American Idol: Let's Hear It For the Boys

Wasn’t it nice of last night’s episode of “American Idol” to make the bold and controversial decision to (mostly) forsake drama and train wrecks in favor of showing us (gasp!) good singers.

Of course, that ratio will never be 100 percent in favor of legitimate singers as long as the Tatianna del Toros and Norman Gentles of the world are still around, but Tuesday’s night’s Hollywood Round episode was definitely a step in the right direction.

And this is coming from someone who was actually amused by the drama last week. My take was that if you’re going to put the clowns through, might as well have them (try to) make us laugh. However, as we approach the semifinal round (only one more episode to go) and the real competition begins, it’s time to get down to business.

Fortunately, the best development from last night’s episode is something that hardcore fans of this show have known all along — watching good singers take their one shot at glory (and often collapse under the pressure) is every bit as dramatic and compelling as who’s fighting with who at 3 a.m. I mean, wasn’t it absolutely wrenching to watch people like the likable Stephen Fowler and semi-pro Joanna Pacitti blank on their lyrics, go down in flames and walk off the stage completely dejected. (I guess it would’ve been a little more wrenching if either had actually been eliminated.)

I’m still not exactly seeing anyone with superduperstar potential yet — unless you include the people clearly WANTS us to think are superstars-in-training.

The closest is Danny Gokey, who continued his solid streak of performances with a rapsy rendition of “I Hope You Dance”, the song that was locked in a tight battle with “Before He Cheats” last night to see which one could get run into the ground faster. Oddly enough, I thought last night’s was Danny’s weakest performance out of him so far, and I actually preferred his BFF Jamar Rogers’ unconventional take on “Hey There, Delilah” (which was in the JV race with “Distubia” for “Most Overplayed Song”). I figured these two were being set up to be split up on Wednesday night for sure, but now, for the first time, I feel like Jamar is strong enough to make it on his own.

Another pleasant surprise was Ju’not Joyner, who missed the cut during last year’s Hollywood Week. This year he added an apostrophe to his name and delivered his own lovely rendition of “Hey There, Delilah.” The only problem is that I kind of agree with Randy in that Ju’not is a bit lacking in the star quality department. Maybe next time he performs, he can do so without a hat that covers 60 percent of his face.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the work of Anoop Desai (pictured, right, giving the absolute best rendition of “My Prerogative” by an Indian guy I’ve ever heard — seriously though, dude is funky), Nathaniel Marshall (who knew an acoustic “Disburbia” could be compelling?), and Matt Giraud (pictured, left). The dueling piano player impressed me again with a super strong rendition of “Georgia on my Mind.” Not surprisingly, he seemed 10 times more comfortable (and charismatic) behind the keyboard. If he makes it to the top 12, I wonder if he’d pull out the keyboard every week and risk making it stale or try to perform some weeks without it and risk not being as interesting.

You may have noticed that I’ve only mentioned male singers so far. Well that’s because I kind of think they were overwhelmingly better than the women last night.

Maybe I’ve just heard “Before He Cheats”, “I Hope You Dance” and “If I Ain’t Got You” one too many times, but few of them really stood out, a lot of them were screamy and I mostly felt like I was watching pale imitations of Carrie Underwood, Leann Womack and Alicia Keys.

Out of the ladies last night, I was pleasantly surprised by Kristin McNamara, who was last seen during the group round being yelled at by Nancy Wilson (no not her) for daring to rest her voice. I actually liked Ryan’s fake out that Nancy was behind her as much as I liked her not-at-all embarrassing or substandard “Before He Cheats.” My favorite female performer last night was Anne Marie Boskovich. She has a nice, appealing tone and she doesn’t necessarily try to copy the artist she’s covering or blow the roof off the place (take notes, Lil’ Rounds and Adam Lambert who SOUNDS like a girl 70 percent of the time) every time she sings. And THAT makes her stand out among the ladies.

The rest of the singers ranged from “meh” to “can’t really make a decent judgment based on what we saw last night.” In the “meh” category, I have to put Kai Kalama (the appealing afro’d dude who takes care of his mom), Jorge Nunez (the show’s lone, underwhelming stab at a Latin star this season) Michael Sarver (I’m not feeling the love for the roughneck — he’s just aight for me and I think people are just mostly impressed that he’s a “roughneck” who sings) and Scott McIntyre. Of course, we all want Scott to do well, and he DID look more comfortable behind the keyboard, but his voice is just not that strong (certainly not as strong as a lot of his male competition).

Then there’s Tatianna del Toro and Norman Gentle, who I’m lumping into the same paragraph because they’re not that different. Both are actually decent singers, who probably wouldn’t make it as far as they have if they didn’t act like lunatics.

The difference is that Nick Mitchell realizes he’s not very interesting when he’s not Norman Gentle and doesn’t have the guts to perform as himself (I couldn’t have been less surprised when he came out as “Norman.”) This isn’t a Beyonce/Sasha Fierce alter ego situation — Nick flat out knows (or is convinced) that he can’t cut it as himself. The problem is that the joke is old now. The guy literally wears the same outfit and does the same shtick every time.

Tatianna, on the other hand, appears to be legitimately loony. She appears to have no awareness of how annoying and deluded she seems to everyone else. The only reason I was invested in her room-swapping saga was to see if she’d be put out of her misery. Of course, she wasn’t since there’s still one more Hollywood Round episode that needs spicing up.

So what’d you think of this episode? Who’s more annoying to you? Apparently clueless Tatianna or the cowardly Norman Gentle? Could Paula be more of a bad actress when she tries to look somber as she walks into a room with people who’ve advanced? Did you miss getting the judges’ input after each performance? (I surprised myself by not missing it at all.) Finally, which eliminated contestant will you miss the most? (I liked young, spunky Leneshe Young — maybe she’ll be back next year.)