American Idol: The Differently Necked Are People Too

I’m trying to do some work, but thought perhaps I could comment on last night’s Idol before the elimination of Anybody’s Guess happens tonight.

Tony Bennett was a better guest than I might have expected.  This is the first time I can recall Idol contestants seeming so comfortable with a theme of this nature.  And I wasn’t bored!

It was astonishing how little difference there was between the performances.  It comes down this week to who was less good and who has weaker or stronger fan bases or voting blocs.

I went to rickey.org after House and listened to many of them over again.  Some were better or worse than I thought I heard initially, and of course there was no performance to watch, which is what’s valuable about it.

The big surprises were that Chris Richardson, who is awful and must go, even more than Batboy Phil, who has shown multiple times that he can overcome his visuals with his voice, was amazing, and that Lakisha kind of sucked.  Especially given how close the performances were.

This was a week of especially obvious maneuvering by TPTB, in terms of queue positions, judging, and especially the choices of recap clips.  Phil and Haley were made to look especially bad compared to their performances overall, and as I recall, Lakisha got somewhat the same treatment, despite being in the pimp position at the end of the night.

We loved Blake.  He sounded good doing Mack the Knife, even without sounding like Bobby Darrin.

Phil was good.  He looked especially distracting.  He showed in the clips from earlier in the week that he looks remarkably better with even a tiny bit of growth.

Melinda can sing.  This week she could almost perform and seem catchy.  Perhaps she’ll win and become a symbol of hope for the differently necked.

Chris sounded good to me for the first time ever.  He still needs to go, but he maybe outdid Phil this week.

I love Jordin.  No, not in that “hey dude, she’s only 17 so what are you thinking sort of way.” She’s different each week, gets better as the weeks go by, and is astonishingly good and entertaining.  I can’t remember liking the song as well when Barbra Streisand did it.  My only complaint is the loud breaths.

Gina rocks, even when she doesn’t rock.  Not sure I liked the song, but she can sing big, and with decent control.  She’s in danger, as is Phil, but I’d rather see her stay.  Not sure where I stand between her and Haley.  Probably a toss-up, liking them for different reasons.

Sanjaya was again varied, entertaining, and not a horrible singer.  If he had started out of the gate this way, he’d not have become the butt of humor.  But then, he wouldn’t be one of the most famous names on the planet and would probably not have held on this far.  Remember, I was an early fan after seeing the Seattle auditions, where much was made of the Malakar sibs.  If he doesn’t watch out, he’s going to earn votes.

Haley was better than the judges treatment of her.  She fits what they need in an Idol winner better than many of the contestants.  That said, she needs to pull out not only the sexy, but the singing and performing ever single week or she really will be gone soon, legs notwithstanding.  In a week of “all good enough to be hard to distinguish” performances, she didn’t stand out as much as she might have another week operating at the same level.  She needs to stop the sitting down schtick.

I thought Lakisha was marginal.  She just sounded bad, especially at the beginning, and I do think she handled the ending wrong.  The dress looked weird.  Whereas last week I loved Melinda’s dress/shirt that, if I recall correctly, simon picked on.

For me the bottoms, not counting Sanjaya, are Lakisha, Haley and Phil, though that’s a tough call and they’re so close to as good as any of the others that one could easily pick a different three and not sound whacky doing it.

Phil is probably going home.  Could be Haley, but she probably gets some sympathy votes along with leg votes.  At the same time the production people tried to sabotage her with the end of show clip, the antics of the judges could almost have been designed with the opposite influence in mind.  Could be Gina.  I’d call them the least safe.

Probably I’ll update this post with results after the elimination show tonight.

Update:

Wow!  That was a surprise.  Poor Gina.

Apparently everyone loves Gina.  Even Melinda showed signs of being human, rather than a songbot with a pit crew named Team Melinda and a nefarious plan for Idol domination.

Gina was nicely professional in singing her farewell reprise, sounded great, and ought to go far.

The Ford commercial was just dreadful.  Poor Kermit.

The dude nobody ever heard of, singing instead of Tony Bennett, who was sickened by Idol- er, I mean a cold or the flu, was pretty good.  Sadie absolutely loved it!  The last time I think she reacted like that was the first time she heard Boston singing More Than a Feeling.  She still likes Boston.  Valerie reacted the same way to Heart, which we found out by her reaction to Gina Glocksen covering Alone.

At any rate, she danced around to it briefly.  Then she sat on the footrest of the recliner, watching intently and moving to it.  Deb could see her moving.  I saw her face get an “I think I have a crush on this guy!” look on it that was cool and impressive… and also nothing I’d have expected to see for several more years.  Wow.

We’ll miss Gina.  It’s not like an outsized surprise, but it seems like the most relatively untimely elimination so far.  Or at least since Bayley Brown forgot her words.

Posted by on 04/04 at 06:24 PM

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