Last chop of the season (maybe)

The Jennifer Holliday duet of And I AmTelling You has gone viral. It was over the top in the best way possible — and to say it was over the top is to severely underplay the display of vocal pyrotechnics and bravura stankfaces Holliday pulled off. And oh yeah, Jessica was there as well. Here’s my tiny contribution to the cause.

I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.

And if you missed it, enjoy. But really, you need to see this in HD to really appreciate it.

Hurry up and enjoy — shit gets taken down on YouTube all the time.

Did the Unthinkable Almost Happen?

Scenes from an alternate universe

There’s a claim going around the internet that Nigel released data on the final vote tally, which split 50.03% for Phillip and 49.97% for Jessica, for a razor thin .06% difference in votes. Using math, I can deduce that the actual vote difference out of 132 million votes was… 79,200 votes. By God, that comes down to 16 hardcore texters. Imagine — the winner was determined by all of 16 people!

Of course, it’s a hoax. Nigel never released any vote counts in any tweets or interviews. Plus, if the difference was that tiny, Nigel would have tweeted and/or leaked the information to TMZ for some pre-show publicity (and man, they needed it — last night was the lowest rated Idol season finale, even lower than the Kelly/Justin showdown in season one). Ryan would have mentioned how tight the race was multiple times over the course of the show. He didn’t even say anything of the sort when he announced the winner. And there’s still nothing on TMZ indicating this was a close race. If Ryan doesn’t bother mentioning how close the vote was, then it wasn’t even close.

There are many social media index sites that have egg on their face this morning. They all had Jessica winning because of her high YouTube views, Facebook fans, and Twitter mentions. Of course, there’s no proven correlation between any of this and actual votes, so it’s likely that any correct predictions were simply coincidence. And none of them took into consideration that Jessica’s large Filipino base couldn’t vote and was inflating her SMI in comparison to votes. One of the sites even pointed out that Phillip had more Facebook fans if you only went by US members. And then declared Jessica the winner anyway. I guess they were too enamored with their own methodology to see the glaringly obvious.

And I already know who is going to win the show next year. Say Hello to WGWG6.

Hello!

I don’t know if he can sing, but he’s got all the measurables.

The Torch is Passed

WGWG is dead. LONG LIVE WGWG!

As shockers go, Philip’s victory was up there with the sun rising in the morning. Either fix the voting or chase 132 million votes and end up with the same winner every year. It was obvious that Phillip was going to win when Ryan declined to mention how close the vote was. I’m sure it quite the slaughter. The much ballyhooed “Overseas Filipino votes” never made an impact, because the only real way to vote on Idol is via texting. Phoning in votes is for pikers, and since you couldn’t text votes from the Philippines, it was never going to be a factor.

The thing to understand about busy signals is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Idol switchboards are swamped — it can just as easily mean (and in many cases more likely) that your local switching station is swamped. People living in areas without large phone switching capacity will get more busies than people living in larger metropolitan areas. That’s why texting is the only real way to vote in the South. I’d gather that texts accounted for more than half of the 132 million votes cast, and most of those went to Phillip.

This is why the voting system is broken and why it will be WGWG winners until the show is cancelled. They really need to weigh what is more important — setting “World Records” for votes or make it possible for another type of singer to win.  Many people picked Phillip to win from the first audition episode. It was that obvious.

I hope he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew

Congratulations are still in order — at least Phillip deserved to win, unlike the half-asleep mouth breather Lee DeWyze who couldn’t hold a candle to Crystal. Speaking of which, here’s a very sobering article:

American Idol Finalists From Sanjaya To Taylor Hicks – Where Are They Now

American Idol likes to promote the idea that they’re fulfilling dreams, but the truth is, the show is based on crushing them. It’s not really about talent — it’s about schadenfreude and exploitation.

Speaking of which, some of the lowlights from the finale:

Joshua biffed his split and then stumbled to the ground before getting up  with assistance. So much for being the next James Brown.

Fantasia and Mantasia engaged in a screech off that was painful to listen to. Fanstasia looked like an Island of Dr. Moreau experiment to turn a sea lion into a humanoid. The song went on for so long that they just cut to commercial before it ended.

Chaka Khan showed up so wasted she had to be helped down the stairs. Then she proceeded to forget almost all of her lyrics and slurred whatever words she could remember. They could have just called Paula if that’s what they wanted.

I guess you’d have to be wasted to wear an outfit like that. That said, for a woman on the verge of 60, she was still in better shape than Fantasia.

The only highlight was the batshit insane rendition of And I’m Telling You by Jennifer Holliday. She absolutely annihilated that song and steamrolled over Jessica. That was the genuine article compared to the pale Jennifer Hudson imitation Jessica delivered.

I’MA CUT YOU!!!

The crazy faces were glorious. Now that’s how you do a stank face, Jessica.

The rest of the show was rather boring filler. I skipped over a lot of it.

Especially the Skylar-Reba duet. They should have just had a pig holler instead.

