IDOL HANDS: American Idol, The Boys Are Back in Town

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IDOL HANDS: American Idol, The Boys Are Back in Town

POSTED: Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8:19 PM

Filed Under: Music | TV | Idol Hands Watch

We like American Idol. Too much.

Molly Eichel: Like many of you, I sat on my couch with my head cocked confused puppy-style when I saw the boys take the stage last night? Wasn't it supposed to be the ladies? Yep, apparently Crystal Bowersox was rushed to the hospital for vaguely disclosed reasons and the boys stepped up to take their place. Get well soon Powersox!

Tommy Button: Alright. I'll give the boys credit where credit is due. Clearly, these men did some soul searching after last week's clusterfuck and found something inside to make them suck less. Congratulations on sucking less, boys. Next, try not sucking at all

ME: I've got to give it up for Michael "Big Mike" Lynche, who sang James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." Half of the boys' problem is their song choice and this is perfect for him. It's both ballad-y enough so he can show off his range but paced fast enough to show off the personality that makes him so attractive as a contestant in the first place. This was the first performance and I already knew it was going to make my top two of the evening. Also, did you see he was BFFs with Andrew Garcia?

TB: I like his BFF-ship with Andrew Garcia. That's a duo you want on your side, although Andrew needs to step it up. But Big Mike is getting a little boring for me. Sure, he's good but he doesn't do it for me all the way. Kind of like a black Lee Dewyze.

ME: Your opinion may be borderline retarded Tommy, but you lead me to my perfect transition to my second favorite performance of the night: Lee Dewyze's "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder. Detractors bitch that Idol is glorified karaoke, but I could almost hear Lee singing songs like this on the radio. Like, I would turn on WMMR and could hear Lee Dewyze. He did look awkward as fuck lumbering around the stage though, and I think he'll split votes with Casey James, who is considerably better.

TB: Plus, Casey James rebuilt his own house?! Wow. He reminds me more and more of that guy in The Notebook everyday.

ME: Casey reminds me of a redneck, Jesus-ier version of David Cook.

TB: If anyone was closest to not sucking at all it was Alex Lambert. I never thought it possible and I was certainly preparing for him to fail miserably but he somehow turned it out. The only way he could have been better would have been if he vomited everywhere — he talked a lot about blowing chunks in his pre-taped interview — while holding the last note. It'd be like a John Waters movie. For reals though, he sounded like he was having fun for the first time on this show. And probably most importantly, he made the stool work. I don't care about your arrangement, or the key, or the tempo. If you have a stool on that stage, you're taking the biggest risk ever. We expect something particular when we're being sung to from a stool so you better deliver.

ME: Mullet Chops certainly gets the Most Improved award. That was a show-defining performance. He'll coast the next couple of weeks on that alone. It also took stones to sing John Legend's "Everybody Knows." Turns out, boy's got boulders, considering the song choice and, apparently, the chair choice.

TB: Unfortunately, John Park wasn't able to work the same stool magic. John Park, resident Asian stoner and member of Purple Haze —Northwestern's hottest a Cappela group, might as well have been singing "I'm ooooooooon a stooooooooool, I'm oooooon a stooooooool." That's how much that moved me. AND he looked stupid on that stool. CUT TO: disapproving Asian parents because you're going home, John Park.

ME: John's crime was being Scandinavian-move boring. Just as criminal though was Todrick Hall's decimation of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It?" I didn't hate Todrick's arrangment last week as much as everyone else did, but one is moronic. Did he listen to the lyrics? You can't do a song about getting it on with no thought to good taste, pregnancyor herpes in the style of a let's-get-it-on ballad. I hope Ms. Tina saw that, barfed all over her yoga mat, did a "River Deep, Mountain High" wail and set out to find Todrick Hall and kick the shit out of him with those glorious gams.

TB: Jermaine Sellers was terrible. I really wanted to say Tim Urban was the worst out sheer principle but, let's face it, the pretty boy will rise again. But so I feel less bad about this, I'm gunna write "Tim Urban" in place of "Jermaine Sellers." In weird way, Tim Urban reminds me a little of Andre 3000. Maybe it's because I'm positive Andre 3000 has a closet of dino onesies. I always want to like him but he has this way of making good songs bad. Tim Urban took one of the greatest songs ever and made it pointless. "What's Going On?" is an intense song, Tim! Quit acting like you're drunk at wedding. But he knows God and God has a telephone that he will use to call in and vote for Tim so no one else bother. Gabriel working 24/7 at getting this guy into the Top 12.

ME: Jermaine needs to go. He ages everything. He took everything at all still current about this song and replaced it with lots of keyboards so it sounded like the theme song to Moonlighting. It's the exact opposite of everything Aaron Kelly does. "My Girl" needs to be sung by someone who has spent some actual quality time with a lady (or man, let's not discriminate), not someone who has three pubes and has to hide his Playboys from his mom.

TB: I thought he was trying to get a little too creative here. Maybe he thought he was putting a country spin on some Motown, but he sounded like he was at a junior high talent show. So it was good. As far as junior high talent shows go.

Lindsey

Posted 2010-03-03 16:03:10

I made that exact same Notebook comment about Casey James. Man, comparing Casey James to Ryan Gosling in the Notebook because he rebuilt his own house (!!!!) makes me fall in love with him. A lot.

alynn

Posted 2010-03-03 18:03:54

TB's comments was a bit confusing...think he got Tim and Jermaine all mixed up or the writing is without clarity.

Posted 2010-03-04 02:17:51

Please use your/you're correctly if you want to be taken seriously.

Posted 2010-03-04 10:24:13

Overall, I appreciate the flippancy of this recap.  But I don't appreciate the derogatory use of the r-word in regards to Tommy's opinion.
Molly, sign the pledge:
http://www.r-word.org/

Pilgrim

Posted 2010-03-04 10:28:08

Overall, I appreciate the flippancy of this recap.  But I don't appreciate the derogatory use of the r-word in regards to Tommy's "Big Mike"/Lew Dewyze comparison.
Molly, sign the pledge:
http://www.r-word.org/

Posted by Molly Eichel @ 8:19 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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