E.K. NATION

Our review of A.I. is a little late this week, seeing as how we've already witnessed who went through to the top 12. But sometimes the world just doesn't work out the way we want it to. So, I've decided to end the blog right here. Good night everyone! No, wait. Let's not do that. Dumb thing to do. Skip that. Let's go to work and bring in E.K. Nation's Senior American Idol Correspondent "Smooth", who shall get the ball rolling tout de suite.

Smooth: We meet again. Jasmine Murray is a very pretty girl, and she looked good on Wednesday night. Hers was a good song choice ("Love Song") in terms of current relevance, considering the judges specifically mentioned this song last week. Her voice was OK; she didn't seem to have a big range or a lot of power, but the song doesn't require it. It was a little nasal in places, and the second half of the song kind of went off the rails slightly, but she pulled off the end pretty well. The performance was pretty good in terms of her comfort level on stage. The judges were nonplussed because they like her overall package, but as Simon bluntly puts it she "hasn't got a great voice".

E.K.: I thought she was really good in her audition and during Hollywood Week, and had high hopes for her in this round, but she was surprisingly pitchy to start off. It got a little bit better as the song progressed but not by much and certainly not enough to convince me that she belongs in the Top 12 now. I wasn't so sure that was the best song choice; if I were her, I'd be shorter and much prettier, but besides that, I'd have gone with maybe an R&B song. "Love Song" just seemed too poppy for her.

Smooth: Matt Giraud gave us another very contemporary song choice ("Viva La Vida"), although it's a bit overplayed. Based on what we've seen of Matt so far (not a lot, granted), this song does seem to be an odd choice for his style, though. His singing was not very good. WAY too much vibrato, and he seemed almost totally out of breath (nerves?) the entire time. He did a run towards the end that was just painful to listen to. He threw in a lot of embellishment, and it's not working at all. The judges are again confused by his song choice (I would hope so, since there's no way he should have made it this far with performances like that).

E.K.: He did well when he had the piano in Hollywood; he's got some of that white soul. And I don't know if they are prevented from using instruments during this round, but I think he would have benefitted from having it as sort of a crutch. I know what you're saying about the vibrato; it was like he was driving over train tracks. Then he kind of lost it and didn't have enough time to get it back. How much time do they get? Two minutes? Which means that less than a quarter of a 2-hour singing competition is devoted to actual singing. The song choice was bad; Randy's comment to Matt was interestingly counter-intuitive but probably dead-on: Don't do easy stuff and cruise through. Do tough songs, because you can handle them. Wednesday he wasn't spectacular, but I thought he'd made enough of an impression to make him a front-runner for a spot in the Top 12. As we know now, he didn't, and must wait to see if he gets a wild card chance. So that's one guess I got wrong.

Smooth: Next was Jeanine Vailes, who strikes me as one of those contestants that is there for exposure more than anything else, like, I think she really wants to be a model or actress but AI seemed like a good way to get on TV. "This Love" is a song that automatically sounds karaoke to me, and Jeanine turned in a bad karaoke performance. Weak voice, poor phrasing, and she was off-key a lot. I think she believes she can really sing, but she's just not that great. She was wearing what are essentially daisy dukes, which is the only positive I can come up with regarding this performance. Jeanine complained about not being on TV enough up until now. Guess what, lady, the best singers usually get through even if they haven't been shown at all. If you can put on a fantastic performance, you'll get votes. What you just did was the opposite of fantastic.

E.K.: I'm not going to spend much time commenting on someone so unmemorable and boring who has no chance of getting a wild card spot. I wasn't even enthralled by the legs. And anyway, you pretty much nailed it. Instead, I'm going to talk about the Eliza Dushku commercial that I was fast-forwarding through, but then I noticed it was Eliza Dushku, so I rewound and watched it. During this ad, she utters the phrase, "It will simmer your head meat to a bubbling brainy fondue." Wow. I don't know if I will ever look at Eliza Dushku the same way again.