Blaglaglaglag!

For Jessica, it’s more like Wipe/Out

I suppose it could be said that Phillip was already the winner when he learned how to play guitar, but I can pinpoint the exact moment it was all over — when Ryan asked the contestants, “What was your first impression when you walked down the stairs?” Jessica responded with some pageanty piffle about dreams. Phillip came back with, “blaglaglaglag”.

The power of words

That underscored the great divide between the two contestants — one is pre-programmed and bland while the other goes for a loosey goosey fun vibe. Ironically, what Jessica said came off as “blaglaglaglag” while Phillip, in not so many words, said, “I’m here to sing, and I reject your stupid pageant question”. This is already in the books.

Urgh — Simon Fuller picked I Who Have Nothing for Jessica? Jebus, how may times are they going to do this song on this show? She was trying so hard to kill the song that she got really screechy. The robotic rendition lacked any killer notes or human emotion.

And wow – there was simply too much dress. It was so voluminous that she had to hand carry it.

Not that Fuller did any better for Phillip. Stand By Me is one of those songs that comes off as snoozy on the show. The lack of range in the song is the only plus for Phillip — trying in vain to hit the high notes in Time of Season a few weeks ago was one of the absolute low points of the season. Phillip tried to do some sort of country-ish arrangement, but I almost fell asleep listening to it.

It’s all slipping through her fingers

Jessica went for The Prayer as her redux song. Apparently, she was trying to one up Phillip for eliciting snores. The song sounds like a boring Broadway number, and glory note or not, that was one snoozer of a performance. Even Jessica’s family wasn’t impressed.

Polite clapping from your own family is worse than hearing JLo start her critique with, “you look beautiful tonight”.

Make way for the BIG DOG

At first, I was not really getting Phillip’s decision of picking Movin’ Out as his redux performance. I had forgotten he even sang this song, but I came around to seeing what he was trying to accomplish here — he was showing that he can rearrange a song for artistic cred, and picked one that’s old enough for the Fraus to recognize. And in retrospect, picking your best performance to redo is inherently a diminishing returns proposition — if you don’t top it, it’s kind of a failure. Case in point — when Adam Lambert did Mad World for his finale, it just wasn’t as good as his original performance. So Movin’ Out turned out to be a pretty savvy choice for Phillip.

After an entire season of 2 hour performance shows, this one is zooming by (skipping Jason Derulo made it fly by even faster). Jessica picks Change Nothing as her coronation song. This was a powerhouse performance of an incredible piece of songwriting — the quality of her voice and emotion oozed out of every impeccably crafted lyric. I think Jessica won the night and the competition with one of the greatest vocals in Idol history. Or at least, that’s what I would have written if I lived in Bizarro World.

Unfortunately for Jessica, the song is like something Kara DioGuardi wiped her ass with, and Jessica sounded terrible, swinging from an uneven lower register to a keening upper register sprinkled with some off-key shrieks. The heart of the problem is this — Jessica is a very good copycat singer, but faced with having to create something without a blueprint to work from, it all fell apart. Or in other words, Jessica is a great karaoke singer. You’re not going to get anything more from 16 year old home schooled girl with awkward social skills than karoke. In the biggest moment of the season, Jessica laid and egg.

So that’s why she was sitting on the piano the whole time

JLo’s reaction said it all – Jesica’s sole hope was to blow Phillip out of the water vocally to possibly shame viewers to vote for her. But instead, she got completely outclassed on her own turf.

That… sucked.

Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, JLo said that Jessica was going to “make many records”. But the question is, how many of those will be independent iTunes releases after her label drops her?

Not that Phillip’s first album is going to burn up the charts

I realize now that one of the other reasons the show is breezing along is the limited time they gave to the judges. They’re terrible, as always.

Kiss my WGWG ass

Phillip picked a coronation song called Home, another savvy selection. It was a countrified, Paul Simon-esque choice that will have all three demos (girls, fraus, and Southerners) voting like crazy. It’s also not the kind of vomitous dreck Jessica picked, although there was a slight misstep when the falsetto at the end was teetering on the verge of being agonizing to listen to. ASSUMING he wins (giggle snort), Home is the best coronation song since A Moment Like This, with a bare minimum of the of cloying syrup that typically swamps these types of songs, and it was replete with a catchy hook that my wife was humming after the song ended. I can’t remember the last time the best performance of the finale was actually the coronation song.

Oh, and remember the rumor I mentioned about the two hooking up? The show ended with Jessica doing hip bumps against Phillip as he made googly eyes over her.

Is he putting the Phillip in Filipino?

So is it possible for Jessica to win American Idol? Yes, if she learns to play guitar, gets a sex change, and comes back to the show as “Jesse Manchez”.

BTWG — Brown Transgender With Guitar

But it ain’t gonna be this year. Philip is the WGWG Monster that will take the crown.

He’s on the edge of glory

And so it will go until the show is cancelled. Or they could just fix the voting. I’m going with cancelled.

