Standing in the Shadow of Smokey

[jlh]

Right, so I was at dinner, and missed Matt and Kris, so had to wait til I came home to watch the whole thing. I will say, damn, the Saula. And I find it really adorable, and with so much off-stage Rymon I'm really happy to give the Saula fans the on-stage—especially as it's a marker of Paula being fit and sassy and coherent, and Simon being in a general good mood.

Attn singers: Stop fucking talking back to the judges. Ryan has time to fill and he'll use you to do it, but we don't want to hear it. Got it? All right then.

1. Matt, "Let's Get It On." Oh, remember Jared you guys? He's a VJ on Fuse now. Anyway, I really don't like this song much, as it's so overexposed. Matt was perfectly fine, and he needed to be, as it's his genre really. I'm sorry I didn't hear it the first time around, or I would have voted for him! The excerpt in the recap didn't do him justice.
   
2. Kris, "How Sweet It Is …." I find this song to be sweet, if a little dull, which is how I feel about Kris too. He does that thing he does, and he does it well, and I'm sure there are plenty who adore him.
   
3. Scott, "Can't Hurry Love." ali_wildgoose and I were talking about typical wedding Motown songs that we didn't need to hear, and this was at the top of the list. Yawn-o-rama. I hate to say it, but that was even whiter than Phil Collins' version.
   
4. Megan, "For Once in My Life." Oh, honey. Wrong song. Woe.
   
5. Anoop, "Ooh Baby Baby." He's so adorable! I thought it was pretty fantastic, so pretty, and his voice sounded great.
   
6. Michael, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." That will hurt if he has to sing for his life tomorrow night! More like Dullsville, USA, but at least he was marginally more soulful than Scott.
   
7. Lil, "Heatwave." Seriously excellent wig. As jenncho said, her dress was a little more Tina. I agreed with the judges that it wasn't quite the right song, which sort of sucked, because she really should have owned this week.
   
8. Adam, "Tracks of My Tears." Okay, he finally did something I liked a lot. I liked the look, I liked the arrangement, I liked his performance.
   
9. Danny, "Get Ready." Ugh, so much bullshit running around, so little anything interesting whatsoever. And I used to like him!
   
10. Allison, "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." I adore this song, and wow, she was amazing! Even our friend N was impressed. I think she's my favorite in the entire competition now.
    

[Poll #1372198]

I voted for Megan, Anoop, Lil and Allison.

Comments

[jenncho.livejournal.com]

I said 5 for Kara because she made some good points tonight. But I took away 5 for her wanting to bang anything that moved on that stage tonight. WHUUUUT?

I super cringed at Paula's "crayons" bit. Prop comedy is not for her. Preplanned jokes = fail.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I agree, but I liked how Simon reacted to it, because I love it when he laughs, and it was funny that he was flipping through the coloring book later. I secretly wish for him to color one of the pages and bring it back tonight so Ryan can tape it to the set someplace as if he's putting it up on the fridge.

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

This was an interesting week for me in that I didn't disagree with the judges even once. Usually there's at least one WTF where I don't think they heard the same thing I heard, and I know that's got to do with the acoustics and the rehearsals ans so on, but still. But tonight even when they disagreed mildly among themselves the consensus was one that made sense to me.

Adam and Allison were amazing, and at this point I want an Adam/Allison final. So tired of Scott. Jacob on TWOP has it right- he seems a lovely person and he's not BAD but he's NOT THAT GOOD, and it's all about the weird notion that you're just not a good person if you don't support the blind guy. Danny was meh, but I truly think that to pull off that song (tweedly dee and tweedly dum?) you need to be four African-American gentleman in snazzy matching suits. And Lil should have owned the night, which made me think that sometimes there's such a thing as too good a fit between theme and singer. It was like she was playing Martha Reeves on American Dreams when she needed to play herself on American Idol.

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

and? gentlemen? I hate that I don't have an edit button.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm sad I didn't see the second half--it sounds like it was better!

[mistress-mab.livejournal.com]

I secretly wish for him to color one of the pages and bring it back tonight so Ryan can tape it to the set someplace as if he's putting it up on the fridge.

Our secret wishes are twins.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Adam looked like KD Lang. ALOT.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Also, my favorite part was where he was all, "Smokey, what were you thinking when you wrote this song?" And Smokey got all intense and leaned in and gave this impassioned explanation of how... um... tears might leave tracks and so that's why the song is called that. And Adam had to pretend that it was really deep.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Can you tell I just Tivo'd this? Onward to the results!

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Forgot to mention that mustache is the most hilarious thing ever. It's like he knew her huuuuuge ego would not be able to bear it. They all say he is the self-absorbed one, but they're the ones with the stupid outfits and the ridiculous elf makeup week after week and Simon is like, "Yeah. Make fun of my boring shirts. Anyway, here's a mustache."

Check it out I'm liveblogging.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Yaaay. With fast forward the results show only takes 5 minutes

Ruben = Sweaty
Scott ≠ Stevie
Osbornes ≠ Osmonds
Michael = Correct Choice

I hate this sing for your life bullshit - do they get to take the criticism and change the arrangement if they want? If it had been Megan, there's nothing she could have done with that godawful Caribbean background music is there? She's have been better off going a capella - and you're right it takes the good-bye emotion out of the whole thing and makes it lamesauce.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

LOL. They met in some weird androgynous middle.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

"I actually meant it very literally, not in a beautiful figurative way as you might have expected."

"Wow, that's, um, great?"

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Check you out indeed.

Simon is sort of vain but in this very specific weird way. It's strange that he gets all this manscaping and lipo and botox when he's so careless about his appearance in other ways. Also, dude, you want to look younger, give up the Kools.

I want to know how she sat still for him to do that in the first place. Like, what the hell did she think he was doing?

ETA: I am willing to confess this to you. I worry a little that my equanimity regarding "Saula" is less about appropriate distance and more about how totally tin hat I've become. That said, at least I don't think they're sending me secret signals through the television set.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Scott is awful and I'm glad he was in the bottom three. I can't believe they were even deliberating about Michael; thank goodness for Simon being like, "I am now head judge and will make the decision for them."

And yeah—the problems that Alexis had were with her entire approach to that song, so it would have been hard for her to really save herself, though crumbling under the pressure really didn't help matters. Michael was so awful that it didn't matter full stop.

That Osbornes show doesn't look like fun, and should be on in the summer, not now. Remember when they had ridiculous summer replacement shows? I know Pink Lady & Jeff went down in the annals as one of the worst shows of all time, but I really loved it when I was 9. I thought Jeff was cute.

Also I don't want to see Ozzy in purple socks.