Idol Final Three: We Couldn't Pick Worse Songs If We Tried

Posted by Professor Chan on May 13th, 2008 at 10:40 PM
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Finally the gloriously bad Idol episode that we’ve all been waiting for. All sorts of musical attrocities were committed, including a song sung by penguins and a love song about a giant meteor. Yes!!! I loved it.

Everyone got in the spirit tonight. Simon was on-point all night, including picking the ONLY decent song of the evening for David Cook. Paula was actually sober and coherent, making strong points about the singing and performances, as if her job depended on her, you know, judging the damn show. Seacrest making his unfunny non-jokes and Randy spending the whole evening trying to stroke his own ego. That was some episode. Oh, and Lloyd from “Entourage” was in attendance. Good stuff.

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Tonight was the annual Judge Song choice, Idol song and Producer Nigel’s song choice game.

Remember when the whole home city would come out to celebrate the Final 3 Idols of seasons past? Not so much this time. Cook gets his song choice text while on a TV news show, and only Mayor McMoustache of Archuleta’s hometown of Backwater, Texas decided to make a big deal about his Judge’s song choice while no doubt crowning David the Acting Governor of Texas for the day.

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David Archuleta -
Paula’s Song - “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel

Paula chose this song because David “can handle the melodies.” Well Archuleta takes a vanilla ballad from the Joel-meister and blandifies the hell out of it. He's sucking the joy and energy out of the thing. He squints, he wheezes, he puts me to sleep. David also throws in his now trade-marked lyrical flub and made the whole thing feel ponderously slow. A Looooong 90 seconds of my life that I won’t get back.

GRADE: D

David’s Choice- “Without You” by Chris Brown

Now David embraces the VFTW Crown and runs with it. He chooses a modern-day teeny-pop disposable ditty from Chris “I got to sing with Jordan Sparks before she lost her voice forever” Brown. David shows off his muppet dancing and stage awkwardness while trying to be “cool” singing about “my boo.” There’s nothing as tragically un-hip about a total dweeb like Archuleta trying to be cool. This was Kevin Covais-like Awesome.

GRADE: FAIL -- VFTW AWARD WINNER!!!

Producer’s Dismally Bad Song Choice: “Longer” by Dan Fogelberg
This song takes painfully boring to a new level. David assumes a beatific “I’m singing about The Lord because my Daddy doesn’t let me talk to girls” tone and it’s all downhill from there. David is wearing his Sunday best buttoned-up Mormon on the Make shirt and sings up a storm. David achieves a courageous level of boring tonight. Simon has the guts to rightfully call it “a gooey” song, and lambasts it, while praising David’s competent but unexceptional vocals. I’m not as accepting as Simon.

GRADE: FAIL -- The terrible, cheesy songs didn’t help his Idol mission. Even David’s attempt at modern-day relevance was naive, awkward and laughable.
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Syesha Mercado
Randy’s Song: “If I Ain't Got You” by Alicia Keys

Randy the Bobo sets Syesha up for failure by assigning her this big, belting song with only 90 seconds to get to any kind of emotional pay-off. Syesha falls back on her go-to Whitney runs and smiley vote-mongering. It’s a step back for Syesha, and a boring performance, to boot. The Back-up singers really carried her on this one.

Syesha defends her mediocre performance with: “I’m just being myself, you know?” And yourself is obnoxious, which is the problem.

GRADE: C

Syesha’s Song: “Fever” by Peggy Lee

Syesha goes all Broadway as she seems to be auditioning for the touring cast of “Cabaret.” It takes some of the sexiness out of the whole thing when Syesha is forced to explain the use of the chair, before she sits on and around it for the song. This was a mediocre rendering of a sung sung into redundancy by everyone with a pair of boobs and a voice. Also, I’ve never bought Syesha’s brand of forced sexiness. There’s too much actor-ing in the performance and not enough va-va-vavoom.

Randy says it’s a “burning” Fever. But it’s more like a phlegmy cold.

GRADE: D -- Old-fashioned and unsexy. Nobody wants to see Granny getting down.

Producer’s Dismally Bad Song Choice: Something called “Hit Me Up” apparently from the singing/dancing penguin movie, “Happy Feet.”

Syesha is left out to dry with this dippy-doo Disney-fied joke of a song. Syesha can’t really dance to it, and there’s not a whole lot to sing either. It’s like the Producers are trying to send her home. Syesha is off-key and it’s mostly terrible.
GRADE: FAIL -- Syesha almost gives Archuleta a run for VFTW-worthiness tonight. Almost.

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David Cook
Simon’s Song: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack.

I certainly wasn’t looking forward to this weepy, drivel song when I heard it was foisted upon Cook, but damn, did he extract every ounce of goodness from it. But if a guy can make Lionel Richie’s “Hello” entertaining I guess he can do anything. And yes, I know that was a rip-off. This probably was too, but it doesn’t matter. Cook gives one of those goose-bump causing perormances that is his Idol coronation song..

GRADE: A -- This was excellent, Cook’s raspiness and soaring vocals came together with emotional resonance. Nice time to hit a homerun, dude.

David’s Choice: “Dare To Move You” by a band called Switchfoot, apparently.

Just another drippy Daughtry-Fuel-Nichelback MOR “grunge” ballad that made me wince. This is probably what Cook’s Idol-winning album will sound like. I know this because this is what Daughtry’s Idol album sounds like. But with extra elevator-quality keyboards.

GRADE: C -- Cook sings it fine, but it sounded like Christian Rock to me. Blame Creed for ruining Christion Rock for everyone.

Producer’s Dismally Terrible Song Choice: “That Damned Asteroid Song” by Aerosmith.

