5.5.13 Win a chance to see Adam at GLAAD Awards!

So last week we sandbagged Adam into the Bottom 3 with Matt and Kris, which didn't matter because he was in the Top 4 anyway. Then, more recently, the stage manager was attacked by that damned Hogwarts staircase, probably while it was in mid-swivel. I hope this "Debbie" wasn't the cute goofy one that did ... something last year. I don't really remember the thing that I am thinking about, beyond a certain pleasant feeling about stage managers. While Ryan talks about that, the staircase lights up slowly, sinister and waiting breathlessly for its next victim, like the Mangler. It has tasted human blood and you know it's a slow ride into shit town after that happens.

So there wasn't a real rehearsal, due to the awakening of the hell, which is interesting because I've always gotten the impression that most of the show happens in the rehearsal, so what do we have here? A whole lotta weird, which I forgot it would be because this season has made me believe in all kinds of things, and I completely misplaced the irony or cynicism that would allow me to see the perfectly clear fact that inviting rock into this show is like letting your grandmother pick out your dates: counterintuitive and bonerkilling.

Anyway, tonight we're doing something that can't help but be stupid, which is doing duets. Six songs total, and I'm guessing it's going to be Adam/Allison and Danny/Kris, both of which sound like awesome trainwrecks. Kara's rocking the Stefani bouffant pony I hate so much, Simon is resplendent in gray, and Paula looks like a normal person. Like a very pretty substitute teacher for once, and less like a FIT thesis. The Idols themselves are wearing "rock" clothes. This means that Kris is dressed like Kris plus a leather jacket, Allison looks like Allison with tons more makeup like a little girl playing dress-up, Danny is dressed like a youth minister who is totally out of his depth which is what he is, and Adam looks like a gay pirate from a future gay pirate spaceship. "Rock fans are in luck tonight," Ryan lies through his perfect teeth.
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And their mentor is Slash. Does he even have a face? I've always wondered what he looks like. I don't know much about Slash. I guess he's known as the best guitar player of all time, at least that's the impression I've always had. Not bad for a man without a face. Ryan tries to sell us on the ugly lie of Velvet Revolver. I mean, technically it's a supergroup, in that I would believe absolutely anybody was in that band. Say a name. If you told me the lineup of Velvet Revolver was Antonio Salieri, Abraham Lincoln, Captain Beefheart and the blue lady from Fifth Element, I would buy it. But there's nothing "super" about that supergroup, and I refuse to acknowledge them.

Oh! He does have a face! A nice one. He seems like a nice guy. He admits to hating this show a way lot, but he likes a few of the people this year, so it's not like selling out exactly. He underlines this concept -- that he's not selling out, and is staying 2 legit 2 quit by making them rehearse in a real live rock club -- several times for us. But you know what, after eight years I'm tired of all the backtracking and eating shit when it comes to this show. American Idol is like Twitter: it's stupid, but it's happening.

Adam will be singing "Whole Lotta Love," which is perfectly awesome. Slash praises his effortless range and can't think of much to say beyond cautioning him to improvise less in the high register, you know, like he does, and stay down and low and rock star-like. Adam tells us this is his favorite week, which is not surprising. I'm kind of amazed that he'll be singing this song because it's the scariest sex song of all time, and Adam is the scariest sex person. He goes Adam Crazy all over it for a bit, and sings about the learning and the schooling and the loving and the whatever, and screams all the time because this is the week for it.

Even though he's totally doing a Zeppelinesque cover of a Tori Amos cover of a Zeppelin song, the ending is so totally amazing that everybody is overwhelmed and cries, and all the grownups are overjoyed because for once they're acquainted with what he's doing and it's not like straight-up weirdness for them to do with what they will. I don't know if it's crazy enough to be amazing, because he really just gave up on reinterpreting songs a while back. Mostly, I'm just happy in 2009 to see a gay man sing about giving you every inch of his love without apologizing for it in the slightest. It gives me Obama type feelings.
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Kara gets sort of hyperoxygenated about how he's a ROCK GOD and sort of screams and spits for awhile about how awesome he is, and then says something I don't understand about how this is his true genre: "Classic rock from the 70s, glam rock from the 80s, with Nine Inch Nails." That is a not a genre, nor is it a thing that makes sense either separately or as a sum of parts, but whatever. She points out that this is his "lane" and nobody else is in it, because she just invented it. It's loopy enough that the audience just starts laughing about how weird Kara is now, which is sort of depressing.

