Finally, Americans get to let their voices be heard on Idol this week. If I could afford it I would vote David Cook, Garrett Healy, Jason Castro and Jason Yeager off, and possibly also Colton Berry, Danny Noriega and even Robbie Carico.
I am talking strictly about the hair, of course. God help us, the hair this season is out of control and we haven't even gotten to the ladies. The dreads, the streaks, the shags, the thinning 'rock' cuts, the crispy frosted shaggy messes. It was distracting.
But maybe a little distraction was a good thing as there were only a few real highlights from tonight's first round of performances. It boggles the mind to think that on their first shot out, with a theme as broad as "The Sixties," that guys like Yeager and Luke Menard thought it would be a good idea to turn in the snoozy performances as they did. We've heard now for six seasons perfectly functional covers of pleasant songs, but that's not enough anymore. Take David Hernandez—he kicked off the episode serviceably, but any contestant who has watched this show knows that it takes more to make an impact when you're in such a large pool of contestants. Thus Robbie's rocky take of "One" and Castro's folky contribution were good ideas, as they set themselves apart more from the competition.
It seems that the top twelve contestants will really offer some awesome talent but some weeding still needs to get done, and in the meantime, very little has changed from last season. Paula was by and large useless. Chikezie's suit and song were stinkers, and so Paula complimented his smile and weight loss. Jason Yaeger's version of "Moon River" was an insult to the word "cheesy", but it was cool because she performed to it in her first ballet recital. And Simon correctly didn't let her live down her discussion of the "colors" in Danny Noriega's voice (for the record, I don't think his "Jailhouse Rock" was nearly as bad as Simon said. It wasn't as good as he probably could have been but the kid can sing and I like that he seems genuinely bitchy-funny, and not just trying to be cute for TV.) Then their bickering over the topic then quickly became tiresome.