Mark at Large

(Special treat: I’m posting the unedited copy—Check out the edgeonthenet.com for the edited version)

It’s a broken record. I’m completely flabbergasted. Has a freak of nature occurred? Another week goes by and AGAIN all 9 contestants were great. Its amazing not one Idol hopeful hit a sour note. Are you effing kidding me! We have truly reached the point of absurdity. At this point Helen Keller could tell you there is at least one bad egg in the bunch.

Randy Jackson, a super star producer (as he tells it), clams all these kids are spectacular. One wonders why he doesn’t make deals with them all to cash in on their greatness. I can imagine Interscope will only sign the kids they are required to by contract—the rest will be free agents. The reality is nobody will sign them. And the judges will continue to deliever unrelenting niceness while collecting their big fat paychecks. Idol is an unstoppable machine that can’t even be taken down by boredom.

All this niceness is biting us in the ass. The kids either come off as hokey or poor versions of the original. But why change when you’re showered in accolades from three industry insiders. We keep getting served up the same crap each week completely void of originality.

It was Rocking Roll Hall of Fame Week and the kids could choose hits from Rock’s greats. Although, we would have been better served if the kids could haven chosen songs from Rocks not so greats. This way we would not notice how glaringly bad they are.

To help the kids with their Rock songs Idol brought in non-Rocker Will.I.am from the Black Eye Pea to assist the kids. Why would you bring in a techno-pop artist to help kids with Rock songs? (Will.I.am has a record to promote—of course) In all fairness to Will.I.am, he did a good job, but these kids are so jaded most ignored his advice completely. The fame has really shot to these kids’ heads; it will only be a few short months before these kids get their comeuppance. 

Lest kick off with Jacob. Jacob sings one verse of “Lets Get it On” and Will.I.am shoots Jimmy Iovine a look like “is this brother for real or am I mentoring on RuPaul’s Drag Race.” No you’re not. I can see the confusion since he belts out every song like a queen in her street clothes. But Jacob is not a trashy queen, he rejected “Lets Get it On” because of its objectionable subject matter. Jacob very prudishly says the song is “very blunt. It says lets do it. Lets do the nasty.” Really! A 23-year-old uncomfortable with singing about sex. Some ones not getting any.

Against Will.I.am wishes, Jacob picks Michael Jackson’s “The Man in the Mirror”. I would have suggested MJ’s “In the Closet” for Jacob—it would have been a better fit. Maybe Jacob and Ryan Seacrest could have even have done a duet.  It would have been fitting for both. Jacob’s performance can be summed quite nicely by one of MJ biggest albums: Bad.

I can confirm Haley Reinhart is a true blond down to the root. Steven and Randy have been desecrating Janis Joplin’s good name by erroneously comparing her to Haley. Because of that atrocity Haley, of course, decides to sing Janis Joplin’s “A Little Piece of My Heart.” In Haley’s coaching session Will.I.am correctly says, “you’re singing the words, but I don’t think your feeling the words…[pointing at the camera] that’s the boyfriend that mess your head up.” Its pretty clear Haley’s suppose to think of her ex-boyfriend to give her song the intensity and passion it needs. But in Haley post interview she says “I’m really use to performing for every person in the crowd, but now its important to look in to that [camera] lens and connect with each and everyone of you guys at home.” That’s not what he meant, darling. I’m certainly not your ex-boyfriend. This girl is clueless. Will.I.am was dead on; she sang the song void of any passion.

Casey Abrams is completely off his rocker. He worked with Will.I.am and Jimmy Iovine arranging one of Sting’s songs. Will.I.am, who was complete on point, told Casey his arrangement was “very loungey” and his “sanp-ies” were “very like Sammy.” Basically saying he was a cheesy lounge act from the 50s.

The judges’ darling decided to scrap Will.I.am’s song arrangement and select an entirely new song by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Instead of the “snap-ies” making him look like a cheesy lounge act he brings out an upright base (an instrument at least twice the size of cello) that easily does the trick. Randy thought he was “revolutionary”.  I guess he was if you were Sammy Davis Junior and it was 1950 using an upright base might be cutting edge.

Lauren Alaina, a white country girl, decided to sing Aretha Franklin’s “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Women.” It would be an insult to your intelligence if I told you what happens when 16-year-old country bumpkin takes on the Queen of Soul. I think we all know how that turned out. But the judges love it—go figure.

Will.I.am tired to help out Lauren by pointing out she didn’t sing in control. According to Lauren, in her post interview, he spelled out the word control to emphasize his point. But she says he spelled it incorrectly giving us his spelling: c-o-u-n-t-r-o-u-l. It looks like Will.I.am is not getting any r-e-s-p-e-c-t from any of these smarty-pants idol wannabes.

Resident rocker James Durbin decided not do a Rock song during a Rock week. Not surprising he is a bit confused, since he is all doped up several sorts of medication for his turrets and Asperger (pronounced: Ass Burgers] ).  James chose a slow tempo song by The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and on cue tears were flowing at the end for some unknown reason. Randy (a.k.a Captain Obvious) said, “I can even tell in this moment that it’s an emotional thing for you now.” Do you think? When some one cries they’re usually emotional. Duh! He was probably the best of the night (not saying much), but it was mediocre for me. Bring back the wild rocker.

Pia Toscano tackles Tina Turner’s classic “River Deep, Mountain High” produced by legendary producer Phil Spectors and considered one of his greatest works. Tina who was still in an abusive relationship with Ike Turner at the time, finally got to sing a song with out his influence. Ike was paid $20,000 to say out of the studio, but the song would have both Ike and Tina’s name on it. Needless to say the song was a major milestone in Tina’s life, finally giving her the opportunity to step out of the shadows of an abusive husband. As you can imagine Tina sang it with grit, passion and conviction. It was truly a life changing moment for Tina. Now over forty years later Pia delivers an emotionless, passion free and vacant version of the most pinnacle song in Tina’s career. It’s nice that Pia can sing pretty, but as Will.I.am says, “you gotta feel it” especially when the song comes from such an emotional place. Looks will only get you so far; don’t be surprise if Pia goes home a lot earlier then you think.

Scotty McCreery, a country boy, takes on The King: Elvis Presley.  Well I think we all know how that will turn out, so once again I won’t insult my readers by stating the obvious. He did include all these jerky moves, gyrations and arm wags while he strutted around the stage. It looked odd to me, but J Lo, being very inquisitive, asked if he got his “flavor” from watching rap videos. Its looks like Jenny is getting further and further away from “the block”, she can’t distinguish what’s hip anymore.

Stefano Langone is another one not listening to tutelage of Will.I.am. Will.I.am goes to the effort to sing “When a Man Loves a Women” exactly how it should be sung. But once again Stefano turns a tender love song into a belt it out, over the top Broadway show tune rejecting Will.I.am advice. Stefano’s run on the Great White Way needs to come to timely end soon.

Rounding out the evening is Paul McDonald attempting a weird Johnny Cash song, “Folsom Prison Blues”, with a Hee Haw, Jug band style twist that can only be explained as unnerving. It’s literally so bad you want to stick a pencil in your eardrum to put an end to the busy bee sounds. Maybe the CIA can use it to play over and over again as they cruelly torture terror suspect into giving up sensitive information—it would be way more effective then waterboarding.  

My torture has finally come to an end. Who will go home? Probably Stefano—I actually thought he was kicked off last week that’s how boring he is.