The guy who worked in the paint store got pwned: AI9 Top 2 Recap

Tonight, I’m just a wee bit sad. No, not because I simply adore American Idol. And not because I simply adored this season. I’m just a wee bit sad because I simply adore tearing this show a new asshole on a weekly basis. I simply adore that a few of you actually take the time to read this shit blog. Where will you go? Will I ever see you again if we don’t have American Idol to talk about? I WANT US TO STILL BE FRIENDS!!!

Crystal won the all-important coin toss for tonight’s performance order and smartly chose to go second. So Lee DeWyze will be going first. I would have used the clever nickname I thought of for him last week, but I’ve already forgotten it. Sads. This year is a bit different in that the contestants were actually able to choose their possible coronation song. Because no one wants another No Boundaries. Bowersox has chosen something about a mountain and DeWheezey has selected something called Beautiful Day, which I want to believe is not the U2 hit made even more memorable in my favorite Super Bowl halftime show of all time. After all, both songs need to have the patented brand of syrupy schmaltz that is the Idol coronation song.

Wait…is it…? You mean they’re doing covers. COVERS? Wow. Kara DioGuardi. You killed the Idol coronation song. It might have been the only good thing you’ve done with your life. So Crystal Bowersox is doing Patty Griffin’s Up on the Mountain and Lee DeWyze is doing…U2′s Beautiful Day?

Lee DeWyze
Contestant’s Choice — The Boxer

As a child, Lee DeWyze wanted to be a baseball player. Then he picked up a guitar and fell in love with it, because after every kid finds out its nearly impossible to be a professional ball player, they then resort to their fallback plan. And that’s becoming a rock star. I also recall hearing this same exact story back in 2008 when David Cook was on the show. All the other little boys with similar dreams grew up to do other things. One of them is likely sitting next to you at a bar right now, or maybe he left your toilet seat up. He probably also sold you a can of paint.

How long can Lee stay in tune? How long will his line of spittle stretch like an orthodontic rubber band during the li-li-li-la-la-li-li-lis? He seemed to stay on tune a bit more than usual, but his first time around with this song was a lot better. He seemed more hungry during that performance and frankly, this one fell a bit flat. He phoned it in, perhaps because of nerves of perhaps because he thinks America will swoon and pick up their phones whenever they hear him do the Simon & Garfunkel classic. Sorry, Ellen, I disagree.

Awwww, look who got fresh Botox for Finale Week? And why is she not wearing her full skin suit? We can see part of her alien lizard scales. This would only be good if I could see her deep throat a hamster, a la Diana in the original V.

So he was connected to the song? Huh? Yeah. Simon sums it up better than Limited Vocab and Shit-For-Brains. He did need more passion and excitement.

Crystal Bowersox
Contestant’s Choice — Me & Bobby McGee

Yay! Crystal Bowersox’s biker dad! Yay! Crystal Bowersox has known who she is as an artist since her early teens! Yay! Crystal Bowersox brought her favorite bong back for the big night.

I don’t really have to listen closely to this performance to come to the conclusion Round 1 will go to Ms. Bowersox. She’s singing Janis Joplin’s Me & Bobby McGee. She can’t screw it up. She could sing this in her sleep and it would still be better than most of what we’ve seen this season. When Lee inevitably wins, Crystal will be just fine. I’m also issuing a $100 bet right now that within the next few weeks, rumors of her being cast as Janis Joplin in the Janis Joplin biopic that has never come to fruition (the last I heard was Pink) will start popping up.

I bet Randy says she’s in that damned wheelhouse again. Come on…come on…say it, Randy! Say it! Damn him! Although it does seem you can’t start things out slow on Finale night. At least in Randy’s eyes. Ellen sums it up quite perfectly. Go Ellen. Can’t you say things like that more often? Every time Kara DioGuardi says the word artist, I want to cut myself. Simon basically says she’s sucked for the past month, but now they have a competition on their hands. Yawn.

