Last weekend, while I was walking my dog down the alley, I had a vision that Idol’s final two this season will be Scotty vs. Haley. While I wish I had more profound visions, it at least gave me some food for thought regarding tonight’s episode. Could my vision be wrong or is it more probable that I just can see the future?
After tonight’s episode, I’m not sure who America will choose. Thanks to the contestants choosing two songs, one they found inspirational and another by Leiber and Stoller, all the singers were guaranteed to appeal to wide audiences and move people. But you know me. I hate it when people are moved.
Let’s start with Round One. James took on “Don’t Stop Believin’” and I’m just going to let you figure out how that song inspires him. James’ rather-endearing fanboyism was on display, as he wore a Journey t-shirt and threw a shout-out to Randy at the top of the song. I wonder if I would have felt differently about the performance if I liked the song as much as James does. I’ve never come close to liking “Don’t Stop Believin’”, not even when it was the White Sox’s unofficial World Series theme. To me, I didn’t hear anything in James’ performance that surpassed Steve Perry’s or even Glee’s rendition. It’s clearly a difficult song to sing and James hit the high notes (although he sounded fairly nasal at the beginning), but it didn’t do anything for me, dawg. By the way, from now on, unless I say otherwise, you can just assume the judges loved everything about each performance.
Last week I thought that Haley was styled as Janis Joplin’s exhausted little sister. This week, with her first song she came off as exhausted Celine Dion. Styled horribly, looking at least ten years older than she is, Haley chose “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson as her inspirational choice. I was thrown off by her veddy serious intro but then grew a little more hopeful by the first chorus of the song. I was lost once more, though, when the background clouds rolled in. Haley growled (I got the sense trying to make her voice crack in earnestness) as she bemoaned the state of the planet. It was just off. I was happy that both Jennifer and Randy also found it screamy and a strange choice although it was annoying that the audience booed over Randy’s criticism—they’ve had to sit through so little criticism this season you’d think they’d like to hear something different. Steven said “Don’t listen to them: they’re wrong,” which I hope Haley is smart enough to know means bad news.
So, Scotty sang about September 11 with “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning.)” From a singing point of view, I don’t think Scotty showed us anything new or special, although the lyrics clearly made him emotional so he couldn’t sing very clearly. I’m not familiar with the song and tried to listen to the lyrics but was mostly distracted about how Scotty was probably going to inspire a lot of people to call him tonight and is that weird? I don’t know. But more importantly, inspiration is nice and all but it’s still a singing competition and I don’t think Scotty’s performance was as great as his intent. The judges loved him, though. I think James and Scotty had been praised at this point for choosing songs that meant a lot to them while Haley got dinged for it, but so far none of the contestants had turned out genius performances.
I’d say Lauren handily won the Inspirational Song Round, in addition to Most Inexplicable Dress Round. Lauren looked so ridiculous in her trashy curtainslike dress and hair sparkles I had a hard time taking her seriously on Martina McBride’s “Anyway.” But while Lauren sounded like the 17 year old she is telling victims of the flooding in the south that “It’s okay to rebuild their lives,” she hit her sweet spot with that song, especially in the second half. Randy declared her In It To Win It.