Suffering Through Two Hours of Crap, To Listen to Crap Singing

Welcome back class to the OFFICIAL Professor Chan's Grading The Idols #1.

First off I have to say man, is this new Vote For The Worst site format incredible. It's pretty, and pretty readable. So now I'm a "blogger" and my American Idol reviews are now "blogs" and not columns. Does that make me a shut-in, cave-dwelling nerd? I hope not.

If you were with us from last year, you will notice I'm not using my patented "A-B-C Grading system" for the terrible singing shows. I'm saving that for the Finals... but with a new super-secret twist. Now on with the show...

What I love most about American Idol, is despite the fact that their franchise has been valued at $2.5 billion dollars the producers trip over themselves to screw up their show. They must be deliberately trying to torpedo their own product, otherwise how can you justify spending TWO FREAKING HOURS in Minnesota in the much-anticipated, much-hyped SEASON PREMIER!!! Minneapolis, land of the world's largest mall. Land of the funny Marge Gunderson accents. Minnesota, where the locals must sit around all winter building up the delusions that they can actually sing.

10,000 people auditioned, only 17 made it to Hollywood and only 25 people were featured on this show. Did I mention it WAS TWO HOURS LONG?!?! So much padding, so many commercials. Yep, that's Must See TV. And yet people still watch it. American Idol is the unkillable Dracula of reality TV. He lures you in with his sexy Eastern European accent, and groovy cape, then wham, he sucks your blood.

My first impressions of the all-new American Idol season 6

• The Who sells out some more by having "Baba O'Reilly" play over the opening montage. It gets my hopes up that the Finalists will be playing Who songs at some point.
• The best punch line of the show is that one of the exit doors is locked and all the failed losers with their tails dragging between their legs invariably try to go through it. Simon: "Other door."
• Simon got a new teeth whitening and Paula got new lips. Paula in particular looks beat up. Halfway through the show she was furiously rubbing her nose, which could either be post nose-job drip, or cocaine tingles, or both. Or it could just be "technical difficulties". The AI cameras did their absolute best to limit Paula's embarrassing on-camera time by cutting away from her as much as possible.
• Ryan got a new joke writer. On several occasions last year I called Seacrest the World's Least Funniest Man, but this week he was almost funny... twice. So maybe the season will be entertaining after all.

Now most bloggers will just write a minute-by-minute list of their impressions of AI, but not me, brother. Professor Chan goes the extra mile. What I've done is grouped the bad-singers, not-so-bad singers and what the hell were they thinking losers into four easy to understand categories, for your reading pleasure.

DELUSIONAL DRAMA QUEENS

1. First up was Jessica the Mall Girl. She says her Idol is Jewel, and Jewel is here today! Cue Jessica singing "Foolish Games" badly. So painful. Then she has an orgasm during her song. That's the point when I nicknamed her "Orgasm Girl." She's terrible, and she doesn't accept when the judges AND HER OWN IDOL JEWEL tell her she's terrible. That is HARSH! Jessica has a painful crying meltdown. Cut to commercial only after TV's longest awkward silence since The British Office series ended. That was 14 minutes of show. On one bad singer. This set a pattern for the whole night.
2. Katherine - A girl who can't sing. She didn't make an impression on me, and now she can go back to shoveling snow, or whatever her job is in Minnesota.
3. Jessie the Bluetooth Guy - This guy is the classic American Idol wanna-singer who just doesn't get it. Jessie is too cool to even take the damn Bluetooth phone out of his ear long enough to audition. He says he has a "unique vocal range" which is American Idol speak for "I sing like crap." Then he proceeds to show his "unique vocal range" so badly it took a while for anyone at my party to recognize which song he was butchering. Apparently it was that damn Celine Deion Titanic song. He leaves to take a water break in the middle of his audition and then kills a Michael Jackson song dead. And finally, after being dismissed by all four judges he goes on the same, tired rant that every loser drama queen whine that they've been doing since season two. Blah-blah-blah Simon is an idiot, Paula needs to release a new album, Randy wears too much make-up. Okay that last one is an original observation.
4. Chinstrap Matt the Cowboy - He's a bland, cowboy hat with a chin-strap, wearing shlub who looks like he should be making me a sandwich at Blimpy's. He stomps a Johnny Cash song flat, which is weird, because Johnny Cash isn't the world's most challenging vocalist to sing. Jewel gets a good dig when she asks Chinstrap Matt "Are you serious or are you being funny?" He was serious.
5. Stephen - a musical theater guy who lies and says he's a vocal coach. He sings a bad Aerosmith song badly and can't believe it when he gets the boot.
6. Rakel - who flat notes her way through "Fever" and gets the gong.
7. Dayna w/ her Boss. Michelle sucks on a Chaka Khan song. She says her boss paid for her to fly to Minnesota to re-audition, and her boss is here to support her. Simon brings in her boss to humiliate Michelle some more in front of him. Then Simon steals my "Go make a sandwich" line.
8. Josh, a "rocker". While Josh is talking about himself I could tell he was going to suck, and he doesn't disappoint. But I guess on Bad Singing shows you can just guess "suck" every time and be correct 9 times out of 10. Hell, this is American Idol; you can guess "suck" on the Finals and be correct 9 times out of 10. Josh says he sings like Chris from last year, but he sounds more like Bucky Covington, he of the 6 packs of cigs a day throat rattle. Simon challenges Josh to learn an Abba song in 15 minutes, which Josh does. And he sings it pretty well, hitting all the right notes, but with his Bucky gravel and his pained constipation face. Too bad Josh doesn't make it; he would've been a Vote For The Worst candidate for sure.

