American Idol: Michael Jackson Night Wasn't "Bad" At All

I’m far from the only person who’s been down on the latest season of “American Idol.”

That’s why it was SO good (and a relief for someone like me who’s committed himself to watching every episode) that the singers finally stepped their game up in the first performance episode of the season 8 finals.

Now all we need is for the judges’ (more of a joke than ever, highlighted by their silly/unnecessary entrance) to follow suit. When the person I’m most looking forward to hearing from is Paula (and my anticipation is NOT 100% from a comedic standpoint) something is wrong. (Ok, you’re right — the feathered thing on Paula’s right shoulder was pretty damn funny.)

Because of this, I’m especially scared about the “surprise change in the rules” Seacrest and Simon teased. Maybe a few years ago (when Jennifer Hudson, LaToya London and Fantasia ended up in the bottom three) taking the vote out of the public’s hands might’ve seemed like a good idea. However, when you consider how terrible the judges have been (their increasingly irrelevant comments, their dumb wild card selections, how much they’ve shamelessly pimped certain contestants over others) giving them the power seems like a particularly bad idea this year.

But enough about those fools. Let’s talk about what happened on stage, which was surprisingly good, given that the contestants were covering songs by Michael Jackson, who is only one of the most unique musical artists of all time. Except for a few (Anoop and Lil) the singers were wise to stay away from the King of Pop’s more signature tunes (signature = any song where MJ says “chmon!”) Of course, that resulted in more than a few songs I’d never heard, but, to their credit, the singers made them interesting.

For example, I’d never heard “Give in to Me” or “Dirty Diana”, but Allison Iraheta and Alexis Grace each gave strong compelling performances. I’m lumping them both into the same paragraph because I suspect they’ll ultimately compete for the same edgy/rocker chick vote, though Alexis seems a bit more versatile.

Allison is so good that she’s one of the rare cases that the judges saying “you’re only 16” is not condescending, but is actually genuine praise. The fact that she’s so good and so comfortable on stage at such a young age is amazing (and slightly creepy). I would kind of prefer it if she didn’t sound like she smoked two packs of cigs a day when she spoke and I would REALLY prefer it if Fox didn’t use subtitles for people (like her dad) who are speaking Spanish-accented-but-intelligible English, but mostly I’m just glad that “it’s not like she’s cutting herself.” As far as Alexis is concerned, Paula is right that she needs to watch the over singing (told you Paula was on it), but she’s still one of my favorites. It seems like she can sing comfortably in almost any genre and is even establishing herself as the season’s stylista (was that a mini dress? Really short hot pants?)

While the judges gave Allison and Alexis good reviews, they saved their REALLY big, “ALL CAPS” praise for Adam Lambert and Danny Gokey (pictured, left). Unfortunately, I only agreed on the Danny front. Maybe it was because he was the first to truly energize the crowd last night, and his “P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing) managed to be high-energy entertainment, without sacrificing his vocal prowess. I’m not sure that getting compared to Michael McDonald (he DOES sound like him) is a good thing for anyone under the age of 45, but he seemed happy with the compliment. I also didn’t really see anything wrong with his dancing because I really didn’t notice his dancing (I don’t remember it being Corkrey-esque).

On a related story, how “meh” was Lil Rounds that the judges only muster auto-pilot enthusiasm for her solid, but unimaginative take of “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Lil, along with Danny and Adam, is part of the trio of contestants most shoved down our throats by the judges, so the fact that she was so completely forgettable and that even the judges couldn’t find a way to wildly overrate her performance could mean trouble. I’m saying she makes a “shocking” appearance in the bottom 3 tonight.

While Lil struggled and Danny and Adam delivered, I wouldn’t exactly put them in the finals already like Paula did (she still has to bring SOME crazy, right?) The judges really fell over themselves praising Adam. I can’t say that it’s completely unjustified given the way he electrifies the crowd every time he sings and his obvious superior vocal abilities. I just didn’t think that he was the best last night or that he's in "a totally different league” (as Simon said). I also don’t understand what the judges are talking about when they say he’s so “current.” I mean, I guess he’s current if by current they mean “currently heard on a classic rock station or an 80’s hair band.” Still, very nice job out of him with “Black and White” — I just didn’t “J in my Pants” the way the judges did.

As far as the guys are concerned, I still think Kris Allen might have something to say in this competition. The fact that you could barely hear his guitar during “Remember the Time” was unfortunate (and made the performance kinda weird), but he looked just as comfortable on stage as anyone else, and I think his vocals are actually kinda underrated. The one mistake he made was not saying something like “I love my wife and I want as many people as possible to know that I’m married to this wonderful woman” when Simon made the crack about keeping the wife hidden a little longer. I think it would’ve earned him 2 million more votes. A WAY longer shot is Matt Giraud, who gave a lovely performance of “Human Nature”, but is really mostly coming off as a Justin Timberlake knockoff.

Anoop Desai is another strong male contender, though it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s because of his charisma and energy and not so much because of any great vocal ability. He gave the worst performance of the evening by far (a lame rendition of the repetitive “Beat It”) but his fan base should keep him in the competition. I can’t say the same (neither that he’s a strong male contender NOR that his fan base will keep him in the competition) about Jorge Nuñez. And this is coming from someone who actually enjoyed his “Never Can Say Goodbye.” Yes, it was cheesy and old-fashioned, but that’s who Jorge is!

Apparently, being cheesy and old-fashioned is only acceptable if you’re blind or if you’re a roughneck (bonus points to Simon, for sarcastically asking Michael what his job was). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Scott MacIntyre and Michael Sarver are really nice guys but they are just not good enough to win this competition. Scott isn’t really good enough to even be here (sorry, but he’s no more amazing behind a piano than he was on his own), while Michael actually gave his best performance so far, but still has 11th place written all over him.

As far as the rest of the ladies are concerned, they have a lot of work to do to catch Allison, Alexis and Lil. Megan Joy Corkrey looked the most encouraging, at least from a pure entertainment standpoint. Her “Rockin’ Robin” (Andy Bernard's favorite song) was nuts! And it had almost nothing to do with her dancing, which was considerably less hideous this week. I’m not sure how current it was, but I really liked her take on the song and the “caw-caw” at the end was, as I already said, NUTS!

Whether you love Megan or hate her, you can’t argue that she’s memorable — which is pretty much the opposite of Jasmine Murray. Jasmine did a competent job with “I’ll Be There”, but her voice is still not distinctive enough and her stage presence is non-existent. (She has “stage absence.”) All you need to know about Jasmine is that when Simon called her performance “robotic” the audience didn’t even bother booing — because no one cared. And because it WAS robotic.

So what’d you think of this episode? Was it as weird for you as it was for me to see the judges, um, walking? (Maybe if they had cut that dumb intro out, the judges would’ve had time to properly comment on Alexis Grace’s performance.) Will the show really eliminate two people already? (If so, what was the point of having a top 13?) What do you think the “surprise change to the rules” will be? Finally, which singer(s) do you think will go home? (If it’s just one, I think it’ll be Jasmine, if it’s two, it’ll be Jasmine and Jorge.)