Posts Tagged ‘Matt Giraud’

Top 11 Performance Night: Grand Old Ouchie – Averted

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Country nights on Idol can be… uneven nights. More than other genres, this theme gives singers who don’t usually go here trouble. With a Top 11 lacking the Designated Country Representative… that was a formula for train wrecks aplenty.

As a Carrie Underwood fan, I was even less pleased than usual. Based on the leaked song list that came out a week or so ago from Vote For The Worst, I knew there was a good chance someone would pick her material. As anyone with a sense of Idol history knows, Idol contestants picking the original songs of past contestants is usually terrible. And there are few things I like less than having a song I like utterly and completely butchered on the Idol stage.

Someone who definitely exceeded expectations was Matt Giraud. Yes, one of the best of the night was someone who had me worried all night how badly he’d butcher the song. Miracles do happen, even in Idol-land.

However, that was because Giraud was very smart in going about it. With a very recent song like So Small, you’re sure to be compared to the original. (That’s true for all songs, but less so for older ones than new ones.) And trying to outsing Carrie Underwood is, well, a difficult task at the best of times – and, for Giraud, might as well be impossible.

Of course, if Giraud couldn’t “sing” small, it wouldn’t have mattered, but as it turns out: he can. Some control problems towards the end, when he couldn’t resist the urge to turn up the power – but he was able to convey emotion in a way he hasn’t been able to all season long. Not bad at all.

If there was a “theme” of sorts to the show, it’s something I’ve touched upon in previous seasons, but it always worth repeating. It can be summed up this way: don’t work the themes; make the themes work for you. By far, the best people on this night were able to do just that.

Same idea, even better results: Kris Allen. It was, by far, the most heartfelt performance of the night, easily. Since his fanbase is probably disproportionately female, that’s a definite plus. Allen’s vocals loses out in the power battle, definitely, but his control is second to none in this field. Pleasant to listen to, heartfelt, great vocals – what more can you ask? Best of the night in our book. Giraud has a little more natural charisma, but Allen felt more honest.

Best of those who stayed true to the “expected” country theme would be Allison Iraheta. The country/rock crossover is surprisingly common, and Iraheta handled it with ease. While I didn’t like her last week, and I found Alone over-rated, this was not. This was excellent; Iraheta has a great mix of vocals, performing ability, and likability that should see her well. Well done.

Anoop Desai finally lived up to expectations. Like Allen and Giraud, he slowed down the song and rearranged it to suit his tendencies. Now, he wasn’t as polished as Giraud or as heartfelt as Allen, but still: pretty good from Desai, and without a doubt the best from him all season long.

A secondary theme was producers’ favorites doing okay, but not great. Perhaps they relaxed a little? Both Danny Gokey and Lil Rounds turned in performances that had similar high points and low points: technically competent, but brought nothing to the table that could be described as exciting. Independence Day struck me as something of a lazy choice; for once the judges were pretty spot-on with their points on Rounds. Besides, trying to outsing both Underwood and Martina McBride? That’s crazy talk.

Of course, at least Rounds tried to put an R&B spin on Independence Day. Gokey… I still have no idea what kind of singer he is. He does a decent enough job every week, but that’s it. He can sing most stuff decently, but I haven’t really seen anything he’s good at. Add to that so-so vocals – Jesus, Take The Wheel is as tough a test of pure vocal ability as you’ll find. Gokey was not up to the task; he was borderline overwhelmed by the song. Mediocre at best.

Another one who was so-so at best: Alexis Grace. I don’t know if she sounded like Dolly, but what I do know is that she didn’t sound particularly unique or exciting. It was okay technically, but it was just that. Like Rounds, she was okay, but not exciting. Ridiculously safe number.

Scott Macintyre has all the feel of someone in a rut. He’s turned in three very similar, so-so vocal performances. As I said last week: when he’s in his range, he’s okay – but out of it, he’s not so great. This’ll be a shocker: I think Paula was absolutely right with the piano. Stylistically, Scott needs to change it up badly. Hat pick losses or not (another Unintentionally Revealing Moment), Macintyre has not really impressed to date. He’s just… okay. And okay is not good enough to survive for long.

Michael Sarver managed to pull off Ain’t Goin’ Down (‘Til The Some Comes Up), and that’s no small feat. However… it’s one of those songs that works a lot better for a live audience than on TV. That was not what Sarver needed; he needed a song that could convince people that yes, he could, indeed, sing. He’s a likable enough fellow, but not in the same league vocally as most of the top 11.

