The rehashing of "the most shocking elimination ever" was expected. but watching it realizing that the sun did rise again and the world continued spinning puts it in a bit of perspective. No one died, no one was seriously injured. A reality contestant was sent home. Were JLo's tears really necessary?
Paul McDonald is up first with Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger. The outfit is absurd but, like a peacock, maybe he's hoping to attract females with his gaudy plumage. Or perhaps he hopes people will spend the ninety seconds of his song commenting on his apparel, so they have to rely on the judges' unwavering praise rather than their own ears.
He looks silly and runs around onstage like he's half drunk, which I'm starting to wish I were if I'm going to have to sit through this whole show. Then he brings out a tambourine. As if the cheese factor could go any higher, he takes it from Camembert to Limburger. Only Paul can play a tambourine so oddly it is robbed of any musicality. He's actually whacking that think around like he's putting out a fire on his torso. He wheezes and rasps and croaks so much, I thought I was watching an anti-smoking commercial. It is more than a mockery of the notion of American Idol being a singing competition for Paul to still be on this show.
Randy says to Paul, "you're not a typical singer." If by that he means Paul doesn't care about notes or melody or tone or breath control, then he is correct. Paul is not a singer and he no longer takes the trouble to pretend. The roller coaster approach he took to this song, basically rewriting it as he was singing it, shows that even he knows his longevity in the show is due to the entertainment value of watching the Chiclets-toothed, Porter Waggoner-garbed, weed-whacker-coiffed contestant do his Cirque du So-So act on the stage. It has nothing at all to do with singing.
Next up is early front-runner Lauren Alaina who must be starting to worry that her gender handicap will be sending her packing her Dolly Parton inspired pageant dresses home pretty soon. She tells the mentors that she's singing The Climb by Miley Cyrus. The mentors immediately diss Billy Ray's little girl, telling Lauren you're a better singer than Miley. As if she didn't have enough trouble just being a female contestant on American Idol, they now take away any votes she might have had by upsetting the Disney crowd!
I expect great things from Lauren -- she has a terrific natural voice. But this song doesn't quite work for me. There is the problem of the chorus being built primarily around one note and the problem of Lauren singing as if she were nailed to one spot on the stage, which leaves it all a little...boring. The background singers drown her out, and even seem to cause her to question the pitch. What should have been a great shining moment comes off as high school talent show worthy. But nothing more. If this were Sing Better Than Miley Idol, she'd be in great shape. Unfortunately, you have to be memorable and exciting enough to get people to actually pick up a phone and call for you. A lot. And I'm not sure that's the kind of performance that will get that kind of action.
Stefano Langone tries to stay in this competition by singing his heart out on the Boyz II Men song End of the Road. One wonders if that is the best song title for someone who has been dancing so close to the edge of the abyss. Stefano starts out a little weak, but gets stronger. The problem is, he's singing the song about a half octave too high for his voice. I notice that the neighborhood dogs are starting to bay in unison. Maybe Stefano's pants are too tight or perhaps there wasn't time to readjust the music to a register that humans could readily hear, but he sounded forced and tight stretching for those notes. He sings with a pained expression, which could be the by-product of his strained vocal chords begging for mercy.
Randy name dropped some obscure member of the original band. Take a shot.
The other country singer, Scotty McCreery, is up next. He practiced Everybody's Talking by Harry Nilsson but then decided to go with George Strait's Cross My Heart. True confession, I've never heard this song before. I've heard of George Strait, I don't live under a rock. I just haven't actually ever heard any of his songs. At least not knowingly. So I don't know how Scotty's version held up to the original but I do know that on the plus side, Scotty is treating his microphone much nicer. He still is tempted to put that second hand up, as if the 13 ounce mic is too much for him to handle without additional support. But he's at least working on fighting that temptation.
As for the vocal? Like with Lauren, I usually love Scotty. But this time, I started dozing. Scotty's got great potential and at times his voice is amazing, but he's also young and it often shows. He needs to gain more control over the gift he has and that will come in time. I felt that the judges were close to letting him know this wasn't one of his best, JLo started out "
he won't feel comfortable unless he does what he knows he can do, blah, blah, artistic integrity, blah blah, be myself. Basically, what does Jimmy Iovine know? Jimmy's response? Casey better be right.
We can now identify the exact moment that American Idol as a franchise doomed itself. Casey Abrams, newly groomed with his rambunctious hair tamed and his wild whiskers neatly trimmed, took his upright bass and, in defiance of his would-be future boss, sang Nat King Cole's Nature Boy. Here are my notes of Casey's singing: boy-uh? boy-ah? It's one syllable! breathy. flat. gritting teeth. clearing his throat? grimace. scary serial killer look. camera mercifully pans back. closeup, more gritting teeth. raspy. searching for the note. off key. missed again. random notes. weird stares. Stealing from the Paul McDonald book of random shout-outs. grunt. creepy looks. attempt at scatting. shifty eyes. flat notes. squeaking. flat.
