Motown week has arrived! I have to admit I've been looking forward to this one, almost as much as I dreaded last week's Grand Ol' Opry theme.
It's a theme full of great songs well suited to the musical sensibilities of just about all the Idolateers including plenty that lend themselves nicely to reinterpretation. It could be deceptively tricky for a careless Idolateer or two as well, who accidentally stumble into delivering "karaoke" versions of judge favorite classics. All in all it's just about ideal as far as Idol themes go.
Perhaps I should prepare for disappointment.
And yet, I'm not. I'm totally expecting this night to be full of the good side of Idol with very little let down. The top talent in the field - Adam Lambert, Danny Gokey, Lil Rounds, Kris Allen, and Allison Iraheta - have no excuse not to shine (though Adam will freely interpret what "shine" means of course). As for the rest, even though most of the Idol blog commentariat seems convinced Scott MacIntyre and Michael Sarver will be dull as dirt, Megan Joy (Corkrey?! What happened to her last name? Did it get Chikeze'd?) will struggle, Anoop will play it safe, while Matt Giraud will shine, I'm willing to bet there are more than a few surprises tonight.
Also here's hoping we don't have another run of male singers choosing songs from female artists like the Supremes and Marvelettes. Two weeks in a row of that kind of thing and it would start moving from annoying into disturbing.
Oh, and the first one to pick "Heard It Through The Grapevine" gets the unofficial loss for the week unless they do something truly original with it (i.e. unless it's Adam). It's just too obvious a choice.
Matt Giraud sang “Let’s Get it On,” by Marvin Gaye. (Nice lead in from the jump quote, eh?) Holy crap I actually like Matt Giraud this week, and not in that "he's delivering a solid performance" kind of way. I mean I actually liked this and wanted to hear it again. It wasn't that far off the original, but it wasn't a copycat either. Matt actually did pick up his vocals this week to the extent the judges praised him for (incorrectly) last week. Are they psychic? That said, I continue to feel Matt is being set up for a terrible judge betrayal. He's getting better and better... in his box. When he tries to leave it - and the judges will eventually insist he must or they will start calling him boring and predictable - they will destroy him. /
Cassandra. A very good week for Matt.
Kris Allen followed with “How Sweet it Is,” by Marvin Gaye. You know what's great about Kris? Just about everything that feels somehow lacking in Matt Giraud is what Kris has tons of. Whatever you might call it. I'll try to describe it... where Matt sounds well rehearsed, Kris sounds spontaneous. Where Matt sounds like he's overthinking, Kris sounds natural and relaxed. Where Matt seems like he's grasping desperately to display the right emotion, Kris seems like he's sincerely feeling it. You might have noticed, my assessment of Kris is on the rise. I'm just starting to plain like him. He sang this simple melody simply accompanied by his guitar but dressed it up just enough to sound skilled without sounding showy. Nice mix. On the first listen I thought Matt Giraud was slightly better. On the second listen I had to flip that around. That's a mini story of Kris Allen this season... he wears better and better over time.
Scott MacIntyre hit the baby grand once more to deliver ”You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes. Meh. Sometimes the Internet masses are right. This is one of those cases. Scott is proving he sings pretty much the same thing over and over. And it's getting pretty boring. Yes, the tempo was picked up this time, but that only proved it wasn't the tempo that was the problem previously. Scott's now skating by on that vaunted "this is probably better than the worst of the night" vibe, combined with "he's a likable blind guy" sympathy. It's a heady mix and likely to buy him at least another week.
Megan "Chikeze" Joy hit the night's fourth spot with “For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder. Wow this was... interesting. And by interesting I mean painful to watch. And by watch I mean listen to. Since most of the judges danced around it in the name of calling it awful for all kinds of other reasons, may I just point out that the most glaring failure here was that she kept not hitting the right notes? That's not a style thing. That's not a song choice thing. That's not an outfit thing. That's
not hitting the freaking notes! Ahem... so there. At times this verged on the kind of over-the-top parody you might find on a Saturday Night Live episode making fun of American Idol. Off night for Miss Caw *Cough*
Anoop Desai next sang “Ooh Baby Baby” by - Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. It started out kind of... kind of.... ZZZZZzzzzz.... Huh?! What?! Oh... right! It started off REALLY slow... Sleepy slow. Boring slow. The good news was, Anoop decided to show off his truly skilled vocals which got things a bit more interesting about midway through. After listening to the previous couple of performances this came across pretty well. Anoop is surely popular enough to keep hanging around based on that. But it's not a championship winning kind of performance either. But I guess that'll do, pig.