Phillip from LEEsburg. Kristy Lee Cook ordains another winner.

WGWG6 is only a year away. Blaglaglaglag everyone!

Reading the Tea Leaves

According to some people, Jessica’s lead in Facebook and Twitter followers as well as YouTube views means that she will be crowned the winner on Wednesday.    This, however, is hogwash. Unless something happens between now and Tuesday’s performance show (DVR alert — performance night is Tuesday and the grand finale is on Wednesday), Phillip is the prohibitive favorite and presumptive winner. Short of emergency surgery or getting married to his girlfriend, there isn’t much chance that anything, even a string of bad performances, will derail the Phillip train.

Social Media observers like to think their indexes mean anything at all. Of course, all of these indexes missed Jessica and Colton’s boots, so their reliability is already in doubt. But these analyses miss three very important things:

1) The demo for social media consumers does not match the demo for American Idol viewers — more importantly, is does not match the demo for American Idol voters.

2) Jessica’s huge popularity in the Philippines has a lot to do with her huge advantage in social media indexes. Filipinos take their karaoke seriously as well as the exploits of Filipino-Americans. And while Filipinos can view Jessica’s performances on YouTube millions of times to pump up her SMI, the one thing they can’t do (by and large) is vote. You can only vote on American Idol from US phone numbers. There are some ways around the system, but unless the vote turns out the be extremely close, it really won’t make much difference. South Korea is also karaoke crazy (note that all of the Asian Idol semi-finalists are of Filipino or Korean descent), but HeeJun couldn’t get farther than 9th. And South Korea is the most wired and tech savvy country in the world — if they couldn’t even get HeeJun to the top eight, I don’t think the Philippines will be a major player voting in finals.

3) Kristy Lee Cook has already chosen the winner.

Wait, how is Kristy Lee Cook involved anymore? There’s no connection between the names Kristy Lee Cook and Phillip LaDon Phillips, is there? Well, no I guess — other than the fact that Phillip is from Leesburg, GA — Leesburg meaning “Lee’s City”. So Phillip is of Lee. By God, she’s practically given birth to Phillip. Look for future winners to come from Corpus Christi TX and Chicago, IL (which is in Cook County).

The bottom line is that there are three demos that dominate Idol voting — girls (tweens & teens), fraus, and Southerners. In the WGWG era, every winner has been able to get at least a plurality of support from these three groups:

Archuleta vs Cook – Cook wins fraus and South, Archuleta wins girl vote

Lambert vs Allen – Allen wins girls and South, Lambert wins frau vote

Bowersox vs Lee – Lee wins girls, splits frau vote. The South does not not come out in full force for the only North vs North final, the only time the final vote tally was significantly lower than the previous season.

Suddeth vs McCreary – Scotty makes a clean sweep. He probably got two votes for Lauren Alaina’s one.

I think Phillip has fraus and the South in the bag.  He’ll split the tween votes. That gives him two out of three demos and a tie in the other. I really can’t see how Jessica can overcome that built-in voter advantage. There’s also a lot of little other signs that indicate Phillip is a steamroller now — Jimmy and the judges have completely stopped throwing him under the bus and are now actively promoting him, so that it appears as if they wanted him to win the whole time. Why else did they give him the pimp spot last week for a completely mediocre performance and then praise it to the heavens? When Jimmy was asked the other day if Jessica could win, he said, “she has a shot”. I guess that’s a little better than, “mmmmm… maaaaybeeee” followed by a shoulder shrug.

Speaking of a lot of little signs, there was a rumor posted online in the beginning of the competition that claimed Phillip had hooked up with Jessica, which would be a cute showmance kind of thing except for the fact that Jessica is only 16. This affair, so the rumor went, could torpedo Phillip’s chances of staying in the competition.

Now, it’s very likely that the story is completely fabricated — if it turns out to be true, it’s probably more due to coincidence than anything else. However, it interesting how many times you notice Phillip standing next to Jessica, take note the many times he escorts her offstage and read something into the number of times Jessica tweets from a car Phillip is driving. Then there was the visit from his girlfriend followed the next week by his stellar Volcano performance, which had lyrics like, “What I am to you is not real - What I am to you, you do not need - What I am to you is not what you mean to me” and “Lord, she’s still too young to treat”. The ending chorus is the line, “she’s still too young”  repeated ad infinitum. And then, as if on cue, Jessica’s comes back with “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going”.

Hmm…

It looks like this will be JLo’s swan song season. It’s an open secret that she’s contemplating leaving the show, which is another way of saying, “I’ll stay… but only if you show me how much you want me”. So unless she gets a bump up from her $15million salary, she won’t be coming back. However, recent statements by the producers indicate they want to go cheaper with the judges since they don’t feel anyone is really tuning in for Jlo or Steven. These two sentiments appear to be mutually exclusive.

If it were up to me, I’d fire all three judges and replace them with:

1) Producer Jimmy Iovine. Jimmy would be a call back to the Simon days when at least one of the judges gave blunt critique. He has producer cred and is a familiar personality.

