This week’s American Idol had a good theme (rock music), a questionable mentor (Slash can teach them to wear sunglasses? Maybe?), and a strong performance by Adam Lambert that was overpraised by the judges (he sang Led Zepplin very well, thank you, but he did not raise the ghost of John Bonham.)
Rock Week also featured a fair-to-middlin take on Janis Joplin from Allison Iraheta, who more than sparkled in her flirty, fun duet with Adam. (But seriously. A Foghat duet? Did Otto from The Simpsons choose that for them?)
Sadly, it seems my cutey-cute-cutester Kris Allen may have to take tomorrow’s stairway to heaven. He looked lost during his duet with Danny Gokey, and he’s just not aggressive enough to pull off such a spiky arrangement of “Come Together.” Since last week’s bottom three proved he’s vulnerable, I think the road stops here for the boy who turned the world on with his crooked smile.
But if there were any justice under heaven, then Danny Gokey would be bounced out the door on his fake, fake ass.
I’ll prove that claim… after the jump.
Let me put it this way: Danny’s massacre of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” was so breathtakingly horrid that Roommate Joe and I watched it twice.
The performance was bad for many reasons: The forced vocals, the lame attempts to copy Adam’s sexy stare, the off-key notes in the beginning. But there were two things that really made this a flaming monument to horror.
First, there were the utterly laughable “electric guitar noises” Danny made after the first chorus. Sure, sing along to the instrumental track when you’re playing pool, but don’t do it on a singing competition. The guitar-sing is so the opposite of cool that if it’s shopping at a bookstore where cool works, and cool is staffing one of the registers, and the guitar-sing buys The Joy of Cooking and pays for it at cool’s station, then reaches for the book after cool rings it up, then accidentally touches cool in the process… the physical contact will cause the world to swallow itself, leaving nothing but blackness and dust. That is how much singing along to the guitar part on live television is the opposite of cool.
But you know what’s worse? That last sound Danny made. As Roommate Joe pointed out, anyone who has ever said Adam’s “shrieking” is unbearable should now at least acknowledge that Adam’s violent notes are still notes. What Danny did wasn’t “scream-singing.” It was actual screaming, paired with a bogus crouch to the ground, designed to imitate passion or awesomeness or whatever.
I mean… my God. The only person who loved that inhuman noise has got to be Paula Abdul, because when she performs her new computer program… er, song… tomorrow night, her voice will sound better by comparison.
Yet I’m not expecting Danny to get voted off. He’s seduced too many people with his ersatz charm, to the point that even the judges soft-pedaled their critiques.
Oh, that he were the out-front favorite! That might inspire a backlash. Instead, an out-of-his-element-but-still-decent Kris will likely leave us, while Shrieky McYellowell will grimace into the camera for another day.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Gonzalo // May 6, 2009 at 1:30 am
I agree with you 100%. Danny’s performance was truly atrocious. How on earth is he on the top 4? While I understand your prediction for tomorrow, I’m still hoping with all my heart that Danny goes home.
By the way, how cute were Allison and Adam together?
2 Mark Blankenship // May 6, 2009 at 1:54 am
A+A were SO cute together! Can’t you just hear their rocking cover of “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” by Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks?
3 ferretrick // May 6, 2009 at 8:19 am
That Gokey performance went way beyond making my ears bleed. It was more like those people that exploded in that one episode of Fringe.
Unfortunately, truly God awful performances have a tendency to mobilize that contestants fanbase to save them, so I doubt Danny is going home. I think it could be Allison OR Kris-I think Kris had more of a fanbase going in, so he might skate through. If Allison does make it through, she owes Adam because that duet saved her butt after that forgettable cover of “Cry, Baby.”
But, in years to come, people will remember this as one of the worst Idol performances ever.
4 Rube Goldberg // May 6, 2009 at 11:53 am
My favorite part of this performance was when the camera was on Paula totally rocking out, pumping her fist to the repetitions of “dream on, dream on” until the Voice-of-God-from-Dogma thing happened. About five seconds later there’s a crane shot where you can see that Paula has taken her seat and a couple moments later a shot of her face that looks like she wants her money back.
If Kris does get voted out tonight (which I really, REALLY hope doesn’t happen) I could see there being backlash from his fanbase that would keep Danny out of the finals. This is one of those weeks where I am actually looking forward to the results show to see what happens. Ooo! Especially if Danny does somehow get the boot — then he’ll have to do his sing-out of “Dream On”.
5 K. // May 6, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I didn’t watch last night, but damn, that shit was a MESS. As you say, at least Adam screams in TUNE. That was straight-up “I am being murdered” screaming. And you can tell he has no awareness – he totally thought he was being badass. Nothing says badass like a pinstriped vest.
I like Kris, but if he goes tonight it will mean I’ve predicted the last four boots correctly (which really isn’t hard; this is the least suspenseful season in recent memory).
6 jkc // May 6, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Approximately two hours after Danny screamed, my toilet started gurgling like the one in Kevin Smith’s Dogma (where the shit monster makes its appearance). The toilet overflowed and the tub backed up. My plumber insists it was a backed up line, but I think it was something more sinister. The seal Shack always mentioned in his recaps at TWoP has finally been opened.
7 Linda // May 6, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Fortunately for me, as much as I adore Roommate Joe, Danny Gokey sounding ridiculous doesn’t have anything to do with Adam Lambert being irritating. I can dislike both!
8 ferretrick // May 7, 2009 at 8:40 am
Just watched the results show. Sometimes I hate being right all the time.
9 Mark Blankenship // May 7, 2009 at 10:34 am
The results show was sadly predictable. Except… really… who could have predicted that Gwen Stefani would dress up like the 1996 version of herself and remind us about “Just a Girl?” It was almost surreal.
10 Gonzalo // May 7, 2009 at 11:48 am
Nooo, Allison, nooooo!! As predictable as it may have been that Danny was going to stay (WHY?), I was still hoping it wouldn’t come to this. Or that it would be Kris to go, since his performance was a bit anemic in comparison.
Then again, the fact that Allison survived to get to 4th place when the producers and judges were so clearly against her is quite a miracle. Hopefully we can all make up for this tremendous mistake by buying lots of copies of her (sure to be) awesome album.
Yeah, 1996 No Doubt was a bit surreal. Maybe the island was *swoosh*ing them through time? Oh, wait, that’s the other show going on at the same time. Still, I kinda loved the randomness of Gwen doing push-ups.
11 If Adam Lambert Fails to Win American Idol, Is America Homophobic? « Clyde Fitch Report // May 7, 2009 at 7:07 pm
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