American Idol This Week

We take a break from our schedule of bitching about Comcast to look at last night's American Idol performances.

Martina McBride was the mentor this week, and she didn't get much deeper than the typical platitudes, but she did seem enthusiastic about all the singers, and just so darn nice. Thankfully, that niceness was more than balanced out by Simon, who appears to have reached his breaking point with Sanjaya and really seemed just about ready to pop up out of his chair, adjust his mansierre, and smack Ryan. Now that's good television.

Let's get to the recap, right after Ryan, dressed in his somberest suit, expresses Idol's condolences much more gracefully than anyone else on the show:



(Actually, in all honesty, I though Ryan did a good job of acknowledging what happened at Va Tech. Things like that are hard to do, and Seacrest is actually really good at his job. He's gotta be one of the least tool-y celebrihosts out there.)

Phil, "Where The Blacktop Ends" -- Not bad, which for Phil is pretty good. We find out, 10 weeks into the contest, that Phil is a country guy. The fact that it took so long for that to come out is, I think, Phil's trajectory in a nutshell. Up until this point he's been completely uninteresting and hasn't even made much of an effort to differentiate himself from the pack. This week, he picked a song that suited him, seemed relaxed, and worked the crowd well. The result was one of the better performances of the night.

Jordin, "A Broken Wing" -- The best performance of the season from Jordin, who is really coming on strong. This was a beautiful performance: restrained at the beginning and building well throughout the song. She told the story of the lyrics in a way that few this season (save Melinda) have done.

Sports fans talk about momentum a lot, and I don't know if it means anything there, but I think it does here. As we get closer to the end, it serves a contestant well to have her strongest performances most recently, as Jordin has done. With the continuing, frustrating inability of LaKisha to re-capture her early glory, Jordin has become a strong contender for the final two.

Sanjaya, "Something To Talk About" -- It's a sad thing when a novelty act starts thinking he's something more than that. The fact that he said he picked this song because he has been giving America something to talk about is just pitiful. The performance was typical crap -- flat almost all the way through, mush-mouthed, and completely missing the joy present in the lyrics. I honestly believe that, with practice, I could sing as well as Sanjaya. Seriously. And I'm nearly tone-deaf.

The only good thing about it was that it brought Simon closer to the snapping point than we've seen him in a long, long time.

LaKisha, "Jesus Take The Wheel" -- Disappointing on a couple of levels. After her transcendent performance of "And I Am Telling You" early on, LaKisha has struggled. I'm getting to the point where I think that performance was an aberration rather than an indication of her talent level.

This week, she started off boring, struggling to keep up with the crowded lyrics, and when she broke into the chorus she seemed shouty. There was a harshness to her voice that didn't fit the tone of either the song or the performance.

Chris, "Mayberry" -- I hear this song way more than I want to because the guys in the shop play the country station. It's got a ridiculously huge hook at the beginning of the chorus, but Chris was so focused on his verbal gymnastics that he rolled right over it. Plus he got into it with Simon after the performance before dropping an awkward Va Tech sympathy shout-out, making what was surely a heart-felt moment seem both desperate and calculating.

And he still came out looking better than Simon, who issued one of the most ill-advised eye rolls in the history of live television. Well played.

Melinda, "Trouble Is A Woman" -- Melinda went to the end of the country spectrum that suits her, the honky-tonk side with a bit of soul thrown in. The judges' reference to Tina Turner was spot on -- country and soul have a lot in common and Melinda bridged the gap very skillfully. Another excellent performance.

Blake, "When The Stars Go Blue" -- I didn't even know Tim McGraw had done this song -- Ryan Adams must have been psyched when that happened, though he probably acted all tough and claimed it was an embarrassment. Then he bought some more cars or cocaine or whatever he wanted to spend his huge royalty checks on.

Anyway, this was a weak performance from Blake. The falsetto was especially problematic -- he was pitchy, and to compound that he slammed gracelessly between the falsetto and non-falsetto notes. He was, however, not quite as graceless as Simon, who careened from critiquing Blake to expressing his sadness at the Blacksburg shootings without even pausing for breath.

For the night: Jordin, Melinda, Phil, LaKisha, Blake, Chris, Sanjaya

For the season: Melinda, Jordin, LaKisha, Blake, Phil, Chris, Sanjaya

Jordin and Phil move up a notch at the expense of LaKisha and Chris, while Blake misses an opportunity to put himself in the end-game discussion.

Who should go home: Sanjaya, of course.

Who will go home: Chris. I don't think petulance plays well, especially when it's coupled with a sub-par performance.