Megan Joy lost her surname but didn’t gain any new fans with Walking After Midnight. It wasn’t as bad as last week, but not particularly good either. Not much to say about it, really. Very low energy performance, yes, but I won’t hold that against her since she’s pretty sick. Vocals were… better than Rockin’ Robin. That’s about as far as I’d go.

And last, and also the worst of the night… Adam Lambert. Whatever that arrangement of Ring of Fire was… all copies of it should be stuffed into a rocket and shot right at the sun. It was that bad. The glory notes made us cringe; the only thing that I thought was “burning” were TV viewers absolutely horrified at what he did. The word “disrespectful” has been thrown around the Idolsphere, and I have to agree: if I didn’t know better I would say this was a deliberate eff-you to Nashville, country music, and the South in general.

Either that, or Lambert has no idea of the idea of “limits”. There are things you do not do to great, classic, songs, and that was one of them. The Lambert act was bound to wear thin eventually, and this will only accelerate the process. It was more than a train wreck; it was a joke. A joke that I have not seen since the days of Sanjaya Malakar, and about as entertaining. Which it wasn’t.

Overall, it was a very surprising show – in a good way. Only one truly awful disaster. Four pretty impressive performances… so far, I will give this season credit, the finalists have been doing better than I expected. Ryan Seacrest was right: the coronation plans of the Idol PTB hit a road bump this week. It remains to be seen if this was a one-week special, or a more consistent trend.

Quick Picks: Normally, I’d like to keep the performance night article about the Tuesday night show, but there were a few things I came across that really deserve a quick mention. Consider this a quick pick segment, as some radio hosts like to do.

Item #1: An online gambling site has stopped taking odds on Idol after the new Judges’ Save rule. Why? They’re afraid of, in effect, insider trading. Now, I talked about this in my Twitter feed, but it’s worth saying before a wider audience: if a casino is worried about an event being dirty, that’s saying something. Congratulations, Fox and 19E. You’re now running a competition so manipulated, even the gambling houses won’t accept it as clean.

Item #2: Lots of people don’t like the Judges’ Save – including, notably, who it was supposed to save, Michael Johns! Phil Stacey was straightforward about it, saying:

Basically what they are saying is don’t vote Adam Lambert or Danny Gokey out cause if you do they will get saved. Paula wants to see them in the finale. So they will save them.

Couldn’t be better said. Oh, and the list of detractors includes a certain German dictator. Yes, we had to come up with our own Hitler Downfall video. Watch and rate, folks – that’s all I can ask.

Item #3: Reports have it that an Idol staffer is mouthing off that the final four will be: Adam Lambert, Danny Gokey, Lil Rounds, and Alexis Grace. It’s a list that the savvy should recognize, as they have been the most hyped four, and that’s probably who the producers would dearly like to be the final four. However… Adam Lambert is like Chris Daughtry? Really? If he is who he says he is., he must be blind, deaf, idiotic, or all three. I cannot imagine someone more different from Lambert than Daughtry. Consider this rumor absolute rubbish.

Item #4: Thanks to Connie from Idolstages.com for pointing this out. The registration and log-in link in the posts is broken; and I offer apologies to anyone who’s tried to comment but couldn’t. Until my webmaster fixes things, please use the link in the sidebar to your right, which does work. It’s under the Meta heading, right over our Creative Commons logo.

Idol Guy picks: The proper explanation of what Idolmetrics is all about (from my point of view) is still in progress, but part of the explanation is you have to treat each Idolmetric factor as a warning sign – you can’t go off on a conclusion because of just one factor.

However, there are an awful lot of warning signs that make us wonder if Alexis Grace is going home. First of all, DialIdol has her dead last. True, margin of error also puts Allison Iraheta and Megan Joy in danger as well, but by all rights Grace should not be fighting off elimination beside Joy (and neither should Iraheta). Still, you take the data objectively: they say that Grace is in danger. Strike one.

Strike two comes from song age. Last week, when discussing Jorge Nunez’s boot, I warned that Grace’s numbers for song age average and median were both exceptionally high. Grace did herself no favors this week: she had the third oldest song for the week; she was only behind Joy, Adam Lambert, and Anoop Desai. Joy and Lambert have their quirkiness to make up for picking old songs. Desai was pretty good last night. Grace was neither. Overall, her median song age is 35 and the average is 32.67: both well within the Danger Zone, and second in both counts only to Lambert.

