American Idol 12: One (It’s Finally Over)

Yes, there will be a season 13.  FOX confirmed that this week.

About the only person you’ll see over the next two hours who will return in January 2014 is Ryan Seacrest.  Everything else is up for grabs – all four judges will probably go, Nigel Lythgoe may be relieved of his duties, and one can only hope they toss Jimmy Iovine out on his ass.

From Nokia Theatre L.A. Live, with two hours of filler and 7 minutes of content…

THIS!!! … is American Idol!

As I usually do for this, I’ll try to give you timecounts and snark.  We’ll see how I do on the snark, as really, I feel more sad about this lost season than anything else.  But here goes…

(8:00 PM EDT) Seacrest, live on stage… pull back to Kree and Candice in a bit of a friendly staredown (ending in laughter)… and cue the titles… and an awkward cut to the Top Ten doing a group number.  Wait, there were guys on this season?  Anyway, it’s The Wanted’s “Glad You Came” (although it was barely recognizable).  And we’ve had more fun in this segment than over the last couple of months. 

The judges are introduced next, getting their last standing ovation, before Seacrest (in his best Dick Clark New Year’s tux) gets his intro.  After a bit of fluff, Kree and Candice get their intro… and we hit the first…

BREAK!!!

(8:09 PM) The cavalcade of real pop acts starts with The Band Perry (yes, they’re pop – with a country twang).  They’re doing “Done”, with vocals from Janelle Arthur – which really demonstrates where Janelle’s going to end up, and she’s going to do well there.   We have now had more fun in the first 13 minutes than we had during the entire season.

And now, the first silly montage.  A “hard-hitting” investigation of the guys going home in the first 5 weeks of the finals.  Apparently, they’ve wasted time taping segments claiming the girls sabotaged the guys… we like a little misdirection… don’t we?

OK, the scene where Janelle changed the sheet music on Lazaro’s disastrous version of “Close To You” was cute.  And the “reveal” that Jordin Sparks was behind the sabotage (because none of the boys play guitar, and she was tired of being the last girl to win) was funny.  The cheapshot at The Voice?  Not so much.

Anyway, the guys are up, with a group rendition of the Four Seasons’ “Let’s Hang On”, into “Walk Like A Man”, into “Who Loves You” – and, of course, you know what that means.  Cue Frankie Valli to show the boys how the Jersey sound really works… starting with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” (the guys fill in for the Four Seasons midway through), into “Grease”.  And… scene.

BREAK!!! OK, that segment makes up for some, but not all, of the dreadful season…

(8:28 PM) Back with Mariah Carey, live on-stage with a medley of herself…? “Vision of Love”, “Make It Happen”, “My All” [at which point we start wondering if this is a lip-sync], “Hero” [during which we’re sure it’s a lip-sync], “We Belong Together” [during which we wonder why they’re still doing closeups as it’s blindingly obvious she’s lip-synching], and “#Beautiful”.  Oh, hey, was that Randy Jackson on guitar?

BREAK!!!

(8:37 PM) Amber Holcomb gets a solo, doing “Next To Me”.  Well, she’s solo for two lines before they bring out Emeli Sandé for the duet.  We won’t mention the cut to Nicki looking stoned at the judges’ table.  Oops.

It’s time for the annual tradition, where the final two give Ford cars to someone special in their lives.  But first, a montage of the insipid Ford Fiesta Missions.   For both, the setup was done during Hometown week.  Candice gifted her grandmother.  Kree gifted her brother-from-another-mother (and musical mentor).

And now, back to the stage – Psy is live [dancing live, singing…?], doing “Gentleman” (the followup to “Gangnam Style”).  Since I don’t speak Korean, I have no idea what’s going on.  It looks like this was supposed to spawn another silly Psy dance like “Gangnam” did.

BREAK!!! What, no “Gangnam Style” live?  REALLY?

(8:52 PM) The judges’ (farewell?) performances continue with Keith Urban [who does appear to be singing].   Unlike Mariah, Keith stuck to his current single, “Little Bit of Everything”.

Seacrest talks to Candice’s parents quickly before tossing to Candice’s solo, “Inseparable”.  Now this song has been done by a couple of powerful women, so who’s coming onstage?  How about Jennifer Hudson, who never released the song?  OK.  But she is an Idol alum, so why not?  All kidding aside, it worked.

BREAK!!!

(9:05 PM) Number three isn’t so bad… at least not if you’re Angie Miller, who sings “Titanium”.  Sadly, she has to do so with Adam Lambert (sorry, that’s my VFTW side coming through).   Apropos of nothing, did you know some radio stations pulled this song last fall due to the use of words like “bulletproof” and “shoot me down”?  Cowards. 

Anyway, Adam hands Angie off to Jessie J (who apparently forgot some of the front of her dress) for a duet of “Domino”.  If they had let Angie do fun songs like this during the season, she’d have won by a country mile.

They even mention the fact that Angie’s debut single was bumped for the duet with Jessie J – so Jessie is going to bring Angie to the UK to do a show this summer and/or a video for the single.  Nice touch.  That single, “You Set Me Free”, dropped tonight on iTunes.

BREAK!!!

(9:16 PM) We finally get to the silly montage about the judges.  Mariah gets skewered for “Dahling”;  Keith for his t-shirts and his chair dancing; Randy about his lack of volume control and his silly clichés; and Nicki for her bluntness and her fashion sense (of sorts)  That was several minutes I will never get back.  Right, I didn’t fast-forward, that was dumb.

