Emphatically Apathetic: AI9 Top 3 Performance Show

Jeez DeWheeze. Can’t Lee DeWyze just smile? It is, as Seacrest says, a very exciting night. Perhaps Seacrest is correct, this might be the most exciting night of season 9 of American Idol. Or it will be just like every other episode we’ve seen before. Is it over yet? Oh crap. We haven’t even started, yet we’re already here. Can someone tell me where Alex Lambert and Lilly Scott went? And what was that one girl…Katelyn something? Katelyn Epperly! Where did they go? Are they at the craft services table? Quick! Someone tell them the show is about to begin.

CONTESTANT’S CHOICE

Casey James
It’s ok (It’s alright with me)

Naturally, Casey James is going first because nary a producer or judge wants him to break up the pre-ordained Crystal-Lee finale. Casey chose this song because he loves it, and its similar to the kind of music he writes. Perhaps turning in several quality performances during his hometown visit has helped relaxed Casey. He’s happy. He’s comfortable. He sings it well. It’s lazy-day music. It doesn’t go anywhere, but it doesn’t seem to do anything but lounge in a porch swing. And sometimes, that’s okay. Not every song has to be about falsetto fellatio and climactic hoohahs. Sometimes simple works best. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sure, maybe he should have taken it up a notch, but perhaps he knows the deck is stacked against him and just wants to go out on his own terms. I’m not quite sure what else he could do at this point, since it’s already apparent how this is going to play out…

Randy says it was just alright — you know, like the song title — and he needed to be groundbreaking and original since this is such a big night. Everyone else agrees, of course. This was written beforehand. They have teleprompters. Now its just a matter of saying it emphatically.

It’s hard to pick a song nobody knows.

I really hate this condescending twat. Shit-For-Brains should just shut up. Casey just can’t ever get credit for doing something slightly different, can he? Whether its a slight rearrangement or a slightly unknown song, he is chastised for being unoriginal. No matter what the guy does, the bus is still gunning for him.

Crystal Bowersox
Come To My Window

One of her favorite singers, Melissa Etheridge is an excellent choice for Bowersox. She’s even got her bong mic stand out tonight. Starting off with a harmonica, the first lyric is a bit off and sadly, time restraints do nothing for the arrangement, as she is forced into the bridge almost right away. She sounds lovely in parts, but I kept waiting for it to go somewhere. Crystal has moments of vocal brilliance, but then some parts just fall flat. While the harmonica at the beginning was kind of a nice touch, it may have effected her performance. She always seemed as if she was racing towards the end, when she hopped on the harmonica once again. Except she got lost somewhere in between.

The judges praise her vocal, but say the performance did nothing for her. Shit-For-Brains DioGuardi, sadly, explains it best. (I HATE YOU WOMAN.) Simon says more than I’ve heard him say in weeks. The lukewarm reaction to Crystal’s performance is understandable — it was one of her weakest, most lifeless performances, which often happens when you’re finally able to take on a singer or song you’ve always admired and a lot is riding on it. It’s difficult to shake the feeling, however, that the judges are just saving up their praise for DeWheezy.

Lee DeWyze
Simple Man

The chosen one (sorry, dear Bowersox. They’re putting all their eggs in Lee’s basket now. Had you actually sat through one of these shit shows before, you would have learned how fickle those asshats can be.) is doing Lynard Skynard. Like Casey, the hometown visit seems to have done wonders for DeWheezy. Its a solid rendition, still doesn’t leave the bar at around midnight on a Saturday night and the last note sends his guttural goodness into the sewer.

But hey, its better to be playing to a packed bar at midnight on a Saturday than to an empty room with only a few remaining drunkards slurring their words at 2:30 am on a Wednesday night. So Lee DeWheezy, I give you props. Nicely played. Now go get me another rum & coke.

And cue the I could see you making an album like that. Oh. And the he’s in it to win it. At least with Ellen DeGeneres, you don’t know what animal or vegetable or mineral she will compare you to. Uber-twat Kara fawns over Lee, telling him he showed them everything he’s got. She says this with such a husky, emphatic urgency that makes me want to slap her. The bitch just tries too hard to make herself look relevant. It isn’t really fair, however, since her glowing assessment of Lee’s performance — you chose a song that had meaning for you, blah blah emphatic blah — is a bit of a slap in the face to Crystal and Casey, who both chose songs that meant something to them. By artists that meant something to them. And if you’re even just a solid, garden-variety bar singer, you likely know how to do Skynard pretty damn well at this point.

Commercial break…I have never seen a Shrek movie, but I am so going to McDonald’s to buy the glass on the far right. For obvious reasons. Obviously.

A picture says 1000 words… (or does the saying go a picture says 100x more than Randy Jackson’s vocabulary?)

