Songs Sung Blah

There’s something about these semi-final shows that inspires the American Idol contestants to become zombies—singing songs no one really wants to hear and looking a lot less impressive than they should considering they’re performing for 30 million-plus viewers. I have no idea what that something is but it was in full effect this week.

The girls were more of a mess than they were last week, if it wasn’t for Melissa’s energetic rendition of Reba McEntire’s "Why Haven’t I Heard From You" the show would’ve had no highlight at all. There’s no question that Katharine, Lisa and Paris are talented but they were all painfully dull this week (especially Katharine). I’d pick Melissa, Mandisa and Kinnik to join them in the top twelve but Kinnik is looking desperate (Gretchen Wilson!?) and either the thoroughly-mediocre-but-gee-ain’t-she-cute? Kellie Pickler or the overachieving Tracy Flick-esque Ayla Brown will wind up in the top 12 instead (odds are on Kellie). I’m still waiting for Mandisa to blow me away, but maybe she’s saving the good stuff for the finals?

Anyway my bets for those saying goodbye are Heather "shoot her now" Cox, who thought it was a good idea to sing Mariah Carey’s "Hero" and Brenna Gethers, who is sassy and all but is really out of her depth. (Again I think Kinnik is in trouble, and going country may have lost it for her, and I suppose people could be too bored with Katharine to care but she should be safe—she just needs to pull out all the stops next week.)

And then, over in Special Ed, the boys were really hurting (my ears and my soul). After Taylor demonstrated how quickly his whole weird Southern I-just-love-music-and-Ray-Charles! vibe can grow tiresome (especially when his vocals suck and his song choice is embarrassing— Easy? oh please), Elliott showed everyone what actual talent sounds like (but what exactly is this guy’s niche? and how on earth can anyone market it?). Then we had to suffer through eight other performers I’d be perfectly happy never seeing again. On the plus side, Gedeon probably secured himself a slot in the top 12 with a reasonably pleasant performance (but why has this show never found a great contemporary sounding African-American male?). And yes Chris knows how to perfectly imitate the worst of modern rock radio. If people like this crap as much as record companies believe they do he’ll go far. It’s just white noise to me.

Watching the other guys is really about waiting to see just how lame they’ll be. The lamest of the lame last night was David Radford, the "crooner," who seemed like he desperately wanted to be anywhere else but on stage. And "Sway" was also uncomfortable and awkward, though it was obvious he at least wanted to do better. Hopefully they’re both finished as of tonight, but it’s not like Ace, Will, Kevin or Bucky actually deserve to stay. Unfortunately that's who we're stuck with, for now...