American Idol: Top Seven: Country Week

Mixing it up a little this week with the results show recap first.

Whole lot of filler this week for an hour show. So much filler we even get an unadvertised Fergie performance.

It's weird they would take one of the hottest pop artists and just throw them on without any fanfare. I can expect that treatment with Akon because he sucks, but I think people would actually tune in to see Fergie if only just to see if if she'll piss in her pants on live TV. I had no clue what the song was but she actually sang and showed us those vocal chops she developed on Kid's Incorporated K-I-D-S YEAH!

When we finally get to results time 6 of the 7 are split up into groups of 3. One group is Sanjaya, Lakisha, and Blake. The other group is Jordin, Chris, and Phil. Odd girl out Melinda is safe and she gets to play the George Huff game or as I like to call it "which group of your friends sucked last night?"

In an very smooth move Melinda refuses to pick the suckas and has a sit in as protest. Up yours Seacrest! It turns out the Jordin, Chris, and Phil group is safe!

The judges are pretty much shocked that Blake is in the bottom three while Simon's is grinning like he just had a cup of shit soup. He says he senses something tonight.

Blake is let of the hook early and it's down to Lakisha and Sanjaya. Then something totally unexpected happens. Lakisha is safe Sanjaya is going home!

He starts to cry...seriously the guy who had to have known he was playing with house money cries when he gets the boot. Anyway he changes a lyric in the song from "how about love" to "how about hair" Shoo, seriously, go now. Your tour of car dealership appearances and failing to be hip commercials awaits which is far more than you deserve. Good looking out there SOCIETY. HATE!

Anyway here's his butchered performance from last night


along with last night's recap...

Aight suckas, we start this week's edition of American Idol: Season Sanjaya with a very tasteful acknowledgment of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Hopefully the show will keep the balance between reverence and escapism.

This week's legend is country music singer Martina McBride...someone I know nothing about, except she's probably got a huge tour and album and her record company paid alot of money for her to get this gig. Like some of the other legends she really harps on the Idols connecting with their lyrics and work on their storytelling, which is still the main weakness of most of the performers on this show.

Still it's country and I'm not all too excited. The contestants can't be too psyched about it either since only one of the remaining contestants has gone country by choice this season, which was Phil when he bugged out to a Leanne Rimes song early in the competition. Maybe Tobacco Road could count as having a Country je n'ai sais quoit as well.

What do ya know? Phil's leading off the show this week. he and Martina are both Kansans or something. He's singing Keith Urban's "Where the Blacktop Ends" which reminds Phil of "rolling around in the dirt and living like a country boy". Whatev. Martina says pretty much that he's dull until he lets it go at the end and that he needs more energy. Still it's another legend who loves his voice.

Okay Phil, that fucking black shirt is not country. I mean you don't have to wear shit kickers and a fake cowboy hat because dressed like that you're more likely to be singing about where the Galleria ends. He keeps his non expressive creepy look about him for almost the whole song too. It's a shame really because he really sounds great and his voice really emotes. Perfect radio performance because all the visuals drag it down for me.

Randy is convinced that Phil could have a career in country music. Paula said it sounds good all the way through. Simon agrees and thought everything clicked and we saw some personality.

Jordin Sparks is up next and she's got the chutzpah to sing one of Martina McBride's hits "Broken Wing". Jordin blows her away and gets a "That was awesome" from Martina. She does give some advice though and tells Jordin that she should just plant her feet down and sing. Let's see if she heeds that advice.

Oh man that dress it so low cut I thought the top half was flesh toned or something. Girl you're only 17! Put some clothes on yo! Jordin has reached the "nothing bad to say" status as far as her singing goes. She's pretty great actually. She also listens to her legends, even thought she was fidgety I don't think her feet actually moved an inch when the song started. Good stuff there.

Randy loved her pacing and thought it was the bomb. Paula compliments her looks without following it with criticism. Simon admits that he can actually believe that she could win American Idol. Depending on how Melinda performs tonight, Jordin could be the one to beat.

Sanjaya time! Martina breaks the news that Sanjaya is singing "Let's Give Them Something to Talk About". Sanjaya rationalizes it because he gives people something to talk about. Martina thinks Sanjaya should project more. Sanjaya just want to do Bonnie Rait justice...like the kind they dole out in Singapore I'll bet.

Wow. He's got a bandanna that poofs his hair up and a distressed jacket and jeans. Just wow. At least he's trying to dress the part...of a fluffer in a biker porn movie. This may be the shittiest of all of Sanjaya's American Idol shit storms. He pretty much talks through half the song and just sounds painfully bad. It's beyond "irony laced" bad, it's just bad. There really isn;t any entertainment value out left in this act.

Randy calls it karaoke and that it was bland boring and not very good. Paula says he loves adversity and that he's a lovable guy, but doesn't actually say anything negative. Simon is at at the end of his rope and it's showing this week. He calls it horrendous and compares it to the bad audition clips you see at the beginning of the season. Ryan tries to play protector and Simon smacks him down and it's pretty funny actually calling him "big mouth".

Lakisha "Ignorer of Legends" will be singing "Jesus Takes the Wheel" by Carrie Underwood. Bad move there. The song was taylor made for Carrie Underwood and Lakisha's style can't possible fit. It's like putting a diva peg into a mediocre singing pretty face hole. Lakisha brings up the single mom thing again. He singing makes her get the sniffles.

Lakisha comes out and looks pretty good with the brown dress and gold boots. Normally I could just cruise through her performance and say it was usual Lakisha, but this week she was terrible. She kinda loses it and falls back on her big voice when this song really isn't meant to be sung with a big voice. It just sounds like horrible shouting.

Randy said it had pitch problems. Paula actually says that it sounded like she was shouting. Now not that I disagreed, but Paula will actually criticize one of the the more talented singers in the competition, while Sanjaya can come on stage serve up a turd sandwich and she won't say boo. Stupid Paula. SImon says it's like a hamburger for breakfast and the song wasn't right for her. He also lets her know that she's slipping and needs to be careful with song choice.

Chris is up nezt and he's going to be singing "Mayberry" by Rascal Flats, which is one of those cliched country songs where they romanticize about the simple life of long days gone by even though there are MANY towns whose quality of life matches what they are singing about they choose not to live there.

He pretty much sucks air through out the song and sings the song through his nostrils . When called out about it by Simon, he reminds Simon that "Nasally" is a a style of singing. Seriously dude STFU. then he gives a shout out to Virginia Tech and Simon seeming rolls his eyes. Hrm...

Okay tired time...

Melinda. Awesome. She's the only one who truly commits to the country genre tonight and it works. Best of the night.

Blake is the antithesis of that concept he says screw this and turns a Tim McGraw song into a Robbie Williams song faster than you can say "Hugh Grant needs a theme somg for his next movie"

Chris should go on principle. Nasally is a style of singing...so is "shitty".

Tags: American Idol