American Idol 3. 9 Left: Elton John

AI 3 Nine Annihilate the Knight - Elton John Night

Last week, we had Motown and the bottom three contained none of my picks for worst contestant. What will it take to get rid of Jon Peter Hobbit? Who is voting for this little creep?  I mean, what were LaToya, Amy and Jennifer doing in the bottom 3? I suppose I could understand why future country star Amy Adams was sent in search of her trailer park heaven. She sounded even more country than on country night when she re-performed “Dancing In The Streets.”

So, this week is Elton John. Excuse me, “Sir” Elton John. We lurch our way forward through musical genres. Much of his best work is from the 70s. Well, at least in my opinion. I’ve got my Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album right here. Will Hobbit show some self-awareness and do “Social Disease” tonight?

The thought occurs: Disco will be next week. Will it be followed by Punk Rock? One can only hope. Most of these squawkers and screechers would be very well suited to Punk Rock. Wouldn’t you love to hear John Stevens doing “God Save The Queen,” Sex Pistols style?

The pre-clips made me think for a moment that Sir Elton John would be joining the regular panel as Guest Judge. But no. It was all he could stand to appear at rehearsals and send the gang into hysterics. There was no guest judge on hand for the live on-air performances.

Okay. I can’t put it off any longer. Let’s examine tonight’s Atrocities Against Music.

Fantasia has for some reason chosen “Something About The Way You Look Tonight.”  She begins in the audience, wearing a black dress with spaghetti halter straps tied in back like a bikini top. She clomps down the stairs, wading awkwardly towards the stage. The cut of the dress accentuates her stick-like calves. The earrings are long spaghetti-like silver strings. “Elegance” is a look that Fantasia simply is not built for. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s behind. Something about the way you look tonight, indeed.

However, she has long been one of my favorite singers, and I had high hopes for her tonight, but isn’t this song supposed to be in a lower register? Why did she choose a song that sounds wrong for her? I didn’t hear her sing “shumpthing” but then, I wasn’t listening for it either. 

Maybe next week I’ll record the show so I can re-listen. Um. But probably not. At this point it doesn’t seem worth it to torture myself a second time.

I did not care for Fantasia’s look or song. When Paula pretzels herself with the negatives in an attempt to outdo her own positivity, you know something is off. Simon agrees with me, calling it Fantasia’s weakest performance so far. I don’t see that she deserves to be in the bottom 3, but it’s a possibility. It’s definitely a poor showing from her, relatively speaking. At best a 5 out of 9, which is quite a drop for her compared with last week.

John Peter Hobbit slaughters “Rocket Man.” He starts out on a stool, preparing his chunky legs to move him around. They do so with difficulty. He’s in a white shirt, black pleather coat, blue jeans. It’s horrible to look at.  (And then Randy and Simon spend time complimenting the coat!)

I force myself to focus on his “singing.”  Can this guy get flatter? Can he make any note sound good?  Attention wandering again. That cheesy grin, sickening.

Drag attention back. Are those musical notes or animal imitations? An animal in distress, maybe, or he’s trying to learn how to do his species’ mating call. He’s got no clue what he’s singing about. He has no clue, period. 

Paula’s blathering translates thus: she knows Hobbit doesn’t have a style and that he’ll never find it. But she wouldn’t say such a thing to a cute guy. Simon thinks Hobbit needs voice lessons. My view is voice lessons would be a waste of time and won’t help. JPL sucks and knows it and doesn’t actually care. He’s doing this purely and simply to get laid.

Even the audience knows he sucks: they don’t boo Simon’s negative commentary. Can someone shoot all the people “out there” who insist on voting for this goof?  Kidding. Just insist they comply with their normal bedtime of 9pm sharp.

This loon is not good enough even for this competition. Whose fault is it that he’s even here to begin with? It’s painful to hear him. There is no pleasure at all in his appearances. My ratings chart this week is from 1 to 9:  he’s at the 1 spot but I’m willing to revise downward and utilize negative numbers if necessary.

Jasmine Trias is going to do “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me.” Oh dear, and there was me with hoping not to have to hear this number at all. But wait … wait a minute – she can sing this. She’s making this sound really really good. It starts out well.  This lovely beginning is what I mean when I call something “musical honey.” 

Good song choice for her voice. She sounds good. Really good. Oops. What was that? A flat note on the word “me.” Oh well, and then a few too many “yeahs.” Oh well, I knew it had to be too good to be true. However, these off-bits don’t completely destroy the lovely musical honey I heard at the beginning. It will cost her some points but not all.

I can’t listen to Paula’s comments. Her alpha-bit soup could mush a turn to brain. So let’s look at Jasmine’s outfit. White shimmery top with brown things hanging from somewhere in the mid-chest region. Brown pants. White & yellow jasmine in the hair. The top would be vastly improved without those rats’ tails hanging off it. Can someone shoot the fashionista who’s advising these kids? Most of their outfits look like crap.

Overall, the opening musical honey earns her a 6. I’d definitely like to see her stay around for a bit, and see if she can raise her own game. There is some hope here.

John Stevens loves to explore. He goes deep in the heart of rock n’ roll and picks the rockingest, highest-powered Elton John song he can find. And then he murders it.  Okay it wasn’t quite that bad. But I never realized that Crocodile Rock could sound so, so, so slow. If Frank Sinatra and Liberace were alive they’d be throwing their TV sets out the window. We can only hope that Elton John had to go to the washroom and missed this rendition.