Cut to Kree’s sister for a quick interview before the toss to Kree on-stage with Keith Urban on guitar, Randy Jackson on bass, and Blink-182’s Travis Barker on drums, doing Keith’s “Where The Blacktop Ends” (a #3 country single from 2001).

BREAK!!!

(9:28 PM) Another silly montage… it’s the farewell montage for Randy Jackson.  Yes, Idol  has gone to the dawgs… or, should I say, the dogs [subtitled].  Seriously, dogs around a conference table leading into the official montage… and leading out with dogs in the control booth.  Really, it wasn’t worth that many words.

Cut to New York, where Aretha Franklin is standing by to make an appearance by satellite (since she doesn’t fly).  Her job, is, apparently to sing with the top 5 girls… via satellite.  Personally, I think she’s really in L.A. and the girls don’t know it, but we’ll play along for the moment.  They start with “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman”, then move into “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)”, then (of course), a little “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”, and “Think”.

BREAK!!!

(9:44 PM) Back with a plug for the Season 13 auditions. including online auditions starting tonight.  We cut to Kree and Candice with Seacrest.  And we’re back with more Ford pimping… the girls get Ford Escapes.   That was underwhelming.

It’s time for the annual montage of bad auditions, lowlights, and highlights, set to Phillip Phillips’ “Gone, Gone, Gone”.

From there, it’s… Jennifer Lopez (feat. Pitbull), with their new single “Live It Up”.  There’s a very high chance this was also lip-synched – Pitbull’s hand-over-mic-over-mouth stance kind of tipped it…

BREAK!!! The fluff is over… business starts… NOW.

(9:58 PM) If you took my advice, you tuned in right about now.  And if you did, you arrived to see Candice and Kree wrap up the season with a duet of the Fifth Dimension’s “One Less Bell To Answer”.  It provokes the next-to-last standing ovation of Season 12.  The last?  About two minutes away.

It’s time.  Finally.  The official accountant brings out the results at 10:01 PM.  After an insipid season, with bad song choices, too much focus on the judges, and too much filler… here we go.

• The Twelfth American Idol is… Candice Glover. 

The happiest person on-stage appeared to be Kree, while Candice looked stunned.  The top 10 quickly come on stage to congratulate both singers.  Seacrest has to pull Candice out of the crowd while Angie gets to hand off the Silver Microphone trophy.  Of course, Seacrest has to mention that Candice’s album opens for pre-orders tonight before thanking everyone and everything in sight.

As is traditional, Candice gets to take us out with her coronation single, “I Am Beautiful”, through a haze of tears … and a one-minute overrun.  The show, and the season, are over at 10:08 PM.

I’ll save the remaining snark for a separate post over the weekend.  For now, congratulations to Idol XII, Candice Glover.  See you soon, friends…

American Idol 12: Two For The Money (Finale: Part 1)

It’s the most economical show of the series – one hour.  Six songs.  Two singers.  One title.

And I can’t give you a favorite, either.  There’s really nothing to separate Candice and Kree at this point, so tonight’s show means something for once… as tradition dictates, we’re at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live, and…

THIS! … is American Idol!

We start with a montage intermingling Kree’s journey (including early footage from the Rosie O’Donnell Show) with Candice’s… and cue the titles.

Nice to see Keith dressed up for the final – looks like a clean T-shirt tonight…

Round One – Simon Fuller’s Choice

Kree won the coin toss and elected to kick off…

Kree Harrison
”Angel” (Sarah McLachlan)
This is very much a singer’s song – sparse arrangement putting the focus on the voice.   It’s also one we’ve heard incessantly on those charity commercials, so Kree couldn’t afford to do a karaoke version… to her credit, she didn’t.  She did what she could to make it her own within the song’s limits, and I think she did a good job of it.  But it’s lacking a bit of power, making a slow start…

Which may mean she was spared by the BREAK!!! – if Candice had come right out and blown her first song away, it might’ve swung the finale early.

Candice Glover
”Chasing Pavements” (Adele)
Well, Fuller didn’t give Candice much of an advantage – there is an Adele backlash among some voters… but Candice didn’t fall victim to the usual blunder, trying to tackle Adele by mimicking Adele.  It was definitely Candice’s version.  And she seemed a little more connected to the song, so…

Round One: Candice, slightly.

BREAK!!! Just in time as Seacrest has to stomp on Randy and Mariah to get them to shut up… of course, the first of what will be many shots at Randy’s departure came here as well…

Before we get back to competition, it’s Carly Rae Jepsen’s sponsored “Perfect Harmony” performance, her new single “Take A Picture”.   I have just one thing to ask – THIS was the big crowdsourced performance?  Really?  Well… um… sure, if they say so.

BREAK!!!!

Round Two: Coronation Singles

The songs that will be released Thursday night on iTunes – one of which will be the lead single for the winner’s first CD, due during the Idol Summer Tour (and possibly the reason for the lackluster tone of the season, as the girls have been working on their albums as well as rehearsing for shows and doing shows and doing publicity and…)

Kree Harrison – “All Cried Out”
It’s a pretty standard love-gone-wrong song, written to allow Kree to belt out a song while the Idol Swaybots sway.  Really generic paint-by-number songwriting.  She does what she can with it, and it’s pretty good, but she’s stuck with something that isn’t really a great song. 

BREAK!!!

