Girls Singing #2: Girls' Turn To Be The WORST!

The worm has turned. What was right is left, what was once up is down. Last week the boys sucked badly, so this week it’s the girls turn to crap all over the moniker “The best 24 singers in America.” This is also the night when the judges abandon all illusion of rewarding originality and they start Pigeon-Holing the girls, telling them what genre they are permitted to sing in. Did I mention this show sucks? I believe that I did.

When Carly BLOODY Smithson was the best performer of the night you KNOW something is stinky on Idol. Yeesh.

I will be giving out my ‘70s themed GROOVY, BOGUS and TOTAL CRAP grades, and I will explain the subtle message the judges sent to each performer about which Pigeon Hole they have to remain in for the rest of the show.

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Carly “Gee, I’m Irish” Smithson

Song: “Crazy On You” by Heart

Pigeon Hole: Simon wants more Whitney-Celine please, less Heart-style woman rock, which Smithson approximates fairly well.

Notes: Carly’s big secret is that she owns a tattoo parlor but she WORKS in an Irish Bar. And draws shamrocks in the Guiness foam. So it’s a crappy, touristy Irish bar.

Smithson manages to weaken my resolve to hate her with the best performance of the night. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not good or anything, but it sounded pretty much like the album... albeit slightly out of tune with sneaking moments of goat vibrato. She does sing the crap out of the only three words in the song, however.

GRADE: GROOVY -- Begrudgingly. All of those years of being a Ringer when she was 15 really paid off here. I still don’t like her, though.

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Syesha Mercado

Song: “Me and Mr.(Mrs.) Jones by Billy Paul

Pigeon Hole: More Aretha soul please, with belting glory notes at the end. Ooh, and melisma. Plenty of that would be great.

Notes: Syesha admits to appearing in several commercials. She also demonstrates her horrifying imitation of a baby crying. Don’t ever do that again. The arrangement starts too slow and instead of sultry and sexy it’s just depressing. Syesha gets going a little in the middle, but mostly it’s pain and muddle.

GRADE: Bogus

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Brooke White

Song: “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon

Pigeon Hole: More bunnies and rainbows please. And get rid of the guitar, we will have none of that tomfoolery on a Singin’ Show. Ooh, I hear that youngster Marie Osmond is an up-and-comer. Sing like that.

Notes: Brooke sings a perky, sexy version of the song, accompanying herself competently but unexceptionally on guitar. It’s album ready, which is the best compliment I can give tonight. But it has none of the barely restrained anger of the original. Oh, who am I kidding, this song blows.

GRADE: GROOVY -- Brooke is cute and friendly, but is that enough to carry her deep in this competition? Probably, this is Idol after all. It’s the World’s Biggest Popularity Contest.

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Ramiele

Song: “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston

Pigeon Hole: What we’d like is more of Katharine McPhee/Mariah Carey-ish. But less asian-y.

Notes: This is just a tired, over-played song. It gets performed badly every year on Idol, and it’s not groundbreaking or exciting here either. The song template goes “Part 1: Slow and boring. Part 2: Shouting and bouncy. Repeat identical sections again.”

GRADE: BOGUS -- Ramiele shows her spunky attitude, but this was a by the numbers Idol performance.

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Kristy Cooke

Song: “You’re No Good” by Linda Ronstadt

Pigeon Hole: Remember how we found footage of you on your rent-a-horse? And remember how we brought you on the show because you have a previous country music recording contract and album? Here’s a wacky idea, try some country singin’. You know, just to give it a little test-drive and see how it works for you.

Notes: Yeah, way to keep current, Idol, make someone sing some Ronstadt. This song is embedded deep in the ‘70s and should never leave it. Kristy sings a ponderous, dirge-like version of an already terrible song. She does sneak in some moments of the Patented AI Poopy dance, for my entertainment. (The poopy dance is where the girl performers on Idol, always the girls mind you, squat, then lean back and make faces like they’re having a difficult bowel movement... THAT is the poopy dance in a nutshell.)

Grade: TOTAL CRAP -- It’s funny, but I didn’t realize Kristy was singing about herself until the recap montage at the end.

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Amanda Leather Nurse

Song: “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas

Pigeon Hole: Less make-up and punk-ery. And maybe smile more and mix in some Gwen Stefani songs. She’s so punk, right?

Notes: Oh my, this is what I was waiting for. The season’s first Full-blown Sanjaya Moment. Amanda is wearing what look like plastic chaps. Amazing! In her bio video with her hair pulled back and dyed a somewhat natural color she looks pretty and pudgy and cute. On-stage she has a Bride of Frankenstein Fright Wig/Helmet of Hair. I love Amanda so much that I felt sorry for her halfway into this freak-show performance, botched notes, fully committed Taylor Hicks-style spastic dancing. She seems to get lost in the middle of the song, but luckily can always find a “Carry on” to catch up.