Tonight was like a “This Is Your Musical Life” episode for David Cook. First was his pre-Idol edgy, artistic exploration phase of his career. Then his post-Idol suck factory song. And then this was his Closing Credits track to Transformers 4: BumbleBee’s Radical Adventure. It’ll probably be called “Transform My Heart.” And Diane Warren, the epitome of schmaltzy, adult contemporary dreck song-crafting, will have scribbled it down on a napkin before collecting her 185th Grammy.

GRADE: C -- And this was STILL better than anyone else tonight.

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If anybody but David Cook wins this show American Idol should be canceled the next day, because he is so much better than the other two pretenders. Much better. Plus, I want to hear him sing the shitty Idol-Winner Song. That will make me laugh.

--Chan

__________________________

Professor Chan For Questions, Comments, Fan Mail -- 

vftwchan @ gmail.com


bodie358
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 6:49am
Joined: 13 Apr 2007

Switchfoot band members are Christians but their music is not. The lyrics steer clear of preachiness, exclusive declarations of faith, or even any mention of Jesus.

I saw them at a county fair (I know, I know)last year and, believe it or not, it was a fun, upbeat night. I was impressed with the way they related to the audience and they can rock the house!

whattheheck
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 6:47am
Joined: 24 May 2006

One more thing I forgot to mention....ya, I know, another one....

Didn't the shirt that Gaspy had on for With You look like a giant, gaping asshole? Or maybe a vagina? I think it really had a bunch of people doing some kind of circular orgy, but it looked like a big, gaping body cavity to me.

Ginap123
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 6:48am
Joined: 16 Apr 2008

Right on the money CHAN!

SYESHIA: I really think she has a deal waiting for her doing acting. She is going to make ALOT more money then if she went on with IDOL. SIMON burned a girl a few seasons back and she won an OSCAR. The producers knowing that tossed her under the bus. She realizes there is life beyound idol!

GASPY: The producers can see the pressure is to much for this kid and he is one step away from cracking.

COOK: Your American IDOL.

ari_of_light
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 6:57am
Joined: 14 May 2008

The asteroid song..I am still laughing!

I agree with everything but Longer by Archie. Boring to you maybe. But Longer is one of my favorite songs of ALL time. Besides Archie's boy band spin, he did okay with it.

Cook got my votes anyway!

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the pook
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 7:02am
Joined: 09 Apr 2008

Wow, Syeeeesha was thrown under the bus fast this week by the producers!

Gaspy McFuckwit died tonight on all 3 songs. The first one was awful, "With You" had me peeing my pants at his "dancing" wich he tried to pass off as not dancing when Ryan spoke to him. Wel what were you doing boy? Broke one of daddy's puppet string is that why you were flailing about like a goldfish without water? VFTW gold right there.

I actually felt bad for Syeeeesha after Fever. All fucking season long she's been hearing the three morons tell her how she should do Broadway, how she should do theatre, how she should incorporate acting into her performance. So she comes out looking slamming btw and delivers a sexy, cabaret performance Broadway style and the fucking judges rip her apart for it saying they're "not really seeing what type of performer she is". What. The. Fuck? The bong got passed good last night. She was way better than Gaspy last night but will go home because TPTB said she should and screw the phone vote.

David Cock was predictable even though I wonder how he fit his huge fucking head on stage last night. Him sarcastically faking surprise at the tweens in the mosh pit actually knowing who Switchfoot are was priceless. Still, he killed it last night even though his last song was booooooring oh and when I saw the old slapper with her "cougars for Cook" sign I almost spat my coffee out.

tulaplee
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 7:02am
Joined: 24 Apr 2008

Anyone notice that Lickylips wore the same bird shirt he wore last week? Can he not dress himself without daddy?

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Stop running around like a toilet brush!!!!!!

sanjifan
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 7:05am
Joined: 11 Apr 2007

Randfy's "coming in third" comment was so telling.

MissManaged
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 7:14am
Joined: 29 Mar 2008

Gaspy got all the glory and compliments for the work the background singers did. I could barely hear him sing, thankfully. They carried him through. Funny how the judges didn't bring that up. I can't see Clive wasting money on any of these sorry contestants this year except maybe for Jason because at least he did have a few songs that were really good.

__________________________

“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
Simone Weil

tantrum
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 7:17am
Joined: 29 Feb 2008

I watched while online as I found the night unremarkable.

David Archuleta - The first song was technically ok minus the angst and emotion of a Billy Joel. That's too much to ask for an emotionally disabled boy. The second song was a disaster BUT I got entertained and laughed hard as he tried to dance or whatever he calls it. Being hip (although he's young) is not his forte. I never realized you can make "LONGER"loooonger and slooower, but he succeeded. Not bad, just boring.

SYESHA- They should change her name to SyNOsha. The judges want her out to clear for the David-David finale and they will get their wish. Very unremarkable first song. "Fever" was ok but none of the sex appeal even compared to McPhee when she sang it (that's not a high bar to hurdle). I was too bored to comment on her third song or even remember it.

David Cook- The favored one will make the finals. I actually like his performance on the first song. There is not much you can do to that song anyway, it was a decent job (not great). Second song was one of his worst performance but it does not matter as they are crowning him at this point. Aerosmith song was not that bad and was ok. At this point he's playing safe and trying to avoid any disaster.

I'm actually looking out for their hometown visits rather than their performance. That's how sad and low it can get.

tantrum
Posted: May 14, 2008 - 7:26am
Joined: 29 Feb 2008

Mayor McMoustache and Archuleta are from Murray, UTAH not Texas but both look funny anyway.
I can't help but noticing the female newscaster's reaction to David Cook's song chosen by Simon. "REALLLY"?? with taunting or mocking expression.