2) Peggy “Vocal Coach from Hell” Blu. She may or may not be camera ready, but it would really be interesting to have a judge who knows about singing and could point out who is singing well and who isn’t.

3) Rotating former contestants. This would be a nice fan service thing, but it would also interesting to watch critiques from people who know what the contestants are going through.

What we will probably get:

1) Some older lady singer on the other side of her career who won’t say a single critical thing

2) Someone who supposed to be the mean judge but just says stupid things, a la Piers Morgan

3) Randy

Actually, I wouldn’t even mind seeing Nigel as a judge. Really, almost anything is better than Randy.

Mr. Tribbiani, I’m afraid you’ve got kidney stones

Ah, the lengths the show will go to for publicity. It was widely and breathlessly reported over the weekend that Phillip’s kidney stone condition required “emergency surgery” — some of the reports made it sound like he was having emergency surgery and bowing out of the competition. The truth is that Phillip does have a painful kidney stone issue that will require surgery immediately after the season wraps. But it isn’t life threatening at this point — while his hometown doctor may or may not have recommended emergency surgery (either he’s very risk averse or, more likely, he was misquoted), the Idol medical staff has cleared him. They don’t really want Phillip’s blood on their hands or have him sue the show later if complications occur, so they wouldn’t make him stay on the show another week if there was a good probability that Phillip could sustain permanent damage or die. At this point, it a pain tolerance issue.

So in the end, this is all about sensational headlines and publicity. And if you don’t believe me, then take it from Phillips girlfriend:

Looks like no one is dying anytime soon. Or getting an organ transplant.

Slouching Towards WGWG#5

9 songs, so chop chop, let’s get to it.

Randy picked Etta James’ I’d Rather Be Blind for Joshua. It appeared that he was attempting to seduce his microphone throughout the performance — caressing it, pressing it to his lips, and even tonguing it lightly at one point.

If this singing thing doesn’t work out, it looks like he has some other career options.

I think his father the Reverend would also Rather Be Blind than to see the obvious here.

It started as fanfiction

If you made a checklist of all the various technical points Joshua can score with his vocals — pitch, range, power, etc — he would score very highly. However, there are two areas where I would have to dock him points. For starters, his emotional histrionics are so over the top they come off as phony, and, to play armchair psychologist here, I don’t think Joshua is ever going to come off as emotionally genuine as long as he pretends to like girls. The other larger issue is that I just hate his scratchy, keening tone. He’s dubbed himself “Mantasia” in homage to Fantasia Barrino, but even Fantasia had a little bit of honey in the back of her throat to even out her tone a bit — Joshua is just screechy and unpalatable to me. How he got another standing ovation for this is beyond me.

JLo chose My All for Jessica. Dressed for the big prom she never attended, Jessica did a copycat version of Mariah Carey’s, complete with whispery vocals, odd rhythms, and strange enunciation. It wasn’t a dead on impersonation, but she completely aped Mariah’s performance, which turned it, essentially, into a good bit of karaoke and nothing more. I don’t think anyone is going to fall over themselves listening to that — it was just a’ight.

Bromance reborn

Steven chose Beggin’ for Phillip, and it was the only good judges’ choice of the night. Phillip has a good share of bad points — he growls when he can’t hit notes, his voice is a little washed out, and he’s got no range or power. But when you get the right song, none of that really matters. That wasn’t the greatest vocal in the world, but I could listen to the song itself over and over again. And unlike Jessica, Phillip made it his own, giving it an I’d Love To Change The World vibe.

Multipurpose beads

Is Joshua holding anal beads on national TV? Oh, wait – they’re Mardi Gras beads. Eh – po-tay-to po-tah-to. Picking Imagine is an unexpected choice for a churchy guy like Josh, since there’s a line that goes, “No need to kill or die for, no religions too”… which he skipped. And either he’s was doing funky pronunciations in the second verse or he tripped up over some of the lyrics there. That was a pretty snoozy rendition, and as much as that song is a classic, it’s boring whenever they do it on Idol. As pedestrian as it was, I’m surprised the judges didn’t give him a standing ovation – it hasn’t stopped them before. Joshua said he picked the song because he wanted to deliver “the message”, but considering he avoided a huge and kind of sacrilegious part of it, I’m dubious as to whether he understands it or not. Weird choice, all things considered.

She looks like a candlestick

Jessica admitted that, being home schooled, she didn’t have many friends and nobody liked her growing up. This may explain why she lacks the kind of personable quality that most Idol winners have and why she’s trying so hard to win — it’s the only way she can get the kind of attention and approval she craves from others. Kind of sad, no? It might also explain why she has such a hard time connecting when she sings – she only understands approval of her singing on a technical basis and can’t empathize enough to make that emotional connection.

