Oh yes it’s ladies’ night on American Idol. Aaaaand here we go…although Paula appears to be missing. Oh, the jokes, they write themselves.
Seacrest is looking very beatnik tonight in his black turtleneck as he impores us to stay tuned for a very important Idol announcement on Thursday. Simon is sporting a…gray henley, which is nice. But onto the music and stupid secrets.
Football is a huge part of Jordin Sparks’ life. Oh, gee, you think? She “c’mon, y’all!”s it just like Diana DeGarmo as she launches into Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.” She’s…cutesy. I knew this would happen. And the background singers are completely dominating her (those background singers are sure pissed off this season, aren’t they?). She sounds good, and she had fun, and her hair looks fabulous, but…eh, I dunno. Randy calls it “hot,” even though it wasn’t her best performance. Paula loved the energy. Simon wasn’t quite as enthusiastic, calling it a bit manic and shrieky, but acknowledges that Jordin is doing well and showing personality. Jordin is very tall.
Everyone’s hair looks so nice tonight. Have they brought in the stylists already? How disappointing. Much of the fun of this show is watching the major transformations that occur when the finals begin. Taylor, Katharine, Elliott…they all got major makeovers at the Final 12 mark, and continued to evolve throughout the season. It seems like everyone walking through the door is polished. I don’t like it.
Another thing I don’t like is Sabrina Sloan. It’s completely irrational at this point; she’s done nothing to irritate me, and she’s a good singer, but she strikes me as entitled and arrogant. I am, however, holding off judgment, because it’s really nothing more than a gut feeling, and certainly not enough to judge her on. Anyway, her boring secret is that she once wanted to be the next Katie Couric. A home movie snippet reveals a girl who I am convinced is a different person entirely reporting for her school, or something. Seriously. It looks nothing like her. She sings En Vogue’s “What’s It Gonna Be” song, and is totally pitchy. She misses a high note in the beginning and doesn’t ever seem to ever recover. Her sustained notes warble, and she even goes slightly sharp on her last power note. Randy calls it “solid,” but he didn’t completely feel it. Paula loved it, calling her voice “soaring.” Simon calls her a great singer, but calls her out on bot-ness and lack of passion, and calls for her to inject personality. She takes the criticism well, so maybe I was right and my pre-judgments were wrong. It happens, every once in a while. Her dress looks like a trash bag, though.
Antonella Barba’s secret is that she plays the violin and that she teaches lessons. She does Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On,” which is a great song but a horrible choice for this show, and again barely hits any of the notes. She’s alternately flat and sharp, never hitting anything in her lower range and groveling on the lower parts of the chrous, and it’s awful, so very awful. But she’s clearly earned her degree from the Katharine McPhee School of Coquettish Glances and Sex-Kitten Smiles, and prances around the stage as if she’s already won the competition. Randy calls it a good song choice and compliments her ending, but calls it “okay.” Paula calls it the right song choice for her range, but to watch out for bottom notes and that her “magic” is in her upper range. I agree. Simon tells her that she’s gone as far as she can go, in that she’s “surrounded by some pretty amazing girl singers.” Antonella looks pissed. Simon says her voice won’t get better, and commends Antonella on handling herself well in the media (applause), but says he won’t patronize her and that he wishes she could sing better. Ryan asks her what she thinks of all this, and she pussyfoots around as best she can, proclaiming that she has a “different style.” No, sweetie — Leslie Hunt had a different style. You just kind of are not all that good. Ryan asks her if she understood what Simon was saying to her, and she snots “um, yeah” in the most vapid, obnoxious, Valley Girl-ish way you can possibly imagine, bitches that she’s getting compared to other singers, and says “I don’t try to be like them and they don’t try to be like me.” Simon bursts out in laughter, Randy and Paula proclaim that this is a singing competition only, and Antonella snickers because she knows damn well that that’s not true, as do we all.
Haley Scarnato was a gymnast until she practically landed herself in traction. She tackles a little Faith Hill, and though I’ve never heard this song before, I don’t quite hate it as much as I thought I would. What I’m none too fond of, however, is Haley’s performance. Like Antonella, she’s not too good in her lower range, and it’s a very cutesy, pagent-type performance, but certainly nothing special. Pretty girl, pretty voice, but…bland. Randy says it was “okay” and “pretty much in tune,” but that it lacked pizzazz. Intangibles like that are going to doom the contestants this year, I think, moreso than technical mistakes like pitch. Simon thought it was horrible, a “terrible, ghastly, high school musical performance.” Simon, apparently, turned to Paula during the performance and admitted that he didn’t know Haley’s name. I feel bad for Haley, because she seems like a nice enough girl, but no, she does not have a spark. Ryan asks for her comments, and she says that it’s tough to hear the criticism, but that she just has to “clock in and clock out.” Sweetheart, if that’s what singing is to you, don’t expect America to expend its time and energy dialing in for you.