Candice Glover – “I Am Beautiful”
Did Orianthi re-write “According To You” for Idol?  Really, it’s the same concept and formula, slowed down into a ballad that Candice never really put herself behind.  This could have been The Moment where Candice won Idol, and she left it on the table.  OK song, OK performance.  That’s about it.

Round Two: Kree did a decent job with a pedestrian song.  Candice could have done a lot more with a blah song.  No real edge here. 

BREAK!!! Seacrest’s sunk to groaner-foul level puns [if you don’t know ComedySportz, you won’t get that] with “fits like a Glover”… but why is he electioneering now?

Round Three – Reprises

Kree Harrison
”Up To The Mountain (M.K.K. Song)” (written by Patty Griffin, multiple versions)
Originally sung in the Vegas round.  She picked a song that would let her air it out again… but another slow, dramatic piece that I don’t think really indicates where she wants to go.  A very good performance, but I think there were better choices for her last song of the competition.

BREAK!!!

Candice Glover
”I (Who Have Nothing)” (Ben E. King, among others)
From the Top 10 round, where I was notably underwhelmed.   And she does the same basic performance – she stands and belts.  She rips into the song this time, and probably won the competition here almost by default.

Round Three: Candice.

The Recap

This show sums up the problem with the whole season.  These two girls can sing the phone book.  Neither of them have the faintest idea how to entertain, and the show has done nothing to help them do so.  On a technical level, they’re both fantastic.  On an excitement level, comas are more exciting.  This season is a write-off, and I fear that neither girl’s career will survive it.  Blowing this show the hell up and starting over will be the best thing for it.  Let’s hope FOX and 19 have the guts to do so.

That said, Candice is going to win.  Anyone who wasn’t decided before tonight will wind up swayed over to her on the raw vocal power of the last song.   I don’t think VFTW’s last act of defiance will swing the vote to Kree…

I have plans during the official finale tomorrow night, so I’ll give you my standard advice.  Tune in at about 10:00 pm EDT and catch the last seven minutes with the big announcement and the tons of confetti falling from the rafters at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live.  Be warned, though… if you are DVRing, set a recording for your late FOX local news as well, because even though most cable DVRs will run to 10:07pm, it’s likely that there will be a further overrun.

I’ll recap off the DVR tomorrow night.  See you then, as we bury this bland season for once and for all.

American Idol 12: One Domino Falls (Finals Round 9 Results)

Randy Jackson quit Idol today.  Yeah, that happened.  It’s official at the end of the season, of course, and it’s the first of many personnel moves you can expect – if Idol even shows up next season.

THIS! … is American Idol!

And we start with a plug for the new animated feature “epic”.  This is why Idol may limp back for season 13 – infinite promotional tie-in possibilities… and cue the titles…

Within the opening banter, there was a somewhat oblique reference to Jackson’s departure.

Then they let the girls sing Selena Gomez & the Scene’s “Who Says” with the audio completely screwed up.  This is a singing competition, they say.   To the audio techs – YOU HAD ONE JOB.

BREAK!!!  And Seacrest lies about “results right after the break”.  I mean… really?

And we’re back for another insipid Ford video.  Good thing I’m in DVR mode…

They’re apparently going to do a montage for each of last night’s rounds.  Sadly, this probably means a triple-dose of Jimmy Iovine (#firejimmy).  So we have the Round One (Iovine’s mediocre picks) montage now…

BREAK!!!

Season 11’s Jessica Sanchez is visiting on her way to Glee… and season 10’s Lauren Alaina is back to sing as part of Idol Throwback Thursdays (and the audio guys screwed up the start of her montage, too)… she’s doing “Barefoot and Buckwild”, the first single from her pending second album.  Interestingly, it looks like she’s trying to reinvent herself as Carrie Underwood…

BREAK!!! Another results tease.  They’re not happening after this break (well, not immediately after this break…)

OK, so they’re not cancelling Idol.  Audition dates were announced coming out of the break.

We get the Judges’ Choice montage, and more flatulence from Iovine… skipping…

So while the girls continue to sit and wait, we get a chance to see Mariah Carey teach “Music Video 101” to the semifinalists.  This, of course, leads into the new video for “#Beautiful” (feat. Miguel).  Well, it’s supposed to be her new video, but Miguel does the real heavy lifting in the song.  She dances a lot… certainly showing how well she bounced back after her twins were born… but it kind of feels like a Miguel video with Mariah guest-starring.

BREAK!!!

38 minutes in.  Time for another alum update – checking in on VFTW’s favorite Glambert – of course, it’s season 8’s Adam Lambert, with footage from a Singapore stop on his world tour.  Since he’s doing an appearance at the finale, we get Alicia Keys doing “Tears Always Win” tonight.  Seems like an adequate trade off…

BREAK!!!

Producer’s Choice montage and a lot more Jimmy Iovine… fast-forward is a gift…

50 minutes in… and now we get down to the alleged business at hand.  But first, he lets the girls say their goodbyes… and then springs result #1…

• The first finalist… is… Candice Glover.
• Right now, I’m guessing that means Angie goes home.

BREAK!!!

55 minutes in… the stall is on as Seacrest ambles over to two very nervous young women…

• The second finalist… is… … … Kree Harrison.
• Angie Miller leaves Idol in third place.  The script rolls on…

Angie tries to sing us out, but she can’t get through the song for the tears… it’s portions of Colton Dixon’s “Never Gone”, I think.  but really, who expects a teenager to sing after falling at the last hurdle?  Oh, right, Idol does. 