When it was announced that she was going to sing I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing, I flashed back (as I always do) to the gloriously terrible version Antonella Barba delivered in season 6. While Jessica’s version wasn’t a tone deaf disaster, it was a pageanty, boring, and nondescript performance that didn’t impress. She also totally choked the last note (aka, pulled a Cavanagh) which made it impossible to snatch some sort of vocal victory at the end. Yet JLo said the “note at the end sent everyone to the heavens”. You mean the one that cracked and was off key? Really, try to look like you’re actually paying attention to the performances. #NOCREDIBILITY.

The list… is life.

The crush of little girls and fraus trapped behind a chain link fence at the airport where Phillip landed looked like a Cincinnati Who concert disaster waiting to happen. The barbed wire made it look like some sort of frau & tween internment camp.

Phillip’s father was the centerpiece of his homecoming piece – the speech he gave in the pawn shop tugged at every heartstring, and Phillip’s misty eyed gaze melted frau hearts throughout the land.

Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage.

As an added bonus, the shot of Phillip fighting off a morbidly obese frau attempting to swallow him whole had more laffos than the entire season combined.

She’ll never lose that haircut

And if I’m not mistaken, Phillip’s mom played the first Becky on Roseanne. I’m not mistaken, am I?

Matchbox 20′s Disease was one of those typical lazy, low energy Phillip Phillips performances where he’s coasting along, coffeehouse style.

Not the original lineup

JLo and Steven called him on that, but Randy made a big show about not liking it, which is fair. But pretending to have a contrary opinion only to do a switcheroo was a clumsy way to express himself.

FAB-U-LOUS!

Jimmy Iovine chose a Mary J Blige song for Joshua, which means two of his three songs were sung by female artists — it doesn’t do much for his hetero cred when judges and mentors keep choosing lady songs for him. I have no idea why he decided to wear a jacket with bedazzled shoulders for No More Drama, but he really needed a vintage rhinestone purse to complete the ensemble.

That’s where he keeps his beads.

In a rare vocal lapse, there were a couple of pitchy moments in the performance. Man, the hysterical gospel wailing at the end has just grown tired – it’s more annoying than virtuoso now. Just because he’s stroking out on stage doesn’t mean that he’s being real — it’s broadly theatrical and lacks genuine emotion. Steven said “it was over the top”, and he’s right except he meant it in some sort of good way, which it wasn’t.

Jimmy dusted off I’ll Be There for Jessica. And Jessica delivered another sound alike performance, mimicking Michael Jackson half the time. It was unexciting and uninteresting karaoke, but I was distracted by her skeletal legs. It was even worse when her skin tight black pants crossed in front of the brightly colored backdrop – that was visually disturbing on a Colton Dixon level.

Eat a cheesburger already!

Jimmy then dusted off another moldy oldy for Phillip, Bob Seeger’s We Got Tonight. The performance was odd, with Phillip sitting almost stock still on a stool while unconsciously rubbing his leg with his hand the entire time.

It’s like Mummenshanz with fondling

You couldn’t miss it since it was the only part of Phillip other than his mouth that was moving, and his long, pale hand against his dark pants accentuated it even more. As he slowly stroked his thigh, he started working his way from the outside towards his crotch as if to imply he was masturbating while singing the song directly to the fraus in the audience. I’m not sure why this closed the show — boring, plodding, and interminable, the fact that it got a standing ovation is even more mind-boggling than any Joshua has received. Randy called it his “best performance in this show ever” and claimed it was a “giant moment”. #RANDYTHERETARD. First off, Beggin’ was better than We Got Tonight, and secondly, last week’s Volcano was easily his best performance to date. Steven said he sounded like he “didn’t give a shit”, which was accurate, but again, he somehow meant it in a good way, which it wasn’t.

Still, with Jessica and Joshua faltering at this point and Phillip being the only one to deliver a single non-boring performance, the coronation is at hand. WGWG#5 is just a week away.

No singing required

Please Phillip, Don’t Hurt ‘Em

Two themes tonight, with songs related to California (bizarrely vague) and Songs You Wished You’d written (essentially a contestant’s pick). Then there were a few group numbers sprinkled in. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed a couple of the performances, and if Phillip was trending downward due to the perception that he was coasting with his guitar and whiteness and penis, he righted that ship in the choppy waters and it looks like it will be smooth sailing to the finale.

Phillip’s “California Dreamin’” song was Have You Ever Seen the Rain. Eh, this is kind of overdone on Idol lately – it would have been nice if he went a little out of the box and picked something like Hold On by Wilson Phillips.

Note: not the En Vogue song

He could have even gone further and picked You Can’t Touch This by Oakland rapper MC Hammer.

UNTOUCHABLE!

Instead of the obvious rainy backdrop that Casey Abrams got when he performed the same song last year, the set people decided to show incongruous scenes of people surfing.

Who will stop the reign of champion surfer Kelly Slater

Does it match the California Dreamin’ motif? Okay, yes. But it’s got zero to do with the song. It seems like they veer between way too obvious and headscratchingly WTF.

