American Idol 04/04/06 - Country Fried Idol

Everyone comes out for country night! Even people you sorta wouldn't expect to like...Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock. But there you go 'cause there they is! Whoopi. Whoopi! I love saying that. Ryan's got the whole Just For Men look going on tonight, he has stopped shaving. He is apparently getting too old to pick up the kids hanging around Will Rogers Memorial park and has taken to hanging out at the Faultline. I'm guessing this because that Teri Hatcher thing is just way too unbelievable to believe! Not to mention just downright freaky. Nice try Secrets! Growing a beard does not make you a "man." Neither does growing a "beard."
!
If Soylent Green is people, then Kenny Rogers is country music! He also might be 30% rotisserie chicken. He is definitely 80% not what I remember him looking like from Six Pack back in the days. He is about 100% not fooling anyone.
!
Right out of the chute folks, we see that C&W night is going to be a tough bull to ride. Judging by his performance tonight, Taylor Hicks "Take Me Home, Country Roads" may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. As much as I whole heartedly believe that Taylor should be the #2 finalist in this competition, I think we might be seeing him in the bottom three this week. No kidding! Although, leave it to Taylor to pick out a Kashi earth grain country singer to interpret tonight. If you are going to sing John Denver my friend, you need to bring out some Muppets and sing some Goddamn "Twelve Days of Christmas"...ba dum dum dum. Randy looks like Saloon Sam tonight in his extremely Merv's Costumes Surplus Store red frontier vest. Honestly, who has this in their closet ready to go at a moment's notice? The first two think it was a weak vocal and probably not a very good song choice for someone who requires a little more gusto in his songs. Simon echoes exactly what everyone else has said and gets booed. He gets a look on the face like...am I daft? Ryan seizes the moment to use Simon's "safe and boring" comment to intimate that you could use it to describe Simon's love life. This coming from a guy who looks like George Michael?! Glass houses my friend!
!
Coming back from break someone in the brown nose row behind the judges shouts "I love you Ryan!" Interestingly Ryan seems to pause just before it is said. It seems a little too set up. In fact, just next to Simon is the shows producer Nigel Lithgow who also says that he also loves Ryan. Oh, what is a boy to do? I suggest covering the war in Iraq Ryan. Trying to cut down on the length of this ridiculous awkward moment, Ryan asks question of the ages to the judges, "what's in those cups?" Indeed.
!
Mandeezer is singing Shania Twain's "Any Many Man of Mine"...in horizontal stripes. It's all too distracting. I think it would have made more of an impact on me if she had chosen a song with a little more whining and crying in it like "Stand By Your Man" (that's country isn't it?). All I know is that she didn't hit her higher register like she could have....in horizontal stripes! Hey! The O.C. is in the house! Rachel Bilson gets her own graphic as well, take that Chris Rock and Whoopi. Whoooopi. Randy says he loves the last four seconds of the song. Paula says she can sing the phone book, the encyclopedia...what, no Bobbsie Twins? Where's the literary love? The crowd cheers for her directory-related analogy! And she has said this already this season twice before! Can you believe that?! Simon gets booed again for telling us what we already know. So basically, more whining and crying next time, phone book, horizontal stripes.
!
I think Elliott Yamin is scaring Kenny with his giant gold plated saber tooth necklace. Is this another damn Ice Age tie in? Of course, Kenny is pretty scary these days himself. Did you see his fake ear? I fully expected to see an inch of hair coming out of there but hair doesn't grow in silly putty. Elliott is channeling Garth Brooks tonight is the very pretty and Brokeback-sad "If Tomorrow Never Comes." It is a great song for Elliott and probably the best performance so far but something about all of these renditions is actually making me heartache for the originals right now. As nice a job as he has done with it, it still sounds a little like Josh Grobin got a hold of it. If you are keeping score: Josh Grobin = absent from my iPod. The reviews are mixed. Randy produced the song so he is down with the performance either way...just so he can say that he produced it. Paula can't get enough of her Thesaurus...in the sense that it is clear that she needs a better Thesaurus. Simon balances all by saying that it was indeed the best performance of the night but still safe and "hesitant"...and a bit like Josh Grobin. I added everything after "hesitant."
!
Miss Paris Bennett, you gotta love her in a Tootie Ramsey kind of way but she really just tries way too damn hard. Tonight she has transformed herself into a vision of country delights. Delightful in the sense that this is probably how the Japanese think people dress in when they go all country western over here or maybe this is what they see when it is interpreted by the Harajuku girls. It certainly would have felt very natural on Kinnik Sky. It is times like these that make me salivate for a Music of the Circus night or Krumping's Greatest Hits night. You know that Paris would be down with it and giggling all the way. LeAnn Rimes "How Do I Live without You," another classic example of a great song oversung. First of all, it is in a completely different key than the original, or it appears that she is anyway. I just kept waiting for her to clear her throat. The good news is that her vocal theatrics actually keep her true to herself unlike everyone else tonight. At the judges table it has suddenly become opposite night. Randy is not in love with the performance, Paula gets booed for saying something actually positive and Simon actually likes the song...and gets cheers!
!
