Cook's song choice was really bizarre and he did nothing interesting with it (outside of growling a couple of notes). Boring arrangement.

Syesha was pretty good. Very comfortable on the stage in comparison to her earlier performances. And yeah, she is definitely hot (on the cute side of hot for me). A little shrieky, for sure, in spots, though.

Castro was, well, hahaha. He just wants to go home. Wish granted I'm sure.

Archuleta was pretty solid. Not quite on the level of his best, but it was definitely up there. Easy winner of round 1.

Through 1 song: Arch, Sy, Cook, Random hum of machinery, Sound of Paula Abdul's face cracking, Randy Jackson's chair creaking in pain, Castro.

dola -

And yeah, I really do not think he has all that much range. His voice is also normally really annoying, in my opinion. But I feel that song was good for him.

But I really don't care all that much for range. Brooke White didn't have all that much range either, but I will be first in line if she puts out a contemporarylike cd.

Hmm..

Disagree with the judges. But, I think that could be my classic rock fandom. Because, there is no way in hell, in my opinion, he did that song justice. No way.

Syesha... GOD DAMN! She is...HOT!

What did Simon have to say about Syesha's second song? Did he make her cry, or did Paula make her cry? My wife zipped past the judges' comments (I hate when she does that, but I'm tired of fighting her over it).

Ok. Seriously. How is this Castro guy still in this competition?

Paula just wants to straight fuck the shit out of Castro.

Jason..Jason..Jason...

First, he chose two of my favorite musicians of all-time. Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. He made Marley turn over in his grave. Then he chose my favorite Bob Dylan song of all-time. While he didn't do as bad as Marley I felt, buddy, you were just in over your head.

He has a great taste in music, I will give him that. But these songs were made from greatness, something he doesn't have. He just was way over his head tonight.

So long, Rasta.

I don't know. I actually turned over to the Cavs game right after Paula's comments, and I have no idea why I did that. But I turned right back when she was crying as well an wondered the same thing.

From what I could gather from the comments it was just the emotion from the song and maybe.... Randy's comments?

Paula went all "You are a star now" with Syesha, Syesha started crying (out of happiness for the comments) and then Simon agreed with Paula. Simon was joking that Randy's comment made her cry.

I tend to agree with Randy. I think she was trying to do too much. I think Simon really really really really wants Jason off the show so, I don't think he would have said too much negative there. Syesha has been consistently in the bottom. I don't think he needed to give anyone hope that Jason would be around.

And after watching Idol for the first time this year....I could not have been less impressed.

Didn't get to see as much of the 2nd half so these comments shouldn't be taken too seriously.

David Cook: didn't know the song, didn't really get it, but it was better than Duran Duran (???)

Castro: heh. Bye.

Syesha: really didn't see anything but the last note. no clue.

Archuleta: got to hear all of it from the other room and it was better than his first song which was pretty darn good.

I have to rank Archuleta first tonight based on incomplete hearing (much to the chagrin of many, yet again??) and Cook/Syesha somewhere in the middle (really can't be too precise here since I didn't hear nearly enough of Syesha).

Castro is obviously gone unless people just vote for him because they like him or want to screw the show over. A total joke and it was obvious he didn't care a lick.

I hated it all tonight. I wish I had watched animals shitting on Discovery HD instead.

Go watch that fascinating lions vs wildebeasts video in that youtube thread.

MJ how have you never heard Baba O'riley?

Dude, Baba O'Riley don't play at Branson.

I kinda thought that was Paula's sendoff speech - a "you won't be around next week, so I'll shower you with all my compliments now and tell you how far you've come" kinda deal. Don't be sad you're leaving, you are a winner in my book, yada yada.

Well that or she could just be plum crazy.

And Syesha...yeah. Indeed.

I don't even know what Baba O'riley is. Is that the song Cook sang or a group? I don't know what to tell you about why I haven't heard it. I guess I just don't listen to as much of a certain type of music as some others?

Thanks for continuing to behave like a douchebag.

What was the first song Syesha sang?

MattJones,

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hKUBTX9kKEo

Here is a live version of The Who - Baba O'Riley. Maybe that will ring a bell, maybe not.

Proud Mary

the teenage wasteland song cook was singing is called "Baba O'Riley" by a band called The Who

Thanks Scoobz I'll check it out in a bit.

Oops, I mean the second song then

nevermind (Sam Cooke)

Ah, The Who. Never listened to much of them. There's your answer.

FWIW, that song is heard all the time at sports arenas, and if I were a wrestler, the first minute would be my entrance music probably

Jason needs to go home, now.

I'm also in the club that thought Syesha looked very good tonight.

