Bogus Gold

Danny Gokey lead us off tonight, singing “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King, but it counts for 1980 because Mickey Gilley released a version that year apparently. Not that Danny is going to be doing Mickey Gilley's arrangement, but to be fair he doesn't do Ben E. King's either. Instead he does a kind of jazzed up arrangement that might well have been cut from the final edit of The Commitments. It was good. Danny's voice was strong and this song was squarely within the best part of his range. If you like the Danny-growl, you got a little Danny-growl here. If you don't like it, there wasn't so much it should have ruined the song for you. The judges all ripped on the arrangement, except Paula. But they all liked the vocal performance.

Kris Allen brought back his guitar with an arrangement of “All She Wants to Do is Dance” by Don Henley from the year 1985. Kris was in the mosh pit surrounded by crazy Idol fan girls, who definitely seemed to prefer Kris to Matt Giraud who could barely hold their attention performing in similar style last week. Kris really changed this a lot to take it from the synth-heavy original to something he could perform on an accoustic guitar but I actually thought it worked alright. It wasn't Kris' best by any means, but it was pretty solid. The judges umm... strongly disagreed with me. They hated the arrangement but... I am NOT going to allow that any version of THIS song is "too iconic" to change. It's an alright song but it's hardly Hotel California. Boo to the judges for suggesting otherwise.

Lil Rounds went in a Tina Turner (the revival years) direction for the year 1984 with "What’s Love Got to Do With It.” And while we can all breathe a sigh of relief that Lil avoided something obvious, like the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited," maybe she should have chosen a bit more carefully because... ouch. This was Lil's worst performance of the whole competition. She didn't change the arrangement from the original at all, and seemed to be trying to imitate Tina Turner in other ways too. But the biggest problem was her voice which suffered pretty serious pitch problems through the entire first half of the song. By the end she had it back in control better, but there was nothing exciting enough in there to make you forget her struggles. More worrying for Lil, for the first time the judges turned against her, ripping her song choice, her arrangement, her voice, and questioning the entire notion that she could ever be a real recording artist.

Anoop Desai followed this with “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper, from 1986. Only first he had to explain to America that he didn't mean to come across as an arrogant a** last week by snapping back at Kara. Too late Anoop. Anyway, weird song choice, I thought. But Anoop took it back into his "soul ballad" direction which he does very well. In doing so he turned in another really strong vocal performance and making the audience wonder why the judges kept telling him to get away from this style earlier in the competition. If there is a criticism to be made here it's that this style is a little Michael Boltonish, and "adult contemporary" is probably not the hot youth-oriented market Idol likes to aim for. But anyway, all was forgiven for last week by the judges, who praised this one nicely.

Scott MacIntyre was born in 1985 just like the song “The Search is Over” by Survivor. So it was only natural that one day they would meet and wrestle for dominance. Also, hey you know how Paula advised Scott to get up and leave the piano in some future performance? Well this was the night, with Scott strumming an electric guitar (sadly not very well) and standing at a microphone. Of course Paula is usually stoned, and so therefore this predictably didn't work all that well for Scott. On the positive side this might be the best Scott has sounded vocally so far. He actually tried some new things in a couple of places to change up the "Keep The Faith" sounds like "Wild Angels" sounds like "You Can't Hurry Love" sounds like "Just The Way You Are" rut. Unfortunately everywhere else in the song was squarely in that same rut. Will Scott ever sing a song that doesn't sound like it comes off the exact same Christian rock album? The judges didn't like this one very much, but they gushed all over last week's snoozer from him so maybe this is just karma.

Allison Iraheta, who was born right around the last time you got your oil changed (actually 1992, but she's a young'un, is my point), sang “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt. The arrangement was more or less the original but if anything Allison sounded better than Bonnie Raitt doing this song. Those who earlier tried to characterize Allison as another Amanda Overmyer - meaning she could sing rockers really loudly, but wasn't versatile enough to handle much else - have already been proven wrong. But this should end all such notions for good, as she delivered this one with restraint and emotion, delivering power only when it truly fit the song. The judges were a little blown away by a sixteen year old delivering such an authentic interpretation of such mature lyrics, but had to admit she did it very well. But I kind of get where Simon Cowell is coming from about Allison needing to be more likable. It's not that she's got some obvious personality flaw. It's that she keeps hitting the bottom three when her performances don't deserve to put her there.

Matt Giraud and his box were born in 1985, so of course he chose to sing "Like a Virgin," by Madonna. Kidding! He sang “Part Time Lover” by Stevie Wonder delivered exactly like the judges demand of him. He left the piano behind this week to work the audience with his hat, apparently. This is a pretty challenging song vocally, and many a previous Idolateer would have been destroyed by it. But Matt, in his box, is a pretty capable singer and turned in one of his best vocals of the season. The way the show was running over by this point, this is probably the last performance people watching the show by DVR likely saw. If so, Matt rocked the faux-pimp spot very well and likely extended his run for at least another week.