Ace. Let's just start by saying that I hate Ace. Hate. Like brussel sprouts hate. Okay, so for once he is probably in his element. He is singing "Tonight I just Wanna Cry" by the equally over-thought Keith Urban (bonus points to Ace for picking someone who also is a flavor of the month). Sorry to be hatin' but here is another Betamike 411: overexposed pretty boys not matter how talented = also not on my iPod. Ace however has either come to his senses or is just having an off night because it turns out to be a perfect song for him and a great vocal performance without...I said WITHOUT...any played-out hand gestures or hair touching. He maybe touched his chest once or twice but I think it might be that he is just a little OCD about that by now. He is dressed very appropriately tonight as well in all black. It's funny, the video screen is showing a big Ace and the real Ace is centered right below him so it looks like giant Ace has mini Ace in his lap; as they are both wearing black you can't really tell. It was really boring for Randy but he liked the falsetto at the end. He says, he finally heard the true Ace at the end with the falsetto. Paula agrees that the falsetto is Ace's "thing." Way to ruin a perfectly good evening of actually enjoying Ace's performance. Here's where I get crazy again.....the falsetto "thing" is not really Ace's "thing" people! It could be anyone's "thing." Everyone, the next time you are having a conversation, talk normal and then at the very end of the conversation, just go up a few octaves and stick a little falsetto on there even if it doesn't belong. It'll be your "thing!" Actually, I'm not sure that he does it well enough for it to be his "thing." Wearing a beanie in your back pocket is more appropriately Ace's "thing" and he doesn't even do that one consistently! Fair enough, score one for the gimper! Secrets and Ace must have broken up because Ryan announces that Ace is "officially single." Overly confident ourselves are we Ryan, now that you're "dating" Teri Hatcher?
!
To start out Kellie Pickler's performance, Ryan interviews her about the horrible rumors floating around that she might not be genuinely naive or sweet and wholesome. Read all about it here! (memo to oneself, disturbing photo inside). So what about all those sal-mon rumors Kellie? She of course denies the entire thing and thinks that people are just picking on Pickler. So I guess that the real Kellie is a lyin' Kellie! It is interesting to see what song that a country kid like Kellie is going to pick for Country Night on American Idol. Judging by her choice last week with "Suds in the Bucket" my guess was going to be something from Hee-Haw like "Where Oh Where Are You Tonight?" where she would sing "...You met another, and.." then razzberry all over the judges with "--pffft! you were gone!" Sigh...I can dream can't I? So what does Kellie do? She does the sensible thing and picks the queen of country Reba McIntyre's "Fancy." Yet another trip down the road of songs with barefoot whorin' girls in them. In this case though, Fancy's mom actually wants her to bring home the bacon. It's really a great song, go get it at iTunes! This is one night that begs for the country kids to shine and Kellie does some shinin'! I do notice that she is wearing a dress just like Fancy did, red velvet trimmin' and it fit her good. The judges all agree that she did well. Simon just doesn't like the song.
!
Here's what you have all been waiting for. Bigger than the burning question of "What's in Paula's cup?" It is, "What will Chris Daughtry do on Country Night?" Well, not surprisingly, he sings a song that is pop country (Keith Urban's [agaiiiin!] "Making Memories of Us") but surprisingly, one that is down tempo. Not something that I expected from Chris but smart to show that he doesn't necessarily have to gravitate toward a harder-edged song like Hank Williams Jr. (Johnny Cash would be way too obvious) to show us that he can sing. But oddly, he is singing about following rainbows and crap for goodness sake! The rocker hasn't traded anything up for this performance, he demonstrates a fantastic vocal control and doesn't give us any gimmicky country warble or wardrobe. It was a little boring but nicely done.
!
Katherine McPhee. I'm going on about week two of starting to wonder what this chick is all about. This is also week two of getting that burning sensation...in my head!... from just watching her. She works on some sort of wavelength that has only been explored by Mary Hart before. The kind that gives you seizures. Also, I half expect that soon either she will break down and have a Lifetime TV moment right in front of the judges or her skull will split open to reveal a shrieking harpie. Either way, I hope she doesn't get kicked off before it happens! At first I think she is saying "You're bringing out the Everest in me" but by turning on the captions it turns out that she is saying "You Bring Out The Elvis in me." Maybe I have been too much into my work lately, I don't know. She gets good reviews from the first two judges and then Simon tells her there was something he just didn't like about the performance. She tells Simon "it's okay" to not like country music just like a bitchy big sister would tell her younger sibling that she just isn't cool enough to read The Babysitter's Club novels.
!
Kenny Rogers tells Bucky "You Might Be A Redneck If" Covington to over-annunciate the words in his song tonight or else it won't make any sense. You can just hear gasps coming from the Covington-Nascar row in the Idol Auditorium. Again, the one person that I was curious about in regards to song choice turns out to pick "Best I Ever Had" originally sung by rock band Vertical Horizon but later re-done by Gary Allen. I bet Chris is just chewing his fist over this one. I was thinking it was odd that the one night that Bucky could become so country he'd shit hay bales was the night he sounded like a Three Doors Down knock-off. Go figure. Gracious, tonight we get to see Bucky's wife...and she looks normal! Fittingly, Bucky gets the best reviews of the night from all three judges. Looks like my Bucky logo will have to wait for another week.