Finally the gloriously bad Idol episode that we’ve all been waiting for. All sorts of musical attrocities were committed, including a song sung by penguins and a love song about a giant meteor. Yes!!! I loved it.

Everyone got in the spirit tonight. Simon was on-point all night, including picking the ONLY decent song of the evening for David Cook. Paula was actually sober and coherent, making strong points about the singing and performances, as if her job depended on her, you know, judging the damn show. Seacrest making his unfunny non-jokes and Randy spending the whole evening trying to stroke his own ego. That was some episode. Oh, and Lloyd from “Entourage” was in attendance. Good stuff.

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Tonight was the annual Judge Song choice, Idol song and Producer Nigel’s song choice game.

Remember when the whole home city would come out to celebrate the Final 3 Idols of seasons past? Not so much this time. Cook gets his song choice text while on a TV news show, and only Mayor McMoustache of Archuleta’s hometown of Backwater, Texas decided to make a big deal about his Judge’s song choice while no doubt crowning David the Acting Governor of Texas for the day.

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David Archuleta -
Paula’s Song - “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel

Paula chose this song because David “can handle the melodies.” Well Archuleta takes a vanilla ballad from the Joel-meister and blandifies the hell out of it. He's sucking the joy and energy out of the thing. He squints, he wheezes, he puts me to sleep. David also throws in his now trade-marked lyrical flub and made the whole thing feel ponderously slow. A Looooong 90 seconds of my life that I won’t get back.

GRADE: D

David’s Choice- “Without You” by Chris Brown

Now David embraces the VFTW Crown and runs with it. He chooses a modern-day teeny-pop disposable ditty from Chris “I got to sing with Jordan Sparks before she lost her voice forever” Brown. David shows off his muppet dancing and stage awkwardness while trying to be “cool” singing about “my boo.” There’s nothing as tragically un-hip about a total dweeb like Archuleta trying to be cool. This was Kevin Covais-like Awesome.

GRADE: FAIL -- VFTW AWARD WINNER!!!

Producer’s Dismally Bad Song Choice: “Longer” by Dan Fogelberg
This song takes painfully boring to a new level. David assumes a beatific “I’m singing about The Lord because my Daddy doesn’t let me talk to girls” tone and it’s all downhill from there. David is wearing his Sunday best buttoned-up Mormon on the Make shirt and sings up a storm. David achieves a courageous level of boring tonight. Simon has the guts to rightfully call it “a gooey” song, and lambasts it, while praising David’s competent but unexceptional vocals. I’m not as accepting as Simon.

GRADE: FAIL -- The terrible, cheesy songs didn’t help his Idol mission. Even David’s attempt at modern-day relevance was naive, awkward and laughable.
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Syesha Mercado
Randy’s Song: “If I Ain't Got You” by Alicia Keys

Randy the Bobo sets Syesha up for failure by assigning her this big, belting song with only 90 seconds to get to any kind of emotional pay-off. Syesha falls back on her go-to Whitney runs and smiley vote-mongering. It’s a step back for Syesha, and a boring performance, to boot. The Back-up singers really carried her on this one.

Syesha defends her mediocre performance with: “I’m just being myself, you know?” And yourself is obnoxious, which is the problem.

GRADE: C

Syesha’s Song: “Fever” by Peggy Lee

Syesha goes all Broadway as she seems to be auditioning for the touring cast of “Cabaret.” It takes some of the sexiness out of the whole thing when Syesha is forced to explain the use of the chair, before she sits on and around it for the song. This was a mediocre rendering of a sung sung into redundancy by everyone with a pair of boobs and a voice. Also, I’ve never bought Syesha’s brand of forced sexiness. There’s too much actor-ing in the performance and not enough va-va-vavoom.

Randy says it’s a “burning” Fever. But it’s more like a phlegmy cold.

GRADE: D -- Old-fashioned and unsexy. Nobody wants to see Granny getting down.

Producer’s Dismally Bad Song Choice: Something called “Hit Me Up” apparently from the singing/dancing penguin movie, “Happy Feet.”

Syesha is left out to dry with this dippy-doo Disney-fied joke of a song. Syesha can’t really dance to it, and there’s not a whole lot to sing either. It’s like the Producers are trying to send her home. Syesha is off-key and it’s mostly terrible.
GRADE: FAIL -- Syesha almost gives Archuleta a run for VFTW-worthiness tonight. Almost.

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David Cook
Simon’s Song: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack.

I certainly wasn’t looking forward to this weepy, drivel song when I heard it was foisted upon Cook, but damn, did he extract every ounce of goodness from it. But if a guy can make Lionel Richie’s “Hello” entertaining I guess he can do anything. And yes, I know that was a rip-off. This probably was too, but it doesn’t matter. Cook gives one of those goose-bump causing perormances that is his Idol coronation song..

GRADE: A -- This was excellent, Cook’s raspiness and soaring vocals came together with emotional resonance. Nice time to hit a homerun, dude.

David’s Choice: “Dare To Move You” by a band called Switchfoot, apparently.

Just another drippy Daughtry-Fuel-Nichelback MOR “grunge” ballad that made me wince. This is probably what Cook’s Idol-winning album will sound like. I know this because this is what Daughtry’s Idol album sounds like. But with extra elevator-quality keyboards.

GRADE: C -- Cook sings it fine, but it sounded like Christian Rock to me. Blame Creed for ruining Christion Rock for everyone.

Producer’s Dismally Terrible Song Choice: “That Damned Asteroid Song” by Aerosmith.

Tonight was like a “This Is Your Musical Life” episode for David Cook. First was his pre-Idol edgy, artistic exploration phase of his career. Then his post-Idol suck factory song. And then this was his Closing Credits track to Transformers 4: BumbleBee’s Radical Adventure. It’ll probably be called “Transform My Heart.” And Diane Warren, the epitome of schmaltzy, adult contemporary dreck song-crafting, will have scribbled it down on a napkin before collecting her 185th Grammy.

GRADE: C -- And this was STILL better than anyone else tonight.

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If anybody but David Cook wins this show American Idol should be canceled the next day, because he is so much better than the other two pretenders. Much better. Plus, I want to hear him sing the shitty Idol-Winner Song. That will make me laugh.

--Chan

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