Random graphics are a sure sign of incompetence.

Hollie went for Journey’s Faithfully, where she tried her darndest to find the right notes. Halfway through the song she was still struggling mightily. Too much of it was below the sweet spot of her register, all done in the name of the last few glory notes. But because she was having so many problems with it, she didn’t blow out the glory notes like she needed to. I am baffled as to what the judges were praising — not only were the notes not there, the whole performance was rather robotic. But shaky performances won’t deter Hollie — she’ll take the hits and keep moving forward, probably because of her metallic endoskeleton.

The Holliebot-800

She’s terminated many highly touted singers, and while the conventional wisdom suggests that it’s her time to go home this week, it’s going to take more than shaky performances and bad critiques to extinguish the glow in her eye.

Probably closer with a younger Hugh

Plus, she sort of looks like another performer who ended up in the bottom and made his way back.

Is this a rerun?

Josh does Josh Groban, and I’m not a fan of the treacly puffery that is You Raise Me Up. Cue the gospel choir, cue the screechy runs — haven’t I seen this before? Oh yeah, EVERY FRIGGIN’ WEEK. Joshua is teetering on the verge of being skip-worthy. JLo said, “I think the whole world knows what I think of Joshua already”. You and me both, sister. You and me both. He ain’t fooling nobody.

Jessica claimed she kicked off her Idol journey at “a cattle call with thousands and thousands of other people”. Wow, that’s quite a whopper — Jessica is a reality competition show veteran who was on America’s Got Talent and was on the finalist list for X Factor before jumping ship to Idol — does anyone really think that she actually stood in line with thousands of other people to get weeded out by producers before seeing the judges? What disingenuous claptrap. Her rendition of Etta James’ Steal Away veered between accomplished and mannered — there was a “little girl pretending to be a woman” vibe that overwhelmed the better parts of the performance. She spent too much effort vamping it up, and the hammy cabaret came off like something I saw on Sonny & Cher decades past.

Better than the original!

Awkward duet take two — after last week’s terrible take on The Righteous Brothers, This Love actually cooked a bit, with Phillip able to hold his own vocally and Joshua actually showing some restraint by reigning in his tendency to go all OTT and sing his gospel face off. I’ve actually only liked a handful of performances all year, and this was one of them. And I don’t even particularly like the Maroon 5 version.

We’re swingers. As in, To Swing!

Distracting doesn’t even being to describe having the watch the first half of Jessica and Hollie’s duet, performed on left over Cirque Du Solieil props cum sex swings. Maybe the set designers are big fans of Fifty Shades of Grey. The performance of Eternal Flame was awful — none of the harmonies worked, and both of them kept making mistakes trading off verses. Jessica also showed off her tendency to get very pitchy and screechy when she sings with others.

Actually more entertaining than the performance — when Phillip and Joshua starting riding the swings behind the girls. I will say that I was impressed that they swung together in unison the entire time they were swinging.

Then we were treated to an extended commercial for Rock of Ages. Apparently, Adam liked the Idols so much he gave them a cameo.

Respect the cock.

We were introduced to co-star Juliana Hough, who is supposedly Ryan’s girlfriend.

At least the carpet matches the drapes.

Ryan did a protracted fake out marriage proposal, but he very casually name dropped another closet case by gushing over Tom Cruise instead. That was actually ballsy and hysterical on Ryan’s part – Joshua should take a cue from Ryan and get a sense of humor.

I won’t mention the horrible group sing. It was real shit.

Oh no, Jimmy is back. Ugh. After throwing Phillip under the bus week after week, it looks like Jimmy has decided to kill him with kindness instead, creating too high an expectation for his performance of Volcano.

And yet… Phillip blew it up on stage, crafting what was easily his best performance of the season and one of the top five vocals thus far. And I’m only fudging that in case I forgot something – I can’t think of a better performance all season. Just to reiterate, I think it’s a mistake to sing obscure songs because they tend to be forgotten by the audience, but Volcano was the kind of performance that was so good it makes me want to download the original. I could hear fraus melting and gushing in their couches all over the country — not that Phillip was really in any danger of not winning, but that just shot up his stock and turned him into a mortal lock.

Is she on fire?

I assumed Hollie would do well with I Can’t Make You Love Me, since she’s probably sung it a billion times in front of the mirror with a hairbrush for a microphone. But instead, it felt like warmed over Celine Dion, replete with a strings and OTT lighting effects. Technically it was nice, but it was a snoozy listen. Like Randy, I also thought that this was a bad song choice because it wasn’t the kind of song she can blow up — she might love the song and know it backwards and forwards, but it’s really not in her wheelhouse nor does it allow her to show off any vocal pyrotechnics. But in many ways, the judges’ bad critiques might actually help Hollie more than hurt her — worried fans and the ones who vote for the singers they feel sorry for might allow Hollie to eke out a top three berth.

Made from whitebread, of course.