It reminded me of a beatnik poetry reading contest performed by an escapee from a mental ward. The word artistry was thrown around more than at a tribute to Van Gogh. Somehow, Casey Abrams has put a spell on the judges and convinced them (though, hopefully, not the voting public) that different, weird, unconventional equates with talent. A good jazz singer (and that's not an oxymoron, youngsters) sings what they feel and it's natural and organic and it just flows. What Casey does is the burlesque, hammy, mugging version of jazz. He intentionally, with malice aforethought, picks every grimace and grunt, every run and improv, to try and sound cool, edgy, hip. The more unrecognizable he can make the song, the better he thinks he comes across. He does this for a simple reason -- he does not have a traditionally good voice. So, the jazz genre is his vocal smoke and mirrors.
This would bother me less were the judges to assess him more fairly. But, following through with the "everyone is a special snowflake" conceit that pervades this season, they are not permitted to suggest that maybe Casey is not god's gift to music. That, perhaps, he is a good musician with an interesting taste in non-popular music who will be a great high school music teacher some day. But he is not the next American Idol.
If you want a comparison, this is what the original sounds like (note in the video the song's writer Eden Ahbez -- looks a little like Casey). This is singing:
Haley Reinhart is up next with one of my favorite songs, Call Me, by Blondie. For once, I didn't hate Haley. She cut her grunting down to a bare minimum, she sang the song with enough Deborah Harry swagger (I name drop, take a shot) to mask a few random missed notes. I find it pretty entertaining. The stripper vibe she throws off, the slinky prowling around the stage, the screaming -- they all work for the song perfectly. I even love the way she played around with the melody. Nice!! So what do the judges do? They certainly know how vulnerable women are in this competition and they realize that their slight criticism of Pia last week sent her to the reality TV show gallows. They'll be careful in what they say to Haley, right?
Not so much. Haley meet bus. Bus flatten Haley. Randy pulls out the dreaded K word. Randy who has up till now conveniently forgotten his nine prior seasons on the show and the hundreds of prior critiques he's given for anything short of perfection, suddenly turns back into the Randy of old. He improperly calls her (different) version karaoke. Then he tells her that's not a singer's song, not one where she can show what she can do vocally (despite the fact that it's the best she's sounded all season). Steven agrees! And so does JLo...even while admitting that to do so is basically sending Haley to Siberia. "It wasn't the best" is the equivalent of "if you vote for her, we'll shoot the puppy."
Jacob Lusk gets a stern warning from Jimmy. You're lucky to have survived preaching to the American people. Hmm, who would ever have thought that talking down to the voters was a bad idea? Oh, everyone but Jacob. Right. Now that the powers that be realize Jacob cannot be trusted in guiding his own future on the show, they decide to take over. Jimmy doesn't like either of the songs Jacob has chosen (so corny they could have fueled a cross country trek in a pick-up) and instead gives him the gift of Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. Jacob says little before singing, just that he hopes America likes it. Perhaps he's hoping that his picture will be moved from the dictionary definition of "hubris" over to "contrite."
It's a sedate, lyrical song. There's no way he can put his Lusky Stank on this. Well, he is more restrained than usual, I'll give him that. I mean, doctors can still run a colonoscopy on him through his gaping mouth, but at least he doesn't sound like he's passing a kidney stone the size of Ryan Seacrest like usual. But, he also had huge pitch problems that haven't plagued him in the past. I don't know if it's the background singers or the effort of trying to not go for that killer note, but he was way flat and way off key to the point that I suddenly thought Lee DeWyze was back on my TV.
But what will the judges say? Well, let me put it this way -- I hope the judges were using protection, with all that humping going on. They also better have enough class to at least call him the next day.
Once again, a contestant wants to do their own thing. Ignore the experts, follow their gut. Brilliant idea. You had such a successful career as a musician that you had to come on a game show to get noticed. What does that guy who produced U2
and Stevie Nicks 
and Patti Smith
and Tom Petty
know about music? But I digress. My favorite, James Durbin, is going to do it his way, which is bring on the rock. I learned two things thanks to James Durbin's electrifying (get it?) performance of Heavy Metal by Sammy Hagar. One is the correct spelling of Zakk Wylde's name. Two, that maybe I was too hard on heavy metal as a musical genre throughout the seventies and eighties. It -- and he -- sounded great. So kudos for salvaging the show with the one solid vocal of the night. James has an amazing set of pipes and he manages to make it seem effortless to hit notes that others can only dream of. Having said that, points off for the guitar solo in the middle of your song. It's fine...if you're the one playing the guitar. Not so much when you're doing your "whoa, I'm pretty limber" move and some other dude is doing all the hard musical work.
One more name drop by Randy, take another shot!
So after my brilliant prognostication last week, I'm destined to get it way wrong this time. But I will not back down out of fear.
My top three: James, Haley (that one hurt, just a little) and Lauren (zzzzz)
My bottom three: Paul, Casey and Jacob
Predicted bottom three: Paul, Casey and Haley
Sent home: If "Nature Boy" hadn't trended on Twitter, I'd say Casey, so I'll go with Paul. But the Vote for the Worst guys might turn out enough votes to save him one more week. Haley was thrown under the bus and she lacks that Y chromosome that seems to be all the rage with AI voters, and that usually spells doom. No, I'm pretty sure it's Paul. He went first and he was awful, even on the Paul scale. But Casey was so cosmically horrible in an unpopular genre. Okay, I'm not wimping out. Casey. That's my final answer.
