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Cold Hearted Whiskers.

Motown Week: that most hallowed of occasions on American Idol. It’s supposed to bring watershed moments with its wide variety of classic tunes, but invariably this theme never fails to produce the most karaoke-ish collection of performances year after year. I actually groan when I find out the singers will be doing Motown. It’s not because I don’t like Motown. It’s because so few of the singers can ever find a way to make the songs sound current. We know it’s possible — Motown music is consistently resurfacing in new, modern ways on the radio. The problem is — as Kara DioGuardi suggested — there’s not a lot of artistry with American Idol kids, and when dealing with songs from fifty years ago, that can be a problem.
The good news is that while we did get a bunch of glorified “hotel bar” performances, we did have a few noteworthy standouts — and no, I’m not talking about Paula’s frilly, ballerina dress (Paula, it should be noted, was on a slight crazy roll — culminating in some comment she made about the crazy stuff she has on under her dress. Family show, people. Family show). Anyway, a full rundown of the singers after the jump…


I might as well start off with the worst of the night, which was unsurprisingly Scott MacIntyre. The kid sounds worse and worse every week, and his inherently nasal voice proved to be tremendously awful when paired with “You Can’t Hurry Love.” Look, nasal voices can work with that song (Phil Collins). What doesn’t work are atonal nasal voices. I totally agreed with Simon about the honky-tonk piano sound (which I could never hear on the radio), and even though Scott defended his reliance on the piano by saying that’s the sort of artist he is, I wasn’t any more convinced he should be there. If anything, it just reconfirms my belief that he should be crooning at some Starbucks in Poughkeepsie, NY — not on American Idol. Needless to say, he was pretty much panned (save some glowing Kara remarks about Scott bringing “tempo”), and it was borderline uncomfortable watching Scott try to hide the disappointment on his face with his awkward smile. Like I said last week, I’m still shocked that Vote For The Worst is endorsing Megan Joy over Scott.
Then again, Megan Joy wasn’t so great this week either. She sounded like a total mess up there, and her arrangement suffered from karaoke-itis. There’s not much to say about her performance except that it was super bad. I didn’t necessarily cringe the way I did with Scott (I mean, he really brings the cringes like none other), but I was certainly happy when the song was over. Unsurprisingly, the judges tore Megan apart, and she looks to be in serious danger tonight (since we all know Scott’s awful fan base will keep him around for another awful week).
Also suffering at the hands of Motown was Michael Sarver, who chose a song that was entirely too big for him. This week’s mentor Smokey Robinson told Michael that in order to really knock “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” out of the ballpark, he’d have to bring it, and if Smokey says you gotta bring it, then you must really suck because he loved everyone. Sure enough, Michael just could not inject the soul and robust passion into the song. He tried. Oh did he try. There were growls and squints, but it all sounded pretty bad. Plus, old fashioned arrangement once again. Oh, and Michael did his patented dance move, which I like to call the Inverted Archuleta. Whereas David A. used to come out on stage and offer his right palm out like a waiter balancing a tray, Michael does this little move where he sticks his hand out — but with palm down — and mimics wiping down a car. It’s all very Mr. Miyagi, which is not a good thing. He’ll probably be staying though. Michael did two smart things: last week he told a tearjerker story about his kid missing him, and this week, he mentioned church. He’s golden.
Speaking of church, Danny Gokey definitely lands at the lower end of the pack for me. He wasn’t awful, but he was a little cheesy (as usual), and after watching a whole segment about taking Smokey Robinson’s advice, Danny got up on stage and…. didn’t take Smokey’s advice!! Jerk. On the plus side, his voice sounded good, but the performance as a whole was totally forgettable.
Same goes for Lil Rounds, who looked all sorts of sassy in her homage to Motown outfit, but her garbled take on “Heatwave” really didn’t let her show off her pipes. It was all very fast and excitable but ultimately forgettable. I don’t think she’ll be going home this week, and even if she does, the judges would most certainly save her, but seriously, she’s gotta start living up to her hype sooner rather than later.
Maybe Lil should take some pointers from Anoop, who has finally started to up his game the past two weeks. I really liked his sweet performance of ___ (I forget the name of the song — “Ooooh ahhh?” or something. Sorry! Minor gap in my Motown knowledge). It was a very lovely song, and while it wasn’t the best of the night, it was very good. Glad to see Anoop Dawg back in the mix.
Kris Allen also clocked in a strong performance. It wasn’t my favorite of his, especially since I don’t particularly like “How Sweet It Is,” but he definitely sounded good and was charismatic as usual. The arrangement was a bit cheeseball for me, but like the judges said, he brought enough of his own personality to it to overcome some of the Bar Mitzvah qualities of the tune. Overall, I think Kris has been getting better and better each week, and he could definitely go very far in the competition — although, I’d be surprised if he won.
Same goes for Matt Giraud, who kicked off the show with “Let’s Get It On.” He started off at the piano and sounded great, but then he rose and pranced around the stage. He still sounded good, but not quite as good. Either way, it was a great way to begin Motown Week, and like the judges said, he’s been getting better and better and better every week. It’s not easy making “Let’s Get It On” sound fresh (let’s not forget Jared Cotter from season six — he of the hand over the face seduction technique), but Matt did a solid job. In fact, I thought it was the best performance of the night. Until…
Dunh dunh dunh! Adam Lambert. Am I typing this? Was Adam Lambert the best of the night? Yup, he was. What was great about Adam’s performance of “Tracks of My Tears” is that he didn’t try to rape it with a pseudo Axl Rose / Freddie Mercury / Grace Slick over-the-top flamboyant wannabe glam rock interpretation. Adam instead dialed things back and beautifully captured the underlying poignancy of the tune which Smokey discussed in the video package. He kept things simple, acoustic, and bare bones. Even his style was shockingly demure — no awful My First Rockstar Haircut, but instead a slicked back ‘do, which made him look like Zac Efron in Hairspray. The point was that Adam put the song first, not his annoyingly deliberate image, and the result was really a magic bit of music. For weeks, I’ve always said that he has a great voice, but it’s been misappropriated. Last night, he finally used his powers for GOOD.
In a way, it’s almost a shame because as excellent as Adam’s performance was (and I’m sure it’ll go in the canon of Most Memorable Idol Songs), it completely overshadowed poor Alison Iraheta, who — footnote — was completely and absolutely AWESOME at the end of the show. Everyone’s talking about Adam, who certainly was the best, but my favorite had to be Alison. I don’t know what it was, but I got totally caught up in her take of “Papa Was A Rolling Stone.” By the end when she hit that monster last note, I was quite honestly blown away. Adam brought more artistry, but Alison brought the gusto and pomp that all the other singers had been so sorely lacking. If this girl winds up in the bottom three again, that will be a true travesty. It also doesn’t help her that all the rave reviews she won were upstaged by the (admittedly hilarious) mustache that Simon drew on Paula’s upper lip. I knew that would be coming as soon as she busted out Crayons as a labored insult to Simon. It was only a matter of when. She probably threw a huge diva tantrum after the show. Nevertheless, Alison was great, and I hope people don’t forget about her.
So what did you think about Motown night? And how did you like Paula’s moustache?mustache