If I were a betting man I’d say she’s toast, but if this season has been so weird and Hollie has been so resilient that I wouldn’t totally count her out just yet. Note that Hollie is actually the only girl who hasn’t been voted off – Jessica had to be saved to stay in the competition.

There’s no crying in James Brown

Joshua dedicated It’s a Man’s World, James Brown’s oddly sexist paean to women, to his mother (of course). Between that and slyly trying to get Jimmy’s number, Joshua blew some of the hetero cred he was trying to get from the song title. Yet another standing ovation for yet another screechy, OTT vocal. This is actually good for Hollie — viewers might think Joshua is safe and neglect to vote for him. Ryan tipped off the judges’ premeditated intentions by observing they couldn’t wait to stand up in the middle of the performance. Randy claimed that it was the best performance ever on any singing show. What a sickening and wholly inaccurate statement.

Still not a tulip

Ryan didn’t bother asking Josh what flower he was wearing tonight. Only his florist knows for sure.

Whatevia Fu

One of Joshua’s relatives lacked the kind of enthusiasm that loved ones normally exhibit in the face of a standing ovation. Instead of clapping, it looked like some sort of Shaolin Monk pose. Maybe it’s gotten old hat for her. It sure as shit gotten old for me.

Holy cow, Jessica started at 11 and then actually went to 12. I’m Telling You was an interesting contrast to Phillip’s performance of Volcano — instead of an intimate, heartfelt, and genuine vocal, Jessica delivered mannered, copycat bombast, with borrowed vocal tics and phrasings that ended up being a Jennifer Holliday/Jennifer Hudson pastiche with hardly any Jessica Sanchez to be found.

She might have torn into the song and chewed it up and spat it out, but no amount of stank faces makes that performance real to me — it’s technically up there, but I didn’t really like it much.

And who designed that silvery scaly dress JLo wore? It looked like it was patterned after salmon skin.

Mmm… sushi

Like Taking Down a 10 Point Buck

Snick-snack went the vorpal blade

The Gorgon Skylar is finally dead, yet another trophy for Phillip’s case. There was a lot of chatter about Phillip getting the boot on Thursday, most likely because he had the lowest DialIdol score. In yet another blow to its relevancy, not only did Phillip not go home, he wasn’t even in the bottom two while “safe” contestant Skylar was the biggest loser instead.

Jimmy Iovine and the judges criticized Jessica for her wardrobe choice, not because it showed off her emaciated figure, but because they thought it was too slutty. Jlo said that they all understood because they were in the biz, but “Middle America” might take it the wrong way. I’m surprised she didn’t use the term, “Fly Over Country”, as she clearly implied that there are a mass of people in this country too unsophisticated to accept a 16 year old girl with a penchant for form hugging micro-minis and stripper heels. I believe these people are called “parents” (at least, the ones not involved in Toddlers and Tiaras).

With the exit of Skylar, there are no longer any contestants I have a clear objection to, although Joshua’s stock is falling fast in my eyes. I will now pour salt into the wound by reposting my favorite Skylar chops:

Bye bye, thick boned, deer killing, crotch toucher!

Not a chop.

Crashing Back to Earth

I actually enjoyed many parts of last week’s show, so I was hoping Nigel & Co happened upon some winning formula and the season could ride itself out on a high note. But too bad, Jimmy Iovine is back this week. The thing I hate most about Jimmy is the undisguised cheerleading he gives to some contestants and the and the contempt he heaps on the contestants he doesn’t like. I don’t mind it when he does it on the results show, but to do it before the performance even happens seems like a desperate attempt influence voters. Even Simon Cowell waited until after the performance to critique it (even if it was from dress rehearsal notes). It also takes time away from the contestant pieces that are so much more entertaining.

After the pimp spot last week, Hollie goes first this week, and that’s not a good place for her since she just missed getting cut with the pimp spot. River Deep Mountain High is the song Pia picked last season as her non-ballad, and it was the last thing she ever sang on the show. So this is probably a bad decision on Hollie’s part. Of course, Pia was saddled with a cow print jumpsuit picked out by Gwen Stefani that was so baggy it looked like she had pooped in it.

Hollie’s dress with the pastel colored Triforce Shield design is much prettier and has a poop egress to boot.

The vocals were okay but rather soulless and robotic.

I’d probably make the same face if I had to stand next to Skylar.

Jimmy is constantly trying to throw Phillip under the bus, although I have to agree that his take on The Letter wasn’t very good. Amelodic and overindulgent, it came off like some Dave Matthews B Side.

The reason there’s a handheld shower shortage in the country.

If you want to know who’s digging this stuff, here’s your answer — a bunch of fraus and a gay dude. These folks will vote for Phillip no matter what he does on stage, because they’re voting for an idealized version of Phillip, not whatever he shits out as vocals.  I had theorized that the only way he can lose (other than a massive kidney stone attack) is to show off his non-English speaking supermodel girlfriend while he keeps talking about how he dislikes “fatties”.

