Greetings, Idol buddies. I love the feeling that while I missed last week's installments, I actually didn't miss a thing. Many thanks to good old Leonard Pierce for filling in for me while I was gone. Now, can we just skip to the last few weeks of the competition? Because based on tonight's performances, I can tell you whom I can do without from here on out.
Now I have to warn you, if you haven't watched the episode yet you will be in for quite a shock when you see the show listing on your DVR—the Top Ten Girls did NOT perform, as Crystal Bowersox was suffering from some mysterious illness that prevented her from performing (let's hear it for Crystal! Yeah!), so it was the guys instead. By my approximation half of them entered the stage flashing that sideways peace sign.
The episode got off to a somewhat rocky start, as bad camerawork highlighted somebody's big head in the way of Ellen Degeneres' shot. Ellen, dressed like some sort of boyish scout, was doing shtick right off the bat which I thought was going to be super annoying all night but to her credit, I think she knows when to be cutesy and when to give it a rest. It was also strange to me how Kara was essentially dressed up as Paula Abdul for the night—orangey skin, big hair, shiny décolletage, and loud dress.
If I could just get rid of a bunch of guys right off the bat, here are the singers who would get the axe based on tonight's performances. Most of them didn't suck, but the just were of a middling-boring variety that isn't fun to sit through for weeks on end.
John Park
As a former Wildcat it pains me to go against one of my own but while John can sing (and probably is great with his a cappella group), he has zero stage presence, or at least chooses songs that allow him to display zero stage presence. John Mayer's song "Gravity" was tedious, as some John Mayer songs tend to be. The judges all felt the same way, with Randy and Simon saying that they don't get star quality from John.
Casey James
In short: we've seen it before. Bucky Covington, Bo Bice—I don't see anything new that Casey brings to this particular table. Hot licks and cool riffs aside, while he could wail out the big notes on Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want to Be," he didn't seem to bother with nailing the quieter parts of the song. Plus, he looked annoyingly confident in himself. Randy adored it, saying "from one musician to another…" and then followed that phrase by a bunch of unconnected words. He thinks Casey could win. I hope not. Ellen wanted more performance from Casey, which I think would actually make him less appealing. I actually agreed with Kara, who thought everything distinct about him went away, while Simon said he was trying too hard to be a rock star.
Todrick Hall
I want to like Todrick. I think the concept of a singer/dancer could be interesting on the show but the second he launched into "What's Love Got to Do With It" I knew the whole thing was a bad idea. He took a great song and sucked all the great out of it and his voice is in the lower ranks of the contestants, at least based on tonight's performance. Randy pleaded with him to "just take a nice song and sing it," which sounds like something my nonexistent grandma would say.
Jermaine Sellers
I thought Jermaine was cute and funny, dancing around in his onesie but as with Todrick's performance, I felt turned off once he got onstage. Style-wise, whatever he was selling, I don't think America will be buying it—it may be the short-sleeved cardigan. He overworked the camera during his mediocre performance of "What's Going On" which is a song that's been done to death on this show. Randy gave it an "Ehhh, dude." I felt like Jermaine made a desperate plea to his Godfearing supporters by talking about his passion for singing in church, which went over like a fart in church with me.
Andrew Garcia
Some of you out there are AnGar fans, so go on and defend your boy, if you still believe. He seems like an OK guy but I didn't hear anything special from him and it's dispiriting to hear that his cover of Paula Abdul was his apex to date. I just found him to be one of the non-specials tonight. Randy told him he's better than he was tonight, and Simon said that if he can't get his shit together and pick the right song, he's out of here. I appreciated the fact that he didn't then beg the judges to tell him what to sing.