American Idol: King for a Day

What’s old is new…well, kind of.

I’ve been slamming the producers of “American Idol” all season for their nasty habit of recycling themes from previous seasons. For nerds like me who have seen every episode of this show it leads to unimaginative and stale song selections/performances.

Well last week we got Songs from the 21st Century. And last night a new theme made its “American Idol” debut: “Carole King Week”!

(Needle scratching on record sound) Wait…Carole King Week?! I don’t doubt King’s chops as a songwriter or her contribution to music, but I thought that seemed a little bit random. Then again, I’m a selfish bastard and all I cared about was the fact that I didn’t know jack about Carole King beyond the fact that she gave “Gilmore Girls” its theme song.

At least, I THOUGHT I didn’t know anything about Carole King. Turns out I was actually familiar with most of the songs performed last night: I just had no idea that they were Carole King songs. (The More You Know.)

More importantly, the top 6 episode featured mostly solid solo performances. There was also an interesting attempt to change things up by having the finalists pair off and perform duets.

I didn’t think any of the duets fully clicked — certainly none of them were as good as Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhart singing “Moanin’” a few weeks ago during results night — but Casey and Haley’s take on “I Feel the Earth Move” came the closest. Haley was a self-assured powerhouse, while Casey was a LOT easier to take with another strong singer than he is on his own.

Lauren Alaina also outshined her male counterpart, though it didn’t really look like Scotty McCreery was fully invested in their duet of “Up on the Roof.” It seemed mostly like he just wanted Seacrest to stop suggesting that he and Lauren are a couple.

Meanwhile, the less said about James Durbin and Jacob Lusk’s train wreck-y duet of “I’m Into Something Good.” Even Steven Tyler was wondering where they were going with that. Overall, I don’t think the duets lived up to their potential, but I’m glad the show tried to do something a bit different. (Instead of waiting for top 4 week to do duets, as they’ve done the last two years.)

At least Jacob had a strong solo performance to open the night. His unease during the rehearsal package made it seem like his take on “Oh No, Not My Baby” was going to be a disaster, but I actually thought he was totally joyful on stage and, more importantly, tuneful. It was the first time that I found him pleasant to listen to! (Thank you, guest judge Babyface for pulling him back vocally.) His main problem is that he performed first, so the audience’s lasting memory of him (assuming they remember him at all ) is of that awful duet.

It’s Miley! Lauren’s musical idol popped in for a visti and inspired Lauren to…deliver yet another B+ performance. Ugh! To be fair, “Where You Lead” doesn’t exactly lend itself to a knockout performance or a lot of high notes (which the judges demanded last week). It certainly seemed like Lauren was trying harder, but the performance just never connected for me. It was a bit forced. Not as forced as Brett the audience (plant) member who joined Lauren on stage and put his arm around her as she serenaded him, but forced nonetheless. (Seriously, who the f--- WAS that guy?!) Also, I didn’t even notice the alleged crack in her voice. (But I was serving myself dinner, so I was distracted.)

Scott also took the judges’ critiques from last week to heart after they accused him of playing it safe. Indeed, Scotty took a gigantic leap of faith this week and…stopped holding the microphone sideways! No, seriously, he sang “You’ve Got a Friend” and explored different, lighter aspects of his voice that we’re not used to. I thought it was a bit sleepy in the beginning, but I liked seeing him step out of his deep-voiced comfort zone. More importantly, instead of countrifying a non-country song to suit his voice, he pretty much performed King’s song as a straight-up pop(country) song.

Idol Moment Alert! I’m SO glad the judges are here to tell me when something special happened, otherwise I’d have no idea. I mean, Randy practically had an orgasm after James’ take on “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and stopped just short of actually crowning him the winner. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I thought the hug (pictured, left) was over the top.

Look, the acapella opening of James’ song was absolutely sensational! It was so good, that I kind of wish he’d done more of the song like that. (Maybe the end.) Instead, once the music kicked in, it turned into a merely solid performance. Everyone settle down.

That especially goes for Casey, who is REALLY starting to freak me out when he performs. I liked the beginning of “Hi-De-Ho” because of the way he wandered from one musician (piano, harmonica and sax player) to another and because of the fact that his voice was being showcased. However, once the number REALLY got going, Casey reverted to his worst/growliest instincts and looked like a raving lunatic on stage. At least J.Lo somewhat tried to help him by telling Casey that he needs to loosen up in his performances. Unfortunately, what should’ve been a jazzy song right in Casey’s wheelhouse ended up being an assault on the senses.

Finally, there’s Haley who I thought delivered a knockout of a vocal on “Beautiful” despite some sort of technical difficulty with her in-ear monitor right before she started singing. Unfortunately for her, Randy had apparently used up all his superlatives for the evening because he wound up crapping all over the beginning of her performance as “boring.” Overall, his critique was positive, but why spend the entire night uttering nonsense only to end the evening on a negative note with one of the competition’s most talented singers.

God, I hate Randy.

So what’d you think of this episode? Is there anyone out there who actually enjoys watching Seacrest try to pair off some of the contestants? If you were every to meet Babyface, what would you call him? (“Baby”? “Mr. Face?!”) Did Steve Tyler seem slightly more lucid this week? (I’m probably imagining things.) Finally, who do you think is going home? (I've got Jacob getting the boot...and Lauren making her bottom 3 debut.)