Strike three: Grace’s actual performance. The most dangerous performance is a so-so one; it won’t get people excited to vote for you because you were good, nor will it get your fanbase in a “Save Him/Her!” mood. Yet that was exactly the kind of performance we got from Grace.

If there was ever a boot that Idolmetrics was calling, this was it. On merits alone, it should either be Joy or Michael Sarver… but there are too many warning signs that lead us to believe.

Would Grace be saved by the judges? It’s hard to say. It’s a little early to use it, which counts against it. Ultimately, it may all depend on how in favor Lambert now is with the judges and producers. He may may have hurt himself badly this week, even if we won’t know it right away.

I’ll discuss that in detail tomorrow, but here’s what it comes down to. If the judges think that Lambert’s long-term stay is in danger of Ring of Fire and they still want him to go far – final four or further far – they will be even more reluctant to use it on anyone but Lambert. On the other hand, if the perception is that Lambert is now damaged goods and TPTB would be happy to have him finish in a solid mid-card spot (top six, approximately), they might use it this week on Grace if necessary.

One more thing. This is exactly what they claimed as the rationale of the veto will be. Given the chilly reception it’s receive so far, if they didn’t use it in a situation that fits their claimed “problem” to a tee, it could be another self-inflicted wound for the franchise, which does not need any more of those.

This is definitely a contrarian pick, but it’s not an insane one.

The Idol Guy pick: Alexis Grace last; saved by judges.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | 3 Comments »

Top 13 Performance Night: Lucky Thirteen? Maybe. Maybe Not.

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Somehow, doing Michael Jackson for Idol this year seems strangely appropriate. Once upon a time, Michael Jackson was known primarily for his music. When he makes the headlines nowadays, it’s more likely for whatever act of jaw-dropping stupidity he’s done now instead of what he was once very good at, the music. Similarly, most of the Idol-related news of late has not been about the music either, but instead on what illegal drugs the producers are on.

It was, by far, the best show of the season. That’s not exactly saying much, but to be fair it was a watchable episode for all two hours. There were plenty of good performances, and even the trainwrecks were amusing to watch. It helped wash away any bad taste from last week’s sham wildcard show, although I have a very bad feeling that this time tomorrow the whole Idolsphere will be even more pissed at the producers than  last week. (More on that later.)

Best of the night was Danny Gokey. It wasn’t just his good vocals and his good performance that put him here, although it certainly helped. What set Danny apart was that his was possibly the only one last night who was “balanced” – his singing was as good as his performance, and vice versa. Unlike some of the others who turned in somewhat by-the-book and lackluster performances, Gokey gave it his all. Well done.

There were three others who were pretty good, too: Alexis Grace, Lil Rounds, and Adam Lambert. Let’s deal with this trio one at a time.

Lil Rounds delivered vocals and performance that were just as good as Gokey’s – if anything, she probably had the best vocals of the night. So why didn’t I rank her higher? It’s the intangibles that I don’t think she did that well. There was something of a paint-by-numbers aspect to her performance; it just didn’t feel as interesting as so many other of the performances tonight. It may not be completely fair, but we’ve heard this whole R&B diva act one too many times on Idol to be impressed by it anymore.

Adam Lambert gave another classic love-it-or-hate-it performance. I tend towards the latter – there’s too much gimmickry in Lambert’s act for me to warm up to him. I’ll give him credit – I sincerely doubt that the Idol stage has ever seen anyone with a better appreciation of stage presence. If one just listens to his version of Black or White, though… it’s not nearly as impressive. Most of the time, he’s not really singing, but more shouting. Paula’s proclamation of him as a finalist may be premature.

While I’m on the topic of the dramatic – Alexis Grace. The performance part of Dirty Diana was outstanding – I actually preferred the mix of passion and restraint here to the over-the-top hamminess of Lambert – and her vocals were pretty powerful and effective… most of the time. That said, there were spots of oversinging, which Paula was dead-on in spotting. She did well this week, but I’m interested to see if she can do the more subtle stuff.

Of the nine left, we had three classic trainwrecks – Anoop Desai, Megan Corkrey, and Jasmine Murray. The six other contestants had good to okay performances that had some highlights, for sure, but did have other problems.

Matt Giraud was the very definition of okay. Not good, not great, but okay. The vocals were not problematic, but not above-average either. Neither did the arrangement or performance itself stand out. Right now, Giraud is not particularly memorable – and his performance didn’t do much to dispel that. With other fish to fry, he’s safe for now, but one wonders how long that will last.

