My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Adam Lambert – One – This was Simon’s pick for Adam. And first let me say that I am so sick and tired of the special lighting and pomp & circumstance they give this guy. I think if they lit him like they did the others, we might see him for what he is – kind of a freak show. Don’t get me wrong. He seems to be a nice person. He is humble and gracious in accepting his praise but the praise has been so over the top, so misguided and blatantly one-sided. I try not to look at him as he sings because this is a singing competition afterall. So to listen to him on the merits of his voice and I find flaws – the main being that it is not a contemporary, radio voice. His is shrill. It’s loud and obnoxious. It works well for stage theatrics but not well for regular radio listening. I found his performances of this song and his other,  Cryin’ to be borish and the typical same ol’ same ol’. It doesn’t matter what I think though, he will sail through to the finals because he’s already been deemed the Second Coming. Coronation will follow next week.Kris Allen – Apologize & Heartless - I agree with Simon in his assessment of the Randy and Kara picked song “Apologize”. If they wanted him to sing it a certain way, they should have told him to do it that way. There were several flat notes in his first performance. The performance was also boring. His second performance was better but typical. His fall back is to turn someone else’s song into something folksy. And it’s different. It’s alright. I just wasn’t wowed by him like I was in week’s past. However, I would be thrilled if he made it to the finals WITH Danny. And it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he won, too.Danny Gokey – Dance Little Sister & You are so Beautiful - Honestly, I didn’t think his dancing was all that bad. It’s not like he broke out into a dance solo or anything. He was just feeling the music and going with it. I have seen much worse. What was he supposed to do, just stand there? Dance Little Sister is a pretty obscure song. In fact, I didn’t know that Terrence Trent D’arby had more than 2 songs ever. BUT, the tone of the original matches Danny’s and he did very well with the song. It was energetic. It was in tune. And vocally superior to the other two. That can be said for his final performance of You are so Beautiful which he changed up enough to make it unique to him but maintain the integrity of the original song. It was beautiful and tender. My biggest beef is that yet again, he was relegated to performing early. Preference was given to Adam who performed last (again) and was given different stage treatment than the others. I think that stinks.Who’s going home? Who knows! I really think it’s up in the air at this point. It could very well be a Danny/Adam finale which has been touted for weeks. Or it could be Kris/Adam. If it’s Kris/Adam, it’s over. There’s no point in watching next week because there is no way that Kris can win. If we want a real competition, then we need to see it be a Kris/Danny finale but that won’t happen. Dang it.

Is anyone really that surprised by the final 3 on American Idol? I mean, bloggers can feign shock and awe about Allison getting the boot but she knew her days were numbered. Now you can counter that she was talented and deserved to stay and all that stuff and while that is true, someone has to go. Allison has been battling a personality dilemma since the beginning. Fortunately for her, her talent is what carried her this far. And good for her, she’s got a great voice and with a little coaching and more experience under her belt, she may end up being really great. So, the Top 3 are Kris, Danny and Adam – no huge shocker there except for maybe Kris. He seemed to be genuinely surprised by making it into the final 3 and I couldn’t be more pleased he really held his own. He doesn’t rely on theatrics. He just plays his guitar and sings. Will he win? Doubtful. But he’s talented. He’s good looking. Yay for Kris. Danny survived his humiliating performance this week with humor. That’s really the only way to save face on this – to laugh at yourself which is what Danny did. Good for him! He’ll never live it down. But good for him for taking the assault from the haters. His fanbase came through and saved him. Now it’s up to him to keep their loyalty.This next week, the Idols will return to their hometowns for a visit and will be told about the songs they’ll sing. The judge’s choice is coming up and also the contestant’s choice. I certainly hope they have all given this some thought and will go out and perform what they’re most good at. This isn’t the time to step out of the box and be experimental. Just sing, dudes. Not like I’m expert… like most of America, I am an armchair Simon Cowell. Frankly, I just don’t want any of them to suck. And I don’t wish this competition to be as predictable as the bloggers and radio folk keep predicting – an Adam coronation. I would be pleased for any of the final 3 to take the crown but I think it’d be super to see either Kris or Danny step up and blow people away and take the top prize.