Wednesday night, it’s Candice vs. Kree for the title of the twelfth Idol.  Next Thursday, it’s wretched excess at its best, with the two-hour-plus finale (which will be the sendoff for not only the second-place singer, but most of the on-camera staff of Idol).  See you then…

American Idol 12: Three Girl Rhumba (Finals Round 9: Semi-Finals)

Here’s where we are: I watched The Voice’s results show live, and I’m doing this show in Amazing FastForwardVision on the DVR.  As we lurch to a joyless conclusion, where the manufactured feud between the female judges appears to be the show’s focus, I’m actually glad it’s over in 8 days.

A quick aside: The Voice did something honest and refreshing tonight that Idol will never do – The Voice admitted a voting discrepancy that forced them to toss out text and online voting this week, which means that only phone votes and iTunes sales counted toward the Top 12 on that show.  Interesting…

However, I try to finish the things I start, even this, so we’re off and running from Television City…

THIS! … is American Idol!

No opening montage – just the Top Three’s families on-stage with Seacrest… and cue the titles.

Instead, we get a hometown visit montage after the titles…

BREAK!!!  The girls’ dress for their first songs tells a lot – Kree, the country girl; Candice, the diva; Angie, all legs and teeth and hair – about how the producers see them…

Round One: Out-of-Touch Egotist Jimmy Iovine’s Choices

Kree Harrison
”F***in’ Perfect” (P!nk)
For the first time in a few weeks, Kree seems comfortable with and connected to the song.  Makes sense – she’s a big girl, I’m sure she got the bullying that P!nk sang about.  We’re getting the Kree that we saw back at the start of the process – a couple more like this, and she could just win this thing yet.

BREAK!!!

Candice Glover
”One” (U2, possibly with Mary J. Blige)
Not sure which version – the single or the duet – this is meant to cover.  She seems a bit flat tonight, at least at the start.  As she got into the song, I’d say it was the U2/Blige version… and she still never really seemed to get fully invested in the song. Her voice is so good that she can get away with it, but she needs to pick it up a bit later.

BREAK!!! 

Angie Miller
“Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word” (Elton John)
Looks like Iovine is trying to sabotage Angie – giving her one of Sir Elton’s slowest ballads at a point where she could have used an uptempo number.  We know she can do ballads.  And she does a solid vocal job, but it’s static and kind of lifeless.  Not going to help with votes…

Round One Recap: Kree by a small margin.

BREAK!!!  #shutupjimmy

Round Two: Judges’ Choice

Candice gets a visit to the Product Placement Red Zone and a montage of her hometown visit.  I sense a theme here… although if they’re blowing out this much time on the hometown montages tonight, what are they going to fill the hour with tomorrow night?  Keep in mind that the hometowns were saved for the results show last year.  #beveryafraid

And to avoid having one judge not intro a song, none of the judges are.  Seacrest is doing the intros for the Judges’ Choice songs.

Candice Glover
“Next To Me” (Emeli Sandé)
Ms. Sande appears on the Gatsby soundtrack doing “Crazy In Love”.  She has two songs in the playlist tonight.  There are no coincidences on Idol.  The song is a good lite-rocker, a basic love song suited for Candice’s ability to belt out a song.  And she carried it off well.

The judges are out of control, just for the record.  If you watched, you know why I said that.  If you didn’t, you’re probably fortunate.  I have no doubt we are way over on time right now (and I’m DVRing).

BREAK!!!

Angie’s brother visits on-stage for the hometown Product Placement Red Zone.  Because her brother is overly influenced by hockey, apparently, he’s growing a “playoff beard”.  And… cue the montage… which, because Idol is shameless, plays hard on the #BostonStrong theme…

Angie Miller
”Try” (P!nk)
Angie needed to belt out a rock song… and this is about as close as the rockphobic Idol production crew was going to let her get.  And like Kree in the first round, she caught the vibe of the song and really showed a side of her style that Idol hasn’t let her show… she just plain had fun doing a song.  One of her best of the season.

BREAK!!!

And we run the cycle again – Product Placement Red Zone, montage, song – with Kree… I guess nobody told Kree that having your monitor earpieces out and next to your microphone will cause nasty feedback… of course, the vibe of Kree’s hometown visit is different without parents waiting for her at home…

Kree Harrison
”Here Comes Goodbye” (Rascal Flatts)
Surprised they didn’t mention former Idol finalist Chris Sligh wrote this… but if the judges want to show her as The Country Girl, this is about as country as it gets… and she gives it a solid, if somewhat karaoke, reading.  Good job.

Round Two recap: Angie won this round big. 

BREAK!!! I forgot about Kree’s backstory last week when I snarked on the choice of “See You Again”… I’m sorry for that.  That said, Nicki needs to shut up about this.  Also, #shutupjimmy.

Round Three: “Producer” (Nigel Lythgoe) Choices

Angie Miller
”Maybe” (Emeli Sandé)
Angie’s back behind the piano, singing a breakup song from tonight’s paid-placement original singer (yes, I said it).  As has been true all season, she’s clearly much more comfortable behind the piano.  She gave it her all, and gave another solid performance.

BREAK!!!

Kree Harrison
”Better Dig Two” (The Band Perry)
I am not saying what we’re all thinking.  Yet.  Actually, yes I am.  A song about “digging two” graves after her last segment???  What were they thinking????  Right, it’s a current country track.   And she came out, and like the pro she is, she gave it a good run (and avoided the soundalike route). 

BREAK!!!

