Ah Wednesday's. Named after the mythical Welsh god Woden. From what I can deduce, he was into humping. Which is why they named this day after him. Who the balls knows.
So... as you can imagine, on the eve of the first elimination of the American Idol's 8th season, I felt compelled to m'blog. I've been offering musings on Idol for nigh on 4 seasons now via my blog, so it just didn't seem right to abandon that tradition the way 60% of this season's female contestants have abandoned their children (for, at most, a span of 12 weeks... any way...)
Which brings me to my first point... what is with the gaggle of young mothers this season? And not just in the finals - the ratio in the finals is actually quite on point with the number the dozen or so that were in the semi-finals, and furthermore, the hundreds in the preliminaries... okay... maybe that's an exaggeration... but still!
Anyballs... this is what I make out of last night/this season so far...
In order of appearance.
Lil Rounds... Don't think I need to tell you that I love her on sheer principle. I'm kind of predisposed to love sassy, quirkily-named, animated black chicks who are both generously voiced and generously buttock'd. That would be one Lil Rounds to a tee. She'll fill this season's requiste-black- diva-who-sails-to-the-second-runner-up-position quite nicely... although she's not as vocally blessed as others who've filled that role before her (think: Kimberley Locke, Vonzell Solomon, Melinda Doolittle), she's got delivery, poise and moxie to more than make up for it. Expect her to stick around for a while... well, until precisely the Top 3, as I just said.Scott McIntyre... is blind and don't you forget it, asshole. This season has well established itself as THE season of the backstory and Scott is its poster boy - his intro clip package literally ran for a milisecond before he said "I've been blind since birth...". His vocals are middling at best... reminiscent of a young Christopher Cross (some dead fucking sexy stuff here, people...) BUT HE'S BLIND, SO YOU HAVE TO VOTE FOR HIM!!! Methinks this going to be one bumpy ride we're in for with him... think Sanjaya, but with an actual physical disability.
If Danny Gokey wasn't a.) a dead wife pity-monger b.) a Jesus freak and c.) actually named "Danny Gokey", I think I'd like him. He's got a great voice - a perfectly palatable growl reminiscent of a young Michael Bolton (which I actually mean as a compliment... I do enjoy the Bolton from time to time...) and an unassuming charisma about him. Unfortunately items a.), b.) and c.) still stand. So no fucking dice. Meh. Pending a Chris Sligh-esque flameout in the next couple of weeks, expect him to go far.
Michael Sarver... would last a lot longer if he succumbed to stereotype and went country. Instead he's just another Color-Me-Badd-esque R&B-warbling wigger about 15 years too late. He probably delivered the best performance he could have hoped for last night, and should stave off elimination for one week and one week only... but m'afraid he's back to the oil rigs after that. Which is apparently the most dangerous job ever, or something.
Jasmine Murray... has the face that Li'l Kim had initially envisioned at the onset of her plastic surgery. I'm convinced of it. And her mother is the hottest tranny I've ever laid eyes upon. She's got about all the potential in the world - a potentially great voice, a potentially great look, a potentially great performance style - but it's all undercooked at this point. And considering the fact that she wasn't actually voted IN to the competition in the first place, things are looking pretty grim for her tonight...Kris Allen... is fine, if you like that sort of thing. I think he's terribly nondescript and doesn't even give me half a boner. He rode the heartthrob wave into the finals (snatching that position away from much better-singing, boner-inducing candidates... Ricky Braddy, natch) on an exceptionally impressive vocal showing, and I guess he's now trying to carve out his niche as some sort of Jason Mraz tribute act... something, I fear, might just work to his advantage. Blah!
Allison Iraheta... (or "Allison Mojito", as I've called her for the past couple of weeks completely unaware of what her actual last name was, just knowing it was something Latin) is the hottest bitch alive. FOR REAL - she's only 16? NUTS. Her voice is RIDICULOUS (think present-day, lived-in Pink), she works the stage masterfully and is wonderfully unguarded (in response to Simon telling her she needs to lighten up: "It's not like I cut myself or anything!")... AMAZING. I both hope and expect she goes far...
Anoop Desai... is set to benefit off America's Slumdog-mania about a million times more than any of those child actors who were actually IN the movie will... I can tell you THAT for free... Seriously. Does American Idol seriously need an everyman every season? Could we not do without the nerdy kid who can kind of carry a tune and "oh, good for him! GO AMERICAN DREAM!" for ONE season? No. I guess we can't. Expect this to go south... and FAST!
Jorge Nunez... will be in for at LEAST three more weeks based solely on the votes he gets from the members of his extended family who were gathered around his television for his intro-clip package. He's got a good voice... reminiscent of a young Marc Anthony (and I'm not just "meh... who's a Spanish singer?"-generalizing when I say that!)... but is increasingly uneasy to watch and look at... I'd bet on him making a Bottom 3 visit tonight...
Megan Corkrey... has the most solid reason for becoming a teenage mother I've ever heard: she couldn't get into her high school musical. Or something like that, BASICALLY. But yeah - perhaps showing her dissolve into tears explaining her separation anxiety during her intro package wasn't the greatest case to be made about why you should vote for her, but I guess we'll see... She's quirky. Bjork-meets-Hilary Duff. She looks like Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls. She's definitely going to be the pretty girl who's in the Bottom Three for 4 consecutive weeks before she's ultimately sent packing...
Adam Lambert... is a good old fashioned over-bronzed power bottom and I say more power to him! I do kind of feel like he's a bit of a Chris Kattan-character, and I'm far from feelin' the fuck out of his voice, but ever since those photos of him tonguing another dude came out, I'm all aboard his train. And the judges seem to be championing him, too. So that's a good thing. I'm super hoping that he actually does something brashly faggy and provacative and makes a statement...Matt Giraud... is really nothing spectacular. Don't be fooled. He's worked very hard at affecting himself with all the trappings of a Robin Thicke-esque neo-soul man, but as the all-over-the-place-ness of his performance demonstrated, he lacks the musicality. Expect the cracks to start showing as the weeks trapse on...
Alexis Grace... is maybe better than I thought she was. That was downright Pat Benetar-ian last night! Good on her! The judges apparently spend all their boner juice, because they were nonplussed - which was bullshit. She did quite a nice little job on it. Another front runner!
I'm going to call the bottom three as being Jasmine, Jorge and Megan, although I'm sure I'm wrong about it. There are 13 of them. It's kind of a crapshoot at this point. I'd like to think that with all the overlap of ghastly R&B-singing white dudes, at least one of them bottoms out...
Beyond that, apparently there's some sort of twist happening - I'm 99% certain that the judges will throw down some sort of sing-off and decide who stays and who goes. Which will be SCANDALOUS.
Meh.
Later,
--- Aj