Both Scott Macintyre and Michael Sarver were roughly in the same boat. They’re both immensely likable people, with well-developed backstories. Unfortunately, they also share vocals that are really only middling, at best. Macintyre sings very well within his range, but it’s extremely narrow. Sarver’s range is better, but he isn’t nearly as good a singer in that range. They both make up for their vocal shortcomings with charisma, likability, and doing their damn best each and every week. They’re probably safe to the tour, but beyond that… I don’t know.

Kris Allen was, again, underrated Remember the Time. Due to another sloppy sound mix we didn’t hear much of the guitar, but he deserves some credit for originality and subtlety – or, at least, trying. Did he deliver? Not completely, to be honest – again, his vocals aren’t as sharp as some as the others – but at least he knows that, and is trying to work around it. It’ll be interesting to see how – and if – he grows as the season goes on.

Allison Iraheta doesn’t perform like she’s 16; she has a confidence and poise that goes far beyond her years. Unfortunately, she still sings like her age. The most common failing of teenage singers tends to be subtlety – or lack of it. They tend to rely almost exclusively on their power; forgetting that subtlety and control can be just as useful. Give it to Me was, like Alone, a power-fest; too often she was shouting the song, not singing it. The end result is a very middle-ranked performance overall. That said, if Iraheta can get the power under control, she has a unique huskiness that could help her stand out. She reminds me of a better version of Amanda Overmyer.

Jorge Nunez followed last week’s throwback ballad with… another throwback performance. The vocals are there, but I don’t think Jorge really has the experience and deep musical knowledge other contestants have had in the past to make use of it. Randy was under-stating things – Jorge is a very old-fashioned singer that doesn’t really blow people away in 2009. Under the old semifinals format, Jorge might have been able to find his footing with three performances before the finals. As it is, he’s still floundering about.

Lastly, our trainwrecks. The word I’d use to describe Megan Corkrey’s version of Rockin’ Robin is… insane. And not in a good way. As in, oh-my-God-what-was-she-thinking insane. Even then, it had a so-bad-you-can’t take-your-eyes-away quality – complete to the faux bird call at the end. The only way it would have been better if this had been what they had used as the bird sounds instead.

However, at least Corkrey was entertaining. I can’t say the same for Jasmine Murray. I’ll Be There made us want to be anywhere but within earshot of her. It sounded like something out of the talent portion of a particularly bad beauty pageant. It wasn’t anywhere near worthy of what was, last I checked, a singing competition.

No “frontrunner” has fallen as quickly – and deservedly – as Anoop Desai. His version of Beat It wasn’t technically bad, but nothing about it made sense. It was well done karaoke, but no karaoke will cut it on the Idol stage. He just can’t pick a song to save his skin. Monica, then Britney, now this? It was so bad, singing the Weird Al Yankovic parody of this song -Eat It – would have been better.

The Idol Guy picks: If there were justice in the world, the Trainwreck Three would be in danger. Easily. Anoop has been a disappointment since the group stages, Jasmine should never have been called back, and Megan is… Megan. None of them will be greatly missed.

However… there’s the tiny little problem that they all have had significant airtime and pimpage. The end result? If you look at the Dialidol numbers, they’re safer than they ought to be. Desai, in particular, is in the top 4! This is the Mighty Mouse effect on steroids.

So, setting aside the question of who should go and replacing it with who will go, the money has to be on poor Jorge Nunez. Yes, he got a decent amount of pre-finals love – but so has the entire top 13 (with two exceptions), so that category is basically a wash. This early, comments from the judges make a big difference – and they basically slammed him. He deserved some harshness, but not that much.

With a top 13, you have to consider the possibility of a dual boot. The one in danger there is probably Murray or Allison Iraheta. The latter’s song choice didn’t really serve her that well, and with her relative lack of pre-show publicity she might not have that strong a fanbase yet. However, on the flip side, Murray was just plain bad. It’s hard to believe she’s winning over any people right now. If gambling on American Idol were legal, I’d call this a pick ‘em spot. Force me to make a choice, though, and I’d say it’s Murray.

However, the hand of producer manipulation is coming into play. MJ has the details on the new “rule” but the short of it is the judges get a one-time veto on the picks. It’s not yet clear what would happen instead – second-lowest goes home, double elimination next week, etc. We’ll all find out when the results show airs, and I’ll talk about it then. However, as far as this week’s elimination goes, there is a good chance it’ll come into play right away – especially if it’s Murray who might go home.