John has on blue jeans, a red jacket over black t-shirt, with some kind of chain hanging around his neck. Mack Daddy or what?  The red of the jacket almost goes with his hair. Which means it kind of clashes. But he’s moving his arms, snapping his fingers. He’s trying to do what he’d said he’d do: put his personality into the song.

Unfortunately, John doesn’t have a personality. Or, at least not one that is suited to this song.

Not, that is, until he reaches the “la la las.” When he reaches the “la la las,” his voice cracks under the strain of trying to sound “upbeat” and ‘with it.” The sad truth is, he’s not suited to this kind of music.

Dancing. He’s doing some version of the lonely twist. If he didn’t seem so gay, then his wan hopeful smiling at the camera while singing of Suzy in her tight dress might mean something.

Overall, it’s not his worse performance and not the worse performance of the night. His voice is just thin. The best I can say about it is it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I can’t agree with Simon – that was not a memorable performance on the order of Plan 9 From Outer Space. I suppose his legion of fans will keep him in until he gets to do his “thing,” whatever the hell that is.

But it’s not completely embarrassing. He’s trying to do other genres. Not succeeding, but points for trying. Okay, a point. He’s not worse than Hobbit. I give him a 2.

Camille Velasco reaches for the stars and just barely clears the limbo pole. She has chosen “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” It sounds like it could be a swan song.

Outfit: Black pants. White belt. White shoes. Green top with yellow straps. Midriff bared. Okay, outfit sucks. The white shoes look horrible.

Stagefright. Well she’s lost her nerves. And possibly her mind. But it wasn’t her worst performance either. One of those earlier ones was really horrendous. This was laughable. My hubby kept laughing throughout anyway. It was fairly bad but not worse than Hobbit. And she also gets points for making an effort, so a 3 for her.

George Huff does one of my favorite early Elton John songs, “Take Me to The Pilot.”

He’s in black, with a barely buttoned shirt in the 3^rd layer of clothing. His singing is good. Very good. His “na na nas” send a chill. And that’s a good thing.

George sings like he understands what he’s singing about. Finally, a decent performance. He’s doing his knee bends, which are a wee bit distracting, but that’s a minor detail considering that the singing itself is enjoyable. A real performance.

Finally we have someone who deserves to be here. That was quite enjoyable. He really is good. Simon even thanks him for saving the night.  He gets my vote for best of the night, a score I gave him at the time, but as always, I kept my eye on the remaining performers in case a revision was required. It wasn’t. George has been doing consistently well and deserves to make it to the Final 3 for sure. 9. Top spot tonight.

Diana Degarmo does “I’m Still Standing.” I love this song and I hope she can do well.

She’s in blank pants and some kind of colorful wrap thingy for a top. It bares one shoulder. She’s got energy as always. Her singing is good and I don’t understand why some people think she’s plastic. Apparently she’s not well and if that’s true, she’s doing an amazing job of performing tonight.

She starts up with the walking around while singing, which is kind of cheesy, but she manages to continue to deliver the song anyway.

She has a lot going on with her hair. There are straight bangs, with most of the hair pulled into a fluffy back knot, thereby causing a pulled tight section on one side. It’s kind of busy, like a This Small Space deal going on with her skull. You know, like she’s trying to get as many hairstyles as possible onto one head.

Still I liked her performance and I like her. Is she better than George?  Well, overall I don’t know. But tonight? No. I give her an 8.

LaToya London selects a slow song, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” I’d say a number of someones saved LaToya’s life tonight, namely, JP Hobbit, Camille and John Stevens. Haha I’m kidding. Sort of.

The dangly earrings says she’s going for elegant but the strapless salmon top is the wrong color for elegant, and the ugly green skirt is just cut wrong. It makes her legs look like stumps.

Her voice is lovely to begin with. The verse is okay. The chorus is okay. But.  There’s a “but.” And the “but” is that the song slash performance just didn’t come together as wonderfully as it should have. I want to like her. I want to like her a lot. I know she can do better.

But tonight, ‘just’ a 7.

Jennifer Hudson is apparently the performer Sir Elton liked the most. Jennifer does “The Circle of Life.”

In her black suit with pale blue top underneath and big hoop earrings, her outfit actually achieves elegance. Best outfit of the night. She has a nice voice. Half-way through there is still no screech.

At the end, the loud notes are kind of annoying. I just want them to be over. It isn’t pleasurable. Generally a good performance, but not better than George tonight.

Of course Randy goes nuts and Paula tells her she’s found her style. Simon goes nuts (for him.) I think those big loud notes she produced at the end should have sounded really good and not made me wish they’d end. 

Overall, it was a boring song and a boring performance. Jennifer was good only in comparison with most of the others. She gets a 6 but should be able to do better. She’s very close to being an 8 of 9, but needs to choose a song with which she really connects and one that gives her something to sing about. The boring song choice cost her in my view.

Bottom 3 picks Jon Paul Hobbit, Camille and John Stevens. I think Hobbit deserves to leave, because there has been NO improvement. At least I’ve seen improvement from Camille. She is learning to relax, and if she can take that as a positive, then she can work on the singing. She’ll probably be the one to get booted, but I’d much prefer to see Hobbit leave. I loathe that kind of smarmy cuteseyness. He’s not cute, he’s insufferable. And his singing and performance are not improving. At all. He acts like he doesn’t care whether he improves.

Overall, Elton John Night disappointed me. Again. I want to hear the gang do some “alternative” styles of music? More Soundgarden, Pearl Jam & Nirvana please. Heh. If I keep asking will they do it? Maybe in about the year 2025, once it’s an old & dusty genre of music “worthy” of this competition, the producers of which apparently think are the only kinds of suitable music.