The NGH Report

Well.

How about that night of Idol, huh?

Does anyone else feel really dirty like they just walked in on their elderly aunt in the shower? And then proceeded to get IN the shower and watch her sing to herself in a ridiculously weak voice which lacked confidence while you whispered “Keep goin’” as you lathered the soap over her back, being careful to not touch that weird bump that pops up between her shoulder blades.

Now, I don’t know if these guys are just having the frights or if they are legitimately this poor. I’m hoping it’s the former. I can only pray the girls will step it up tomorrow, and then I can only PLEAD that the guys will realize their folley and come out fighting.

But, on the plus side, I have a lot of stuff to make fun of.

Ryan starts off the show with this little gem, “The best talent yet!” Ryan’s been taking too much heroin this week. He should stop, that junk is stunting his growth.

Hey! It’s the judges! I didn’t know they’d be here! Oh Ryan, what a wonderful surprise! So, let’s begin to- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?  Ohhh, it’s just Randy’s giant wristwatch! I thought somebody had hidden the crown jewels at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks and that Randy “I played with mothaeffin Journey! Respect me!” Jackson was one lucky little boy. Seriously, dawg, too much bling. That thing is the size of Flava Flav’s watch. Ugh.

Paula makes a startling comment that she is the “nice judge”. Not startling because she says she is nice, we all know she is the nice on, but startling because she uses the word “judge” to describe yourself. Oh, silly Paula! No, you’re not! Take another sip of Grandpa’s cough medicine and giggle for me, chica.

 Okay, now that all of that is out of my system, let’s see who did the least crappy out of the crap filled night!

“What the $%#@?!”

12. Paul Kim – Wow. I had hopes for this guy, but I was dead wrong. Singing “Careless Whisper” which is one of those song titles that makes no sense to me outside of the realm of Cheese, Karate Kid Kim (yes, I know it’s racist, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration. You know I speak in jest) performs like a homeless idiot on the side of the road; shoeless, drunk, and violent. Paul sounds like he might have hit no more than two notes during the entire song, jumps to some terrible falsetto attempts, and then finishes. Hell, even his parents look confused sitting in the audience. His father’s eyes pretty much said, “People think he’s talented?” He needs to pick it up if he survives, which I doubt he will. NOT SAFE.

11. Sundance “Gimli” Head - Well. I was dead wrong. This guy is way out of his league. And each week he fails he proceeds to get more and more nervous creating the downfall we have been witnessing recently. Sundance picks a great song, “Knights In White Satin” but manages to suck it up. I’m so confused! We know he has a good voice, we’ve heard it! Oh wow, I just realized Sundance has a certain amount of symmetry; meaning you could turn him upside down and it would still look like a head of hair with a busy goatee. Hilarious. Anyway, you can’t pronounce love as “rove” and hope to get far in this competition. Simon outright says “I didn’t like you tonight.” And then Paula proceeds to feel herself up. Where are we tonight? What’s going on? This guy needs to fight for his life next week if he can. I say he has one last chance. SAFE.

10. Jared Cotter - This man has no personality. He is a deep voice with a quietly appeal. And yet, he seems more robotic than Alan Keyes. Secondly, WHAT IS THE EFFIN SONG? The song is a grocery list! “One! Quit singing this song! Two! God, I hate myself for picking this crap! Three! Someone shoot me please! Four! Repeat steps one through three! The song is called “Back At One”, and I didn’t know it existed. But now that I do, I will not rest until every CD that has this song on it is taken off the market, and a public apology is delivered by the artist. Then we’ll throw fruit at everybody and feel better. Awful. Get off the stage, Jared. The only reason you weren’t at the very bottom was that you were occasionally more on key than the others. NOT SAFE.

9. Rudy “Pee-Wee” Cardenas – Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! Now, first things first, is there a tilde over the “n” in his last name? Because the answer to that question boggles me. Tilde? No tilde? Man, I love the word “tilde”. To be fair to Rudy, it made sense choosing a fast song to lead off the night, he had the right idea, yet again, falling in line with tonights theme, picked an awful song for his voice. “Free Ride”. Yes, a free ride home, Rudy. Be careful expanding your voice to your upper range and then not finishing the words. I feel like you’re singing “It’s a Fra Roi, tay ET eeeezzA!” Finish your words. I think you deserve another chance though since you were one of the few to actually take the stage with confidence and belt it out. Besides, I want your friends to come on the show. You know, the King of Cartoons, Reba the Mail Lady, and Captain Carl. I love those guys. I hope you don’t return to your playhouse too soon, Hispanic Pee-Wee. NOT SAFE.

8. Sanjaya “Indie Stevie” Malakar - Does anyone else find it funy that whenever they show clips of him and his sister auditioning together, his sister always looks like she hates Sanjaya. Sanjaya has this constant smile that says, “I love ya, sis!” and she is glaring a quick, “Don’t touch me, I hate you!” right back at him. I’m getting this interesting quiet but confident feeling from Sanjaya as he starts off a waaaaay too subtly version of “Knocks Me Off My Feet” which it certainly doesn’t. Then, all of a sudden, the chorus picks up and saves Sanjaya a little bit in my eyes. He has a good voice, but it sounds so MEEK! He needs to belt when he is supposed to; things are labeled forte for a reason. Well, the song is over and the hesitant 17 year old gets reamed by the judges. Well, Sanjaya will live to sing another day. Hopefully he doesn’t listen to his singer this time and listens to the vocal coaches. SAFE.