Candice Glover
”Somewhere” (West Side Story Soundtrack/Barbra Streisand)
This was probably the wrong song at the wrong time in the wrong place.  it felt old.  It made Candice feel old.  And although she got the Idol Note out of it, it is absolutely the wrong last memory she wanted the voters to have (unless, of course, there are more older voters than I expected).  Sure, the Idolbots loved it, they love everything.  But while it was a good job, it is exactly what is wrong with Idol.

Round Three recap: I liked Angie’s performance best, but really, this segment feels very much like a missed opportunity.  I wish they had stuck with Contestant’s Choice as the original announcement indicated.

GET IOVINE OFF THE DAMN STAGE.  When they revamp Idol for season 13, if it’s not cancelled, firing his out-of-touch, arrogant, egotistical ass should be the first thing they do.

The Recap

It feels like the script was that Angie would go home and Kree and Candice would go at it next week.  But I think Angie had the best overall night.  I just don’t know that the voters will care.

In my heart, I’d send Candice home.

In my head, America will send Angie home.

If the producers want to spite VFTW, they’ll send Kree home.

I’ll be doing a late blog tomorrow (and again on finale night)… which, as noted at the top, should really indicate how far over the shark Idol is flying.  That said, Lauren Alaina’s onstage tomorrow, so that’ll be fun, and Alicia Keys will be there.  See you later tomorrow night.

American Idol 12: Trudging To A Conclusion (Finals Round 8 Results)

There’s almost no suspense at this point… the remaining five shows pretty much write themselves.

Amber is almost certainly leaving tonight.  Next week, it’s Hometown visits and the usual three rounds – Jimmy Iovine’s Choice (WHY???), Judges’ Choice (keep an eye out for which judge doesn’t get to make a suggestion, it might be meaningful), Singer’s Choice (oh, this will be awful).

Then, in two weeks from last night, the one-hour final performances (favorite song from the season, new song, coronation song).    Two weeks from tonight, two hours of finale fluff leading to the 7 minutes that matter (just past 10pm EDT May 16), as either Kree or Candice gets a confetti shower and a release date for their first album (which is already in production, unlike past years).

But first, let’s get through the inevitable (although you know Seacrest will hype some kind of “major surprise” tonight!)…

THIS! … is American Idol!

The opening montage shows clips from Hometown Weeks past… and clips from last night… so who’s visiting home, and who’s going home?  Cue the titles…

After the usual teases, the Final Four sing “Crazy In Love” by way of tying in with the new The Great Gatsby movie soundtrack.

We then get a Summer Tour plug, but since they’re not coming to central Virginia… you can go to the Idol website for more details.

BREAK!!!

Back with more bad television from Ford.  *cough* I mean, the Ford Fiesta Mission segment, about which the less said the better.

And now, we pretend to do results.  We get one montage for all of the singers, featuring more pointless comments from the pointless Iovine.  Yes, I keep repeating that.  They’re trying to shove him down our throats, and I’m going to keep shoving back.

Interestingly, Iovine said Amber might have had an easier time if she had more time to learn her song.  Well, you pompous ass, whose fault is it that the girls DON’T have time to learn their songs???  They’re writing and singing their potential debut albums, doing press, doing those insipid Ford videos, and trying to rehearse for live performances too?!?!  Don’t criticize the singers for the structural flaws of the show.

Nope, no results.  Just a tease for Throwback Thursday on the way to…

BREAK!!!

And we return for a look back at the 7th Idol, David Cook, who then debuts his new single, “Laying Me Low”.

And with that…

BREAK!!!

Right back to a poorly-lit Seacrest (those spotlight operators shouldn’t be drinking on the job), it’s another Gatsby soundtrack single.  This time, it’s “Bang Bang” from will.i.am.  No interview, just a quick sprint to…

BREAK!!!

It’s another Throwback Thursday – we look back at the Idol Who Took Broadway, VFTW’s favorite greaseball, Constantine Maroulis.

Constantine’s not here, though, so instead, we hear from Harry Connick Jr., with “Every Man Should Know”, the title track to his new album.  At least he gets a brief interview (and more nonsense about his “issues” with Randy Jackson last night)… but, as always…

BREAK!!!

47 minutes in.  Maybe we get results?  Maybe?

Sure, but first, more filler with the judges, because reasons.

49 minutes in…

• Angie is going home… with a camera crew, as she’s the first one saved.
• Candice also gets the star treatment at home.  She’s safe. 
• Amber and Kree go to center stage.  VFTW has a rooting interest (Kree).  But do we get results?  NOPE…

BREAK!!!

54 minutes in…

While Amber and Kree die quietly on stage, Randy Jackson filibusters.  We also get to hear from Mariah Carey and Keith Urban.   Finally…

• After 81 million votes over two weeks…
• Kree gets the hometown visit.  She’s safe.
• To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Amber leaves season 12 in fourth place.  Let’s hope she finds her real voice far, far away from Jimmy Iovine.

For the first time this season, with no save and no shenanigans, the exiting contestant sings us out.   The singer Nicki Minaj called “a young Whitney Houston” exits with Whitney’s “I Believe In Me And You”.  The song never really ends, as Papa Holcomb comes on stage to collect his emotional daughter.

And then there were three.  See you Wednesday night.

American Idol 12: 25 or 6 to 4 (Finals Round 8: Top 4 Part Deux)

After last week’s possibly series-killing non-elimination, it’s time for the second half of the Final Four.  I won’t go into how much of a mistake 19 and FOX made in how they handled this, as I think that particular dead horse is beyond beating.  I’ll just say that looking at the second half of the show, it appears that the producers want to beat on Idol’s corpse a bit as well.  Why?  One word.  “Standards”.