Sigh. Frontier column now posted.

http://www.solecismic.com/frontierblog/?p=255

Overall: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will be closed tomorrow, in mourning over the death of music itself after a series of performances that called into question whether American Idol is still capable of producing interesting performers.

The requirements to succeed in American Idol do not necessarily match the requirements to succeed with a musical career. That's pretty much proven, as super-popular contestants have released albums and received next to no sales.

The problem is that the show rewards versatility and charisma over anything else. The best death metal singer in the world would fail here as he can't sing Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, etc.

And the show also does not reward the "artist", it rewards the "singer". So when the singer leaves the competition and doesn't know how to write music, they have 2 choices... try to write your own stuff, or pick from the AI-written drivel that makes them all sound identical. And they usually fail either way. Look at Reuben.

They really need to give the singers more freedom to sing within their own genre. Decades are a good choice as for the most part there are multiple genres of music within each decade that they can choose from that match their style. I also believe that there should be a songwriting week where they play one of their own songs. It worked in Rockstar, as a few of those songs ended up being the most popular songs sung that season. It would also expose the no-talent hacks that happen to have a decent voice.

This would never happen on AI unless they radically change the competition, because the show is not about finding the most talented musicians. It's about finding the best, most charismatic singer. Pop stars can be puppets with great voices, or they can be talented writers who drive their own careers. This show doesn't care if you can write a hit song (until you're making money for them), they only care that you can sing, perform, show a personality, and connect with some big group of people who will hopefully buy your CDs.

I'm all for a singer/songwriter competition, beyond what even Rockstar tried to do. It would probably have a TV audience of 2 (me and my wife, who I'd force to watch it), but I'd like to hear talented musicians perform their own material and get judged on it. There are dozens of talented people out there with self-financed CDs for sale on CD Baby and numerous other small/niche net stores who would make perfect competitors for such a show. Best chance of that happening would be on a cable channel, because that just doesn't have the hook to draw in enough viewers. And like with Rockstar, the catch-22 is that you've got to make the show have enough integrity that you attract true talent. I suspect that was a real problem for Rockstar - they couldn't get high profile, relevant enough bands to commit to it because it was like career suicide and a joke.

Re last night's performances, I missed the first two since I came home late from a meeting, but the whole night was pretty blah. Archuleta doing the "emoting right hand" gesture while sitting down had me cracking up. Nothing more to say about him. He picked the right songs and was good for him, much better than the others (unfortunately). My wife said Syesha was great on the first one, and I found the second one yawn-inducing. I'm still trying to understand how she took a song from such an important period of time and applied it to her insignificant little journey on a reality show, but that's just me. Whatever motivates you, I guess. I would have understood her tears if she just left it at "the song means a lot given that it came out of the civil rights era, etc." , but going on about how it applied to her seemed to trivialize the song's importance, IMO.

Castro seriously scares me. He's like Spicoli and Barbarino wrapped into a dreadlocked Ted Bundy puppet. No doubt he's going home tonight. I'm still holding out hope that Syesha can pull an upset next week and take out Archuleta.

Haven't watched yet and I know Castro is going home ;).

Sad to hear it was a dissapointing night. This is a night that should be done earlier rather than a limited songbook from an individual artist.

I think AI needs to take a long and hard look at what they're doing with the mentors. They're losing that young audience and they're bringing in artists that those young folks have never heard of - coincidence?

But they only had 4 mentors this year, so they augmented the oldies but goodies people with more of the same during the non-mentor weeks. They had 2 weeks of Beatles, separate 60s, 70s, and 80s weeks, plus a de facto second 80s week with the "songs in the year you were born" week.

You're right - it's not just the mentors, it's all of the themes.

I've only been watching for 3 seasons now - but I can't remember a stretch where there were so few songs that *I* knew being performed, let alone that 15 year olds know.

I just had an exchange with one of our secretaries that was pretty interesting, and perhaps mirrors (to a more extreme degree, I imagine) what's going on with Archuleta's fan base. She and I discuss the performances/results every week, and at the beginning, she really liked Archuleta, thought Imagine was great, thought he had a great voice, etc. Over the weeks, though, she has begun to sour on him mainly because everything he sings sounds the same.

This morning, I walked by her desk, and the first thing out of her mouth wasn't Castro's appalling performances, it was, "I've just about had more than I can take of David Archuleta. At this point, I'd be happy never hearing him sing another note. In fact, I'd rather not see him ever again. Even looking at him is grating on my very last nerve." At which point I smiled broadly, extended my arm, and said, "High five - welcome to the dark side!" And we both had a big laugh about it.

I saw a recent porn movie that started this way, except the first thing out of her mouth was something else.