7. Brandon Rogers – Dear American Idol, we get it. Brandon was a background singer. Stop telling us. I don’t need to continue hearing the same set-up performance after performance, and I really don’t need to hear the silly sayings like, “You’re in the spotlight now!” or “No more being in the back for you!” Dumb. Woo! Brandon wants to “Rock With You”! I’m jealous! I like Brandon’s voice and the song is pretty well controlled, but it still feels meek and drowned out by the Idol band. Damn Ricky Minor, trying to steal their thunder! The arrangement is weird as well. Brandon can do a lot better than this, so, we’ll hope we see him next week. I have a feeling we will. But, if he comes out one more time with only one half of his shirt tucked in, I will destroy him. In words. Not physically. That guy has some guns. And I don’t mean like BLAM BLAM kind of guns, I mean, jesus, he could rip my head off with his bare hands. Or bear hands. Both ways sound exciting. But if pressed, I guess I would like to see Brandon with bear hands. SAFE.

6. A.J. Tabaldo – I’m going to say one thing about A.J. Well, first off, A.J. Who? Secondly, popped collars are stupid. Stop it. Third, boring performance, not unique, but rather pitch perfect. A.J. played it rather safe, which made him appear slightly better than the majority of the other contestants. I didn’t write much about A.J. because during this point of the show I was curled up, crying, in the fetal position worrying that my favorite show had royally screwed up. Either way, A.J. should be always worrying, considering no one knows who he is, nor do I think they particularly care at this point. A.J. sang “Never Too Much” which is a blatant lie. Anyway, A.J. is NOT SAFE.

5. Nicholas Pedro – Wow. Nick really looks, well, uncomfortable. Gotta love the smokey tone to Nick’s voice though as much as tonight sucked. Unfortunately for The Comeback Kid, by the way, I came up with this first, Ryan, the song just plain didn’t go anywhere. Where Nick could have really scored some points the arrangement failed him. He sang “Now and Forever” which is how long the song felt. Nick DOES have great potential like the judges say and he has a great attitude. So, let’s hope we can see him for another week and give him one more chance. Unfortunately, Nick might be heading home, and this time, he won’t be coming back. NOT SAFE.

4. Chris Richardson – Chris sang “I Don’t Wanna Be” making him the third idol contestant to sing through this number. Unfortunately, I’m starting to really hate the tone of Richardson’s voice. It’s nasally, but, at the same time, he is hitting the notes, it just really doesn’t feel like it. He is trying to be a Timberlake clone a little too much, even if he doesn’t realize it. But, one thing Chris does have going for him, is that he is a great performer. He looked confident, cool, collected, and ready to hit the finals. Let’s just hope that people can hang with that voice of his until then otherwise it’s going to be getting on a lot of peoples nerves. He needs to broaden some of his lower register to really strengthen his position as a contestant. But, Simon is right, the girls will love him. SAFE.

3. Chris Sligh – Chris. I like you. I do. And I realize you were just trying to be funny, but, be very careful. I really think you took a hit as a popular contestant last night with your bicker session with Senor (tilde?) Cowell. You had a rocking song, “Typical”, that was a great example of what you SHOULD pick on your first round, but be careful that it is not TOO obscure otherwise a lot of people won’t remember it enough to vote for you. I think you made some mistakes this week, though were certainly in the top tier of male contestants. So, the judges kind of agreed with me, and then Simon called Ryan “sweetheart” which is my cue to make a snarky joke. But guess what, Chris? I’m better than that, so I’m just going to quietly turn away and be the better man. SAFE.

2. Blake Lewis – So, Blake wants to sing. But, don’t you get it Blake? You are here for amusement! You can’t sing! You make mad beats, oh, still going to try huh? Oh, okay… And, wow, you do sing. Never would have thought. So, Lewis comes out pissed off that Idol only showed him beatboxing (he didn’t seem pissed, but trust me, he was a bit pissed) and then sang Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” and did a rather good job. Very controlled, very interesting, very modern, very different. Job well done. I want to see Blake do something a little bit more uptempo next time. Also, he needs to stop bleaching his hair or there will be nothing left. It was so blond that when the lights started going the reflections sunburned my eyes. Either way, this is a rather easy one to call. SAFE.

1. Phil “Lex Luthor” Stacey – For a second, I had trouble remembering who this guy was because he wasn’t wearing some form of hat. I thought that guy from Rockstar:INXS or Rockstar:Supernova, or Rockstar:Who gives a crap? decided to join American Idol. But, no! It’s Phil! And after a short shakey start, though hardly monsterous, gives one of the only performances that could have stood against some of the guys from last season. His voice was much stronger than the band and he was confident enough to really belt out the notes that SHOULD be belted out. Aww, look at his baby blue eyes! Anyway, the song was great, but what was more impressive was the way he spoke with the judges. Respectful, agreeing, eager to learn. People are going to eat that up. Well done. SAFE.

One thing that struck me as troublesome: the reoccuring theme that America should remember peoples past auditions. How long are we supposed to judge these people on one acapella performance months back? Seriously. This is a new game. Get with it, guys.

Who should go home?

Paul and Sundance

Who will go home?

Paul and Nick

~NGH