Smooth: Nick Mitchell's "act" as "Norman Gentle" is funny for about 20 seconds. Then it becomes tiresome. And finally it becomes maddening, because you're watching a guy do an unfunny "comedy" routine while many people who could actually sing were cut in Hollywood. Why is he here? What purpose does his presence serve? He's obviously not going to win, and American Idol doesn't need stupid gimmicks like this. I can't comment on the vocal, because it's ridiculous and interrupted by his rolling around on the floor, screeching, and talking to the audience. Some of the judges still claim that he has a "good voice" when he wants to. When, exactly, has he displayed this? Very little of what I have heard from him is anything better than mediocre, and most of it is terrible.

E.K.: What can I say about this guy? I was entertained by the performance of his alter ego, "Norman Gentle", but I must stress it's only because he's succeeding at exactly what he set out to do: Make a mockery of American Idol. Never for one second was this guy ever serious, and I can not believe that not all of the judges knew this. He's done his thing and he's gotten his time, and for accomplishing his mission I am proud of the guy. Say what you want, but he was never boring. He was memorable. And he should never be allowed to set foot on the AI stage again. I was dreading that the show would become "Nick and Norman's Infinite Playlist."

Which brings us to our first real knockout performance of the night, courtesy of Allison Iraheta. During the pre-song interview she was visibly nervous; she could barely say a coherent word. Then she got on stage and blew "Alone" by Heart clear out of the sky. That's not easy, because at least in my opinion Ann Wilson is the greatest female rock vocalist ever. She showed tremendous stage presence and poise, not to mention the powerful vocals. And she looked pretty cute and the dress was nice, etc., etc. At this point I knew she was going to win "most votes by a female" and get a spot in the Top 12.

Smooth: She came off as annoyingly ditzy backstage, but she's 16 so I'll give her a little slack. She's got red hair of the type that looks completely unnatural and weird, which means you know she loves attention. "Alone" is becoming a bit overdone on AI, but it's still a great vehicle for a female to show off big rock vocals. And that's what Allison has, surprisingly. She has a natural rock edge in her voice and it worked well here. She did have a few issues; her voice cracked a bit and she missed a few higher notes when she really goes for them. But compared to most of the female contestants this year, she's excellent. The performance was decent, she really gets into it, although she made a lot of weird hand movements. She was easily the best of the night to this point, and the judges agreed.

E.K.: Whoever's been telling contestants to stay away from Michael Jackson songs clearly did not meet up with Kris Allen, who went with "Man In The Mirror." There was nothing special about this performance at all, and there are too many bland pop stars who look and sound just like him. He's a good singer, but I thought he'd have to stand out much more than this in order to make it through. Apparently the voters did not agree with me; they put him into the Top 12. I'm not sure if he'll last too long, but we shall see.

Smooth: Great, another nice-guy WASP that has had no screen time to date. They always last a long time on this show. His voice is actually decent, but there is really nothing memorable about him or his voice. I thought that way too many contestants of his ilk have been bounced in the first round for him to have much hope of advancing, but there he is, now in the Top 12, ladies and gentlemen.

As for the next singer, Megan Joy Corkrey, she's kind of hard to get a read on. She has a largely tattoo-covered right arm and seems vaguely hippie-ish, yet she comes out in a floaty white dress with poofy flowers on it. I think she's got a pretty face, but her hair and makeup didn't do her any favors. Her vocal on "Put Your Records On" was pretty quirky, with some weird phrasing and a bizarre pronunciation of the word "down" for no apparent reason. Her voice has a bit of a nice jazzy quality to it, but it's not that strong, and in the second half of the performance in particular she really started running out of gas. My main issue with her is the weird "dancing" she does. It's pretty much bad white-girl dancing, and her go-to move is a brief, abbreviated Chubby Checker Twist involving her arms and hips. She'll twist twice quickly, then suddenly freeze. It's really weird and rather distracting after a while. Plus, they showed her doing it in the balcony later so it's not just nerves... she just dances like that. If she didn't dance I think I would have liked it more.

E.K.: I'm not sure if you saw the same performance I did...umm...well, okay, I guess you did, because what you described is pretty much exactly what happened, except...

I love Megan Joy Corkrey.