Lee DeWyze
Executive Producer’s Choice — Everybody Hurts

Executive Producer’s Choice just has really lame ring to it. OH JESUS FUCK. What was that first note? What is this…? WILL SOMEONE SAVE THE KITTY CATS? I can hear them dying but all I can see is this guy with a guitar on my TV. Wait there is a choir of like 1000 people behind him. Surely they don’t need that many people to do whatever it is that they’re doing, why aren’t they saving the kitty cats? The kitty cats are obviously trapped or hurt or scared and WOULD SOMEONE JUST SAVE THE KITTY CATS? I am not watching Animal Planet. I’m watching American Idol. I have no desire to listen to the audio from a kitty cat snuff film.

The choir just raised their hands. OMG THEY WERE SACRIFICING THE KITTY CATS TO THEIR GODS. HELP THE KITTY CATS. EVERYKITTY HURTS…Limited vocab Randy just said it started off pitchy (JUST PITCHY?) but then he got it back on track and became the Lee that he knows and loves. Sure, the final quarter was in key, but likely because he could shout the bridge. Oh Ellen, no.

I felt that you went off a couple of times, but I don’t really care about that, it’s really about the performance.

Ok, well she recovered…kind of. OH KILL ME NOW.

Lee, what makes you great as a performer is that you’re emotionally accessible. And that I can feel every word you’re saying and you’re telling a story. It wasn’t a perfect vocal, but I loved that about you.

Emotionally accessible? Granted, rocks show more emotion than Kara DioGuardi’s damned forehead so maybe that’s why her perception is off. Simon thinks it was a brilliant song choice for him.

I understand, you’re nervous.

The judges who are getting paid millions of dollars to judge a singing competition have just informed us singing means nothing. They’re not even pretending anymore.

Crystal Bowersox
Executive Producer’s Choice — Black Velvet

Come on. Crystal Bowersox deserves more than this trite piece of shit from one-hit wonder Alannah Myles. How many times has this song been performed on American Idol? (I know someone has the stats, so please give them up.) This song has aged about as well as the movie Cocktail.

Bowersox puts a bit of a bluesy torch song spin on it, but she must know its absolute shit? She just doesn’t look comfortable up there sewn into that ruched-to-all-hell-wannabe-diva black dress. And while she deftly handles such a shitty song choice, she almost overdoes it vocally when going in for the Siobhan Magnus (remember her?) glory notes. The judges will love it.

And the judges do. Lee DeWyze might be fucked. After all, it is a girl’s year, remember?

I’m almost allergic to that song. I’ve heard it so many times in auditions where people have absolutely murdered it.

Oh yes, Simon. Oh yes. So does this mean Crystal Bowersox can ably handle any shitty song you give to her? That’s a pretty tall order. Have you heard some of the releases from American Idol finalists? Anyhoo, Crystal makes a couple of jokes to endear herself to the audience once more. Whomever said she’s not media friendly sucks. She throws out the words little boy, diabetes and the lord at the right time, and also makes jokes at an opportune time.

I am so bored, so very, very bored. I’m so profoundly bored. Dear Lee DeWyze, this is your life now. Did your little boy fantasies of being a rock star include all those signs made with Sharpies and poster board?

Lee DeWyze
Coronation Song — Beautiful Day

It is the U2 song. Oh, Simon Cowell. Don’t you remember what happened the last time you got Bono to clear a song for a contestant? He lost. Anyway, someone was obviously taking advantage of Bono’s current infirm state when they got them to clear Beautiful Day for Lee DeWyze? The crusading rock star must be on some heavy painkillers right now, huh?

