American Idol-Great American Songbook Night

Tags: American Idol, Reality TV, TV

American Idol Recap- American Songbook Night


Last week: So long Bucky!

My favorite list now looks like this
1. McPhee
2. Paris
3. Taylor
4. Elliott
5. Pickler
6. Chris
7. Die! Ace Die!

This week it's the Great American Songbook night on Idol. Which means we get to hear standards all night long. Our special guest this week is Rod Stewart, who supposedly has sold over 16 million copies of his series of albums of American standards. It doesn't matter. Rod Stewart has been dead to me for these three reasons. 1) The cover of Tom Waits "Downtown Train"
2) The cover of Van Morrison's "Have I Told You Lately"
3) The theme song to Three Musketeers which he sang with Sting and Bryan Adams. That wretch of a song was "All for One and All for Love". Do you remember how that video was equally as disgusting as the title? It was the one where they all hung out toasting each other, showing off their camaraderie as if they were the Three Musketeers of sappy, non-threatening, really crappy music...which I guess they were.

They start this week's behind the scenes with the Idols and their vocal coaches huddled around the piano. The Idols serenade Rod as he enters with a "spontaneous" group sing of "You're in my Heart". Oh wait, on closer inspection of the spazzing old guy, it's Robin Williams with a Rod Stewart wig on...I think...I'm so confused.

Chris is first up to bat tonight. He's going to sing "What a Wonderful World". A song I remember fondly from "Good Morning Vietnam". In the warmups with Rod, Chris sings the line "I hear babies cry" to which Rod promptly pantomimed. Oh man, if he doesn't knock that shit off I'm quitting right now!!!!

Chris looks rather smart with a pinstripe vest, rolled up sleeves and a pocket chain. He's either ditched the black eye make-up or it's unavailable to him this week. He tones it way down for this song and carries a sensitive, pensive look on stage. He looks rather uncomfortable though. I guess he can't pull out a Scott Stapp pose this week so he's kinda lost there. His vocals are strong as usual and to an untrained ear like mine sounds good.

The judges love him and Simon decides this is the week that he eases off Chris. Simon also decides to take credit for breaking Chris out the of ass-rock box he had trapped himself in.

Paris, wearing an orange business suit and sporting the ponytail weave, comes out and exchanges Easter updates with Ryan. Nothing small talk here until Ryan reveals that Simon dressed up as the Easter Bunny and laid eggs at his house. WTF??? Then suddenly "Secret Lovers" plays in the background and there's a close up of Paula looking at Simon and Ryan while rolling her eyes. Okay, not really. Rod compares Paris to Billie Holiday. I guess. Seriously, Paris looks like she's headed to a power lunch, a meeting with the CFO, and then drinks with the boys from Regional. She sings "Foolish Things", which I had never heard before.

Paris does her weekly "Hooks from Police Academy" transformation. Gone is the baby girl voice and she goes up on stage and kicks much ass. She has such a pleasing robust voice. The best way to describe her is "smokey". Hey there are no sexual connotations there! She's only 17! Get your mind out of the gutter, Pervs! All of you!

The judges love her. Simon compares her speaking voice to Minnie Mouse. Is still say "Hooks" mofo! Her "Thank You" to other words in the English language ratio is about 8 to 1 this week.

This week Taylor is going to sing Sam Cooke's, "You Send Me". Ryan brings up the parody of Taylor on this week's SNL. He takes it as an honor (Hell Yeah!) but he botches the cliched response by saying "Flattery is a great form of humor." Wha huh? Well, maybe he has a point there. My friends and I all like to get drunk together and just sing each others praises and shower each other with compliments as we laaaaaugh all night long. Meanwhile, on Wilmer Valderama's "Yo Momma!", I saw this hilarious exchange:

"Yo Momma is so good lookin', she's more beautiful than a supermodel, yo! Booyah!"
"Oh yeah, Dawg? Yo Momma is so smart, everybody calls her Mrs. Einstein! Whazzup?"

Trust me. It was off the CHAIN funny...yes, I'm an asshole. Rod encourages him not to repress the dancer within no matter what Simon says. He says "you need to grab the audience by the *bleep*" What did he say that had to be bleeped? It couldn't be "balls", since they've already thrown the word "ballsy" around. How can you bleep the noun but not the adjective? He must have said something like "schlong' or "gonads". "Coochie" maybe? "Poonanny"? "Va Jay Jay?" Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I'm also a 12 year old asshole.

Taylor is wearing his usual suit and black shirt and like his clothes, his singing stays perfectly within his comfort zone. He's very subdued this week and his gravelly voice really is fun to listen to. He stays subdued until he sees a lit cigarette on stage and really wants to make sure he puts it out. It was just enough to keep it "Soul Patrol" real, but not annoy or frighten anyone. I'm hoping that he'll pull out the John Belushi as Joe Cocker swimming on the floor bit before it's all said and done.