With Harry Connick Jr. in the house to “mentor” the girls on singing songs that may be older than their great-grandparents…

THIS! … is American Idol!

We start with post-show footage from last week’s not terribly surprising developments.  Because THAT WAS THEN and THIS IS NOW (and there’s your official dual theme).  Cue the opening titles.

Seacrest reminds us that they’re singing for the Hometown Visits tonight, before sending the singers offstage – and introducing Connick Jr.

Fortunately, the first half of the show is more current – THIS IS NOW, or without flying caps, the Hits of 2013.  But first… yes, before even one song, we head to…

BREAK!!!  (For some reason, I’m watching this live instead of off DVR.  It’s going to be a long night.)

Round One: Now

For the first round, the B-Roll is scenes of Connick mentoring the singers on their 2013 songs…

Angie Miller
“Diamonds” (Rihanna)
Big surprise, she’s on piano.  Bigger surprise, she has no idea of any songs Connick ever sang.  Can’t wait for Round Two.   As to Round One… there’s not a lot of passion behind her performance of “Diamonds”, at least not at the start.  As she got into it, there was a little more emotion there, but something was still missing.  As always, she’s technically precise, but this is very much NOT the moment to fail to connect with a performance.     She might need a boost from last week’s Top Two ranking to stay around for next week… but that depends a lot on what Amber does after a…

BREAK!!!

We get a quick visit to the Product Placement Red Zone with Amber before we go back to the mentoring sessions…

Amber Holcomb
“Just Give Me A Reason” (Pink & Nate Ruess)
She’s doing the current #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.  No pressure.  Especially since she’s shown bungling the lyrics in the B-Roll… the problem with Amber doing a Pink song is that Amber doesn’t seem capable of the raw power Pink brings to a song.  So we get the words, and the melody, but not the actual song.  Add some pitch problems, and Amber may have just saved Angie from elimination.  I can’t imagine why she would pick a song that showcases her weaknesses – other than, as usual, I expect we’ll find they had about a 9-song list to choose from tonight…

BREAK!!! So, should I start blogging The Voice?  They’re doing their Top 16 recap show tonight  – which is something I’ve begged Idol to do for years the week before the live shows start.  At least there’s only two more weeks of this increasingly joyless grind.

Just to finish the thought, rumor is that the song list for the One Hit Wonders round last week was just 15 songs long.  The girls didn’t have a prayer.

Candice Glover
“When I Was Your Man” (Bruno Mars)
From this week’s #1, we move to the #4 song (a former #1).   For Candice to say “I’m not a pop singer” in the B-roll is either an admission of how far the show has strayed from its pop roots or a big mistake on her part… while the swaybots in the Television City audience sway along with the song, Candice continues the trend of underwhelming performances tonight… I’m not sure how a woman could connect with a song called “When I Was Your Man”, and I can’t say that she really did.  She tried, but it wasn’t fully there (at least for me).  Like Angie, technically good, and it was “good”, but still not “great”.    Of course, I do have a high bar for “great” at this level…

BREAK!!! I wasn’t going to say this, but for crying out loud… someone turn down the volume on Randy Jackson’s blazer, it’s blinding me…

And speaking of gaudy red colors, it’s time for another Product Placement Red Zone visit for Kree…

Kree Harrison
“See You Again” (Carrie Underwood)
Now THIS is a risk.  The single debuted in a live performance just a few weeks ago on the Idol results show.  Comparisons will abound (Connick made one in the pre-tape, so I won’t).  It’s definitely stripped-down from the debut… and while Kree gave a solid performance, I’m kind of burned out on ballads, really.  I want one of the girls to take a chance at some point, and they are all absolutely refusing to.   That said, I enjoyed this best of the four performances in this round – but that’s like saying I enjoyed flogging over waterboarding.

Oh, look, our guest mentor turned up to congratulate Kree for her performance.  How totally random.  And just think, Seacrest invited Connick to stay for the second round.

And we have the Standards round ahead?   Yes, we do.  Right after the…

BREAK!!! 

Round Two: Then

Angie Miller
“Someone To Watch Over Me” (1926)
Right.  Angie, a somewhat-sheltered teenager, is going to sing a 90-year-old song.  I have no idea what Idol is about anymore, and neither do the producers…  OK, so it developed in the B-Roll that Angie’s mother sang this song to Angie when she was younger.  I’ll give her this, she seems to be more into this song than her first one, and does another solid job – so on that level, it worked.  I guess it’s a good audition for soundtrack work sometime down the road… it’s a nice performance.   I think she’s safe to plan her hometown visit.

BREAK!!!  Quoth Keith Urban in the last segment: “Does ‘Then’ have to be SO ‘Then’?”  I’m guessing he’s giving up on being back next season?

Wow.  The new jcpenney ads (which aired during this break), basically begging for customers to come back, are the saddest kind of pathetic.

Amber Holcomb
“My Funny Valentine” (1937)
Amber did this one back in Hollywood Week.  And since she needs something big to save herself, I can understand going back to it… although Connick just buried her in the B-roll, showing that she had no idea what the song was about at all.  After her performance, it’s clear she still doesn’t know.   She was singing like she was reading off a cue card.  I can’t see her coming back next week – even if the judges threw her a lifeline with a standing ovation.

