Strangely Socialised

So not only did I leave off posting about this episode until the day of the next one, I left off watching it. I’ve got a hundred and one excuses, but mostly I was just way way too busy to stop packing up my apartment (or packing in my apartment as the case may be) to spend an hour watching the songs of Shania Twain. Yeah, no regrets. :) Only that I’m having to catch up now.

Shania Twain mentors the Idols singing her songs, and…does she even have enough songs for this, really? Possibly not the most brilliant choice, but I guess there are only six of them.

Mike Lynche: “It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing”
He starts out sitting on the stairs and his voice wavers a little and it’s just a weak opening if you ask me. (I know better than to watch him while listening but, well, performance matters.) Generally I like his voice, but I’m not enjoying this performance all that much.

Aaron Kelly: “You’ve Got a Way”
Okay, here’s the truth. I’m just never going to like (high school student) Aaron Kelly. There’s just nothing about him that I enjoy. I feel a little bit bad about that, but there it is. That said, this might be my favourite performance of his (until the end, anyway; not everything needs a glory note). I don’t like it more than I like other people, but as far as Aaron Kelly songs go, it was good. (Okay, awkward moment when he says he was singing it to his mom, though.)

Siobhan Magnus: “Any Man of Mine”
Okay, she’s doing a straight up country version of this, which I don’t think is a smart choice. Her voice is kind of shaky, which I’m not used to with Siobhan, and she’s not singing it in the best key for her, I think. And the Siobhan Wail was just not necessary here. I didn’t hate it, but I’ve heard her do so much better, (She looks so cute, though.) It should be said that the judges dug it hardcore.

Crystal Bowersox: “No One Needs to Know”
Apparently this song is a big ol’ hint to her boyfriend. Well then. She sounds fine but this is a little anemic as far as performance goes. There’s about zero energy to the whole thing, and she’s just sort of sleepwalking through it. And I kind of think she knew it, too. The judges were very lukewarm, but in the vein of “it wasn’t the best for you, but you’re always awesome.”

Lee DeWyze: “Still The One”
Is it just me or is he starting to look more comfortable on stage? His voice has really grown on me, but I found this performance a little shouty and strained. It was serviceable, but since I know he can do better I was a little disappointed by it. The judges salivate over it, though, which isn’t as huge a surprise as when they wet themselves over Aaron Kelly every week.

Casey James: “Don’t”
Oh wow, this really does showcase his voice more than anything else he’s done. It’s kind of got a little country twang to it tonight, but just like a little lean in that direction, not a full step away from who he is. I liked it quite a bit. Not as much as Jealous Guy, but ahead of everything else he (and pretty much everyone else) has done.

So no one was a train wreck, actually. Which is kind of nice, but also boring, because no one was spectacular either.

Because I didn’t watch the show until today, I voted in my weekly pool completely blind. I picked Mike, Aaron and Siobhan for the bottom three with Mike finally (finally!) leaving and…had I watched the show on time I actually would’ve done the exact same thing. I would’ve been just as wrong, but I would’ve done it

The bottom three turn out to Mike, Siobhan and Casey with Siobhan going home. And…Casey, what? Siobhan leaving? Seriously, what do we have to do to get rid of Big Mike? Sorry guy, but your time is up. Actually, it was up the first time you were eliminated. Judges’ Save for the lose.

I have a headache and of course there’s all kinds of drama about the choice for mentor next week (I’d explain why I think it’s not a great choice even though I love the pants off Adam Lambert and think he’ll actually be a good mentor, but see: headache) so I’m just going to jump straight to the performances.

Aaron Kelly: “The Long and Winding Road”

This starts out all wrong and just stays that way. I’m kind of hard pressed to find anything right about it. Questionable song choice (it doesn’t play to his strengths and, what’s more, it was performed previously by David Archuleta who Aaron is trying to avoid comparisons to), shaky vocals and difficulty staying on key. Honestly the whole thing just sounds weak, both in emotion and in vocals, and I actually flinched when he kept holding that awful last note.

Ellen tells him it was a big song to take on, but it’s Lennon/McCartney. They’re all big songs to take on.

Lee Dewyze: “Hey Jude”

You don’t expect the train wreck to be the last song of night. But wow did this go off the rails, and fast. He barely even sang, leaving the melody to his back-up singers, and then the bagpiper arrived, and…what? Really? I’m not even sure what that was. Admittedly, I was entertained, but wow, no.

(I was trying not to, but I do have to invoke the name of Kris Allen here who performed this song wonderfully on the Idols summer tour. I, unlike the Idol judges, can’t avoid invoking the name of Kris Allen because three of the nine songs tonight had previously been performed by Kris Allen either on or associated with the show. One of them just a few weeks ago.)

Andrew Garcia: “Can’t Buy Me Love”

I’ll be honest, I missed most of this performance. I was peeling potatoes, which it turns out was probably a better use of this time. I returned in time to hear a seriously botched note, though I sort of liked his arrangement of the song, so that’s what I’m basing his placement on. The judges are basically lukewarm on it, and from other reviews I’ve seen it didn’t go over particularly well in general.