In all actuality, its Lee’s strongest performance of the evening, but the song doesn’t veer far enough from the original to make it distinct enough, which is almost necessary when you’re doing an incredibly popular song that is relatively recent in the grand scheme of things. Beautiful Day is one of those songs that always been uplifting in a sense, yet not entirely cloying, even though it is a most typical I-am-Bono-I-wear-sunglasses-&-want-to-save-the-world anthem. It’s corny, yes, but it just works. Perhaps again it is because, no matter how many times I’ve heard it, I will always associate it with the 2002 Super Bowl. (Yes, I know. The album was released in 2000.) It was the first song in U2′s emotionally-charged set that featured no frothy stage antics, just every name of those who died on 9/11 projected behind them during Where the Streets Have No Names. Save for Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising, which still gives me chills every time I hear it, Beautiful Day is a song so indelibly associated with a time where the United States was still reeling from the confusion and tragedy of the 9/11, that its hopeful message seems almost cheapened in any other context — especially on a show called American Idol.

Sure, U2′s Walk On is probably more associated with 9/11 than Beautiful Day, but that’s otherwise one of U2′s weaker songs.

(In case you don’t remember, or you missed it the first time around, here’s the greatest Super Bowl halftime show in the history of Super Bowl halftime shows.)

Regardless of what it makes you think of, Beautiful Day may be just too iconic an anthem for any American Idol contestant to take on. Even with an orchestra backing them. Hell, I still think Adam Lambert’s version of One from last season’s finale was one of his weakest performances. Again, perhaps it may just be U2 is one of the few huge acts still performing and releasing new material that any of their work may just be too recognizable for a karaoke contest. It’s U2. I mean, when you want to hear With or Without You, who do you want to hear singing it? U2, or some schmuck you sells you paint? All of this being said, I would love to see a U2 night on American Idol. Perhaps I’m a sadist. And a night of Bruce Springsteen songs? Oh yes. I am a sadist, granted, I would love to see what Crystal Bowersox might be able to do with Atlantic City.

You know something? It says a lot about how dull this show is when I just spent about the last 20 minute waxing faux-philosophical about U2, Bruce Springsteen and 9/11.

The judges give mixed reviews. Kara says he has the most commercial voice of anyone in this year’s competition. When Kara says commercial, its much like when she says artist (but what about those who do not believe you can be a true artist if you’re commercial? Yikes. I am so bored.) and I feel the need to cut myself. Simon reminds us that its his last Idol to judge and that Lee worked in a paint store. Did you know that Lee DeWyze used to sell paint?

Crystal Bowersox
Coronation Song — Up on a Mountain

Doing what she does best — but where is the bong stand? I am also in love with Crystal’s necklace. (Is she still wearing Lilly Scott’s feather? AWESOME!) I don’t know if there is any need to critique Ms. Bowersox’s performance, even with those backup singers hovering all around. Song choice? Perfect. Originally recorded by a respected artist (Patty Griffin) yet not a mainstream pop song known by the entire fraking world. It showcased every one of her strengths. Crystal Bowersox is the real fucking deal. And perhaps that’s why I’m still so damn bored. Because Crystal Bowersox IS great. She’s just always been better than this shit show.

JESUS FRAKING CHRIST IDIOT AUDIENCE PERSON. This is not a Danny Gokey show. This is Crystal Bowersox. Put your hands down, ya asshat!

Sure, Ellen can’t compare her to any contemporary artist, but why the hell is she giving some of the best critiques this evening? She’s almost having a moment. Which pisses Kara DioGuardi off because she is still so desperately — emphatically — trying to have one. Uh oh. Tears. Then…kissing ass to Simon? Crystal Bowersox is press savvy, ain’t she? Has Idol already stolen her soul?

And since this is the final critique I am ever going to give…That was outstanding.

So in the end, the judges threw Lee under that bus that still has Casey James bloody blond hairs caught in the tire treads. After all, it was a girl’s year.

Wait…we’re not done? Will Young? The original-original Idol singing live? To a Season 9 montage? Oh ANGELA MARTIN! COME BACK! Yeah. I bet Kara DioGuardi has done nothing to help you with recording that single now, has she?

Oh great Flying Spaghetti Monster, shoot me now.

So who’s gonna win? No one. We will find out everyone was really dead the entire time and this was some sort of limbo where they had to work out issues they had while they were alive. And Kara DioGuardi is that smoke monster or whatever the hell it was. I didn’t really watch that show.