Because this commentary comes out once a week and only after the performance show, I don’t usually get the chance to touch on stuff that happens during the results shows. Moreover, since I skip the sing outs, group songs, commercials, and guest acts, I don’t watch enough of it to really get a feel for what transpired on results night other than the voting. But I have to write about something that happened last week, and it was the creepiest moment in Idol history – creepier than the time Ryan untucked Will Makar’s shirt onstage – creepier than the time Paula said told David Archuleta that she wanted to “squish you, squeeze your head off and dangle you from my rearview mirror”. The creepiest moment now belongs to… the Cake Fight. What started as a food fight staged for the cameras turned into a peek into Gokey’s soul, and it wasn’t pretty. There’s a playful way to toss around cake at each other, and then there’s the Gokey way – an overly aggressive and overtly sexual display of someone who needs to be on top and in control. The capper was Gokey’s choke hold/grope of the underage Allison that begged for an appearance of Chris Hansen from To Catch A Predator. Note that the only alterations to the picture were the removal of the AI logo and the addition of Hansen in the doorway. The rest of the picture is unmolested, in a manner of speaking (although that is exactly not the word that comes to mind when viewing that picture). That look of maniacal excitement on Gokey’s face looks like the expression of a thrill killer or a bastard child of a 1000 maniacs like the child murderer Freddy Kruger. Really creepy, pervy stuff. She’s seventeen… barely. And lest you think that was an isolated moment in time, here’s another view. Jeepers creepers.
In other AI news, Paula has finally fessed up to a 12 year addiction to pain killers. She claims she has kicked the habit, but at one time wore an analgesic patch that was “80 times more potent than morphine”. Paula, if it’s that potent, one patch alone should do, shouldn’t it? And Kara was officially picked up for another season, which either means another year of excessive and useless extra commentary or that Paula is making her way out. Speaking of Kara, our fourth judge was really rocking the Janice Dickenson look tonight – not the young, vivacious supermodel Janice, but the older, haggard, plastic surgery victim Janice of today.
And finally, Vote for the Worst has a new champion, and his name is… GOKEY! There’s a lot of complaining and screaming online about this, but the truth is, Gokey is the worst thing on Idol right now, and the appropriateness of the choice is inarguable. If he were to win, he would easily be the worst winner of American Idol to date. No one would buy his records. It would sell like Carly Smithson’s first album.
Tonight was Rock and Roll Week, which means we’re in for some Old Time Rock and Roll. The format at this point is usually two songs per contestant – however, due to the need to keep the show down to one hour (because Fox does not want to pre-empt Fringe and lose its ratings momentum) and with the added pressure of Kara running off at the mouth, the format was changed to one solo per contestant and two duets. Which meant that we still had to listen to Danny Gokey twice. Tonight’s mentor was ex-GNR guitarist Slash, who is apparently filming the sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
Adam – Even though Adam delivered last week (as he does every week), he took a tumble in the standings and ended up in the bottom two (which, according to ex-Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe, only meant that he was definitely in the bottom three but not necessarily in the actual bottom two). Adam’s air of invincibility punctured, many viewers were chagrined to see Gokey gaining on him (run Adam, or the Gokey-monster will eat you!). Ever since his initial audition, people have been comparing Adam’s voice to Freddie Mercury’s, partly because of the insane range and mostly because he sang Bohemian Rhapsody at his audition. But Mercury had a more operatic tone to his voice than Adam does, and Steven Tyler, another one Adam is likened to, has a scratchier and more soulful timbre. But Robert Plant is a spot on comparison vocally, and Whole Lotta Love was perfect a match for Adams vocals. But as good as he was, a lot of it sounded like Plant to me, and for whatever reason, I wasn’t electrified by the performance. Maybe I was taken out of the performance because of the vocal similarity to Plant. Maybe it felt like he was trying a bit too hard with the Rock persona and it came off as performance. And maybe I was listening too intently for the lyric, “I wanna be your back door man” that never came (for obvious reasons). Whatever it was, I didn’t feel it on a visceral level, and I’d still rank it below Mad World and Ring of Fire. Still, this was one of the best balls-out Rock performances on the Idol stage.
Allison – All hail the new Queen of Idol! This is the point where I tell you that the judges are totally bat shit crazy, because Allison just ripped it up tonight, singing Cry Baby like she owned it. We always hear about how she’s only 16/17, but that performance was just craaazy – it was hands down the best Idol performance by a minor ever. I have no idea what Randy was talking about, Kara’s stupid suggestion to sing the overdone Piece of My Heart was asinine, and Simon’s “sound-alike” critique was so far off base that it was maddening. For one thing, the only thing Allison shared with Janis was the strangled yowl – on a purely vocal level, Allison’s voice is waaay better – Janis’ voice is more of an emotionally charged, wispy howl compared to Allison’s fully developed range, and the rhythms of the two vocals are far apart. Janis’ version, which I love, alternated between soft and hard vocals while Allison just sang balls out the entire song. Neither the Queen song nor the Jefferson Airplane song, Somebody to Love would have worked for Allison as suggested by Simon, so it was a stupid comment. I mean, does he even know the Jefferson Airplane song? At least he didn’t get snippy when Allison talked back, and was very clear that he appreciated Allison’s spunk. Still, there was a bit of verbal diarrhea that may affect Allison’s votes, but I think she was miffed at the obvious stupidity coming from the judges’ table and couldn’t let it lie. I don’t blame her one bit. I liked what Adam’s stylist did with Allison’s hair. In fact, the whole ensemble was working for me tonight.