The judges have loved everyone so far and it's totally justified.


Elliott is going to perform "It Had to be You". Yay! I actually went through a Harry Connick Jr. phase while I was in college and I've seen "When Harry Met Sally" at least 80 times. So I have a strong affection for this song. In fact, I'm singing it to myself as I'm typing this, and boy do I sound AWESOME!!! Elliott tells us he grew up singing standards so I think he might knock this one out of the park.

Wrongo! It's not his singing since his voice is great, but first of all, the background singers echo the lyrics during every single fucking pause!! Not only does it suck, but it's suckiness totally distracts the listener from Elliott's voice. Fuckers!

The next criticism is on you Elliott. I think he's trying too hard to emote and connect with the audience. It takes away from the performance of the song, which is supposed to be a personal admission of love. Instead, he sings the song wide-eyed and smiley like he's singing it to cheese. Not just one piece of cheese, but to a whole row of cheese in his dairy section. Y'all know how much I hated his "Somebody to Love" last week so I won't rant again. Trust me, I have sung this song to every girl I have dated and if I sang it like he sang it I'd be single...and alone...just like I am now...sigh.

Anyhoo...Simon tells him the performance lacked a certain amount of personality. Well, if he meant that the performance was creepy then I agree wholeheartedly. The Feelgood Squad band together to defend Elliott even though Simon was totally right.

Kellie Pickler is up next and gets confused when Rod Stewart makes a joke about lyrics and words being the same thing. She ends the coaching session with Rod by saying, "Well, you really took a load off of my chest." To which he chuckles creepily at the camera. Looks like I'm not the only 12 year old asshole. They'll probably be married in five years.

She is going to sing "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" which kinda sums up everything about the Pickler-Idol experience. She looks great in a hot pink dress. Hmmm Paris wore orange...if the girls all wear bright radiant colors that could be a nightmare for big-assed McPhee. Pickler does have quite the sultry voice and is kickin the sex-ay tonight. Then the train runs off the track. She gets way ahead of the music and develops a panic induced tightness in her voice.

She admits that she "butchered" it and the judges don't disagree. She handles the disaster gracefully, but she still might be in trouble tomorrow night.

Ace...blinding rage...HATE!!! He sings "That's All", which I remember Adam Sandler singing in the "Wedding Singer". I'm gonna keep this short since I'm about to start breaking keys. Ace leaves Rod Stewart and hops into a time machine to the late 80's. Ace Gekko, the Wall Street robber baron pops up on stage, hair slicked back and tied up. The song is the safest possible choice for him and he doesn't do anything to hang himself. He does manage to stick his ultra-painful falsetto near the end of the song, which make me want to hang myself.

To be fair (grrr) he does seem like a nice guy and genuinely gets really excited when Simon simply says "It wasn't bad". He knows he's the weakest one left and the criticism week after week must have really sucked. It's possible that Ace might have leap-frogged Pickler tonight.

The show closes with Katharine McPhee. This night was tailor made for her. She enlists the help of Rod Stewart to help her narrow down her choices from "I Only Have Eyes for You", "The Way You Look Tonight" and an unknown song that Rod Stewart says that he's gonna sing on the show. Man, I hope her last choice was "Young Turks" That song ruled! She settles on "Someone to Watch Over Me". Wow, hell of a choice. I had the Moonlighting soundtrack with Linda Rondstat's version on it and I used to play the shit out of that tape. If there was ever a sure bet for a solid performance this would be it.

She doesn't disappoint. Kat comes out wearing an all black pants suit (whew) and looks amazing. Chris is totally gonna kick her ass though, for stealing his make up as she's got really heavy circles around her eyes. Still, she looks absolutely gorgeous tonight. Okay, an ex-girlfriend once called me out for having a thing for "Plain-Looking White Girls". She was right. Factor in McPhee's ghetto booty and I'm hooked.

Now here's how you get the job done. She's sitting on the steps on the stage and she totally comes off as vulnerable and longing, yet hopeful. Just like the song suggests. The killer though, is that she lets her bubbly personality sneak out and flashes a smile whenever she knows the camera is close up. That McPhee...she's crafty...and she's just my type!
The judges gush. Simon says she makes everyone else looks like "good amateurs" and says she's in a different league. Now here's why I hate Paula...Simon keeps trying to heap on praise while Paula keeps interrupting him and getting all up in his kool-aid with her doped up jibber jabber. HO!

This competition is probably going to remain up in the air up until the very end. For all my wise-ass remarks I'm actually enjoying this years batch of finalists...well, everyone except for Ace.

Bottom Three predictions
1) Elliott
2) Pickler
3)Ace

Elliott is probably gone.