Stephanie Edwards wouldn’t sing at family barbecues because she was shy. Yawn. These are “things you didn’t know about the contestants?” Where’s Taylor and his creepy bunny suit? Stephanie sings “Sweet Thing” (I think), and again, she is another contestant who needs to get out of her lower range. I actually think she’s really off-pitch in spots, and that her high notes are shrieky and kind of cracked. Randy gives her an “A for effort” and tells her that choosing a Chaka song evokes an automatic comparison to a better artist. Paula thought she was “darn near flawless,” which is a lie, but tells her to keep up with the beat because she has a tendency to fall a bit behind the music. Simon’s a’ight with it.
Aww, my favorite anti-drug commercial. Little cartoon dog, you rule!
Lakisha Jones is terrified of…animals. Huh. She tackles Whitney’s “I Have Nothing” and does an excellent job of erasing the horrid memory of McPhee slaughtering this tune like a herd of cattle from my mind. That being said, however, she does not take as many vocal risks as McPhee did, which is disappointing, because she can handle them. While anyone else would be doomed with this song, with Lakisha, this was a blandly safe performance. Randy calls it “great,” even if it wasn’t her best. Paula’s mind is blown. Simon says that Lakisha brought passion (true), talent (true), and believability (true), and he also tells Lakisha that she looks beautiful. Lakisha’s adorable family has made adorable T-shirts, and Lakisha adorably scolds them for “acting up.” Aww. I do like Lakisha a whole lot, even if I think Melinda is a hair better than her when push comes to shove.
Ryan and the gals have a pillow fight in the red room. Heh. Gina Glocksen has lucky charms. Are they gimmicks or silly things she says? No; they are a pillow and a tiny troll. Aww. She’s tackling Evanescence’s “Call Me When Your Sober,” and her outfit is really, really flattering tonight. The skinny jean tucked into the knee-high boot really lengthens her legs, and the tunic accentuates her curves nicely. She looks lovely. Punk Lite. More 80’s-themed-Halloween-party than actual rocker, but whatever. I guess she does a good job with this. I just don’t find her that memorable of a singer. Randy calls this “the real Gina,” calls her on pitch (yeah, she was a bit warbly), but tells her to “keep the edge alive.” Paula loved it, but tells her to watch the oversinging. Simon knows that Gina had fun, and says that it was the first time he’s seen Gina look comfortable. He says Gina tended to scream the song, but that he really hopes she makes it through. Heh. Remember this time last year when Simon said essentially the same thing to Taylor after “Taking It to the Streets?” Yeah, so do I. Don’t count your chickens just yet, Gina. You know what? I just noticed that Gina is really pretty. Her Top 24 stock photos do her no justice at all.
The pimp spot goes to Melinda Doolittle essentially has obsessive-compulsive disorder without the obsessions. She sings “I’m a Woman,” and is generally awesome and womanly and beautiful and exudes sex in ways that the plastic Barbie dolls that have graced the Idol stage before her could only hope to ever be. I will take one Melinda Doolittle and her sex-bomb self over a thousand prancing, vamping McPhee clones any damn day. Everyone just loves it across the board, and even Simon calls her a “little tiger.” He manages to slip in a little dig at Jennifer Hudson, but we expect these kinds of things from Simon. Yaaay for Melinda!
Best of the night: Melinda. Duh.
Worst of the night: The hot mess that is Antonella Barba, followed by Haley Scarnato’s cutesy self. I miss Leslie.
Taylor Hicks is in love…with his 
Sabrina Sloan doesn’t say anything particularly interesting, which…was kind of the problem in the first place, wasn’t it? Oh, she was going to sing “Can’t Hurry Love” next week. Meh, that would have been safe and boring anyway. Also, she says that she (and, presumably, all the Top 24 contestants) are repped by 19M until the show is over. I didn’t know that. Jared Cotter says that “the voting was off” (well…perhaps, in that Sanjaya should have gone home, but Jared wasn’t anything special, either, except for a good but not great vocalist who more often than not was covered in thick, cheesy Velveeta. He also doesn’t understand why Paula told him he “needed more coloring,” and that he YouTubed his performance and didn’t find anything wrong with it. Wow, and people think Sundance is the cocky one? Sheesh.
And onto Sundance Head, who had “no idea” he was going home. Seriously, have any of these people seen the show before Or at the very least, have they heard of Chris Daughtry? “Shocking exits” are this show’s bread and butter. He also has really nice things to say about Sanjaya:
“Bad Day” montage, featuring Simon telling Sundance that he’ll be amazed if Sundance doesn’t make the finals. Whoops. There is a small part of me that is glad that the singer who Simon said “blew Taylor out of the water” didn’t advance, but that’s all about Simon and not about Sundance at all, who I think is a hell of a nice guy.