Nicki all but wrote her off in her critique – “no matter what happens tomorrow night, you’re a star”.  Gee, Nicki, why would you think that????

BREAK!!! 

And Connick gets more face time out of the break.  Interesting.

Candice Glover
“You’ve Changed” (1941)
She’s chosen a song that is about as stripped-down as anything… just her and a pianist, basically, with a bit of light accompaniment.  Thing is, we know she has a powerful voice, so at this point, the challenge was to show something else, I think.  Something different.  Don’t get me wrong, she did a solid job with the song, and the theme probably didn’t give her a lot of choices, but I can’t imagine she reached any new voters with it, either. 

BREAK!!!

Kree Harrison
“Stormy Weather” (1933)
I always thought this song was about the pain of separation.  If so, Kree didn’t communicate it at all.  That was something Connick hinted at in the B-roll, where he said that he thought she’d be able to do a good version for Idol – but not really understand the song – in the few days she had to learn it.  And she even indulged in Idol Theatrics that Connick advised her to avoid.   As always, she sang it well.  But I don’t think she got it.   Despite that, she’s a lock for next week.

BREAK!!!  Credit to Connick for taking the air out of Randy Jackson’s alleged critique.  If his schedule allowed, and if there is a season 13 (which is NOT a guarantee), I’d like to see Connick as a judge.

And in an interesting choice, to fill the two hours, the girls will do a group number.  Personally, I think this is an audition of sorts – as the producers may be trying to salvage this season by testing the waters for the four finalists to record as a group… due to time constraints caused by judges with no “off” switch, they dive right in with no intro…

Group Performance
“Wings” (Little Mix)
With the pressure off for a few minutes, the girls had some fun with this just-released-in-the-USA single done last year by the first group to win X-Factor UK.  Hmm… an X-Factor song on Idol?  What next?  All kidding aside, it was a cute way to kill the last few minutes of the show, even if they had to scramble to avoid a massive overrun…

The Recap

Really, I can’t express how… pedestrian… this has become.  The producers were really excited about having a girl win this season, to the point where they deliberately sabotaged any chances for a male singer.  What have they gotten for it?  Four singers who are going to struggle in today’s music industry, in part because the producers have done such a horrible job teaching them how to use their talents.  They are still, at best, the same raw talents they were several months ago.  It may take years for them to undo the damage this experience has done to them…

That said, Amber almost has to be the one going home tomorrow night, with Angie following next week before the battle of the big voices between Candice and Kree in two weeks.

Tomorrow, we get songs from will.i.am, David Cook, and Harry Connick Jr., along with an actual result!  See you then.

Still Not Idol: NYC Trip Notes

Sometimes, my blog is a place to store my random notes, especially about a trip like the long weekend trip to New York – you should have already seen the Jeopardy! audition blog (as it was the post before this one), so here are some things I happened to make note of and/or want to remember from a terrific weekend…

The Hotel
I stayed at a place called the Pod Hotel in midtown Manhattan (at 39th and Lexington).  Honestly, I booked it because (1) a good friend recommended it and (2) it was far less expensive than a lot of other options in the area.  After staying there, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I booked what they call a “single Pod”.  The room wasn’t much bigger than the bedroom in my apartment – but since I was only planning to be there to sleep, it’s not like I needed a lot of room.  It had a bed, a bathroom, a flat-screen TV (with more channels than most hotels), and connections for a DVD player, MP3 player, or USB device.  Most importantly, it was three blocks south of Grand Central Terminal, meaning it was easy to get anywhere via subway.

It’s the second Pod Hotel, and I think they’re onto something.  Clean, well-maintained, small-room hotels in major cities, at 1/3 to 1/2-off everyone else’s price?   For many folks, the hotel room is only used for sleep – so if you don’t need a suite and a ton of high-priced amenities… this is a terrific concept.  It’s like the no-frills store brand at your favorite supermarket.  It’s not fancy, it costs less, and it does just as well as the name brand.  I think you’ll see more of these… and if you’re going to NYC, you might want to check it out – http://www.thepodhotel.com.

The trip north (Sunday 4/28)
It seemed like it was going to be a quiet ride north – until (where else?) Quantico, which always seems to be where my I-95 traffic problems start.  This time, it was a delay because they were taking down the pylons from overnight construction.  Go figure…

Fortunately, I’d built in time for things to go wrong, so all this did was eat up most of that time.  I still got to the Franconia/Springfield Metro on time, but had to wait longer for a train due to weekend schedule changes as the Metro is trying to upgrade the entire system at once…

If you haven’t seen a Megabus, they’re double-decker long-haul buses to just about anywhere.  I could have taken a Megabus from Richmond to NYC if I wanted to leave at 4 AM, so that’s why I drove/took Metro to DC’s Union Station to catch the bus there.  I had a ticket for the 11 AM bus, but as I got to the departure point at 10:20 AM, the driver looked at me and said “do you want to go now [the 10:30 AM bus]?”  I did.  As it turned out, this was a good idea.

Sadly, my iPod Touch didn’t play nicely with Megabus’ WiFi – I’d get a few minutes at a time before the authentication would fail – but I was able to keep a running update on Facebook, at least… fortunately, it still did its basic function as a music player.

That was also a good thing, as roughly three songs in, it played the Eagles’ “Journey of the Sorcerer”.  Now, if you’re a fan of a particular book/radio/TV/movie series, you’ve already reacted… if not, “Journey” was used at the theme for all incarnations of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy that required music (not the books, of course).  And what are the two words emblazoned on the cover of the fictional Guide?  DON’T PANIC.  I feel that was an appropriate message at that point in time.

