by Chip Letzgus
Greetings, Idolovers— But why would anyone be an “Idol” lover after tonight’s joyless show? A passel of uninspired performances critiqued by judges who at times were excessively cruel—if this had been the first time I’d seen “American Idol,” I would probably have decided not to tune in again. Where’s the fun in that? A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, though, so . . . in order of appearance . . .
CRYSTAL BOWERSOX—Long As I Can See the Light—1 / 95
You would never know from Crystal’s performance that she had been hospitalized 24 hours earlier, reportedly with complications from diabetes. (I’ve done a little research, and learned that periodontal disease can be a side effect of Type 1 diabetes, and that explains everything, doesn’t it?) Crystal was clearly in the moment when she sang, and gave her gospel-tinged arrangement an authentic, heartfelt, spontaneous interpretation. The judges were at their pretentious worst. Randy Jackson said something about reality TV and then made this pronouncement: “Truth is reality.” He then went on a tear about Crystal being true, or real, or on TV, or something. His nonsensical soliloquy was nothing compared to Simon Cowell’s critique, wherein Simon invoked the mangled English of George Bush himself: “I totally misunderestimated you.” To which I can say only, “Simon, I totally misoverestimated you.”
HAELEY VAUGHN—The Climb—10 / 82
Haeley, taking the judges’ comments from last week to heart, vowed before her performance to “try not to smile so much.” Not a particularly wise choice, since “The Climb” is an optimistic anthem during which smiling is entirely appropriate. So Haeley didn’t smile, but she also didn’t yodel, either, which kind of balanced things out. She went off pitch a couple of times, and then a couple more times, and that lisp was still there. Still, it was better than last week, and not “excruciating,” as the judges put it.
LACEY BROWN—Kiss Me—9 / 85
Lacey’s vocal was so weak at the very beginning of the song that I was afraid she would completely fall apart. Part of that is the quality of her voice itself: it’s somewhere between wispy and hollow, and by “hollow” I mean like a wind instrument. Lacey’s is not a particularly strong voice, but it is different sounding. I can imagine her having been very popular in the 1960s alongside Petula Clark, Lulu and Dusty Springfield. Lacey was still nervous, as evidenced by her constant tossing of the mic from one hand to the other, and the fact that the performance overall was just not particularly big, enthusiastic, theatrical or memorable. Oh, and she kept mispronouncing the title line in the song: It’s “kiss me,” sweetheart, not “kess me.”
KATIE STEVENS—Put Your Records On—6 / 88 Katie and Lacey should have switched songs: In her pre-performance interview, the 17-year-old Katie revealed that she knows how to say “give me a kiss” (or maybe “give me a kess”) in six languages. This little trollop has the face of Valerie Bertinelli and the libido of Paris Hilton. She also has a voice several decades more mature than her real age, which seems to be a sticking point for the judges. They know how old she is, and want her to sing age-appropriate songs, unlike Feelin’ Good, which she tackled last week. So to appease them, tonight Katie sang . . . a song about records, which of course have not existed for the last 25 years. In the loony world of “American Idol,” evidently this qualified as “contemporary.” Katie demonstrated a nice soprano when she went into her upper register, and to me that was revelatory: She needs to be in musical theater, not in the pop-rock-folk-funk-R&B-soul mess that is “American Idol.” Ryan Murphy should sign her up for a role on Glee—she’d be the only one in the cast young enough to actually be in high school.
DIDI BENAMI—Lean on Me—8 / 86
DiDi’s secret is that, before performances, as a vocal warm-up exercise, she meows. What does she do after performances? Cough up a hairball? Poor DiDi was pitchy right off the bat tonight, and when she got to the middle of the song, she went wailing. By the end of the number she had reined it all in somewhat, but it was too late. Just the same, I thought the judges were unnecessarily cruel to her. She meows. You should be nice to your pussy.
MICHELLE DELAMOR—With Arms Wide Open—7 / 87
Michelle Delamor—whose name, you know, translates literally as “My Crustacean of Love”—was wearing the strangest things, these little half-gloves that barely came down to the ends of her fingers and left her palms bare and exposed. And that was just the beginning. She was also wearing this white miniskirt-length petticoat, on the outside of her jeans. The whole look was crazed, so of course the judges loved it. Kara and Simon loved the performance, too, though I’m not sure why. To me, Michelle is just another in a long line of “American Idol” R&B diva wannabes, a screamer who doesn’t have much hope of placing even as high as Syesha Mercado did a couple of years ago. What’s the point?
