So we're coming home from Target, listening to the iPod in the car, and at one point the five year-old pipes up from the backseat, "Why is he the only one that could ever teach her?"
Bonus points for identifying the song without using Google.
Million Miles, by J.Ralph (then going by the name SPY), just cycled through on iTunes, and brought to mind my second favorite VW commercial ever, called "Big Day," in which the song is prominently featured. The commercial is a gem. It tells a spellbinding story, unspooling perfectly, with an unexpected twist and an uncertain ending. The breath she takes right before it ends could mean so many things. I have a copy of the video on my computer somewhere, but you can watch it on YouTube.
(Get your own crappy Quicktime version from Volksfolks, or read a discussion of the commercial, mostly full of "This is Awesome!" but still interesting, at Tevis.)
So this last week on American Idol was a bad one. Nobody sang particularly well, the songs were not particularly memorable, Brooke got fewer votes than Jason, and then... then there was Dolly Parton.
I know she's a legend. I know she's written over 3,000 songs, and even wrote the Whitney Houston signature song, "I Will Always Love You." She may have been a good mentor, I don't know, as we didn't see anything but the fawning. But this was not a good week for Dolly herself.
On Tuesday night, they showed a clip of her before every singer, talking about them. She was deathly pale and sported Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker lipstick. On Wednesday night, she got to sing a song from her new album, and she was downright awful. The outfit was terrible, a sort of white knickers and wedding-dress combo with sequins. The song was nothing special, all about Jesus, and the singing was terrible. Seriously, she has no voice left. At times it seemed like she was just talking, not singing. She was like a tent revival spouse, warming up the crowd for the preacher.
American Idol has done this before, rolling out the mostly-not-dead-yet legends. Tony Bennett pops to mind immediately. It's not a good move. For anyone, Idol included.
Anyway.
Some of my thoughts on the performances:
Performance of the Week: I'd have to give it to David Cook, who sang "Sparrow." In the pre-song interview, he confessed to sourcing his interesting arrangements from other artists: Whitesnake, Doxology, and Chris Cornell. This was never hidden, but it was not made explicit by Idol either, and had caused some stir on the Internet. With that off his chest he noted that tonight's song was arranged by him, only him, and solely by him. And it was good. He clearly really, really, really wants this.
Arriving: On the upswing this week was Michael Johns (formerly codenamed "Australia" here, but I like "The man with two first names" better). He has suffered from the judges never being quite happy with him until last week and now this week, with his blues-touched cover of "It's All Wrong, But it's All Right". He's chasing David Cook (and they are both on a different track than David Archuletta) but he'll have to keep working to keep up.
Sliding: Syesha grabbed the bull by the horns and got gored. She chose to sing "I Will Always Love You" and just couldn't quite reach the heights. Plus, the judges roundly criticized her for even trying. So dicey, doing the diva with these judges. This year, especially, they have been down on the diva music. Which is all right by me. Syesha needs a good performance next week.
And the Bottom Three were:
Brooke, who did just fine with "Jolene", in my estimation. The judges took her to task for being pitchy, and for having the band up there, but I think the voting public just needed a third to fill out the Bottom Three.
Kristi Lee Cook, who sang okay, barefoot, but didn't distinguish herself, and got the Paula kiss-of-death, "you look lovely tonight" comment. She brought a placeholder with her for her seat in the Bottom Three.
Ramiele, who picked a bad song, sang poorly, and wore an awful minidress/skort-with-suspenders outfit. She is just not seasoned enough to make it as a performer.
Ramiele ended up going home, suffering from a history of poor song choices, rote singing, and of course, standing next to the indestructible Kristi Lee Cook, who has been this close to leaving... what, three times now? Given who is left, it may be Kristi Lee Cook's time to go next week. But you should never underestimate the idiocy of the American public.
What did you think of this week on American Idol?