Well, call me underwhelmed…again. Vocally, David Archuleta and Syesha were the strongest. But David Cook got the best criticism. Go figure. Cook’s vocals were all over the place tonight and again his songs featured a slow build up to him screaming the big note at the end. Is that Idol material? I don’t know. It’s the same from him every week. That could be said about Archuleta who can master any ballad. He sings a lot of slow songs which is true. But why not sing to his strengths? It is a competition after all and what sense would it make for him to sing something he’s not comfortable with? Then there is Syesha and for her it’s the same, too – it’s more about acting out the song rather than sing it. And frankly, she could SING it if she weren’t so caught up in herself and her choreography with a chair. What the?! It’s manipulative and obnoxious. She’s so out of there. And not a moment too soon. Putting her through to the finale would guarantee the title to any one of the Davids.So, let’s talk about the songs… And So It Goes actually turned out pretty good and the best performance of the night for David Archuleta. I wasn’t looking forward to this song because the Billy Joel version is so slow and drawn out, it’s almost painful to listen to which is sad because Billy Joel is usually great. But I was not a fan of this song. David A. chose to sing a portion of it acapella which was great because it really showcased him as a vocalist which compared to the other two contestants, he’s the best one. His other performances – Chris Brown’s With You was “fun” and he sounded pretty good. But it wasn’t what I’d thought it’d be based on the buzz that the song was getting on certain blogs and forums. So, in that sense it was a let down. Longer was pretty just as I thought it would be. Dan Fogelburg is great but I would have preferred to hear Leader of the Band instead. I’m not sure what the producers were smokin’ but their choices pretty much sucked all around.Syesha sang some Alecia Keys song which she was conveniently happy about. Ugh. Then she sang Fever and was more excited about dancing around a chair than singing the song. Call me crazy but that girl has an ego bigger than all the contestants combined. Her last song was another producer doozie. The song was from the movie “Happy Feet” and I can’t even remember the name of it – totally forgettable and so was her night. She’s heading home.David Cook sang First Time I Ever Saw Your Face or whatever and of course it was a stretegic choice by Simon to give him this song which of course he would change up to fit his style..he started off nice and slow and low and then of course you could hear the band build up and Cook start to growl the lyrics until he finally hits the last note with his mouth so wide you could see Jimmy Hoffa hiding behind his tonsils. His second song was some song I have never heard of. Just as it was starting to get going it was over. I was wondering what had just happened. Did he just make that up or something? It wasn’t good, dawg (gag). Cook’s final song (and producer’s choice) was Don’t Want to Miss a Thing (by Aerosmith). Wow. That one was a shocker. The song was pimped out with a bevy of violins that overplayed Cook’s vocals which were low then high and kinda sharp and then kinda flat. But it doesn’t matter what he sounded like because the drums started to beat, the guitars started to wail and Cook started to build up his trademark growl at the right time. Simon declared him an Idol Rock God and set him up to be the one to beat next week. So all assumptions of the past month or two were proved true and we’ll see a David vs. David finale. 