Michael Sarver followed with “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by The Temptations. I had high hopes for Michael this week. He's been an R & B singer trapped in bad themes with bad edits to make him seem like a country singer for a while. This could have been a nice breakout for him. Blame if on his illness earlier in the week if you must, but this just sucked. Really and truly. If Megan was able to hit more of her notes, even she would have been better than this. It's a close call still. This is totally not the kind of singer Michael has shown he could be. Look, if you're doing Ain't Too Proud to Beg - a song everybody knows, and everyone has heard David Ruffin kill with on The Temptations recording - you can't just amble around the stage glad-handing the audience and NOT bring a great vocal. This was bad Michael. This was country Michael doing Motown. This was a Michael who shouldn't even be in the top ten.
Lil Rounds got all throwback tributey with “Heatwave” by Martha and the Vandellas. This is the second week in a row Lil decided to go "all in" on the theme. It didn't work so well for her last week. I thought it went a little better for her this week, but the judges ripped it perhaps even more fiercely. Word to the judges: this is not Fantasia. I made that mistake at first too, but I got over it. Lil does not have a fiecely original voice struggling to be heard. She's just a darn good singer, and the only one left this season of the ever-popular black female gospel/soul type. Lil delivered this really well. Yeah... you can easily imagine other and better things she
might have done. That doesn't make this a bad performance. Which it wasn't. I kind of enjoyed it for what it was.
Adam Lambert chose “Tracks of my Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. They made it seem like a big deal that Adam was going "unplugged." That's not a surprise to me. Adam doing what you expect him to do would be the surprise. Plus, I took a sneak peak at some YouTube videos of Adam performing at a club in LA earlier this week that were strikingly similar to this. Still... for most of America this was lilkely a shocking change of direction for him. And it showed that, yes, he has amazing range and amazing skill but he also can
restrain it and deliver a soft and understated vocal with just as much power of its own sort. Plus it just sounded damn good. Smokey Robinson, who wrote it, was left with tears in his eyes (they looked like the happy kind, especially considering the accompanying standing ovation) when this was done. Best of the night.
Danny Gokey mixed it up next with “Get Ready” by The Temptations. Word to Michael Sarver - this was the kind of vocal you were supposed to bring. The second classic Temptations song of the night sounded little like the first, as Gokey's voice handled this with ease. There seems to be a split reaction about Gokey's shall we say... enthusiastic... stage presense. Some think he dances around like an idiot. Others find it kind of likable and charming. On this performance I lean more toward the latter. It's a song with a whole lot of energy from start to finish, and Danny just seemed to get caught up in it very plausibly. The judges felt compelled to bring it down a bit, but kind of unnecessarily to me. It was a solidly good vocal, even if there were some better tonight.
Allison Iraheta got the pimp slot, hammering us home with “Papa was a Rolling Stone” by The Temptations. The first thing that came to mind when I heard this was David "the
other other David" Hernandez doing this song so well last season. And a quick internet search after quickly made me realize why. They not only the same musical arrangement for the opening, but they used the same
lighting. Sheesh. Anyway Allison continues to amaze. It was her first time in the pimp slot and she took full advantage delivering a scathingly hot vocal, at times sounding emotionally raw and others mature and controlled well beyond her years. Right now she sounds like the best sixteen year old singer in Idol history, hands down. Look out Lil Rounds. You might not be the last woman standing in this competition at Allison's current pace.
Alright, so to wrap up the night... Not nearly as surprising as I expected, but not bad at all. With only a couple of exceptions we heard some pretty good music. Smokey Robinson turned out to be the kind of "coach" who loves everyone and everything, so not a lot there. But the performances themselves were varied, mostly good, and told us a lot more about the Idolateers.
