You’ll never hear me complain about anyone covering a Duran Duran song because of all of my guilty pleasures, they’re the guiltiest. Well, maybe that honor goes to Rick Springfield.
But anyway, I’m still trying to figure out how if last night’s “theme” was songs from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that “Hungry Like the Wolf” nudged in there since my British boys are most definitely not immortalized in I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid in Cleveland.
Moving on, I liked David Cook’s growling – if overly affected—rendition of the song better than Randy did – and I’m usually hypercritical about performances of songs by my favorite bands. Case in point, I wanted to strangle Blake Lewis last season after he turned Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” into a wiki-wiki-wiki beat boxing exercise.
But I’ve got to say, David C. made me want to check out the performance downloads on iTunes – and that’s saying something because I spend too many hours of my life trying to avoid iTunes and grousing about it to my friends, who are entirely sick of my complaining.
So even though Ryan pointedly noted at the start of the show that the judges would critique each contestant after EACH song (got that, Paula?), let’s get the two over with at once.
David C. returned with the bold choice of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” a song that runs about 87 minutes (Oh, OK, 5:05) and contains significant musical interludes. I worried that this would be a repeat of Michael Johns during one of the Beatles weeks; his performance of the complex “A Day in the Life” was solid, but by dismantling the tune to fit the “Idol’ time constraints, it wound up disjointed and odd.
But the Cook kept it steady and low, breaking out the flashy rock riffs for added effect and guaranteeing himself a spot in the final two.
While I realize there is no way that the Ewok (aka David Archuleta) WON’T be in the final two, since the judges overlook his every flaw and his ingratiating reaction to their heaps of praise obviously send the grandmas to the phones and the tweens to the texts, let’s have a moment of respect for Syesha Mercado.
Hey, I admit, I haven’t been very nice to her all season because, well, until two weeks ago, she was a singing Barbie – all plastic, no soul.
But Syesha not only chose the two most challenging songs of the night – from Tina Turner and Sam Cooke, mind you – but she simply smoked on “Proud Mary.” Yeah, could you consider it a passable Tina Turner impersonation? Sure. But the same could be said of Beyonce’s performance of the song at the Grammys this year.
Of all of the “huh?” things that the judges say, the criticism that continues to baffle me the most is when they carp about a performance being too similar to the original and that these kids “need to make it their own.” And when they do that, most of the time, Randy, Simon or Paula complains that they didn’t like the arrangement.
Make up your mind, guys.
But I now think Syesha is worthy of the Elliott Yamin spot this season (numero tres) , especially after unleashing her emotions in a torrent of tears after Simon complimented her performance (surely he was swayed by her heaving cleavage) and Jason Castro’s complete derailment.
Long before Entertainment Weekly outed the space case as being completely nonchalant about learning his songs for Neil Diamond week and even more apathetic about his spot on the show—“What happens happens. I’ll sing and if people like it, they like it. And if they don’t, they don’t. I’m kind of ready to go home,” he said – it’s been apparent to anyone over the age of 13 and not influenced by Jason’s dreamy eyes that the guy couldn’t care less about being there.
(You can read the entire EW story here: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20007164_20171835_20197246,00.html).
I only hope that Simon’s suggestion that Jason pack his bags after he got tangled up in Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” (with none of Brooke White’s addled charm, I might add) didn’t earn him scads of sympathy votes.
Jason’s dreadlocks were a handy accoutrement for a Bob Marley performance (“I Shot the Sheriff” ), but his apathy has never been more apparent than it was last night. Go home, dude, and let someone with more passion for the game get the votes.
So, back to David A. I know I didn’t hear anything “hot” or “mad” about his vocals on “Stand By Me,” as Randy apparently did as he almost fell out of his chair while lauding the Boy Scout. I do give the kid credit for cleverness for slipping in a line from Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls,” which heavily borrows from “Stand By Me” – good way to ensure some votes from current radio listeners.
But what sadist dressed him in that seagull shirt?
And David’s second performance, Elvis’ “Love Me Tender” (you have an entire canon of rock songs to choose from and you pick THIS gloppy ballad?), was completely disconcerting to me when the camera started to move in closer and closer…and closer…and closer, until we could count the eyelashes on his blinky eyes.
As I’ve said all along, the little guy has a smooth voice, an innocuous appeal and still, absolutely nothing about him would spur me to spend a dime on his music.
So, now that we’re down to the final four, who gets the boot before the big Hometown Visit show next week? It so obviously should be Jason, but the same could have been said last week.
Also, you might have heard the rumblings this past week about whether “Idol” is losing some of its luster. Check out my column in Thursday’s Weekend section, where I’ll discuss the situation and you can tell me how you feel about the show.
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