Guys - Being Relevant By Singing 60's Songs

Ryan Seacrest reminds us that this is being called “the best top 24 ever.” By the show. Over and over. No one else has said this, but the show thinks that if it keeps saying it every week, people will believe it. That’s almost as ridiculous a notion as having a group of singers sing outdated songs from the 60’s and then chastising them when they don’t sound current. But no one would ever do that, because that would be completely moronic, right?

Welcome to Moronic Idol, where nothing makes sense. Instead of letting the singers pick their own songs this week, the producers let them choose between a measly 50 songs from the 1960’s. Wonder why so many of them did so poorly? It’s because they didn’t have a choice. It’s as if Nigel Lythgoe wants the show to bomb because he’s tired of producing it. But hey, it led to a night of VFTW goodness, even if it came in small doses with large doses of monotony.

The first singer of the night is David Hernandez, also known as “that guy who overdoes it on the melisma.” His performance of “Midnight Hour” is pretty boring and full of oversinging. The slow gospel opening makes it look like he’s trying too hard as well. It’s not that his performance is bad by any stretch of the imagination (especially after some of the crap that happens tonight), but it’s definitely not anything to write home about. His overaffected growl only comes out once as well. The judges like it and Simon calls it “better than I expected.” I always have a problem when the judges say that, because they’re basically saying they expected someone to suck. And if they expected someone to suck on the first night, why did they put them through? Oh judges, you’re so transparent and easy to mock. Please make it harder on me next time.

Chikezie is up next. I was expecting a boring, cannon fodder performance from my man with the fun name, but he delivered the VFTW goods in a fascinating way. First, he completely rearranges “More Today Than Yesterday” to make it indecipherable. Then, he comes out with a bright orange suit. And lastly, after the performance doesn’t go over well, he lambastes the judges! Chikezie, I didn’t know you had it in you. Simon calls Chikezie “hideous, corny, cheesy”, so of course Chikezie rightfully fires back. The highlight of it all occurs when Chikezie rolls his eyes while talking to Ryan, saying he couldn’t sound current doing songs from the 60’s. If it hadn’t been for Danny Noriega, Chikezie would have just garnered himself millions of extra votes. So let me tell you, my hat is off to you Mr. Eze, because you are now one of the reasons I am enjoying the show. Nice work!

David Cook decides to sing “So Happy Together” complete with the fake Daughtry constipated rock pose. He’s annoying and greasy, so the judges like it. David’s entire video package is about how he doesn’t know what Simon meant when he insulted his audition by calling it “worthy.” Even Simon has no idea what he meant, as “worthy” is not an insult. Looks like Simon finally realized he makes as much sense as Paula. That must have been a sad moment in his life. Simon then spends the rest of the night trying to feed Paula lines to make her look foolish. The joke’s on him though… Paula looks foolish even without being fed lines.

Jason Yeager, also known as Skunk Striped Cannon Fodder, tackles “Moon River.” I honestly didn’t expect him to sound the way he does. He has a very soulful voice and actually sings pretty well. Of course, picking such a boring song didn’t help his cannon fodder case, so the good vocals are basically ignored by the judges. If he had been pimped though, they would have called it “beautifully restrained.” Simon breaks out his first “cruise ship performance” of the season and tells Jason that he’s like a “dependable, old dog.” Ouch. You’d be even more offended if you knew what Simon did with his dog.

Robbie Carrico is singer number five of the evening. Really, even though he’s a plant, he has been completely up-front about his boy band past on the show, so I kind of like that about him. He doesn’t offend me nearly as much as the other plants. Of course, his singing is pretty offensive, and his “rocking” is ridiculously fabricated. His performance of “One is the Loneliest Number” is basically what you would get if you asked NSync to rock out. The song doesn’t sound right for his voice or maybe his voice doesn’t sound right on the song. Simon of course disagrees with me and calls it “the only performance tonight that has some semblance of making sense.” He also calls it current, which apparently is a compliment. Again… having a 60’s theme week kind of invalidates having to be current. Maybe I’m the only one who watches this show with common sense though.

David Archuleta wants us to listen to him compete in vocal gymnastics on the track “Shop Around.” It’s an incredibly boring and lame performance, but as I said earlier, the judges will suddenly call “boring” something like “amazing” because he’s a plant. Randy asks David how old he is… as if he doesn’t know. You’ll remember that Randy mentioned Jordin Sparks being 17 every single week last year. I guess we’ll have to sit through that crap again this year. After the judges finish their ass licking, David just kind of stares into the camera with a dopey grin. He obviously doesn’t have a whole lot going on upstairs, so he tries to make up for it by taking lessons from the Melinda Doolittle School of Humility and Compliments. “Gee golly! A real live audience! Aw, shucks. Am I on an honest to goodness television special? Well color me purple! This is the living end. My oh my!” Please, someone place this kid in the remedial school he needs so that I don’t have to listen to him for 3 more months.