She can be summed up in just one word: "My god, this girl is delightful." She is insanely attractive and has a very distinctive voice, and I thought she pulled off "Put Your Records On" with ease, because basically, the song, as she said in the interview, makes her happy, and it completely showed. Yes, she dances a bit awkwardly but it's so, so cute. That twist-quick-and-then-freeze thing? Adorable. And I know that as a heterosexual male I'm not really supposed to use that word, but that's what she is...completely adorable. Let's call that move the "Megan Joy Corkscrew." It's one of the things that made her stand out; she is unique, and that's what we want. Also, she's insanely cute. Did I mention that? We also want that. I know what you're saying about her enunciation of the word "down", and I liked it. Now, my guess was that she wasn't going to get one of the top three spots for the night, and that wound up being true, but I do think that based on what the judges said about her they'll bring her back for the wild card show. And would it surprise you to learn that I really want that to happen?

Smooth: It would not.

E.K.: She's pretty much this year's--

Smooth: Oh, don't say it.

E.K.: --Brooke White.

Smooth: Okay, okay, simmer down now.

E.K.: Brooke White!

Smooth: Stop it.

E.K.: Hey, Brooke even came back to perform last night. Didja see? Her song is okay, I suppose; I wasn't amazingly enchanted by it, and I'll probably be waiting outside Best Buy in the freezing cold the morning her CD comes out.

Smooth: No, you will not.

E.K.: You're right. I won't. Brooke White!

Smooth: Anyone have a croquet mallet?

E.K.: Megan Corkrey!!!

Smooth: You are close to death. Let's move on, for smash sakes. At first, when Matt Breitzke came out, I was thinking, cool, I haven't heard "If You Could Only See" in like ten years!, but I guess there's probably a reason for that. I still like the song, but it's a poor choice for AI. Matt seems like a nice guy, but he is not very charismatic on-stage. They've shown him to have a good voice, and this song doesn't let him show off his main asset. The vocal was fine, but it's not a song with range to it and his voice is not very hard-edged, so it just sounded like a good karaoke version. He didn't look comfortable on stage and mostly just did a kind of slo-mo Matrix bullet time thing with his hands. It's too bad; I think he was capable of better, but in the end he doesn't have star quality anyway.

E.K.: He's another one of those blue-collar American specials that the producers love to trump up for whatever reason. He proved himself to be a very low-rent Emerson Hart. He missed notes here and there and definitely did not improve upon the song. I was surprised by the song choice and by his inability to work it out, dawg. The fact that he's a downhome nice guy who welds for a living can't save him now. The Top 12 already has a guy like that, and Matt has no chance at a wild card.

Smooth: I just read on Wikipedia that Jesse Langseth is blues guitarist Jonny Lang's sister. Who knew? Anyway, Jesse gave a squinty, winky, "sexy" performance. It was really not bad at all. Her voice is pleasant, although at times I almost wonder if she was just doing a Kim Carnes impression. She constantly tilted her head to the right and backwards, another tic that distracted me after a while. Jesse awesomely calls Randy out on his usual vague criticism. He claims he wants more than a "five note range", which... I don't think this song has THAT narrow of a range, so I assume he just means "more glory notes!!!" Kara agrees for some reason. Really, I think the problem was that the performance was just OK and the vocal was good, but not good enough to grab your attention. I wouldn't mind seeing Jesse do a different song, which is more than I can say for many of the female contestants this year.

E.K.: She's a good singer but some of her words were unintelligible. I'm not sure what to make of her. She's definitely hot and sexy, and I suppose that more than anything will be what I remember from this one. I'm not as fond of "Bette Davis Eyes" as others are; it's just a weird song choice. Fifty years of Billboard hits and that's what she brought to the table? But for all that it was, I thought it was much better than most of the performances, and it would not surprise me to see her on the wild card show. I still don't know how many spots they're going to fill or how that's going to work. I think right now I'm going to look it up...and I just read varying accounts so I don't know who's right. Whether they are bringing back the 4th place vote getter for each round and then judges' choices, or whether it's all judges' choices, I don't know. Boy, I just surrounded that explanation, didn't I?