Michael Lynche: “Eleanor Rigby”

I did not like this performance. I generally like Mike’s voice, if not his style, but this came across as barely competent to me. And this is another song that’s had a previously iconic performance on Idol—two years later David Cook’s cover of Eleanor Rigby is still a staple on my iPod. It definitely suffers in comparison, but aside from that, the vocal was just rough. Probably my least favourite performance of Mike’s.

Katie Stevens: “Let It Be”

What on earth would possess you to perform a song that had just been performed on your season of the show by last season’s winner? The good news is that it was probably her best vocal performance, technically speaking. The bad news is that it was completely lacking in nuance and had only scraps of emotion. No, it wasn’t as pageanty as her previous performances, but I’m not in that desperate place yet where I’m calling competent performances “excellent”.

Tim Urban: “All My Loving”

Holy shit, Tim Urban, my world is askew. That was…cute. That was fun. That was exactly in your vocal range. Second best song choice of the night, and seriously a brilliant move. Legitimately enjoyable.

And I’ll admit I laughed when Randy said “it was a good Tim performance” but that was really kind of a shitty thing to say and I’m glad Simon called him on it. The judges seem as baffled as I am. You know I enjoy Tim Urban and think he’s probably a really great person, but I never expected to be a fan of one of his performances.

Siobhan Magnus: “Across the Universe”

The thing about hitting those notes she hit softly? That’s really fucking hard. Since the first time I really heard her I’ve marvelled at her complete control over those notes, (almost) always hitting them dead on without ever struggling to find the note. I thought this performance was really beautiful, and a gorgeous interpretation of the song. It’s not my favourite of Siobhan’s performances, but bringing it down like this was exactly what she needed to do tonight.

Crystal Bowersox: “Come Together”

First of all, thank you Crystal for avoiding the setup to capitalise on your illness. Much appreciated.

And here we have Kris song number three, though I’ll admit it’s not my favourite Idol song of his and it only really got epic when he started performing it on tour. If it was anyone other than Crystal I would probably be frowning but I trust her with her performance and interpretation skills.

That said, this isn’t Crystal’s best performance. She fumbles a little bit and her vocal wasn’t as confident as we usually hear it. I also feel like the backup singers kind of took away from this performance rather than adding anything to it. The didgeridoo is pretty awesome, though.

I accidentally burnt my dinner to stay to listen to it, though, so take that how you will.

It kind of says something about the general mediocrity of tonight that Crystal is placing second in my rankings with this performance. There were only one or two train wrecks, but only one song that blew me away, too. Everyone else was somewhere in the middle.

Casey James: “Jealous Guy”

I’ve never been ashamed of my love of Casey James, but before now it was always because of his potential. Tonight is when it all came together. It was a great song choice and a great performances. I will confess a few of the notes got bleaty, but overall it just killed. Absolutely my favourite performance of his, and my favourite of the night.

It’s getting harder and harder to call out the bottom three and the eliminated contestant. I’m going with Lee, Tim and Aaron in the bottom three, and Aaron for the elimination. Tim doesn’t deserve to be there at all, but I’m committed to my assertion that he will be in the bottom three every single week he’s in the competition.

It could just as easily be Andrew in the bottom three and going home instead of Aaron, though. In fact, the more I think about it, the more likely that seems, but I’m not going to second guess the choices I made last night. And honestly, tonight might be the night we get a shocker and have Siobhan hit the bottom three, but no way is she going home.

They try to do a serious shot of the guys as they introduce them at the start of the show, but none of them seem to be able to keep a straight face but Todrick. I kind of like them more for that. I mean, if you take all of this melodrama seriously, you’re just going to drive yourselves nuts.

That said, they should probably practice a little, because at the end of this season someone’s going to have to say “I’m going to Disney World” and look like they mean it if they want a sweet hunk of cash.

There’s an ongoing thing the whole show about Simon not knowing what a “binky” is. Yeah, that’s an almost exclusively American term. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? If I hadn’t been in fandom with Americans for many, many years I wouldn’t have known either.

Lee Dewyze kicks things off singing Owl City’s “Fireflies” and oh my god, Lee, what’s with the terrible and generic song choices you keep making? If you sing Nickelback next week, I’m disowning you. [ Spoiler: next week's theme is not, mercifully, The Songs of Nickelback ] I do like listening to the guy sing, but I’d like to hear him sing something good.

Randy thinks he made the song his own, and all I can think is, why would he want to? Generally they’re all liking it, in a kind of a generic way, but Simon at least says he thinks Lee’s better than that.

Alex Lambert sings “Trouble” by Ray LaMontagne, and I’ll be honest, I think Alex is growing (or as Ellen would put it “ripening”) very nicely, but I had concerns that he just didn’t have the experience to pull off this song. That said, though, I think he sounds great on it, and he might be this young and innocent guy but when he sings this you feel. He’s really going to be something to see when he finishes growing into himself.