On the other end of the spectrum is the fabulous Danny Noriega, who swivels his hips to “Jailhouse Rock.” Danny tells us that he wants to bring his swagger and attitude to the stage, and I tell myself, “Finally! Here we go!” Overall it wasn’t a bad vocal; there were just a few pitch problems and Danny fell behind on the music once. But the diva attitude that Danny brings when he performs is infinitely entertaining. Then, the diva attitude that he brings after the performance is actually, dare I say it, even better. After Paula calls his performance safe and Simon labels it grotesque, Danny gives Simon the “Oh no you didn’t” face and double snaps at him. Which of course makes me love Danny. Simon tells him that if someone just tuned in to the show, they wouldn’t think they were watching the 12 best guys singing in the country. Simon, I’ve been watching the show all season, and I know we’re not watching the 12 best guys in the country. Either way, Danny brought his personality, and VFTW applauds him for it. Next week though, I’d like to see him go even further and really try to piss off Simon. This is your moment, Danny. Live it up!

Luke Menard tried out for season 6 but didn’t get past the auditions. After seeing him perform, it’s not all that shocking to learn. He has the perfect high-pitched boy band voice that the Backstreet Boys reunion tour is looking for, but he picks an incredibly boring song that does him no favors. The only reason he might remotely stick around is because he’s pretty. But he didn’t even try that hard; his hoodie and t-shirt combination made him look like he just rolled out of bed. Maybe Paula’s sleeping with the contestants again this year? Hey, good for her, this is a huge step up from Corey Clark. Randy attempts to make himself look intelligent by qualifying his “pitchy” retort with “you were consistently sharp.” Simon thinks he’s forgettable. This causes Luke to snap back that people will remember him tomorrow. But it wasn’t like he snapped back in a fun, VFTW way. It was in a boring, unmemorable way. Oh man, Simon’s right.

Not content to just give us one gay teenager this year, Idol also presents us with the dynamic duo of Colton Berry and Garrett Haley. Unfortunately, these two aren’t nearly as awesome as Danny. It looks like Colton could have a great sense of humor (he mentions that he looks like Ellen Degeneres, his favorite quote is from A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, he sings himself the Teletubbies song when he’s nervous), but I don’t see it during his performance. The judges overall liked his vocals, and Simon even had to add, “not as bad as the other Elvis song.” When Simon takes cheap shots at Danny throughout other performances, we know we picked the right person. Simon then goes on a sudden rampage against Colton, saying “you have no relevance in the music industry” and “this was a complete waste of time.” If Colton is so irrelevant, Simon, why did you bother to put him in the top 24? It’s not as if he changed overnight and started singing the way he does. Hopefully next week Colton can up the fun factor and do something to anger Simon some more.

If you thought Simon abused Colton, wait until you see what he has in store for Garrett Haley. Really, Simon just looks like a bully at this point, needlessly hurling putdowns at the contestants who aren’t bad, just boring. Simon’s shtick is only funny when it’s relevant, but it’s as if he’s just insulting the contestants for little things this year because he’s bored. Garrett sings “Breaking Up is Hard To Do,” making Luke Menard memorable. But this sets Simon up on a rampage where he viciously attacks Garrett for a few minutes, calling him among other things “boring, whiny, terrified, verging on haunted, and pale.” Garrett just stands there and takes it and Simon continues to act like a moron. I wouldn’t mind Simon saying he hated someone’s performance or hated a singer that he had never seen before. That’s fine. I can call Garrett an androgynous ghost-like boy (in an awesome VFTW way of course) because I’ve never seen him before and had no choice whether I was going to have to watch him every week. But to hurl these insults at a kid that he obviously praised back in Hollywood is just needlessly cruel. If you didn’t like him back then, put him out of his misery and don’t cast him on the show. And how exactly is Garrett supposed to fix the fact that he’s pale? I’m assuming he was pale and “verging on haunted” a few months ago as well according to Simon’s standards. Either way, it just makes Simon look foolish to insult someone that he obviously had a hand in placing in the top 24. This show blows donkey dick.

Jason Castro is the first contestant to play an instrument, and I have to wonder why no other contestants attempted this. It would’ve bought them at least an extra week, as it certainly did for Jason. He sings “What a Day for a Daydream” and actually makes it semi-relevant. It’s easily one of the best performances of the night. The other contestants should also take Jason’s lead and smoke a lot of weed before going out on stage, because it obviously helped with his nerves. I’m sure that was a tip from Paula. Otherwise, this performance was far too surprisingly good for me to really talk about it anymore.

Michael Johns closes the show with “Light My Fire.” He gets the stupid Burger King flame background that we’ve all come to know and hate. Apparently when you’re on fire, you should also wear a scarf, because it helps insulate the flames? I’ll never understand that fashion statement. Really, Michael is not very good. He has a decent voice, but it’s completely affected. Randy calls Michael a “true rock legend like Michael Hutchence.” The only things the two of them have in common are that they’re both Australian and they both smell really bad at this point. Simon says that Michael is the most consistent contestant ever, and I agree. He brings the creepy, dirty, smelly Constantine fake-rocker thing to a whole new level. Housewives will cream their panties over this one and there’s really not a whole lot I can do to stop it.

So overall, Danny Noriega shined the most with what he was given. Chikezie also gave it a valiant effort. And the other guys mostly cranked out boring, karaoke versions of Idol standards. Looks like the show is back to form. Who’s going home? We’ll probably lose one of the effeminate teenagers and one of the forgettable guys. So I’ll go with Garrett Haley and David Hernandez. Not that it matters as long as we don’t lose Danny. Tomorrow night, the girls butcher songs and Simon calls them “irrelevant.” Oh goody.