It happens every spring: not love, not baseball, but another set of 12 American Idol finalists, vying for the nation's affection, votes and, frequently, collective mortification. Here, The A.V. Club's resident AI obsessives handicap the field, noting who we're looking forward to hearing week after week, and who we're counting on to flame out spectacularly.
Noel Murray: So we've already lost one finalist, Melissa, who probably should've been gone even earlier, at the end of the last round. Once the crew got out of Hollywood Week and into the round of 24, the contestants shook out into three groups: the "What the hell were the judges thinking?," the "What's their name again?," and the highly exclusive "Can't wait to hear them sing." Melissa was in the thick of that middling group. Okay voice. No personality. Not exactly someone you'd think of as one of the 12 most promising young singers in America.
On the whole though, this is one of the most potentially entertaining groups the show's ever produced, both for its originality and its potential for train wrecks. That's why I'm hoping that Bucky gets voted off next. He's a mediocre singer doing a one-note hick-shtick, but he's not so awful that he'll be deliciously painful to watch in future weeks.
How about you, Scott? Who would you oust?
Scott Tobias: I'll confess to only following the show closely over
the last few weeks or so, once the lads and lasses were divided into groups of
12 after Hollywood Week, because I just couldn't take the audition shows any
longer. I know these episodes are extremely popular—and hey, the William
Hung phenomenon finally paid off on those glorious final episodes of Arrested
Development when his Hung Jury performed
on Mock Trial With J. Reinhold
(alternate title: Judge Reinhold)—but,
to me, they make the show seem like it's Step One of Fox's diabolical plan for
world domination. A few of the golden voices make an appearance, but only for
their image (polished, freshly scrubbed, All-American) to be contrasted with
the outsiders and freaks (the fat, the deluded, the sexually ambiguous, the
sexually unambiguous) who won't be allowed to reproduce in some dystopian
future of Rupert Murdoch's imagining. (Like Gattaca, but with reruns of That '70s Show.)
And yet perhaps the freaks had their day this year, because once the groups had been whittled down to 12 and 12, the guys turned out to be the motliest collection of goobers since… well… the audition shows. And the freakiest ones of all are still alive in the competition: Taylor Hicks, the prematurely gray 29-year-old from Alabama; Bucky Covington, another Southerner who looks raggedy no matter how many extreme makeovers he gets; and last but definitely not least, Kevin Covais, the sort of bespectacled runt whose high voice might be explained by all the nad-crushing wedgies he must have gotten in grade school.
It never occurred to me to want to keep someone on for being "deliciously painful," so I can sympathize with your desire to see Bucky ousted. Like last week's loser, Melissa McGhee, he's far too bland to make much of a dent in the competition, occupying some uncomfortable space between the weird dynamism of Taylor and the Scott Stapp-like rock wailings of Chris Daughtry. And I expect him to go out the same way as Melissa, with the judges more or less praising him for an adequate performance and America being uninspired to text-message him through to the next round.
But who deserves to go? Unquestionably Mr. Covais, whose talents as a singer, a dancer, and a stage presence have escaped me entirely. And here's the thing that's most disturbing about him: Thanks to Paula Abdul, he's constantly referred to now as a "sex symbol." Okay, I'm confused: When you call this kid a sex symbol, are we still talking about the sex that involves fucking and whatnot? Or is there some other kind of sex that's possibly presaged by a choirboy singing "Starry Starry Night" in an angelic voice? For me, Covais' performance of Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lover" last week recalled Season Three "crooner" John Stevens' infamous attempt at Elton John's "Crocodile Rock," a song well outside his narrow comfort zone. The public kept Stevens around for weeks—nay, months—after he deserved to go (thank God they let this season's crooner loose before the Final 12), and I have a feeling they'll be charitable to Covais for the same reason. He seems like a nice boy and he's trying real hard and performing on American Idol is probably a nice break from his paperboy route. But he's obviously not built to last.
Any other chaff from this season's group?
NM: Kevin stands out for sure, though I think he's
actually got a good voice underneath all that unearned swagger. Too bad he
didn't wait a couple of years to enter. With a little training, he could've
been more a Clay Aiken than a John Stevens. But unlike John, who seemed to
shrink up week after week under the heat of Simon's criticism, Kevin looks like
he's going to use his popularity as a weapon. Which, to me, means he deserves
whatever lashings he receives.
What is it with the contestants' arrogance this year? She's long-gone now, but Brenna was on her way to being the poster girl for AI '06 for a while there, between her prematurely diva-ish behavior and her insistence that "America loves me." I know the show is more popular than ever, but when are these kids going to realize that only the top two or three are going to have any real chance to be pop stars? The rest can look forward to a summer on the state fair circuit and maybe a callback from the touring company of Rent.