Yesterday the governor of Utah, the mayor of Salt Lake County and the mayor of Murray City each proclaimed it to be David Archuleta Day. I knew it would be pandimonium as the build up of David Archuleta’s return has been perculating for weeks. And having a vested interest in the show, I kinda feel like I know the kid and have been amused by all the fuss and commotion. He’s been one of my favorites on the show this year and of course having him be a hometown boy is a little exciting. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype. So, it was with great interest that my Mom and I watched the coverage of David’s Day yesterday. There were throngs of screaming girls, 10 year olds declaring his hotness, bands of  teenagers proposing marriage and Moms eager to get close enough to pinch those cheeks. And true to form, he humbly accepted the praise and graciously answered the questions – lots of them – that were thrown his way. His appearance at the Gateway shopping center in downtown SLC was epic. By the looks of the news coverage, he attracted more people than the Olympics and it moved him and his mother to tears. The rally at his high school a few hours later was about the same – thousands of screaming girls, lots of big body guards and my personal favorite moment – a couple Murray city cops “guarding” the stage with camera phones clicking away! By all looks of it, it appeared that he had a great reunion with his hometown.Then controversy struck. The timing is odd and this year more than most, there seems to be something a little amiss with AI. Perhaps Paula’s strange behavior is not enough. This year it seems that the victim of reality TV foul play is our own David Archuleta. Stories have been swirling around the blogs and online bulletin boards for months about how his father, Jeff is some sort of crazy stage dad. We’ve seen how out of control these parents can get. But let’s get real here. Lindsay Lohan’s mother was recently recognized for her parenting skills so how bad can Mr. Archuleta be if he’s helping make decisions about David’s song choices? I can see this both ways, actually. Having had a child involved in an arts program recently, it has been difficult to refrain from speaking my mind about how the arts program has been run. Children run amok, there is no discipline, there is not enough help for the teacher and in the end they have to know enough in order to perform a whole play. The class my daughter was in was so chaotic and confusing there were many times that I wanted to pull her out of it. I would ask her if she was enjoying herself hoping to hear her say that it just wasn’t that fun. That’s all she’d have to say and we’d be out of there. But she stuck with it to her credit and today performed a great play and won an “oscar” for her efforts. It was a satifying conclusion to an eight month long ordeal. What kind of parent would I be if the example I set was to tell her to quit? On the flipside, however, there were times that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Several times there were pushy kids in her class that insisted on changing my daughter’s blocking or telling her what to do. My daughter isn’t one to rock the boat. I hate to see her picked on and pushed around. So I made sure those kids didn’t do it anymore. No. I didn’t threaten them but gee, if nobody said anything they’d just continue to do it. What gets me about this whole David Archuleta stage dad thing is that everyone is so quick to judge him when they don’t know him at all. Could he be as much of a nightmare the tabloids make him out to be? Sure. But couldn’t he really be an over-protective dad looking out for his kid? You bet. I couldn’t blame him for that. The industry is tough. The public is unrelenting in their opinions and those with dollar signs in their eyes wouldn’t hesititate to exploit an honest naive boy like David. I can see myself acting the same way.  There have been a lot of assumptions made about this man that I perceive to be unfair. If he’s truly causing problems, I would hope that he would graciously step aside and perhaps allow David’s mother to be with him instead. But if he’s feeling that his child is being taken advantage of or exploited, then he has every right to protect David’s interests.So, back to his day yesterday….I had to wonder if any of the attention was getting to him. I have had one moment in my life – although much smaller in comnparison – that was kind of a taste of what he went through yesterday. When I graduated high school, I produced a show that was, for the time, ahead of its time, and it was shown during the graduation ceremony. There was a lot of buzz about the show and the response was tremendous. In a moment, my standing with my classmates changed. I remember arriving at the school later that night to attend a Grad night party and I was in the back of my friend’s truck. When people saw me, they literally were chasing after me in the parking lot. Many of these people had never been nice to me all through high school but here they were all of a sudden singing my praises. It was confusing and very artificial. Now, put that in a much grander scale such as what David Archuleta went through yesterday and I have to wonder if he is being confused, too. It’s time to cut the kid some slack and just let him compete without that stage dad cloud hanging over him. The pressure he is under must be tremendous. And judging by how he handled yesterday, he’s in pretty good shape – clearly, not the a kid under the thumb of an overbearing father. But perhaps more like the kid of some pretty protective parents who are looking out for him. Sure, I’ll play devil’s advocate on this one. I am more likely to be on the side of a protective parent than on the side of someone publishing stories to create a controversy that may not really exist anyway. Those who cast the first stone….I stumbled upon an early DA performance video on YouTube. It looks to be a year or two old but it’s really good. He should have performed this on AI: