There were a few winners and a few losers tonight on Idol and as usual more than a few whatevers, but I think the biggest stinker of the night was Kara. I am not by definition a Kara hater—some part of me roots for her to be a good Idol judge but she tries so hard to stake her claim that it comes off as desperate and obnoxious. Her biggest fouls tonight were the faux flirtation with Simon (she will never replicate the magic he had with Paula) and the faux tears after Michael Lynche's performance. If you have to tell us you're crying, you're doing it wrong. Again, Paula did that better. Fortunately for Kara, Ellen jumped into the tomfoolery with her own dumb judge antic, running up onstage to give Tim Urban a hug to congratulate him for not doing a terrible job. She explained that she did it because she felt like she'd been so hard on him, but Ellen's "hard" setting is still softer than Simon's nicest "nice" setting.
As has been the case with the guys to date, a lot of them did just fine. Lee DeWyze's version of "Fireflies" sounded Dave Matthews-ish to me, and sort of like something I would hear while pushing my cart through the frozen food section of the grocery store (I don't know why that section, that's just the image that came to me). I still like Alex Lambert's voice a lot but I have to admit he didn't bring anything new to "Trouble": the judges want him to loosen up and find himself. Randy summed up Casey James' version of "You'll Think of Me" as a "safe choice" and "just a'ight" (even Kara admitted he was missing a spark). And I think far from being "top of the boys" as Kara said, Tim turned in an OK version of "Hallelujah", although Simon was right that it was his best performance to date.
Andrew Garcia slipped significantly tonight, I think showing his hand. He turned in a pitchy version of "Genie in a Bottle" but more than the mediocre singing, I think he revealed that what everyone thought was his best moment was just a gimmick: taking poppy female songs and slowing them down and putting them to acoustic guitar. I don't see it taking him very far past this point.
I can't stand Aaron Kelly. I feel bad about that and I try to be careful when I trash people on Idol because God knows inevitably the contestants' local papers pick it up and call me mean and I feel bad but it's just a knee-jerk reaction. I think my problem is that I am too young (I wasn't surprised to hear one of my aunts loves him) to like him and probably too old too. He can sing fine but I don't think there is anything about the sound of his voice that's extra special and his earnest, quasi-inspirational choices are just too behind the times—and I mean Idol times—to make me a fan. I'm sure he's a good hardworking kid and he's definitely a better singer than I am but I just don't want him on my TV anymore. Oh, he sang "I'm Already There" by Lonestar, in case you were wondering. I thought it was boring and he didn't hit all the notes.