I just don’t understand the love affair the judges (especially Kara) have with Murray. This whole “package” stuff sounds like a bunch of pandering nonsense. All the packaging in the world will not matter if the core – i.e., the singing, is crap. Murray has no future as a singer. However, the judges do like her, and it would not be surprising if they used the veto to save her.

So, the final picks: Jorge Nunez to go home. Jasmine Murray to be saved by veto. If veto sends home next lowest after saved contestant instead, Allison Iraheta goes home as well.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | 2 Comments »

The Los Angeles Screwjob

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

I’ll have more on the results show much, much later but I have to put this up right away. The Idol wildcard was going to be a bad idea to begin with, and the specter of producer manipulation was hanging over everything like a faulty chandelier.

Now, this may sound like bragging, but: I told you so! I said after the Group 3 performances that if Felicia Barton wouldn’t make it by voting, the producers would never be invited to the wildcard because she was probably a lose-lose for TPTB. Yet, if that wasn’t bad enough, it got worse.

Let’s look at the entire lineup of wildcard picks, separated by Group.

Group 1

  • Ricky Braddy
  • Tatiana Del Toro
  • Anoop Desai

Group 2

  • Megan Corkrey
  • Matt Giraud
  • Jesse Langseth
  • Jasmine Murray

Group 3

  • Von Smith

Let’s consider what we know about each of the group. Group 1 had plenty of hype, but really didn’t live up to it. The surprises there was Braddy coming out of nowhere and surprising everyone, Desai choking, and del Toro being surprisingly okay. That’s fair enough. I have no quibble with the Group 1 picks as is.

It’s the Group 2 picks where things get screwy. Giraud and Murray? Are you freaking kidding me? They were both complete and utter disasters – and whatever the “package” spin is, they can’t sing well. At all. Given the glut of talent in Group 3, only one of Langseth and Corkrey should have made it – and while I say it should be Langseth, most people believe it should be Corkrey. Fair enough – either way, it’s three bad picks out of four. Ouch. And why half of the wildcard picks out of, by universal consensus, the worst group? There should have only been one.

And then we get to Group 3. There has to be more than one pick – and if there was only one pick, why was it Von Smith? Why wasn’t it Felicia Barton? Or Ju’Not Joyner? Heck, even Kristen McNamara was better than Smith. Von Smith wasn’t bad, but it was just okay. It was not wildcard worthy.

The wildcard round is as bad as I thought it would be – if not worse. The producers have clearly decided on what they want – mostly cannon fodder. They don’t want to take any chances of “surprises”. They don’t want a competition; they want a coronation. This was the Los Angeles Screwjob.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves; in a just world they would be walking around the streets of Los Angeles tarred and feathered. In the pantheon of low Idol moments, this is one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | Comments Off

Group 2 Performance Night: Could Things Get Worse? Yes.

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Last week the hype machine that is American Idol ran aground after the much-hyped Group 1 turned out to be largely ordinary. So things had to get better after that, right? Uh… no. It’s safe to say Group 2 turned out to be even worse than Group 1. Ouch.

Just like last week, it was a case where no one was really great. If anything, it was even worse: we have a hard time calling any of the performances last night good at all. There were good spots in some of the performances, to be sure, but the performances were not really all that confidence-inspiring.

The two performances that seem to be getting a lot of praise from some quarters are Allison Iraheta’s Alone and Adam Lambert’s (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. Let’s deal with those one at a time.

Iraheta’s song choice flew in the face of one of the Indisputable Facts of American Idol: the best version of Alone on the Idol stage was, is, and forever will be Carrie Underwood’s. Period. Now, to her credit, Iraheta didn’t do as badly as others have in the past. She commands the stage with an ease that you don’t expect to see this early. Keep in mind she’s doing this at the age of 16 – has any teenager showed better stage presence? Probably not recently, if ever.

That said, Alone is a song that will expose any and all deficiencies in a singer’s vocals. In some spots, Iraheta was shouting that song, not singing it. Even when she was singing it, she was just powering through it with not much subtlety, as if she took a sledgehammer to the song. As far as I’m concerned, Iraheta’s performance is the most overrated of the current AI season.

Adam Lambert… where do I begin? He got things off to bad start for me when he stared a little too deeply into the camera at the start. It reminded us of Constantine Maroulis, which is rarely, if ever, a good comparison. And then the singing itself… well, when he was singing and not screeching, it was pretty good.