Smooth: Most songs that are played on oldies stations are generally not going to go over well on Idol. Kai Kalama, with his wacky hair and very shiny shirt, looks memorable and sounds good, but the song choice let him down. He actually turned in a pretty good performance, it's just a boring song in this format. Simon called him a "very good backup singer", which is about right given that performance. I think he's another one that's capable of better.

E.K.: I fast-forwarded after about 30 seconds. Sorry, Kai, but it took you about that long to bore me. Plus, you remind me of Rick Fox and that isn't good. So I'm going to move to the next singer, and I will say this about that: If you want Katharine McPhee and all you can get is Mishavonna Henson, wait! She sang well, I suppose, but she was hindered by a poor arrangement. Memo to the producers: Let them sing longer! Let them get into a groove or something. This 90-second or two-minute spot does not help. I'm afraid she wasn't memorable enough, but I do think she can sing so if she gets a spot in the wild card round I'll have no problem with it, unless putting her there would take away a spot for Megan Joy, in which case I will burn down the Kodak Theatre before they ever get a chance to do any shows there this year.

Smooth: Are you saying you like Megan Corkrey?

E.K.: If she is not given a wild card chance I will go completely WarGames.

Smooth: Simmer donna. Well, getting back to Mishavonna, ahem, "Drops of Jupiter" is another slightly odd song choice. A lot of these adult contemporary songs just don't fit with the younger contestants. Mishavonna sounded pretty good until the latter half of the song when she started trying to do too much. Overall it was actually a solid vocal, but again I don't feel like the song really showcased her talent. Plus, I have bad associations with Ace Young singing it. She showed a little personality in the post-mortem with Ryan, but I just don't think she did enough to differentiate herself from the pack.

Finally we had Adam Lambert, and...Oy. This was definitely a love-it-or-hate-it performance, as pointed out by Simon. First off, it was a very bad arrangement. It started off super slow, then sped up almost immediately, reminding me of something out of Grease. The beginning was pretty rough, but not long into it, Adam launched into a whole lot of glam-rock screeching. Like seriously, he could have been the frontman for Nitro in that "Freight Train" video. I can tell you I already don't like Adam from what I've seen. The ridiculous black dyed hair, guyliner, clothes, chains, fingerless leather glove on one hand.... ugh. It just seems disingenuous, like he's wearing a costume. With his Broadwayesque voice and mannerisms, he basically reminds me of a combination of Clay Aiken and Constantine Maroulis. However, I can't deny the fact that he does have ridiculous range and control on his voice. He doesn't have to go into falsetto even to hit very high notes, in a Steve Perry way. On this song, though, he just sounded too shrieky; not sure if that was intentional to fit a rock song or not. If he can dial that down somewhat and maintain good tone throughout his range I will be a lot more impressed. I sure hope he does, actually, because he was easily the most memorable contestant of the night and will probably be around for quite a while on the show.

E.K.: I'm already predisposed to not liking Adam because of the whole look, which, as it does for you, screams out to me, "I'm not genuine at all!" Strike one. He has a musical background, and by musical I don't mean high school musical, I'm talking "Phantom", Broadway, "Rent" musical. Which is fine, if you like that genre. I do not. So there's two strikes against him for me. Third strike was the incessant screaming. I couldn't take it. He might be a nice guy, and as you said he can hit some really big notes and does have ridiculous control, but I just can't listen to it. I'd like to see him tone it down a bit. This could get really annoying after a few weeks. I knew he'd get one of the three Top 12 spots this week. Which made me 2-for-3.

Smooth: I felt Adam and Allison would get two spots, but the third spot was very tough to call this week. I thought there were actually four or five people who have a shot at it. Compared to last week, there weren't as many train wrecks that you could automatically throw out. I went with Megan to move on.

E.K.: I'm so proud of you...Wait, you picked her and I didn't? You wouldn't think that, would you?

Smooth: I suppose it was because she sort of reminds me of Kristy Lee Cook, who always got more votes than I thought she would.

E.K.: Until next week, this........was........American Idol.