Hello, visitors from the Intarwebs. You grace my site with search queries about the SXSW Music conference, and I have decided to give you what you want:
So YouTube is busy celebrating April 1st by Rickrolling all the Featured Videos on their front page. How fun, I thought, I haven't seen Rick Astley since, well, the Eighties. So, at breakfast, I visited YouTube and clicked on a video about a monkey. Sure enough, there was Rick, singing in his too-deep tones with random dancers doing random Eighties moves. I shut the window and started surfing another site when I heard the dulcet tones of my own little songbird. He (the two-year-old) pointed at the laptop and said, "Again!" And then, when it was done, "Again!" And, "Again!" We watched the video a total of five times this morning, and now I can't get the song out of my head. I do believe I have been Rickrolled, by my baby.
For this week of American Idol the singers got to choose songs from the year of their birth. It's like Eighties Nite all over again, only with fewer songs to choose from. Which was probably a good thing.
Randy was a little harsh this week, and Paula was wearing some weird armwarmers with diamonds on them... I think. Her sense of style clearly stayed in the Eighties with her career. There seems to be a flu bug or something going around, though Ramiele hurriedly discounted that as having any effect on her (bad) performance.
I got to thinking, while watching the show, about which of these singers could get me to part with actual cash for an album of theirs. Of these ten contestants, I would buy albums from Brooke (she's my fave!), and David Cook. That's it. Carly has an outside chance, if she gets herself together after a couple of bad weeks (nothing a producer couldn't fix, but I'm not sure what her musical style would be). Turns out they actually do full-length, studio recordings of their songs (as they showed us during the results show iTunes promo). I might actually buy one or two.
Performance of the week (of the season?): David Cook absolutely knocked it out of the park with his Chris-Cornell-inspired version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." Wow. We went and found the Chris Cornell version later, and if they post the studio recorded version of this song, I will most certainly buy it. It'd be infinitely better than the Cornell version (and it already was a lot better than the original, sorry Michael). Considering that of the absolute standout performances of the season so far, Cook already has two... the judges may be right that he's the odds-on favorite now. Also of note, Chris Cornell called, and he is adding himself to the David-Cook-covered-my-song fanclub, joining inaugural member Lionel Richie.
Speaking of the favorites: Two weeks ago I listed my final five or six, and since then some of them have had a rocky road. Carly got Bottom Three'd for her clothing, Chikezie went back to Luther and punted, Brooke fumbled her second Beatles song, and Jason disrespected the gravitas of Idol (I know, I know, what gravitas?). The only two to have risen since my pronouncement are David Cook and Australia, and Australia seems to have a penchant for gimmicky arena rock. The new order is Cook, Australia, Brooke, Carly, and Jason. Sorry, Chikezie.
God Bless the USA: Kristi Lee Cook, in a desperate bid to avoid going home, pulled out all the stops in her song selection routine. She went for Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." It was a judicious, canny, insightful, clever, totally annoying, perfect choice. Which means someone else must have chosen it for her, right? She did a passable job, but she draped herself in the flag to try and pull votes from all the patriots out there (not to mention Amanda's Southern-country crew, now that she's out). That, and Lee Greenwood's blessing, took her over the top (into fourth from the bottom?).
The Bottom Three this week were:
Chikezie, falling off his own bandwagon. We were all on the Chikezie! Express: young, hip, energetic, and fun, and then he went back to the Luther Vandross well, and it sucked. The song ("If Only for One Night") was terrible, though the singing of it may have been fine. I couldn't tell over the sound of his career shattering into a million pieces.
Syesha, who reportedly sang well ("reportedly" because the judges apparently heard something I didn't) but chose yet another R&B tune (once sung by Gladys Knight), which just doesn't fly with today's youth. I don't think we'll be seeing a Motown theme night this year.
Jason, who has indeed been coasting since "Hallelujah," and pretty much coasted all the way to the Bottom Three, eliciting a bored "meh" from me with his Spanglish version of Sting's "Fragile."
I was hoping Syesha would be the one to go, because she has done nothing but bore me to tears, but Chikezie took the hit he deserved. You don't turn your back on who brought you, and Chikezie did more than that, he took all the fans who voted for him because of his previous two performances, and he spat on them. Too harsh? I don't think so.
Next week we'll have guest mentor Dolly Parton. Should be another banner week for Kristi Lee Cook, as she rides the country music bronco all the way to the bank. I'm expecting a train wreck from most of the others.