Adam Lambert was the only one to make a truly interesting song choice for the night (big surprise). He was born in 1982, and went with “Mad World” by Tears for Fears. Adam is the first Idolateer of the season to get the pimp slot for a second time, unofficially making him the producer's chosen one, at least for now. If Danny Gokey gets it next week, you know the showdown is ON! Anyway, Adam began this one sitting on a chair in the middle of the stage with dazzlingly bright blue backlighting. The vocal was soft and emotive, but building, delivered near the top of Adam's impossibly broad range. For those of you who are calling it "falsetto," it mostly was not. His range actually goes that high. Scary. Anyway Adam poured his emotion into this one while resisting the urge to take it in any over-the-top direction. The result was stunningly powerful - at once haunting, tender, and soul-grabbingly assertive. Because they were running over time, only Simon got to speak afterward and he... gave Adam a standing ovation. Simon. A standing ovation. I don't think he has ever done that before in any season. Wow.

In my opinion this is going to be a really tough week for the eliminations. I can make a pretty strong case that two contestants belong in the bottom three, but I'd be pretty surprised to see the voting follow along so cleanly. And all the rest of the contestants turned in the kind of performances that, if not uniformly among their strongest, certainly don't deserve to send them home.

So anyway, let's try to sort this out regardless and get ready to be surprised by the results.

Tops of the night for me was definitely Adam Lambert, who continues to show the ability to surprise and dazzle and seems to be gaining momentum as others wear down.

I think Allison Iraheta deserves an honorable mention for turning in a pretty fantastic performance of her own, even as I continue to worry she might land in the bottom three again anyway.

Making up a very strong middle of the pack this week in my mind are Danny Gokey, Kris Allen, Anoop Desai, and Matt Giraud.

And that leaves, again in my opinion, only a bottom two rather than a bottom three: Lil Rounds and Scott MacIntyre. They suffer from opposite problems. Lil can't seem to find a distinctive voice, and Scott has found one and hits it every week, but it's become boring and limited. Lil seems to be maintaining popularity even as she has fallen out of the judges' favor, but I think it's finally going to catch up to her this week, and she will land in the bottom three. Scott may or may not. I kind of think he will, and can't think of another more likely to land there to replace him.

However that leaves one more spot that can only be filled by someone who probably doesn't deserve to be there. Heck, it could be Allison again, which would be a very bad and very unfair thing. We know it won't be Danny Gokey. I seriously doubt it's going to be Kris Allen. And that leaves Anoop or Matt. Of the two I have to think... it will be Anoop. He soured his public image last week by coming across as arrogant, and his little apology this week isn't enough to recover.

So if the bottom three are Lil, Scott, and Anoop, who will go home? Tough call. Did Anoop screw up his popularity badly enough to go home even following a good performance? Is the judges' dismissal of Lil enough for her fan support to drop so far so fast? Is America really ready to be mean to a likable blind guy?

Hmm... Since every season contains at least one "shocker" elimination around this time of the competition, I'm calling for Lil to go home. But I'm not putting a heck of a lot of confidence into that prediction. We'll see tonight.

UPDATE:

I never look at the Dial Idol results until I'm finished making my own predictions. But I guess I'm not the only one who sees a very unpredictable result coming tonight. They have Adam Lambert finishing in either the first or the second highest spot. After that every contestant has a chance of being the lowest vote getter. According to them, Danny could finish anywhere from first to last. And all the rest could finish anywhere from second to last. Could be a wild elimination night.

UPDATE 2: The Results

So level with me... This whole Flo Rida deal about being the number one song... that was a joke, right? I mean, it would be like Vanilla Ice started a whole popular genre which is only now being appreciated. So it was a comedy bit, right?

Anyway the show results went blah, blah, blah.. The bottom three are Anoop, Scott, and Lil. Wow! I called that one correctly.

But Lil was quickly sent to safety, so it would be no "shocker" elimination this week.

Between Scott and Anoop it's... Scott MacIntyre going home. So I guess we found out just how high sympathy for your disability can take you... and it's not into the finals on Idol.

The judges put a whole lot of time into pretending they might save him which is, again, more cruel than kind. It's like a cat toying with a mouse when Simon can veto the whole thing. And there's no way he's saving Scott. And of course he doesn't.

Next week is the top seven and an as-yet-unannounced theme. I'm betting it's not 80's songs. More likely we have some aging celebrity mentor with a revival album coming out. I don't think Neil Young has sold out that much yet, but we'll see.