LILLY SCOTT—Long Time Coming—2 / 94
What America doesn’t know about Lilly Scott, according to her up-close-and-personal, is that she plays all kinds of musical instruments . . . including the Hohner melodica! It’s a little mouth organ with a keyboard, and you blow into it, and it makes harmonica-like sounds.
Well, what America doesn’t know about me is that I, too, once played the Hohner melodica! It was the first organ I ever blew. And so perhaps you can understand why I am a bit biased toward Lilly. It’s the Hohner melodica—and the G-clef she has tattooed on her left arm, which I am totally jealous of.
Lilly accompanied herself tonight on the twelve-string guitar, which you could hear her strumming in the recap clip at the end of the show much better than you could when she was performing live. Unnecessary instrument aside, Lilly gave a really good performance. The baby-doll tone she affected at the beginning was sly and deceptive, and as she gradually built the song the baby-doll voice disappeared and Lilly cut loose. There were a couple of vocal scoops that seemed forced, but then vocal scoops—those sudden dips that Ethel Merman used to do on lines like “Who could ask for anything mah-ore?”—always seem forced. Overall, this was clearly one of the night’s best performances—and from a girl who knows what a Hohner melodica is. Imagine that.
KATELYN EPPERLY—The Scientist—5 / 90
Ah, our first pianist of the season! Katelyn accompanied herself on the white Yamaha baby grand, and although she was off-key at first, future “Idol” contestants should watch her performance: She’s one of the few who’s ever known how to look down at the piano keys at precisely the right moment—not between lyric lines, but just before the end of a lyric line, so that she could maintain eye contact during the pause. As Simon might have said, it was “a mahster clahss” in interpreting the lyric, playing the piano and working the camera simultaneously.
Unfortunately, all of this technical brilliance was in the service of the slowest arrangement of the slowest song I have ever heard in my life. I hope Katelyn survives another week so we can see her apply her vocal and keyboard talents to something with a resting heartbeat above 12.
PAIGE MILES—Walk Away—4 / 91
I had no idea, while Paige was performing, that this song was “written” by Kara Digaditchortwo and recorded by Kelly Clarkson, although “written” has a different meaning today than it did back in my day, when Stephen Foster was at both the ivories and the inkwell. Kara revealed the truth during her critique, when she said something to the effect of, “When Kelly was there and we were all in the room writing the song . . .” It’s done by committee now, with singer, composer, lyricist, producer, sound engineers and the stray janitor all contributing a little something, with all of them getting ASCAP royalties as “songwriters” afterwards.
Kara’s point was that this group of people was trying to create a song for Kelly Clarkson in which the singer was angry with an ex-boyfriend, from whom she was “walking away,” and that Paige should therefore not have smiled while singing the song and should have displayed more anger in her interpretation.
Paige rightly defended herself, explaining that she had once been in a bad relationship and was thinking as she sang of how happy she was to be out of it. There was no mollifying Kara, though, who completely undid what little credibility she ever had by insisting that there was only one appropriate emotion to project for that song—and this after over a year of her exhorting contestants to change songs to make them their own. Well, yes, as long as it’s not one of her songs.
What a crock.
Anyway: my problem with this performance was the arrangement. Paige should have slowed down the verse so that we could grasp the situation being set up by the lyric, and then cut loose in the chorus. But of course the song wasn’t written that way; it was intended to be fast and furious. Kara should have complimented Paige on her staying true to the breakneck pace, even though that meant Paige’s enunciation wasn’t good enough for the audience to understand what in the hell was going on.
If Paige—who has a powerful voice and a wide range—had started bluesy and ended up frenetic, I would have totally gotten it. Kara would have had apoplexy, but I would have loved it.
SIOBHAN MAGNUS—Think—3 / 93
Last week, Siobhan—the kind of mannish glassblower from Cape Cod—came dressed as a 1940s supper-club singer. Tonight she was more Betty Anderson from Father Knows Best—lots of dark blue with polka dots. You gotta give her credit for her range.
The judges went crazy for this performance, mostly because of a high note that Siobhan hit and held impressively toward the end of the number. I found it screechy. Well, no, honestly, I found it more than screechy. If she had held it much longer, Chileans in the audience would have started running for cover, afraid their government was warning them that the tsunamis were coming back. But at least she hit that air-raid warning on pitch; there were high notes she couldn’t reach starting early on, before the arrangement modulated up a half step, which really gave her some trouble.
But it was energetic—I’ll give her that. Energy and confidence are all that are needed to propel people to the top of this sorry pack of contestants we’re stuck with this year.
The sorry pack will be reduced by four on Thursday night, and although I would prefer to see Haeley and Lacey go, I think it will be Haeley and DiDi who will be lisping and meowing their way home less than 24 hours from now.
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