Final 9: Seacrest proves he's not gay by pointing out Kristy's French pedicure.

Some scary monster ate Dolly Parton and stole her wig and started doling out southern-cooked homilies to the contestants.  Seriously, what happened to Dolly?  I know the answer, but still, it is disturbing.  Just grow old gracefully Dolly, we don’t want to see you singing out of the side of your cheek.

Sadly, Dolly’s horrifying visage was the most interesting part of the show.  My drug of choice for watching Idol is beer.  But I’m going to switch to crystal meth or something just to stay awake through these damn things.  Seriously, people.  Pick up the energy maybe a notch or 14 so I don’t fall asleep at 8:45 every week.

The Dolly-Ghoul supposedly mentored these people, but she forgot to mention the most important advice, “No matter what you do, do NOT be boring.”  

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Brooke White

Song: “Jolene”

Notes: For the first time in weeks I was interested to hear Brooke singing.  I like the song and the harmonic changes.  I liked half of Brooke’s interpretation, minus the inappropriate grinning.  When your “thing” is interpreting songs better than the other Idols, you better interpret it.  I do feel this was some edict coming down from the Idol Producers however, as Carly does the same stupid thing, only scarier.

GRADE: B+ -- Not quite polished enough to get an A, but certainly an excellent performance.  Much better than the judges gave her credit for.

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David Cook

Song: “Little Sparrow”

Notes: Dolly says David is “Sure of himself.”  Oh boy is he sure of himself.  I feel a little better that David admitted he was cribbing notes from better performers on-line.  However, this actually diminishes him in my eyes because it means that he didn’t actually have the impeccable musical taste to come up with these grungy versions of ‘80s poppy hits on his own.  I don’t have impeccable musical taste either.  I usually have to look stuff up.  But I’m not a performer.  I’m a guy with an Idol blog who makes jokes about these people.  That being said, apparently Cook has a better haircut now because the girls in my viewing party mentioned it.  They also liked David’s mumbly singing better than I did.  

GRADE: B -- I’m rooting for David as one of the last remaining non-plants.  It was good but not great.  I’m guessing that the song isn’t really about birds like Simon says.

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Ramiele Malubay

Song: “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind”

Notes: I think the song definitely gibed with Ramiele’s singing talents, and she was grooving in the beginning.  But her unfamiliarity with the song, nerves and generally mediocre performing skills did her in.  I like what she was doing, but she didn’t do it well enough.

GRADE: C

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Jason Castro

Song: “Travelin’ Thru”

Notes: Note to Jason, dipping the ends of your dreads in blonde dye is NOT cool, nor does it make you a rock star.  He gives one of his best performances on Idol, however.  He interprets the song well, and the melody doesn’t tax his limited singing range.  It all sounded good, and his guitar playing complemented his performance.  I can see this song credibly being on his album.  Well done.

GRADE: B+ -- I’m in a good mood, but not THAT good a mood.

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Carly Smithson

Song: “Here You Come Again”

Notes: I think the problem with Carly isn’t her Morticia Addams wardrobe, it’s her lack of a volume control.  Everything coming out of this girl’s mouth is booming and vocally swinging for the fences.  We get it, you have a powerful voice, but can you sing softly?  Notice the delicate, quiet moments in the song aren’t very delicate or quiet.  She’s like a Foghorn of Doom.

GRADE: C -- The only thing scarier than the demolition of Dolly’s face was the fake, forced psycho killer smile that Carly made to happen with her mouth.  She proudly admitted to Simon, “I smiled.”  Yeah, but it scared children.  

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David Archuleta

Song: “Appalachian Memories” (that’s what our mole said it was called, and I’m sticking to it.)

Notes: Oh joy, The Archulater sings an overly earnest, weepy, dreary ballad.  David doesn’t show us anything new or different here.  But he remembers the words, doesn’t gasp too much and bats his rheumy puppy-dog eyes into the camera to make the 12 year olds swoon.

GRADE: C -- I think David should be our Worst as soon as Kristy goes home.

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Kristy Cooke

Song: “Coat of Many Colors”

Notes: This is exactly what’s wrong with Kristy.  She’s hand delivered a country song on a silver platter, and she still fumbles the ball.  Given the entire Dolly songbook of over 1,000 songs (I’m guessing it was far less than the ENTIRE Dolly songbook) and Kristy manages to make a bee-line to this hippy-dippy generic sounding country song.  Kristy sings with her indistinct country twang and gives her best performance on the show (again, not saying much).

GRADE: C- -- The country fans were expecting great things from Kristy, and this apparently IS the best she can do.  And her outfit looks like it was bartered for some beef jerky and four beaver pelts at the Navajo trading post.

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Syesha Mercado

Song: “I Will Always Love You”

Notes: Syesha is drawn to the most obvious, tired Whitnified choice for song.  But for some reason Syesha fuses together the worst aspects of both versions of the song.  It’s too hyper-emotional for the country version, but doesn’t have the big glory notes of the Whitney version.  You know, a pretty good songwriter wrote a good version of this song.  Her name is Dolly Parton.  Syesha might want to check it out.  

GRADE: D -- Neither delivering the vocal work-out that was expected, nor anything remotely passing as country this was a mess.

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Michael Johns

Song: “It’s All Wrong, It’s All Right.”

Notes: Clearly Dolly was in the midst of penning this song, roughly #899 out of 1,000th in her catalog, and she got writer’s block and couldn’t get out any more lyrics than the song title.  Or at least that’s all the words Michael sings.  His version is bluesy although he gets a little shouty toward the end which apparently is just his musical "style" as he does it every week.  Michael is still trying too hard to channel Michael Hutchence but this was pretty well done.  I would’ve liked a second verse, or even a first verse.  But this version was soulful and I like the way he used dramatic pauses to end the song.

GRADE: B+ -- I’m still not willing to give an A, but it was one of Michael’s best performances, and thankfully it's a non-stadium sing-along song.

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So once again the performers delivered good, but not great, tepid performances.  Nobody was terrible, but in their own ways everyone was predictable.  And the judges were SO predictable that our viewing party was calling out lines before the judges even said them.  

Here’s something we can ALL agree on, how much better would this show be if they got a judge with GENUINE musical talents? And if that same person could form a complete sentence once in a while.  And calling something “pitchy” every damn time is not a critique, because if you listen back, you will find that the singers hit their notes.

At random moments in the show Randy started making sounds like Curly of the Three Stooges.  Get those guys to judge this show and you’ve raised the musical discussion by about 80 IQ points.

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