Bring on the love!
-- While his aim is true, his voice sounds a lot more like someone under water or perhaps choking on phlegm. The older he gets, the more aggravating'y awful his voice is. But he wrote this, What's So Funny 'bout (Peace, Love and Understanding), Watching the Detectives and Radio, Radio, so all is forgiven. 
-- He brought nasally signing to a new high, or low, depending on how much of a stickler you are for proper singing technique. You could tell he was influenced as much by Bob Dylan's legendary shortcomings as a vocalist as his prowess as a songwriter.
-- He can't sustain a note, his voice gets awkwardly twisted around the words he's trying to articulate and he has no power. Oh, and he sings too high, his voice gets weaker as the song goes on, and he has a really creepy sound augmented by a slight rasp. So why is The Mona Lisa's Sister in heavy rotation on my iTunes?
-- He has been quoted as saying, "I never was a very good singer," and I remember he once told a story of him siging up in his room and his father asking what that horrible noise was. But he sang well enough, if not traditionally well, to sell his songs.
-- He is of course a brilliant songwriter and, as with the others on this list, I cut him slack because of that. But knowing what his voice sounds like -- a cat being choked and electrified at the same time -- the fact that he would cover one of the most beautiful songs ever written just tickles me to no end. And you know what, with all his squawking and sputtering, I love his version.
-- I think he only has one key, and it's flat. It is more spoken-word than singing. He's never been taught about breath control, or singing from your diaphragm, or how not to sing through your nose. He was busy learning how to write songs that cut right through your heart.
-- He doesn't even try and sing, basically talking his way through most of the song, before trying to squeak out the melody in a voice so flat and tuneless you think the Brick of the title is an apt analogy.
. On the plus side, his catalog is not that narrow and Sir Elton has certainly explored a number of different musical genres over his many decades writing songs. On the other hand, he wrote 
and 
. 
. She adopted a "pass me the ganja" accent and parodied a Jamaican wedding singer as she jumped around on stage in what she continues to think is dancing. This is the leading contender for ironic song choice of the night, because after this failed attempt to channel any of the Marleys (except, perhaps, the dog in that sad movie), Naima will not be standing tomorrow night. 
and he tells us that his band covered it once before and it was a disaster. Well, that won't happen tonight, right! Oh wait, it's Paul singing. So, grab your life preserver, this ship is going down. Paul tells us he's going to approach this song like he's singing his encore. Oh, it's good to dream, Paul, but for you to get an encore the audience has to first sit through your whole set and then beg for more. Two of those things will never happen because you...can't...sing. 
, and I wonder if the lyricist really intended the title to be as open to various funny, and a little dirty, permutations as run through my head every time I hear it. Probably -- those British guys do have a subtle, sneaky sense of humor. Regardless, Pia nailed it and looked great doing it and I'm bored.
I was totally blown away. The second time, less so. There's just something a little forced about his performance and a little too Broadway. He has moments, don't get me wrong. Though the first couple of notes were clunkers, the way he sang "ballerina" gave me goosebumps. It's just that over a two minute song, the voice just doesn't hold up. And, note to his Italian father in the audience, it's pronounced kvelling, kuhvell, blurred together. Not felling which is what one would do to a tree. Kvelling is that feeling Casey Abrams' parents get every time they look at his cherubic punim, which is why his ego is as big as his head. 
and it seems like a risky choice, especially when she starts out in a key that seems too high for her. But she pulls it out on sheer determination alone. She can belt like nobody's business and, even if she comes off like the love child of Stevie Nicks and Kellie Pickler, that girl is all business on stage. I love the little country "cry" in her voice and her tone and the Patsy Cline-ish breaks when she goes for the high notes. She looked great and sounded great and I'm inching ever closer to saying country music is not so bad.
and though Jimmy Iovine seemed a bit dubious, Durbin was not to be deterred. And you know what? The kid was right. It was a fun, entertaining performance that showed poise and confidence beyond his years. Durbin is comfortable in the audience and up on stage (and even up on a piano that's about to burst into flames). He gave a thrill to some middle aged guy in the audience and recovered nicely from his Pepsi faux pas (a Coke moment is a good thing, he offered as an explanation, setting yourself on fire, not so much). He rocked the song, the hair, the scarf and the stage. He got my votes. 
is one of the most beautiful pop songs ever written. The lyrics and the melody just tug at your heart. It is hard not to be moved by someone singing this and Steven Hawking's computerized voice could not dampen the emotional power of the song. Having said that, Thia Megia did not convey the feeling of the song as well as she could have. In fact, not until the very end did I feel any sincere emotion. Thia looks great, sounds great -- she has the best, purest voice in the competition -- but the emotional connection just wasn't there for me, for her, for you, for Randy, for whoever. It's a shame, because it's like all the parts are there but one and that one missing piece is crucial. 
. 
-- if the need to growl randomly during a song is a sexually transmittable disease. Haley, after turning that cute, retro pop song into some soft porn number, all I could think of was ba-ba-ba-bye Haley.