American Idol – Top 6

Big Mike was awesome last night.

That’s all I really have to say about Idol. I kind of hope they cancel it after this season. I’m just not into it as much anymore. I think the contestants this season are lame, and I don’t get excited to watch it anymore. Seeing Simon every week is my only motivation to watch it.

Something tells me that even after Cowell leaves the show, some idiot executive at Fox is going to come up with a spreadsheet that convinces them to do it for ONE more dreadful, money-making season, just to prove to everyone that it’s dead.

Top 8 Guys

Wow! Tough night on Idol! The playing field got surprisingly level before we move into the Top 12. Tough, tough, tough!

Here are my picks:

Lee

Lee is all right.  Fireflies wasn’t a natural pick for him, but he made the sale.  I think he’ll make it through.

Alex (aka Mullet Man)

I love this guy.  He is by far my favorite guy on AI right now.  He is so honest and natural.  He owns the mullet and gets up there and really sings.

Tim

In three short weeks, Tim has made one of the biggest turn arounds in Idol history.  His first week on this show sounded like something that would have kept him out of American Idol in the first round audition. Then he comes back and gives a decent performance this week on a really tough song.  I still think as a total package he doesn’t have the pipes to go the distance, but maybe he does deserve to be here one more week.

Andrew

This dude came into idol as the most hyped guy, and with the most to lose.  He is making a slight recovery with tonight’s performance.  I’m not sure if it’ll be enough to put him into the Top 12.  He is definitely a unique artist, I’m just not sure he has built enough credibility to get him through one more week.

Casey

I really like this song.  It’s not a song I know, but he was very connected to it and it was interesting.  One thing I will give him, he knows how to sell it.  He’s been selling it since he got on the show, and I think we’ve all been buying a little too much of it, too.

Aaron

Wow… weird vibrato at the beginning in his lower register… kind of awkward.  The whole song was a bit awkward for me, actually.  I thought it was the wrong song choice for him.  Sitting was weird.  He didn’t seem connected to the song at all, and was totally out of the groove of the song during most of it.  He just kind of gyrated around the stage uncomfortably.  Poor guy.  I thought it was his worst performance yet.

Todrick

This was Todrick’s last chance.  He has two strikes against him… and he figured it out.  Somehow.  I don’t know how.  I was kind of hoping he tanked so he would give us at least one easy, no-brainer to vote off tomorrow.  Now who am I going to put in the bottom?!?!  Arg!

Big Mike

Call me a killjoy, but I’m not jumping on the Big Mike Bandwagon so quickly. I thought the first part was rough.  He kind of made it work in the middle and toward the end, but the way he was moving around made me a little nauseous and actually made it lose a lot of the impact it could have had. It just seemed desperate rather than engaging. I could tell he was into the song, but he didn’t really take me along with him, nor do I know why the song is so important to him.  All in all, the original was much better, and I don’t think he did it any favors.  

Now, I’m obviously totally against the judges here, but I really don’t get what the judges saw that I didn’t see… it must have been something in that performance. Let’s take another look?

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OK.  Quick poll.  What did you think?  Best performance of the season?  Really?

Compared to this guy?

I dunno…

Conclusion:

So… this was a tough one.  Based on tonight only I have to say: Aaron and Andrew get the boot.  Based on everything, I hope it’s Todrick and Tim.  I would even throw Andrew in there.  I wouldn’t be heartbroken if he were out.  At any rate, they are the ones I’m not really interested in seeing in the Top 12.

Pants on the Ground

This is why I watch American Idol.

Yes, you have to suffer through some really bad auditions.  Yes, you have to suffer through a lot of Simon and Ryan and Randy.  Yes, most of the audition shows are nauseating and make you want to go vomit…

But this is why I love this show.  Season 9 may not be so bad after all:

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Pants on the Ground, baby!

Season 9 Premiere

American Idol premiered last night, and honestly, it came out whimpering rather than barking.

Simon was in his usual form, wearing shirts that left little to the imagination and showed just how cold it was in every room he walked in.

Randy sat by Simon on day one, which made camera-right feel like a sausage festival and which left Kara completely out in never land on camera left.  Was there even a saucy little Briton between them?  It might as well have been a cardboard cutout, because that’s about what she contributed all day.

Thankfully producers put the kbosh on the seating arrangement for Day 2, placing Randy in the camera-left side, anchoring of the table and providing balance to the Idol universe.  Please get it right, Randy!

It was hard without Paula.  Really hard.  Harder than I expected it to be.  I miss her jiving to the really bad singers, and Day 1 fell completely flat without her to tell them how wonderful they were, to call them sweetie, and to be nice and sweet no matter how awful.  It just turned into four professional, ornery judges whisking loser after loser out the door.  It was more like real auditions are; no commentary, no explanations, no getting-to-know you, just sing and out the door you go.

Even Seacrest is phoning it in.  He didn’t even bother interacting with any contestants except for the ones directly outside the door, leading me to believe he only flew in for the day rather than for the whole 3 day audition process.

Yes, the franchise is on the downhill.

Simon can see, just as everyone, the free fall and saved his announcement that Season 9 would be his last for right before the premiere to try and raise ratings for his last hurrah.  If Fox knows what’s good for it, it will pack up the show and close down when Simon leaves.  We might be able to limp along for one season without Paula, but you will have to put Idol on an artificial respirator to make it live on without Simon.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to be here for every moment of Season 9.  I’m going to be loving and blogging every minute of my last hurrah, but if Simon really is packing his bags this May, I’m packing out with him.

We donkeys have to stick together.