The judges want him to loosen up more on stage, but they love his voice, which is a pretty fair assessment all in all. Ellen is still on her banana metaphor, but she’s on board with me that he’s just consistently getting better and better each week.

Tim Urban, this season’s cockroach, sings Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and I am utterly horrified that someone has allowed him to sing this song. The worst thing is, he’s not terrible. He’s just not good. He’s singing well within his limited range and it’s just okay, there are no dynamics to it and I don’t feel a connection. This is not a song you can sing without a connection. You don’t have to have the best voice in the world—hell, just look at Leonard Cohen—but you’ve got to get it.

The judges, inexplicably, lap it up. Ellen gets up on stage and hugs him. My god, are you serious right now? Actually, it’s not inexplicable. Compared to his previous performances, that must have sounded like genius.

I’m actually angry at the judges reaction here, which okay, maybe is a little irrational. But this guy should’ve been gone the past two weeks. I’m resentful he’s still singing at all, let alone a song that I feel so connected to. (It’s a Canadian thing.)

Andrew Garcia sings next with “Genie in a Bottle” by Christina Aguilera. When I heard he was singing Christina I thought he was for sure doing “Beautiful” and I was actually looking forward to it because I was imagining something like Elvis Costello’s cover. His Genie, though, is just awkward. It’s competent, and he does his thing, but I really don’t want to hear Andrew Garcia singing about us rubbing him in any way, much less the right way.

He’s obviously trying to recapture “Straight Up”, and the way the judges won’t let it go I can’t blame him, but it’s becoming more and more evident that he just does the one thing well, and mining another magical moment from rearranging all of his songs in the same way is going to be a hard sell.

Randy thinks it was a good idea that didn’t quite work—I question the “good idea” part of that—but then he talks relevantly about how the song doesn’t have a lot of range. Simon said it was a bit desperate, which it was, but again, it’s easy to see why he’d go that route trying to recapture what they saw in him in Hollywood.

Naked Casey Casey James sings “You’ll Think of Me” by Keith Urban, and I just really like watching him perform and listening to him play. There’s something just inherently musical about this guy. Of all of them—or of all of the guys, anyway—he’s the one I can see doing this all the time, even when he’s not on the Idol stage.

Randy thinks he was very good but it was a safe choice—which I think is what they’re all thinking—and I agree. But he did it well, and that counts for a lot too. I want to see him take some chances too, but after last week I think he just wanted to get up there and sing something well to remind everyone that he can.

And I honestly think that Kara got a huge, huge talking-to about the Casey James situation, because there’s been pretty much no hint of it the past couple of weeks, and it’s just not like them to let something like that go without a fight.

Aaron Kelly sings Lonestar’s “I’m Already There” and he sings it badly. Like, train wreck badly. I’ve never pretended I didn’t think this guy was kind of fake and a little out of his league, but I always felt like he would do decently if he followed in the country vein. After this, though, maybe I was wrong about that, because he was weak and shaky and off-key throughout the whole thing.

The judges are so mixed on this performance. It’s really good, it’s not terrific, it’s too much song, it’s the right song, and so on. Kara talks about how the theme of the song is not relevant to a sixteen-year-old’s life at all, making it difficult to connect with, and although Simon makes the argument that you don’t need to relate to the song to emotionally connect to it, I think Kara has the right point here. It was just not the right choice for him, and he did not do it well. Two strikes.

Hoo boy. So Todrick Hall tackles Queen, “Somebody to Love”, and I brace myself for an absolute disaster. I brace myself for sacrilege. And…it wasn’t terrible. He actually sang the song. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t really enjoy it, and if you’re going to sing the song mostly straight like that then you’re going to be compared unfavorably to Freddie (which is the danger of choosing this song in the first place, it’s kind of no win), but it wasn’t a complete disaster. I think the judges are going to love it.

Sadly, I’m right.

They thought it was great singing and a brave choice. Simon calls him out as a Broadway singer (which in this case I think it wouldn’t have been an insult at all if he hadn’t followed it up with “and not a recording artist), but says at least he made an attempt to do something with it.

And to close things we have Michael Lynche singing “This Woman’s Work”, originally by Kate Bush. I’m so not happy with this song choice, which seems like such a manipulative choice after what he sang last week. I understand the choice, but I don’t like it. He can sing, make no mistake, but I’m just not happy. I don’t feel like I can be completely objective. Also, I think his falsetto is kind of unpleasant.

But the judges, holy shit, the judges are about ready to jizz all over him. Kara. Is. Crying. Simon calls it the best performance on the live shows so far.

To be fair, there hasn’t been a lot of competition so far, but I still kind of want some of whatever they’re on because that’s some hardcore shit.

So the boys, from best to worst: Casey James, Alex Lambert, Michael Lynche, Lee Dewyze, Tim Urban, Andrew Garcia, Todrick Hall, Aaron Kelly.

So like the girls, logically it would be Todrick and Aaron going home, but I feel like maybe Andrew’s time is up. I’m going to guess Andrew and one of those two. Let’s say Todrick, even though I’d actually prefer Aaron.