Kris & Danny – aka the Wee Man and the Jackass. God, these two together couldn’t put together a decent rock performance if their lives depended on it. Kris thinks “rock” means to yell, and Gokey tries to inject his brand of “soul flavor” into the rock vocals, which just didn’t work. Kris sounded like he was deaf through most of the song and at times (like the beginning), I couldn’t understand a single syllable he was singing (it was like he was singing in his native Ewok language). Gokey’s enunciation wasn’t much better. The entire performance of Renegade was skin-crawlingly bad, and it felt like I was watching some sort of high school amateur hour. And while the harmonies were fine, there was no chemistry or connection between the two – they could have teleconferenced this performance as it didn’t even seem like they were sharing the same stage. Interestingly, Gokey wore an oversized shirt, and his buttonholes were still puckering. They claim that the clean-up bill for the cake fight was $6,000, but I think that was a fabrication, as Gokey apparently ate every last crumb of cake and smear of frosting and left the place spotless (then he ate up all the KFC). In response to the issue about not being able to hear themselves, Gokey was confident that they “overcame it”. How does he know that when he couldn’t hear himself? What a dipshit. I loved Kris’ halfhearted arm gesture to Gokey pretending to be buddies for the camera. Kris looked like he was thinking, “get your arm off of me, you fat douche.”
Kris – I almost felt sorry for tiny Kris Allen tonight because of the way the producers tried every trick to get him off the show. They saddle him with Gokey for the duet, give him the earliest second performance of the night, and put his solo on right after the duet. It’s sabotage! Kris said that seeing Slash made him “almost want to pee my pants”, which implies that the urination was a voluntary rather than involuntary response. So an exciting moment like talking to Slash brings out in Kris the desire to urinate with his clothes on. But he only almost peed his pants. Making the Top 13, being declared safe last week, and getting married were different matters entirely. Although he thought about singing Revolution, he decided against it (good call considering you need descended testicles to tackle a song like that) and instead chose to brutalize Come Together, in which he seemed more concerned about his guitar playing than singing. As a result, Kris ended up eating notes here and there (although if there is any eating involved, he should leave it to Gokey) and making strange pronunciations like “ree” for “free” and “d-bag” for “teabag” (if there’s any d-bagging tonight, he should again leave that up to Gokey). A truly forgettable karaoke performance that belies the once held belief that Kris was David Archuleta’s Mini-Me – Kris can’t hold Gaspy’s jock. There’s no denying that Kris is running on empty at this point considering the string of mediocre performances as of late, and his only support is coming from gays dudes and the little chicks who think he’s a cutie. If this Idol gig doesn’t work out, Kris could always fall back on his Dentistry Degree from the University of The North Pole.
Danny – You had an inkling that Dream On was going to go off the rails from the intro – hearing Gokey letting out a note that sounded like a sock got sucked up in a vacuum cleaner and Slash’s shit-eating grin when he said, “it could go either way” tipped you off that a trainwreck was ready to happen (Slash knew exactly which way it was going to go). Gokey started off the song just standing there stiffly with a thousand mile stare like the blank eyes of a serial killer. At times, he sounded like Fat Albert. Then he picked up the mic stand and started shouting. And he kept singing “true” like it was some German word with umlauts in it. And then he scatted in the middle of a rock song. Seriously, WTF? And then it happened – Gokey tried to have an Adam moment by going way up in his register and holding a big note – except it was so incompetently done it was laughable. Gokey shouldn’t have bothered emulating Adam, as Gokey is the Salieri to Adam’s Mozart. Those first wailing notes sounded exactly like Steven Tyler… after a tracheotomy. And then… it got worse. I think he was trying to wail a glory note, but it just sounded like a cross between Sam Kinison and a dental drill. It was horrific. It was embarrassing. And Gokey thought it was good. But then again, he is a self-satisfied douche. The criminal part was that the judges gave this performance about the same response as Allison’s when that was about 1 million light years ahead of this piece of shit. Gokey dressed up like P Diddy for rock and roll night. Who knows why Gokey does the things he does.
Allison & Adam – These were the two singers that rescued the night, and their duet, while nothing really special, showed lots of chemistry and was fun to watch. Whenever I hear Slow Ride, all I can think of is Guitar Hero, and in my mind’s eye, I could see colored circles moving on a fret board and my fingers twitched a bit. Simon’s intercontinental schedule judging three different reality competition shows (AI, X Factor, and Britain’s Got Talent) means that he doesn’t really remember all the contestants names, which is why he rarely speaks Allison’s name and called her “this one” tonight.
One last thing before I call it a day – did you notice that Adam essentially got the pimp spot again? That’s three times since the top 13 and the second week in a row. Also, it was awesome that Danny’s vote recap was just a bunch of screaming. And even though Ryan said that there was no dress rehearsal or run through due to part of the stage falling apart, it was curious to note that the vote recaps were pre-taped and not from the live performance. So how is it that they never had a proper run through if they have video of them singing with the band with lighting in front of an audience? If they truly never had a run through, Paula wouldn’t have had an inkling as to what to say since the producers wouldn’t have had time to feed her notes.