Best of the night probably has to go once again to Adam Lambert, who liekly gained himself a lot of new fans in the process.
Following Adam I'd put Allison Iraheta and Kris Allen next, probably in that order, with Matt Giraud placing a close fourth.
Making up the middle of the pack tonight were solid but not exciting performances from Lil Rounds and Danny Gokey and a subdued but skilled Anoop Desai.
And that brings us to an unsurprising but well deserved bottom three: Michael Sarver, Megan "Chikeze" Joy, and Scott MacIntyre.
Of these three I would imagine Scott remains safe, as his only great crime is being boring and predictable.
Megan and Scott would seem equally vulnerable from two bad weeks in a row, this time including glaring singing mistakes going beyond anything about "song choice" or "bad theme" for them. Do either of them have a big enough fan base to cover for that, even with all the other performers doing pretty well? Maybe one of them does, but probably not both of them. I'm picking Megan to go home this week, but if it's not her it will be Michael. Any other result can be considered shocking.
UPDATE: The Results
Okay, we finally got our surprises for the week. And no, I'm not talking about Ruben Studdard losing so much weight.
First we had to suffer through perhaps the most canned lip-synched, pre-filmed Idolateer musical medley in Idol history. What was up with that? It is just so they can make it look like Scott can dance along with them even though he's blind? Might want to work out something better before the live tour this summer.
Anyway we quickly learned that Adam was safe, no surprise. And then we learned that Matt Giraud is also... no wait!!! Matt Giraud hits the bottom three, and we have our first surprise of the evening. Of course it happens on the week I finally consider him one of the top performances, so I might have jinxed things for him.
Anyway afterward Kris is safe after some Seacrest misdirection. Lil is similarly teased to believe she's hitting the bottom three but she's safe. Michael Sarver, quite unsurprisingly, joins Matt Giraud in the bottom three.
Commercial break, filler, commercial break.
Allison is safe. Anoop is safe. Danny is safe. No surprises there. It's down to Megan and Scott. And... Scott makes the bottom three. Which isn't a huge surprise. But Megan avoiding the bottom three IS a pretty big surprise.
So the bottom three are Michael Sarver, Matt Giraud, and Scott McIntyre. One can go back to safety. Obviously it's going to be Matt... and it's.... Scott! Another surprise. Perhaps Matt isn't
quite the front runner the judges told him he was last night.
Anyway, as usual we sit through a commercial break, Stevie Wonder, and another commercial break before the judges pretend they're going to consider using their save based on the quality of the eliminated contestant's singout vocal. Umm... riiiiight. I have a feeling they're basing it on whether the eliminated contestant's last name is "Lambert, Gokey, or Rounds" until the very last week it's available to them.
The big announcement comes and it is...
Michael Sarver on the bottom. Matt Giraud is safe.
So Michael does his sing out and *yawn* like this will matter at all. The judges pretend to be seriously deliberating until they're reminded the show is running over at which time they summarily dispatch Michael for good.
Nice run for the rough neck. But it was time for him to go.
Next week the theme is... something wonderful or awful or whatever. They ran over time and didn't announce it. I'm sure we'll catch wind of it over the course of the week. Hard to believe Megan's luck can carry her much farther no matter the theme though.
It's a theme full of great songs well suited to the musical sensibilities of just about all the Idolateers including plenty that lend themselves nicely to reinterpretation. It could be deceptively tricky for a careless Idolateer or two as well, who accidentally stumble into delivering "karaoke" versions of judge favorite classics. All in all it's just about ideal as far as Idol themes go. 
Unscientific test: We always record Idol, and watch it later. For reasons unknown to mankind, my wife likes Megan, so she started calling to vote for her at around, oh, 9:30, 10. She always got through. The first time she called to vote for Adam though, it was busy.
Overall, I much more enjoyed country night than Motown. Aside from Matt, Adam, Danny and Allison, the rest were forgettable, to use a Simonism.
Megan is going home..
Either Megan or Michael will go home tonight. It will be interesting to see if Scott will be in the bottom three. He should be, but I'm not sure that America is ready to get rid of the likable blind guy yet.