Anyway, now that Brenna and the equally over-confident Gedeon are off the docket, things have mellowed considerably. But that doesn't mean there aren't still some characters. You've already mentioned Taylor, who's a total nutjob. He can really sing—or at the least, he can imitate Ray Charles and Michael McDonald—and he's undeniably exuberant, but he doesn't seem entirely aware of where he is or what he's doing. I can't imagine what it would be like to sit around and discuss foreign policy with him.
The same is true for Kellie, this season's pretty belle from BFE. I've just about had it with her "Yesterday I 'et me some goat cheese" routine. I'm sure she's genuinely wide-eyed and not just playing to the camera, but I don't think she sings well enough to excuse all the ditziness. Though I admit I laughed out loud when Simon called her a "minx" and she chirped, "I'm a mink!"
I'm not sure what to make of Ace, the smoldering hunk with the unnaturally high voice. He's had two passable performances in a row, but his voice just isn't that strong, and frankly his West Hollywood lover-boy bit looks kind of silly. I predict that before this is all over, Ace will deliver at least one legendarily awful performance.
Then of course there are a handful of contestants that I think are pretty good, but that I can't see winning for one reason or another. But I'll let you go first. Who's on your list?
ST: Just the name "Kellie Pickler" gives me the willies, and she's got a personality to match. Everyone praises her for being adorable and likable, but is it really possible to know that little about the world and still be able to stand upright? It's amazing to watch her process information whenever someone speaks to her: The period between when something is said and when it's actually processed is unusually long, as if her brain is still running on a 14.4 baud modem while everybody else has gone broadband. And like Kevin and many other Idols past, her appearance and demeanor is totally pre-sexual, which I guess is how you can throw around terms like "sex symbol" without them being particularly descriptive.
Ace is a fascinating case. He's a smoldering hunk, as you say, but I'm not sure any dads need to lock up their daughters, if you catch my drift. That high voice of his never quite matches the notes, yet I found his performance of Michael Jackson's "Butterflies" to be a disarming little high-wire act, one that was threatened at all times by the possibility of a Peter Brady croak. But against a pretty strong field, I don't think he's built to last. Other good-not-great candidates: Lisa Tucker and Paris Bennett have strong enough voices to make a dent, but I don't see either one of them going the distance. Tucker spent some time with a Lion King touring company and I wouldn't be surprised to hear Simon bring that up if she manages a lackluster performance. She's polished but not leading lady material, and her youth will eventually be her undoing. Ditto Bennett, who may have a bigger voice than Tucker's, but lacks maturity and presence. Perhaps she'll emerge later in the competition with a song that can give those pipes a workout, but compared to some of the stronger women, she withers a bit in my eyes.
To step back briefly from the competitors themselves, how do you feel about the rest of the show this year? Truth be told, American Idol has always been an odd obsession with me: I'm irritated by it 95% of the time, yet I can't turn away. TiVo has helped make it more palatable: I never watch the elimination shows in full (I fast-forward to the eliminations, basically) and I'll also zip by a lot of the material between performances and even through performances that are starting to bore me a little. What's more, I don't really like how these songs are sung much of the time; performers are required to stick the high notes, but often to the song's detriment, as if they're not really feeling the lyrics. I think the reason why people were so moved by Fantasia's rendition of "Summertime" is that she tailored her voice to the song, not the other way around. And Taylor sold "Living For The City" because he tapped into the spirit of the thing, not because he showcased the virtuosic voice he doesn't possess.
So why do I watch? I confess that the show's popularity is a draw. If American Idol was #100 in the Nielson's instead of #1, I don't know that I'd care about it that much. The fact that this cheesy karaoke show actually does change the face of popular music—and popular culture in general—makes it compelling. That so many people watch also raises the stakes and makes you nervous for the performers, who do occasionally wilt under the pressure. But the primary reason I watch remains Simon Cowell. The sadist in me wants him to put these kids in their place, but mostly, his criticism is just dead-on most of the time. What's more, I think the contestants and the audience, however often they vocalize their displeasure with his opinions, look to him as the real standard-bearer of excellence. Goodness knows, you're not going to get much from Randy or Paula other than catchphrases repeated ad nauseum. Randy strikes me as being as lazy and complacent as an overfed cat; just pull a string behind his back and out come one of about six or seven pre-recorded phrases ("you worked it out," "it was only all right for me," "we got a hot one," etc.). As for Paula, she's a constant irritation, the judging equivalent of Earl Dittman. To see her dancing around and clapping and giving ovations during performances bothers me in the same way as a Chicago movie critic who shows up at every James Bond screening wearing his promotional Goldeneye jacket. If you want to wave a banner, do it from the sidelines, please.
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