American Idol Recap, Tuesday, April 25: You Always Hurt The Song You Love

OK, I admit it. As much as I have complained in past weeks about the celebrity coaches and performers - seriously people, someone run a DNA test on Kenny Rogers. It was just NOT him. - I found myself truly anticipating this week's guest - internationally acclaimed tenor, Andrea Bocelli.

Yes, I realize that for anyone without crow's feet, his name means about as much as Preparation H or Geritol, but if being older and wiser is what it takes to both know who the man is and truly appreciate the gift that resides in his throat, so be it. I'll wear my wrinkles and musical taste proudly.

Onto the recap...

Ahhhhhhh - amore'.

Love songs in all their many-splendored-thing glory.

Tuesday night's theme of Classic Love Songs should have proved to be a vocal homerun for our 1/2 dozen finalists. After all, ballads, in Idol land anyhoo, typically mean the contestant will be stationary, not being tripped up by that whole walk and chew gum issue that plagues so many who try to heat things up by grooving while singing, and end up with a delivery as congealed as a Domino's driver with three flat tires.

Unfortunately, as the song goes, Love Hurts...

Ryan opened the show looking Dan-dapper in his interview-with-corporate-America suit and baby blue silk tie, stubble completely eradicated from his face (as Teri has been from his Blackberry). And, oh the pressure - you could cut it with a spork - as he warned us all that tonight was, "Another tough decision for you."

WHOA.

I don't know about you, but I had to pause the TiVo, sniff some lavender and drink some herbal tea just to calm down. With all the easy problems in the world - say, Darfur, Iran, that pesky insurgency in Iraq, Tom Cruise...- how did I get the apocolyptic responsibility for choosing the next American Idol???

Breathe, Linda, breathe...

A quick intro of the judges, Randy in his predictable slimming/vertigo inducing striped shirt, Paula - well, it is getting harder and harder to see what she is wearing each week under all that hair. I swear that girl has more synthetic fiber on her head than I have in my whole closet. I did make out something sheer and cleavage enhancing. Simon was dressed as dreary as an English morn in overcast gray.

OH! And what's this? Tonight marked the advent of not one, but TWO phone numbers per contestant! Let's hear it for producers finally listening to the myriad complaints of the past five seasons regarding people never being able to get a single vote in for their fave! Just think how happy the folks at DialIdol .com must have been to hear this - their system must have been on fire last night. And VoteForTheWorst .com? TWICE the voting power to keep the abysmal Ballsy Pickled Minx in the running?

Ryan then intro'd the backstory clip of the evening's guests - yes, that's GUESTS with an "S" - as in TWO. Not only would Andrea Bocelli be gracing the Idols with his presence and talent, but power producer David Foster, whose home mantle strains under the weight of 14 Grammys, would be on hand as well.

Now, for the record, my daughters, who have jumped the Idol ship of late - choosing not to drown in a sea of "Who-the-heck-is-that-old-man?" - continued their dog paddle towards more relatable tunes. HOWEVER, for those naysayers who have chimed in that obviously my children are not exposed to any good music around my house - had the guest been the incomparable Michael Crawford, they would have been glued to the screen. (I'll wallow in the fact that you - and you know who you are - are now going, "WHO?")

Boo-yah.

But I digress..

Andrea Bocelli may indeed be handicapped in terms of eyesight, having lost his vision completely in a soccer accident at the age of 12, but his grasp of life and joy in living it could not be clearer, "Despite the fact that I live in a fast-paced world, I live my life with a calm vision: I enjoy life's simple pleasures and face every challenge with passion. I try to always be optimistic by interpreting the real meaning of a quotation from the French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "You see clearly only through your heart. The essential is invisible to your eyes."

Again, how sad that only one, perhaps two of these Idol contestants truly have any idea who this man is.

In the video clip, the kids enter the rehearsal room and soon attempt to duplicate a warm-up scale, a la Bocelli, only to end up sounding more like a room full of dogs in heat than vocalists. Anyone catch the look on Foster's face? He was seriously looking for the exit door.

Andrea, however, imparted the wisdom of the evening: "People have to want you to become great."

And therein lies the secret to winning this contest each year. LaToya London had serious pipes, but due to an equally serious warmth deficiency, no one in America was pulling for her. Ruben Studdard had nowhere near the vocal capacity of Clay Aiken, but America was in love with their Velvet Teddy Bear and he took top honors.

So as much as people Google for naked photos (Pickles), this contest is going to be won by someone who has engaged, not polarized the voting public. Think Chris. Think Taylor. People want them to become great. People just want Pickles to get naked and say something stupid.

