Thanks to Todd for jinxing me! I’ll be curious to know what the ratings for tonight’s Idol are since the show started on the business end of 10 PM CST, a time that’s more related to “bed” than “party,” for me, since I’m old. Thank goodness for the very necessary Giant’s celebratory postgame show (I would send Victor Cruz to Hollywood, though, for his dancing.)
I was pretty prepared to hate tonight’s episode solely for the fact that it was on late, but it turned out to be pretty entertaining, thanks to some promising contestants, some irritating ones (love-to-hate is almost as good as true love) and the failure that was the producers’ decision to set the auditions on an open-air noisy aircraft carrier.
The episode was very light on freaks. The first singer was the only one to sacrifice her dignity, and I loved watching her crash and burn. Jennifer Diley wore obscenely tiny shorts and a bandeau top to her audition, confessing up-front that her goal was to get the guy judges to vote for her. I suppose I could give her props for admitting that, but there are only so many props in this world, so I am going to save mine. She was flat and dull in her singing, however, and the judges saw through her gambit, so all her time spent walking up the ship’s stairs for the leering cameras was for naught. “At least you made an impression,” Seacrest said, but I wish he had said “At least you have your dignity.”
What followed was a strange assortment of singers that I had written off as probable losers, just because they seemed so silly and obnoxious in their pre-singing clips, but I guess I live in a weird world where I only want people I’d like to hang out with to succeed. For instance, I had figured Jayrah Gibson, fast-talking the flow-chart guy, to be a joke but the judges liked his R&B style, although to me the way he sang made him sound like he was running out of breath and making up the lyrics on the spot.
I was also ready to see Aubree Dieckmeyer get sent home since she couldn’t seem to remember what show she was on, plus I hated her cutesy-poo way of talking to the judges, but they liked her Corinne Bailey Rae-style take on a Michael Buble song. I liked her outfit.
And then there was Alie Shields, a girl who is on about minute six, I would say, of her fifteen minutes of fame. She got on Ellen Degeneres’ show (remember when she was an Idol judge? I had completely blocked that from my memory) for writing a song about her and then got sent to cover the AMA’s and kissed a bunch of singers. Alie was up for kissing a bunch more random guys tonight (crew, not judges). For her audition she rapped to Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now,” after which Randy Jackson asked, ahem, if she was up for “ghetto dancing,” which lit up Twitter with disapproval shortly thereafter. Alie doesn’t seem to be the type to turn down anything that will get her attention and approval, so she shook her booty dutifully and then went on to sing an actual song, but not very well, I thought. She got through, however! I anticipate a light mental breakdown from her in Hollywood.
Fortunately it wasn’t all try-hards. An intriguing contestant was Jane Carrey, 24 year old waitress, mom and daughter of Jim. She resembles Dad in the nose and mouth and seems like a pretty decent, down to earth kinda gal. I found it charming that Jennifer remembered Carrey from the old days when she was brought on the set of In Living Color. Carrey sang “Something to Talk About” and the judges liked her, albeit advised her to get a bit more stage presence. I wonder how much of Jane’s income is made up of tips.
I also liked Jason “Wolf” Hamlin pretty well, even though he falls into one of those Idol prototypes (the blue-collar tough guy with a voice of honey!) He sang Creedence Clearwater Revival and Johnny Cash while playing his “git fiddle,” which is a word for guitar that somehow sounds racist. He seemed like a nice guy and was not unsexy in his own way, despite Ryan protesting that he was glad Hamlin wasn’t going to kiss him, due to the requests from the girls back home. Sure, Ryan.
—What do you think was living inside that nest atop Jennifer’s head?
—Kyle Crews: the white Anoop Desai?
—Ashley Robles: the second coming of Pia Toscano?
—It was odd hearing music from my iPod (Santogold’s “Creator” and Kanye West’s “School Spirit”) on the show tonight.
—”I can’t wait to hear 40 people sing the same Adele song for 6 hou