While David A. can sing and sounded solid last night, what he sang was very predictable. Both songs were slow and rather heavy. I figured he'd be the one doing A Change Is Gonna Come, but Stand By Me is an equally heavy replacement. He'll be the next Michael Bolton...not that there's anything wrong with that. I'd like to see him lighten up a bit and sing something lighter, but it just doesn't seem to be his thing.

Syesha was a bit off in Proud Mary. I was hoping she wouldn't take a big female artist's song and try to do a lot with it. When I saw Aretha on the list, that was my fear. Doing Tina, she did well, but she tried to go too high in some places and it just wasn't in her range. Her A Change Is Gonna Come sounded ok. The reason it was a bit off is I'm used to hearing guys sing it. Or maybe she was just off. Dunno.

Cook's Hungry Like the Wolf was average, at best. His Baba O'Riley was good, though my wife and I were busy trying to figure out where we'd heard it last week, since she mentioned that it was the theme song to CSI last week and we couldn't remember why she brought it up then. So I didn't really hear much of it.

Castro. Ummmm...yeah. Sad he's still there when there are other contestants who actually wanted to be on stage. His I Shot the Sheriff was a predictable choice (artist and genre) and a horrid, horrid disaster. His Mr. Tambourine Man didn't need his flubbed line to be bad. Even with the flubbed line, though, it was better than the Murder-Death-Kill he performed on the Sheriff. I don't think it's an untouchable song like Simon said, but at least put some effort into the damn thing.

In all honesty, I would not be surprised to see Syesha go home. I think she's been one of the top performers over the last 3 or 4 weeks, but she doesn't seem to be garnering the support from the fans. And with women seemingly voting for the guys no matter how they do, I wouldn't be surpised to see an all-male top 3.

I thought Baba O'Reilly suffered from the same problem that A Day in the Life had - too big of a song with too many parts to try to make it a coherent 2-minute song. It was awkward - the beginning was too long, and the ending was too abrupt.

I think you're basing this on the judges' lack of overwhelming positive comments, the lack of screams coming from the UCLA sorority plants (yes, the stage front is so choreographed that each sorority has their own week to provide plants for the audience - you know, the ones who scream, clap on cue, and sway their arms?), and the way she has been placed in the bottom 2/3. She shouldn't go home tonight - Castro is so far behind the other 3 that I would seriously question the results if that happened. But even though she is probably bottom 2, she's fairly close to Archuleta.

I don't take Dial Idol as the Bible, because it's just estimating votes, but there's no way Syesha was bottom 2 last week. No way. And we've discussed quite often here how the producers likely fudge the bottom 2/3 by hardly ever connecting the bottom 2/3 with the number of votes. I believe the person going home got the lowest number of votes; I do not believe they necessarily put the second or third-lowest vote-getters in the bottom 2/3 every week. Sometimes the votes play out like they want, and sometimes I think they try to manipulate the voters by making some people appear safer or more at risk than they really are.

I don't think she'll be able to pull it off, but it wouldn't shock me to see her knock Archuleta out of the finals. I assume, though, that if Castro goes home, most of his votes would go to Archuleta and Cook, since I have to believe they are voting based on Castro's "dreamy eyes." I doubt that means they'd vote for Syesha.

I have no hope of Syesha cracking the top 2. This is a David-David final all the way. Has been for about 6 weeks now. And I don't think she's been the best for that long. She's been nicely perched as the #3 performer since her "run" 3 weeks ago.


What I'm wondering is has the same "Keep the Worst Idol" campaign that they had last year still running. That would explain Castro still being there...about the only thing that would explain it to me, actually.

I think they should institute the ability to vote against someone who you don't like to negate one of the votes for that person. It'd be a way to combat the 13-year old girls who have a crush on idiot stoner boy.

I hope Discovery HD is showing animals shitting tonight.

If not we'll show animals shitting on the podcast.

I think that will be the end result, but if we saw the raw numbers, I think you'd be surprised to find out that Archuleta is much closer to Syesha than we've been lead to believe on the show.

I haven't been to their website up until now, but I believe vote for the worst was supporting Brooke up until she was eliminated last week. I did just go to their website now (vote for the stoned is their subtitle this week) and they are supporting Jason now.

So, up until now, the Vote For the Worst campaign didn't think Jason was the worst? Now that's scary.

Well, at least with Jason, once he starts there is a better than 90% chance he will finish the song (without a do-over).

The best part of last night's performances was that Syesha sang a song that Leonard Nimoy recorded, and later Jason sang a song that William Shatner recorded. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not too upset about missing animals shitting.

So what goes on during the 5 hour results show tonite?

The corpse of Lawrence Welk going to treat us to some big band music?