Up first with Andrea and David was Cheekbones, probably the only one of these kids who could truly appreciate the majesty of that moment when she and Andrea began a spontaneous duet. And he was impressed with Cheekbones, saying not only was her voice "powerful and clean", but that she was "nice, beautiful and young". Ahhhh, the power of the mind's eye, Andrea...

Cheekbones took the stage to sing Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing, dressed in a yellow full length gown that left little for people to Google about. Not only was it cut down to there - her breasts actually usurped Paula's, looking like two gym class kickballs squished together, but the gown sported a front slit so high, there was a brief moment during the song that people could have stopped the frame and checked to see if the carpet matched the drapes.

I had high hopes for her delivery, but it must have been a holiday, because the UPS man never came with the package.

She started out shaky, practically disappearing into her lower register, and the arrangement only highlighted how cut-rate the whole thing was compared to the Whitney version. Combine that with going first, a head dipped in a barrel of make-up, and a dress that seriously upstaged the vocals of the person wearing it, and it was an abysmal performance.

It was vampy, forced, and the stomping on the line, "Don't walk away from me" (incidentally the moment one should look for to catch the wardrobe malfunction in the lower region of the dress - see following video courtesy of YouTube.com), was laughable. She resembled a little girl throwing a tantrum, not a beautiful, confident woman demanding attention. That being said, I'm sure the words "Katharine McPhee Boobs" will threaten to shut down the Google Image servers today - I hope they are ready.

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Randy thought the song (not the dress) was too "big" for her and that she "didn't come close" to the Whitney version; Paula, whose microphone obviously had taken out a restraining order against her requiring that she stay at least 15 feet away, sighted "pitch problems", but that she looked "stunning", then rambled on about keeping her "money" in her "back pocket" - hmmm, my Mom always told me to keep it in my shoe; Simon was blunt as a spoon and said that by "choosing that song, it's like coming out and saying I'm as good as Whitney Houston. You're not."

Ouch.

Ryan did not help matters when he tried to console Cheekbones with the comment, "For those who don't have their volume on, you're going to get plenty of votes." Now, considering how contestant-protective he normally is, I really think he was referring to not hearing the judges' comments, but even Cheekbones took it to mean, "You sang like shite, but you're body rocks."

Elliott was up next, choosing the song he has waited his "whole life to sing", A Song For You. Well, waited his whole life to sing it in front of 30 million people I guess, because sitting in the chat chairs with Ryan, he talked about singing it for the producers during auditions, in his audition, for his Mom, in the shower, at the grocery store...

David Foster was hard on Elliott in his rehearsal video, but these kids were finally working with someone whose whole purpose for being on the show was not centered around selling his own albums. The man knows talent, the man knows how to sell and arrange a song, and the man knows crap singing when he hears it. The man also doesn't go all Mary Poppins, offering a spoonful of sugar coated praise to help the constructive medicine go down easier. It was as eye opening for the kids as it was helpful. His advice for Elliott was that he really sings well, but in terms of copying the original song, he really needed to get his own licks - or lick himself, or something like that...

Taking the stage, Elliott looked downright handsome, almost completely erasing from my mind the horrible Vanilla Elliott hoodlum that still wakes me up screaming at night. Dressed as Ryan's twin - they must have gotten a Men's Wearhouse twofer deal - Elliott sported a dark suit with a baby blue necktie. I have to say, this was the most confident he has ever seemed during a performance. Gone was the skittish Amish buggy driver who always looks like he cannot figure how he ended up on a stage filled with the devil's electronic temptations, and in his place was a controlled, at ease performer, whose voice soared and landed right where he wanted it. In fact, the only criticism I have is for the tech guys who went all Kermit the Frog with the lighting, making one side of his face resemble a traffic signal for most of the performance. But there was nothing about his turn that left me feeling green around the gills.

Randy did not like the arrangement, but thought Elliott "was dope" and that he "was da bomb"; Paula, clearly off her meds again (will someone run by Walgreen's please?) was crying like she just gave birth to her first child (or found an email from Ace in her inbox). Weeping, sobbing uncontrollably, smiling, waving her arms around, she blathered, "You moved me. You moved me." among other unintelligible phrases that dribbled out her slack jaw. And good lord, her jewelry choices are beginning mimic Smurfette. She practically had an entire De Beers collection on her hands - then again, it went well with de beers she surely must have downed prior to the show. Simon was also on the verge of tears - laughing as hard as he was at Paula. He pulled it together enough to congratulate Elliott on a "vocal master class" and that his performance was "superb".

Go Elliott.

AFTER. THE. BREAK, we returned to Pickles sharing the Chat Chairs with Ryan. Now, while all the other contestants chose to play up the Love Songs theme in suits and dresses, Pickles continued to work her inner Wet Seal clerk - jeans, heels and yet another tight polyester tank top trimmed in gold sequins. "How are you doing in there? Can I get you another size in that?"

Conversing with Ryan, she discussed choosing to sing Unchained Melody, yet lamented how she has no boyfriend, so she was singing to a future boyfriend. Her train then jumped the track and she went on to talk about the movie Ghost, (which deals with a dead boyfriend), calling the pottery scene (set to the Righteous Brothers hit) "sweet". Ummm, no Pickles. That scene would be about SEX. Ma$turbating a pile of clay to be exact.

David's best compliment about Pickles referred to her "passion", and Andrea was able to guess her hair color after spending time with the rocket scientits (no that's not a typo) - BLOND.

Sitting on the darkened stage, she began to sing and it turned into an auditory Battan Death March for the listener. I don't think a minute and a half has been so long. I actually felt my hair growing. The song was boring, monotonous, painful - and her head had been dipped in the same bucket of make-up as Cheekbones. Do none of the make-up people watch the playback of this show? The only saving grace of this protracted aural agony was that I spent the lion's share of the time trying to nail down what her pompapoofed hair looked like under the cotton candy spotlights. It then came to me - Pepe le Pew, although in this case, it would be Pepe le Pink. Even Pepe though, ladies man that he is, would have run away from the vocal stink coming off her in waves.

I know she has a serious fan base - believe me, I hear from enough Pick Pickler people each week - but no one can deny, that after the past two weeks, she is clearly out of her league. She has no range, her face registers not an ounce of emotion, and the fact that she is not exactly the Sharpest hunk of cheese means her time is just about up.

Randy called her performance "very strange"; Paula was rendered speechless - God, that was wonderful wasn't it? - but then choked out that she "didn't feel her greatness"; Simon called it the "neverending song" and reamed her for having "no heart, no warmth". Pickles tried to "cute" her way out of another bad performance, as she did last week, but what was obviously forgiveable once, surely won't be written off again. I predict she will be a bottom dweller tonight.

Up next was Smurfette, talking about choosing the song The Way We Were because, at 17, "I have memories. I don't really have love thoughts."

I see - so sweet, so pure, so full of sh*t. Isn't she the one who sang Fever recently on one show and Beyonced her booty around on another?

Puh-leez.

Andrea lauded her "extraordinary", "spectacular" voice - which I do not deny her having. She then took the stage dressed quite understated for Smurfette in black pants and a black print jacket, working a short Farrah Fawcett 'do from the 70's. Overall, I think it was a solid performance - again, she has control, vocal strength, confidence, but she lacks that one thing Andrea cited earlier - people do not want her to become great. People are irritated by her bombastic singing voice and her totally affected speaking voice - seriously, I have babysat three year olds who sound older than her.

And dear God - what was that little puff at the very end of her song? That exaggerated exhalation? No thanks, sweetie. You are too young to work in something like that with any measure of success. Patti LaBelle maybe. Mariah Carey definitely. But Smurfette Bennett - um, NO.

Randy thought is was "pretty good", but not "over the top"; Paula called it the "best vocal of the night"; Simon thought it was "a very good vocal, but a bit old fashioned."

Mr. Soul Patrol was next, shown in his rehearsal video practicing Just Once. Andrea called his voice "very interesting" - hmm, what would he think if he could actually see the whole package perform? David was "really drawn in" and thought Taylor had "potentially the most charisma".

Potentially?  That's like saying Paula Abdul potentially has the biggest medicine cabinet.

Dressed in a velvet tux with black satin piping (it takes a real man to work black velvet - even Elvis didn't attempt this till he died and someone painted him on it), Taylor emerge from backstage and stood at the microphone stand - rocky start vocally, you could see in his eyes he knew he was struggling, but then WHAM - Taylor kicked in and made you forget that the beginning had been a turd sandwich. His gravelly voice, emotion and connection with the audience is undeniable. He may not be the best singer technically, but he is the best at getting millions of people to want him to become great.

Randy said it was "completely the wrong song" and "not 1/2 as good as the original" (lowfat versions seldom are, Randy); Paula, apparently now has her sights set on poor Taylor, now that Ace has eluded capture, flirted shamelessly and said, "you look handsome as heck"; Simon, however, thought he looked "uptight" and slammed his phrasing and performance overall. Paula then jumped up and down and began defending Taylor and beating on Simon.

Someone get a net.

Saving the best for last (thank God, because going first certainly hurt him last week), was Chris, choosing to sing Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman. His rehearsal clip showed David calling him on singing from his throat all the time (which he does) and then Andrea actually laying down on the floor to sing to illustrate a technique for forcing one to sing more from the diaphragm. Chris could not have had a bigger "what a crock of sh*t" look on his face if he tried, but did as he was told and sang while staring at the ceiling. The result? A deeper, more controlled, powerful vocal. Chris put the sh*t back in the crock and thanked them both.

Sitting on the stage, dressed in a suit, no less, flanked on either side by dueling guitars, Chris sang and the audience did what it always does - PAYS ATTENTION. It's a slow song, but Chris commanded it and even opened up the gravel gates, gargling sexily towards the end. It was an awesome, restrained performance and I doubt Chris needs to worry about repeating the anomoly that was last week's bottom three appearance.

Randy called him "amazing"; Paula just babbled "I love you"; Simon said it was a "very, very good choice, a great performance".

And that's it for Classic Loves Songs night. I'm predicting an all female triumverate of failure this evening when the results come down. Because even though they say love makes the world go round, last night, when these ladies sang, it seemed to make the hurl go round - in my living room at least.

Thoughts?

Comments

[RedFox]

Btw, I love your blog :)

[RedFox]

Alright, first off, let me say that I'm a Taylor fan, so I could be biased.

I also thought Taylor's first line was off, but the rest of the song was definitely solid. I liked it a lot, after reading some of the boards I didn't know what to expect (thought it'd be another Country Roads) but it was far from that, this was good (Dutch, so getting feeds later)

Having said that, I still like to whine a bit about the fact that Nigel came on some radio show (forgot, was it Fox's?) and told people they made Taylor change his song on MONDAY (geez, great job guys) because they 'didn’t think it fit the genre of “Classic Love Songs” and wasn’t something that they could picture “Bocelli” singing.'

Call me a crazy conspiracy nut, but this is getting ridiculous.

What's next? Interrupt Taylor 10 seconds into his performance next week and tell him to change his song? Gah, I can see it happening already.

[The Mad Blogger]

I had to stifle my laughs tonight because the family was asleep.

So, what did you think of Pickles' hair? I couldn't stop staring at it thinking it looked like Cameron Diaz in There' Something About Mary after she put the "gel" in her hair!

[ieatcrayonz]

Thank God for you and your recaps, Linda. I missed the ENTIRE show when the wife of a high school ex-boyfriend called to chat for an hour and a half. Seriously. Missed the ENTIRE thing, but now I can sleep knowing what really happened.

[James Hudnall]

Linda,

I pretty much agree with you. Except I like Paris more than you seem to. But I agree with your assessment of her performance.

http://jameshudnall.com/blog.php?/weblog/idol_thoughts_4_26/

[Jim Gillaspy]

My wife and I couldn't disagree more with you and the judges, and perhaps the rest of the world. We thought Katharine was wonderful and "Jerky Lerky" (To coin a name for Taylor Hicks) was terrible. We judge Paris by her singing, not her speaking voice. Unfortunately, you're right, most years on Idol the best voice doesn't win. The best voice won last year, but not the year before and the year before that.

[TK]

Hi Linda,

I just discovered your blog through GrayCharles.com (a hot spot for Taylor Hicks fans). Funny comments!

[Ruth]

Linda! Just discovered your site. EXCELLENT review - it made me laugh out loud, which is always a good thing!

THANK YOU for pointing out the "wisdom of the evening". I must have missed it the first time because I get so anxious for this show that I just can't process everything the first time.

YES! "People have to WANT you to become great". THAT is why Taylor's my favorite and even after a less-than-stellar performance (although yes, it DID have moments of brilliance) I will vote my fingers to the bone. He's my guy and that's all there is to it!

I'm hoping that the girls drop off one by one and that it's an all-male finale.

Constantine was my favorite last year and I don't want to go through THAT again.

Thanks for the belly laughs!

[Martha]

I don't know if I am just grateful to have something intelligent to read (sans glitter), or if I am now a qualified ardent fan, but I relish your reviews. It hardly matters that I agree with your POV, but it does help.

Chris was the only one who seemed to have had the experience of loving someone and knowing how to get the message across. At that point, I really don't care about the lyrics. As the saying goes, "I don't care about how much you know, until I know how much you care." Loved seeing him lay down to learn something, then apply it.

Keep up the good work Linda.

If you have a schedule of your appearances, I would like it. I am assuming that Seattle might be in your travels considering the tech industry.

Thanks.

[Lori in Texas]

You have mail, Linda.