JUDGE’S CHOICE

Casey James
Daughters

Randy and Kara spout some crap about how they think Casey should be like John Mayer. Yeah. This is a shitty ass song. Indulgent doesn’t even begin to describe this crap. It also makes the swaybots sway. Why don’t you just chop his head off? Killing someone is easier when you just do it quickly.

The song is loathsome, but Casey gives it his all, a little goat vibrato there, a little goat vibrato here. I like his voice. Shoot me. But know what I really like? I like it when Casey James plays guitar. This performance would be a lot better, if it wasn’t such a loathsome fucking song that frankly, gives me the creeps. It’s John Mayer, for chrissake.

The judges praise him this time around, well, not so much him as themselves, because it was they who chose the song. And Randy and Kara love talking about themselves and their sage wisdom. Simon takes them to task for their selection, just as he did last season when they gave Kris Allen that Ryan Tedder garbage. He complains there wasn’t enough of a climax and Kara starts emphatically talking about how it doesn’t need a climax because its all about emotion. Hey, I dig emotion. But I hate John Mayer. And Kara DioGuardi, the only thing I would hate more than being stuck in a room with you is being stuck in a room with you and Julia Roberts. Your rampant narcissism and commitment to being so damned emphatic about every damn thing you say makes me want to shank someone. Hell, you make me want to shank my couch.

Crystal Bowersox
Maybe I’m Amazed

Ellen selected Paul McCartney’s classic for Ms. Bowersox and its a much better choice than what those dingbats surrounding her chose for Casey James. Notice how the judges’ choice works? Randy & Kara get to choose for the person they want to go home immediately. Nice judge (aka Paula/Ellen) gets to choose for the contestant they want to be in the finals, but not win. And Simon gets to choose for the ordained winner.

Crystal sounds lovely, and Rickey Minor & Debra Byrd did not make her change the gender orientation of the song (maybe I’m a man / maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me). Speaking of men, Crystal goes balls out on the vocals. Balls out. I picture a choir behind her, but Crystal doesn’t need a choir to make her sound better. She also did beautifully without her guitar. Gee, Randy. She must be in it to win it, right? Ellen, nice job on song selection. Kara, shut up about song rearrangement. You can’t even arrange your meds properly in that pillbox marked with the days of the week. Four words, bitch — OPEN TOES. (Funny, rearranging songs was never a make-it-or-break-it factor until David Cook, was it?)

Lee DeWyze
Hallelujah

Another song in desperate need of a mercy killing on American Idol, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Naturally, Simon has chosen this for the erstwhile paint salesman from the Chicago burbs. Simon owns the rights to this song. You hear that sound? That’s another zero or two being added to one of Simon’s bank accounts. But Simon says he chose the song for Lee because he LIKES Lee AS A PERSON and how its never been done like how Lee is gonna do it on the Idol stage. (Yeah…slam Jason Castro why dontcha. He’s kind of the one who made it an Idol standard. And didn’t little Timmy Urban just sing this already this season?) He also says he’s basically handing Lee his moment on a silver platter.

A fraking backup singer choir? Are you kidding me? Oh. Did you hear how he ruined that first refrain with his last hallelujah? Why didn’t you put the backup singers in robes for chrissake? At least we know they were there to drown out DeWheezy’s patented off-key wheeziness, but hey, stick him in all white and call it a moment. The judges cream all over themselves. They also use this time to drive the point home how Lee is what this show is all about. How Lee was just a guy selling paint searching for his big break. How Lee laid down the gauntlet. How Lee has improved so much in this competition. Kara DioGuardi is out of control emphatically demanding HER moment — she really does become more insufferable every time she opens her mouth. Simon basically handed him the title. Randy and Ellen reiterated everything the somewhat more pertinent judges said. It’s manipulative. It’s predicable. It’s pathetic.

You know what? I’m gonna listen to it again. Perhaps I missed something while furiously typing away on my laptop. Perhaps it was sheer brilliance. Perhaps Lee DeWyze is one of the brightest undiscovered talents the world has ever known. (And hey, Lee does, at times, lead one to believe he may possess certain qualities most desirable American Idol winner — i.e., someone who might finally tell his batshit crazy fans to shut the frak up and leave him alone and…a guitar? Hmmm…it wasn’t bad. It was relatively in tune, but…I did not cream myself. So um…

Every moment of tonight’s show reiterated the fact that American Idol sucks. Sure, it’s always sucked donkey balls, but now it sucks rotten corpse maggot-infested donkey balls. What was the point in even allowing Casey James to sing tonight, or for that matter, even Crystal Bowersox? While part of me relishes the pimping of Lee DeWyze as Idol finally accepting a girl can never win this damn thing because women of a certain age are the only ones who vote hard and vote often, the other part of me feels bad for our beloved goat and Saint Bowersox. Because I’m the type who roots for the girls with guitars and all the undergoats in all the world.

But I’m still bored.