The singing is almost irrelevant, though, because of the theatrics. The last time I saw anyone like this would be… Taylor Hicks, in his full Soul Patrol mode. However, for me, it’s about the singing first, theatrics second. The theatrics were so over the top, it distracted from the singing – not enhanced it. Color me not impressed. Unless he proves he can really sing – which I don’t think he did this week – this whole manic act might wear thin sooner rather than later.

If Iraheta and Lambert were over-rated, then I think there were two singers that were actually pretty good – and both tended to get lost in the shuffle. Kara was right, the first half of Kris Allen’s Man In The Mirror, but by the second half it was surprisingly good. It would be interesting to see what he’d do with less nerves, and, maybe, better song choice. Unfortunately, that’ll be unlikely to happen – anothe reason to hate the new semifinal format.

The other underrated performance was Jesse Langeth’s Bette Davis Eyes. Randy was off-base when he criticized her for the limited range – not every singer needs to be Whitney or Mariah who can sing in more octaves than there are fingers in a hand. There’s definitely some real artistry and subtlety there that I just didn’t find elsewhere tonight. Vocally, there were some rough bits, but overall, she did a great job of expressing who she is as an artist – better than anyone else in the group, I thought. Langeth possibly has the biggest overall potential upside of anyone left – if she can make it past this week.

If those four constituted the “best” of the night, then we had four more people in the Muddled Middle. Mishavonna Henson, Meghan Corkrey, Kai Kalama, and Matt Brietzke all turned in the equivalent of musical wallpaper. Brietzke and Kalama’s singing was actually decent, but dull. Henson was, if anything, worse: she was boring and the singing was off in places.

Our biggest disappointment, however, was Corkrey: in a night of boneheaded song choices, she ran into a gigantic land mine when she picked Corinne Bailey Rae. Yes, she did better than the only other person to do Put Your Records On – but when that person is Antonella Barba, there’s no other direction but up. However, the song is something of a trap – it’s not a song which demands a power voice, which makes people think it’s easy to sing. But it isn’t – it’s a very quirky, unique song that works for Corinne Bailey Rae, but not anyone else.

Worst of the night was, easily, the first three singers. Have we Idol viewers ever been subjected to three worse songs in a row to open a show? Jasmine Murray, Matt Giraud, Jeanine Vailes – you three are, collectively, 2009′s first entry into the Sanjaya Zone! Sit beside your fellow inductees Sanjaya Malakar and half of the girls in last year’s top 20 to be “honored” for achievements in musical horror. Songs that didn’t fit, mediocre singing (at best)… let’s not waste any more time. I almost wanted to take a page out of the Elvis playbook and shoot the TV.

What about Nick Mitchell, a.k.a Norman Gentle? He isn’t really playing the same game as everyone else. I never thought I would say this, but: I was glad to see him come on. After the last three disasters, we needed some entertainment – and he was entertaining. Should he go any further? No, but Nick wasn’t playing the same game everyone else was. He’s gold for any comedy club that wants him for the next few months or so. G

Enough about Hollywood week!: The judges – Kara, in particular – seem to love to refer to how the contestants did in Hollywood. Is it too much to ask them to stop unless we viewers at home actually heard what they’re talking about? Thanks to the shenaningans of the editing team, the Hollywood episodes were sadly lacking in actual singing. You’re there, in theory, to give critiques to help the viewers at home. So how can I, and everyone else watching, refer to events we didn’t see at all? It’s ridiculous.

Quick thought about the judges: Media reports have it Paula isn’t particularly pleased by the fourth judge, and Kara is, quote, “disappointed”. Boy, Paula and Kara looked awfully awkward last night, didn’t they?

Up in the air: Well, picking the top guy and top girl is pretty easy: that’ll be Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert. Both had love-it-or-hate-it quantities – particularly Lambert – but they’ll get enough votes to make it to the finals easily.

The third slot, though, well, just about anyone can make it. I can’t even rule out Normund Gentle. Only Jeanine Vailes is probably completely screwed and out of it. That said, I would like either Jesse Langseth or Kris Allen to make it to the finals – but even if betting on reality TV was legal, I wouldn’t put any money on it. If I had to pick one of the two… Kris Allen, largely because the preliminary What Not to Sing numbers are better for him.

The Idol Guy picks: Lambert, Iraheta, and Allen to advance.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Season Eight | 1 Comment »

Newer Entries »