GRADE: A FOR AWESOME -- I am going to show this to all my friends on Youtube. This was phenomenal!

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Alaina Whitaker

Song: “Hopelessly Devoted To You” By Olivia-Fig-Newton-John

Pigeon Hole: Remember how we created you in a lab from a mutant hybrid of Pickler DNA and Farmbot programming? Go out there and conquer the world, Turbo-Pickler 2.0.

Notes: Another stink-worthy song. Alaina has been engineered to win Idol so she picks a horrible song (naturally) and shows off some strong, pageant-show trained vocals and ends on a glory note. She will terminate her competition and go head to head with the Archulater in the finals. Failure is not an option.

GRADE: BOGUS -- This was a standard Idol performance. I hate standard Idol performances. They remind me of how much better music is on the radio right now. And Radio sucks right now. And I’d still rather listen to any song on MOR FM than any of these songs we heard tonight. And I hate MOR FM radio.

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Alexandreah-nah-nah-nah Lushington

Song: “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago.

Pigeon Hole: Um, you’re quirky and we don’t know what to do with you. How about, err... show tunes? You know what, don’t bother, you’ll be leaving soon anyway, right about now is when we cut our first talented black singer every year.

Notes: Alexandreah starts too low for her (like ALL the girls did, it seems) and does another weird version of a Classic Rock standard. I’m a closet Chicago fan (sax players usually are) but I don’t understand what the hell Alexandreah’s thinking for the second week in a row. Her voice doesn’t really suit the song and her syncopated jazz phrasing fights with the strict 4/4 time of Rock tooth and nail.

GRADE: BOGUS -- Once again, I get a sense that Alexandreah can sing, but this was weird and unpleasant.

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Kady Malloy

Song: “Magic Man” by Heart

Pigeon Hole: You know how we told you not to do that uncanny Britney impression any more? Well, forget about what we said and just go for it, sister. We can always recoup our losses with a novelty album.

Notes: Once again Kady is perky and funny and lively in her bio video and then as soon as she hits the stage she’s like Britney at the VMAs, robotic, off-key and dead behind the eyes. I don’t know what Kady’s problem is, stage fright? Also, like Amanda’s performance earlier, I enjoy Kady too much to hear her sing so terribly so I had to fast-forward through most of her song. It was PAINFUL!!! That being said, go check it out on Youtube. It’s really unbelievable.

GRADE: A for AWESOME -- It’s too bad that my two favorite girls sang so horribly and it’s likely both will be going home.

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Asiah Epperson

Song: “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen (who is this Celine Deion person that I’m hearing about? I have no knowledge of who she is.)

Pigeon Hole: Remember LaToya London? Yeah, neither do we. What was your name again?

Notes: Eric Carmen is one of the wussiest performers in the history of pop music and “All By Myself” his ode to self-lovin’ is one of the wussiest ballads of all time. So of course Celine had to grab it by it’s wispy little throat and choke all the life out of the damn thing. Also, LaToya London kicked ass with this song on Idol and was unceremoniously booted from the show. Asiah’s out of tune botched version was simply awful. Good luck, tomorrow, Asiah.

GRADE: TOTAL CRAP -- she doesn’t get an A For Awesome because this is one of the wussiest songs of all time, as I’ve said before, and she Idolizes it with a big, building comeback and Glory note. And I HATE standard Idol performances, as I’ve said before.

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Didn’t you love how Idol is a billion dollar industry and they have to used RECYCLED VIDEO for their bio films. Kristy on her loaner horse, Kristy boxing, Amanda on her hawg. To all you Idol fans out there still reading... WE DID NOT RUIN YOUR SHOW, it was broken when we found it.

Randy declares his undying love for 1970s music. Just a quick peak at some of the #1 singles reminds me of when pop music went to shit... December 31st, 1969. Let’s see some top hits from the ‘60s: Elvis Presley, the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Doors.

‘70s? Cher, The Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, Captain and Tenille, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Debby Boone, Peaches and Herb... Disco. Stop me when the awesomeness gets so overwhelming that you can’t take it any more.

I believe I have made my point.

Also, I love how Simon, the main judge on AMERICAN Idol has never heard Heart before, but he’s having orgasmic fantasies about Celine Deion’s butchery of a terrible Eric Carmen Pussy ballad.

As usual, I highly recommend skipping the boring-ass hour-long results show and checking back with us to see who went home... it takes 30 seconds, and then you can go on with the rest of your evening wearing a pleasant smile.

--Chan