A milder variant of this scenario came to rock the boat this week, as Ryan introduced Phillip’s girlfriend in the audience.  I don’t know which way this will go — the idealized Phillip is single, and a girlfriend makes him “taken” and could cause him to lose votes.  On the other hand, she’s pretty, but not too pretty, which may actually get him even more votes since he’s not looking to date supermodels. It’s up to Facebook and Twitter chatter to see what the real fallout is.

All in all, this girlfriend thing may prove to be problematic if the WGWG is to reign another year.

That’s a riff on Citizen Kane. Unfortunately, I have to explain this one.

I skipped Skylar again. But I did see a snippet of her singing in the recap, and she really should pay a bit more attention to her grooming.

Hey Skylar, this isn’t Parisian Idol

Hmm… Looks like someone is dyeing their hair.

Hey, is that Bob Ross playing the violin? Sad to say, Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards did You Lost That Loving Feelin’ better in Top Gun than the version Phillip and Joshua barfed out tonight. The “harmonies” were atrocious, and the total lack of energy or interest was the only thing I took away from the performance.

Some boys are icky.

At the end of the song, Phillip went to put his arm around Joshua, who rebuffed his advances. Hmm… either Phillip isn’t his type or he didn’t want to be tempted like that on national TV.

Manorexic poser Colton Dixon was booted a couple of weeks ago with no shot at the American Idol crown, but he may have also lost the Skeleton Idol crown to Jessica.

Is there a famine in San Diego I don’t know about?

In a tight bandage dress that showed off every sharp line and angle of her pelvic bone, Proud Mary was distracting to watch and hard to listen to. Just too screamy and growly, Jessica’s stiff movements made her look like some desiccated, reanimated mummy. Tina Turner, she is NOT.

Oh mighty ice ice ice ice ice

Maybe her Mighty Isis inspired dress would have been less Corpse Bride-like if she stuck with the loose miniskirt instead of the tight one.

The only entertaining part of Joshua’s performance (other than the New Edition-esque jacket) was when he sang, “I’m not ashamed to come” during Ain’t Too Proud to Beg. A rote and rather pedestrian rendition, it’s hard to believe that a singer of Joshua’s vocal prowess would go all out karaoke like that. In another attempt to create the illusion that Joshua straight, Ryan asked him to give the flower off his lapel to a girl in the audience, which he did begrudgingly. Being one of those savvy and experienced closeted guys, he pretended not to know what kind of flower it was. Ryan likewise pretended it was a tulip. Come on guys, I know you both know it was a daffodil.

And I only know because my wife told me. I guessed buttercup.

And now for the British part of the programme.

I unabashedly love Leona Lewis’ version of Bleeding Love. I thought Hollie might put some interesting twist to the song, but I have no idea why that thought crossed my mind since that would be counter to the entire Hollie Cavanagh oeuvre. What exactly is the point of Hollie really? She doesn’t really add anything to the songs she sings. It all sounds like inoffensive Muzak versions of whatever song she’s performing. Sure, the instrumental arrangement was a little different, but the vocals were exactly the same as the Leona Lewis version. It’s like a poor man’s remix of Bleeding Love — nice karaoke, but still, karaoke. Jlo admitted she didn’t know The Letter earlier, and Steven said that he did not know Bleeding Love. Which is the bigger sin? WHICH ONE?

I love the Zombie’s Time of the Season. Phillip Phillips‘ version? A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. He could not hit any of the high notes, and unfortunately, there were high notes a-plenty. Every time he sang, “for lo-ving”, part of me died inside.

Sooooo not the right note.

It’s hard to believe he repeated the notes he couldn’t hit over and over – it’s like he’s trying to get voted off.

Skylar was singing with Hollie and Jessica, so I skipped it.

I tried to watch Skylar singing Dusty Springfield, but I had to skip it after a few measures.

I’ve said this before, and Ill say it again – You Are So Beautiful is a greeting card sentiment stretched out into a song. The lyrics are, “You are so beautiful to me. You’re everything I’ve hoped for, you’re everything I need”. There are no other lyrics – that’s the entire freaking song.

Zzzzzzzz…

Jessica was pretty goddamned boring, and the the entire “performance” consisted of lounging around dry ice and candles.

Joshua said that “Jimmy and Stevie are like a bunch of teenage boys — mischievous”. AND SEXY, right Josh? Maybe Philip isn’t his type after all — maybe her prefers older, balder men.  Whatever it is, it sure isn’t Hollie, even though her aunt said that they “get along like a house on fire”.

She’s the home, he’s the flame

Yet another standing “O” from the judges for a plainly mediocre performance. Joshua is lapping the field for standing ovations from the judges this season. At this point, Joshua would merely have to take a shit on stage to receive a standing ovation.

This actually happened in dress rehearsal

Not only did he not deserve it, it appeared that the judges forced it. I mean, they have zero combined credibility anyway, but this is just beyond the pale. JLo actually said he was one of the best singers in 50 years. Mind boggling.