Poor Paul McDonald.
Did you see him mumble his way through that hellaciously off-key group performance of Pink’s “So What” last night? The reason I don’t usually watch the “American Idol” results shows is to avoid atrocities like that. Paul looked like he was starring in his own, depressing episode of “Don’t Forget the Lyrics.” He seemed even more miserable than I was watching last week’s episode. And the fact that he was wearing the same suit made it seem like he’d been locked up backstage all of last week and was only able to break free just in time to stumble onstage Wednesday night.
Add in Naima Adedapo “dancing”/parkouring across the stage, the return of Ashthon Jones(’ cleavage) and Pia’s mic not working during her mini-duet portion with Paul and you had a perfectly terrible performance. The only way it could’ve been worse is if Karen had sung, “Check my flow, uh!” in Spanish.
Forget Paul McDonald…poor us!
Then again, maybe this historically-bad performance was the producers’ clever way of lowering out expectations for the top 7 performance!
I’m happy to report that I will now stop whining about outdated themes/songs because last night the contestants performed “Songs from the 21st Century.” (That still sounds vaguely sci-fi.)
So here I am, all excited about a relevant theme…and the first two things I hear are the musical equivalent of a car wreck and a song from 1983 that LeAnn Rimes happened to cover a few years ago. (Erica astutely pointed out that we were in trouble when Seacrest made a point of mentioning that we’d be hearing songs recorded after the year 2000, as opposed to written this century. I hate it when she’s right.)
I actually enjoyed Scotty McCreery’s version of “Swingin’” while it was happening, but I also agree with the judges that it was an exceedingly safe and unimaginative choice. Even more troubling is the fact that, in the last few weeks, Scotty hasn’t really done anything we haven’t seen him do before. There he is holding the microphone like a flute. There he is raising his eyebrow. There he is appearing to throw gang signs for extra emphasis. And there he is sitting on the steps. Oh, why am I wasting my time, he’s not going anywhere.
Also not likely going anywhere is James Durbin, who followed Scotty last night. Now James, on the other hand, seems mildly obsessed with giving us something we’ve never seen on the “Idol” stage every week. (And I like that a lot.) This week, it was…a Muse song! Ok, it was also the drumline, but I was just as pleased by his decision to tackle “Uprising.”
I was less pleased by his flat verse and by his shrieky final chorus that kept jarringly switching octaves, but the judges didn’t say anything about it, so we should just move on. (Buries head in hands.) Also, I’ve heard Adam Lambert, I’ve seen Adam Lambert(’s outfits)…and you sir, are no Adam Lambert.
Will this finally be the week that Lauren “B+” Alaina makes her bottom 3 debut? It SHOULD be, because for what feels like the 30th consecutive week, she underwhelmed. “Born to Fly” was a cute song performed competently, but nothing more. At least this week Lauren admitted that she holds back because she’s intimidated. Hopefully next week, she’ll do something about it.
One of the most mind-boggling moments of last night’s episode was Randy telling Jacob Lusk that he needs to be less restrained. (NOOOOOO!!!!) This came after a performance of Luther Vandross’ “Dance with my Father” that should have been a home run after Jacob told us that he’d lost his father at an early age, but came up short vocally. Jacob also appeared to have some sort of technical flub at the beginning, but recovered nicely. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to move on because I’m not going to be the heartless prick that criticizes him for a fairly subpar performance on a song that obviously means a lot to him.
I have to admit that I missed will.i.am this week because I thought he brought out the best in mentor Jimmy Iovine. However, Iovine was still solid on his own this week and his most spot-on assessment is that Stefano Langone performs as if he’s begging on stage. (SO not sexy.) Instead, he performed Ne-Yo’s “Closer” with the swagger and dance moves of a slightly less-desperate poser. Honestly, Stefano looked more concerned with hitting his moves than nailing his vocals. To be honest, I thought this was only one or two steps better than Jordan Dorsey’s reviled version of “OMG” from the semifinals.
Haley Reinhart bounced back pretty nicely with a strong performance of Adele’s current mega-hit “Rolling in the Deep.” Even though everyone pretty much agreed that this is the kind of music Haley should be singing, I liked that she didn’t try to mimic Adele and did her own thing. The bad news is that the emotional connection to the song wasn’t there in the performance or in the vocal, but the good news is that I like her, so “did her own thing” is good in my book.
Finally, there’s Casey Abrams, who just might be a crazy person.
I actually really liked the very beginning of his performance of “Harder to Breathe” by Maroon 5. I liked the minimal music and focus on his vocal until the chorus. Unfortunately, everything turned mildly psychotic after that. And I’m not even talking about the kiss he snuck onto People Magazine’s Most Beautiful Cheek. (I sneak kiss-attack Erica all the time…so that didn’t bother me.)
What I’m referring to is the way he angrily, robotically stalked the stage and interacted with fans while his guitar hanging behind him. He didn’t look like fun, quirky jazz guy…he looked a little possessed. That being said, it was definitely memorable.
So what’d you think of this episode? Were you as shocked as I was to hear the judges give out actual critiques a few times? What did you think of the pre-performance packages in which the contestants ribbed on each other? (I think it was a sneakily genius way to address what a lot of people are saying about the singers.) Finally, who do you think is going home? (I’m sticking with Stefano, but after last night I kind of wish we could eliminate Paul again.)
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