SELLING MY DIGNITY TO GET ON TV

1. Apollo Creed - A guy dressed like Apollo Creed from Rocky IV, complete with Uncle Sam hat, boxing gloves and crazy eyes expression. Then he sings an opera "Aria song" in Italian. Which is not bad... but this show ain't Opera Idol. Apollo will be back at least 4 or 5 more times on Bad Singing month recaps, AI ads and The Excruciating Finals sing-off.
2. Tayshaun - a girl who stabs Prince's "Kiss" in the femoral artery and lets the song bleed to death slowly. She forgets ALL the words, and the judges let her spiral the drain for what feels like an hour.
3. Amish Troy - An Amish guy who never watched Idol (because he's Amish and doesn't have a TV) and sings a weird song badly. It's embarrassing, but then luckily none of his family will ever see his performance, BECAUSE THEY'RE AMISH. What if he made it to Hollywood, would he take a horse and buggy?
4. Quick clips of Sweater-vest Kah'Reem and Horrible Finger Puppet Alex. They manage to suck with only three seconds of screen time between them.

MEDIOCRE SINGERS GOING TO HOLLYWOOD

1. Denise the self-proclaimed crack baby. She's got the best sob story and she sings in the standard overwrought, melisma happy AI style. She gets a gold ticket.
2. Jarrod the Reagan Idol - Jarrod is the AI requisite serviceman in uniform who sings okay. He tells the story about winning Ronald Reagan Idol on his aircraft carrier. He sings the so bad it should be banned from AI Rascal Flatts song, and gets a gold ticket anyway.
3. Rachel The Reservist - The AI Requisite servicewoman in uniform who sings okay. Rachel is too perky by half and I start to hate her 5 minutes into her epic 3-hour audition. But the judges love her high-quality ass-kissing so she gets a gold ticket.
4. Matt the Zit Guy - I can't remember anything he said, or what he sang, because I was too distracted by a gigantic, bloody zit on his nose. Ouch! The judges were willing to overlook it to give him a gold ticket.
5. Michelle a cute blonde girl who sings okay. When I say "cute blonde" I mean Minnesota cute. Like she was probably the hottest girl at her high school but she still has snaggle teeth and beady eyes. She gets a gold ticket.
6. Curly Hair Sarah - She looks like a "January Man" era Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, but without the sharp downward career trajectory. Sarah sings "Over the Rainbow" as I barf in my bowl of guacamole. She sings it nasally but hits all the right notes. She gets a gold ticket.
7. Perla, the Colombian Seductress - Perla is my personal favorite of the evening and early Vote For The Worst contender. Her breasts precede her through the door and she sings with a weird, nasally accent. Perla has a strong Charro vibe to her. And because she's from the continent of South America the judges immediately declare her a Shakira wannabe and force her to sing a Shakira song which she does fairly well. Randy declares, "There's something about you that I like." I don't know Randy, could it be her giant boobs? Perla gets a gold ticket. Yay!

GENUINELY AWFUL WILLIAM HUNG-A-BES

This is what we suffered through two hours of this crappy show for.

1. Trista The Cowardly Lion Girl - She sings a song from "Wizard of Oz" with a Chewbacca moan at the end of every line. Hysterical. Also she's wearing an outfit that she probably made herself, and decided to punish herself by wearing it. She leaves in a huff when the judges inform her that she's terrible.
2. Dana - a typical AI horrible singer but then she hits a high note scream that could shatter glass. Awesome.
3. Jason the Juggler - Jason speak-sings in a tired monotone while he listlessly juggles a stick. He's gobsmacked when the judges tell him he's horrible. Then he throws a world-class crying fit afterwards, weeping on his mother's shoulder. He declares: "I just wanted to start off famous, and they wouldn't let me." Seacrest suggests that Jason always has juggling as a fall-back plan. Jason hilariously whines: "Juggling is just my entertainment, it's not my way of life!" That performance alone nearly justifies this entire show.
   
   Then a brilliant camera pan from a shattered Jason the Juggler to a horrified--
4. Brenna the Beast - Brenna is a HUGE American Idol fan. She declares that she has every episode on tape. Then she screams her way through Queen's "Under Pressure." Which I should mention is a DUET. Brenna lies and says she's a voice teacher and just doesn't understand why the judges think she's horrible. Amazing!

So that's it. An hour-fifty-five of filler and maybe 5 minutes of good, bad stuff. Then they showed a 30 second clip of "Hills Have Eyes" mutants from the Seattle auditions and I couldn't stop laughing. So there were more laughs in a 30 second preview than in two long, tedious hours. Hey, American Idol is the #1 show on TV for a reason!

See you tomorrow.

Professor Chan
For questions, comments fan mail - vftwchan@gmail.com