It became more appropriate when the bus slowed to a crawl just after the Maryland/Delaware border.  Apparently, the entire state needed to be on I-95 at the same time, because what should have been a short run through Delaware took over an hour – fortunately, though, I wasn’t going to panic.

And my iPod showed its sense of humor by playing “Empire State of Mind” just before 3 PM, as we were supposed to be pulling into NYC.  We were still on the NJ Turnpike, of course (exit 8A, if you’re scoring at home, or if you’re alone)…

So we finally got in about 4:15 PM.  I celebrated by immediately trying to get on the NYC Subway in the wrong direction.   If it hadn’t been for the aggressive panhandler trying to sell me a “one-trip” Metrocard (yeah, like I believed there was any money on the card), I might have noticed more quickly… *sigh*

One of my long-time friends from ComedySportz RVA is now based in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and does a weekly live-streamed podcast from his apartment on… Sunday nights.  So I took the 45-minute subway ride over and became the first “studio audience” member for Jesse P-S’s Pod Awful who wasn’t traveling there with either Jesse or his guest.   For the first half of the show, I was kind of looking over Jesse’s shoulder on-camera – for the second half, I helped convince Jesse’s friend Mary to switch places with me.  I think it improved the aesthetics of the live stream immensely.  There was supposed to be an audio podcast link by now, but Jesse’s computer ate the second half of the audio.  So this may wind up being a lost episode, unless Jesse can pull the audio off the archived video stream.  I’ll update this when I know more.

The subway ride back from Pod Awful to the Pod Hotel (symmetry!) took longer than it should due to weekend schedule changes as the NYC MTA is trying to upgrade the entire subway system at once…

Audition Day (Monday 4/29)
Again, most of this is documented in the blog I did from the Hard Rock Café New York… so go read it.

Hard to believe, since I’d lived in the New York area until I was 27, but the walk from the Sheraton NY Towers (53rd & 7th) down to 42nd Street marked the first time I’d ever visited Times Square.  It was a mass of humanity – between the end of the workday and a zillion tourists, it was a study in controlled chaos.  I could’ve people-watched all night, but needed to get back to the hotel at some point…

I did notice, though, that you couldn’t walk more than a few feet around the heart of Times Square without someone shoving free stand-up comedy tickets in your face… almost literally, in some cases.  I’d seen crowd-filling elsewhere, but not this aggressively.  I counted at least a half-dozen different shows that had people out on the street with “free” tickets (I didn’t even want to know the cover).  One of them employed a guy whose strategy seemed to be insulting and chasing people who turned him down.  It didn’t seem to be working too well…

While I got a few pictures in Times Square, I didn’t dare take one of the image I most wanted… the world’s most honest panhandler.  It was a guy standing at 43rd & 7th with a sign saying “I NEED MONEY 4 WEED”.  Honestly, if I’d pointed the iPod at him, I think his girlfriend would’ve punched me out…

And, of course, since it was Times Square, even the subway had a flashing marquee…

The trip south (Tuesday 4/30)
After having to bail out of the Pod a bit early (sadly, their WiFi failed early Tuesday morning and all the king’s horses and all the king’s IT men couldn’t seem to put it back together again), I made my way over to Penn Station and the (I thought) short walk to the Megabus pickup.

I had, of course, forgotten the geometry of Manhattan.  The walk from 53rd to 42nd Streets on Monday was far shorter (at least, it felt that way) than the walk along 34th Street from 8th Avenue to 11th Avenue.  New York City blocks are extremely rectangular – so “three blocks” east-to-west can take as long as “12 blocks” north-to-south.  But, of course, I gave myself plenty of time to walk over, and all was well.

The trip was both very good and very bad.  Good, because the bus ran right on time.  We got to Union Station just past 3 PM.  That was fine.  What wasn’t fine was the new suspension system this bus was testing, apparently made of concrete.  It was the bumpiest ride I’ve ever been on – every little imperfection in the road was magnified… now I suspect something must’ve happened early in the trip, because we made an unexpected pullover on the NJ Turnpike about an hour into the trip.  Based on how bumpy the ride got as we went along, I suspect they had to make the decision whether to go or call in a replacement bus, and they must’ve thought they could handle it.   By the end of the trip, the driver was braking to slow down over some overpasses to avoid jolting us.

Obviously, I survived.  And for $45 round-trip, I suppose I can handle some bouncing…

The drive back was… slow.  Of course, it was raining.  And it was I-95 southbound at rush hour.  But still – 25 miles of backups due to, apparently, a two-vehicle incident at (where else) Quantico?  The problem was what Chicagoans call “gapers”, New Yorkers call “rubberneckers”, and everyone calls “idiots” – drivers slowing down to look at the flashing State Police lights and what appeared to be a car on a flatbed with minor body damage.  I’m not sure, because since traffic was getting back to speed just past the incident, I hit the gas and got going… from Quantico south, it was a fairly straight shot [except a stop to take advantage of a gas price war south of Fredericksburg – when you can get gas 25 cents/gallon less than anywhere else on I-95, you do it].

And that’s the trip.

I gave myself today as a “do-nothing” day.  And after this, I plan to do exactly nothing (except my usual American Idol blog tonight, although really, it looks like another long slog through a really poor song list the producers have generously allowed the singers to choose from)… so here goes “nothing”… see you later.