Paula babbles on about how you can't improve on Led Zeppelin, but he kind of did, but you can't, but he's a "whole lotta perfect," and that's all she's got right now. Simon jokes that the performance was a little understated, for like the eighth time, and then totally goes, "Just kidding!" He says that it could have been a disaster, but is actually the best Adam performance, and nobody is going to top it. We will see that he is almost entirely correct, except for the shit that Danny pulls, which is so awesome I don't really care about anything else. Ryan and Adam giggle about him getting to sing Led Zeppelin, and how excited he was to hear about it, while Adam towers over him and smiles at everybody in more makeup than anybody you've ever seen in your life.

Next, Allison's singing "Cry Baby," because that's exactly how original Allison is. Ryan tries to talk to her, but they've both already kind of given up on that concept, so she talks about how she asked Adam for a stylist hookup and he took her to his "girl." The rest of the story is either so boring it's stupid, or so stupid it's boring, and then she talks about how she wasn't sure which song to choose: "Cry Baby" or "Somebody To Love," and Slash accidentally told her the wrong thing. "Cry Baby" is not a song, it's like this weird screaming poem without a melody, which sort of loses the whole point of being in a singing competition because you have nothing to add to it. I mean, Adam could probably do something with it, but not Allison. And WTF with the fake "rock" songs from billion years ago? I wasn't aware that it was Classic Rock week, and must now adjust my enthusiasm downward based on this new information.
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Simon says once again that while it was good, and more confident, it was soundalike and also suffered from how she's not Adam.
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So yeah, now there's Kris and Danny, as expected, singing "Renegade" by Styx.

In the beginning, Danny is very uncomfortable, but once the song kicks in and he returns to his comfort zone -- upstaging and trying desperately to outsing Kris -- he gets a lot better.

Then the judges talk. Why? This is dumb. Simon agrees that it's dumb, and since he has to say something he tells the ugly truth, which is that Danny was really good in that duet and Kris was pretty forgettable.

Immediately after this festival of awkwardness, Kris must sing his actual song.

[Kris choses "Come Together" by the Beatles.]
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Simon says it was like having ice for lunch: delicious and crunchy but not nutritive. The fans go insane about that, and there's enough booing and screaming that he goes Fuck it and elaborates about how boring and unspecial it was, "a bit of a jam" he calls it, and then once again mentions how much better Adam is than everybody else in the world. For the third time already. I wonder if I will be proven wrong and Kris will go before Allison. That would be B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

What happened with Slash and Danny? Slash looks straight into the camera with his actual tongue in his literal cheek and nearly goes into a coughing fit with how hard he wants Danny to fail.
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But what Danny does is not failure. I don't know that we have a word for it in our human talking language, but what Danny does is create new levels of creepy, crappy, idiotic nonsense not even Sanjaya could have prepared us for. It's maybe my favorite thing that has ever happened on this show. Imagine if you will that Danny Gokey did a mean-spirited impression of Adam Lambert, and really put his back into it. You know that Danny doesn't get it, whatever "it" is, he's not going to get it. And imagine that he turns this "it" over on its back like a Labrador Retriever that needs dominating, and then, surprisingly slowly and tenderly... Sticks his tongue in its mouth. And then, with everybody watching in jaw-dropped horror, they begin to make rhythmic love. And this is taking place at a family reunion.

I got over Chris Sligh real fast, but the thing that really turned me actively against him, the thing that shot him into Anoop/Constantine territory, was that week where he tried to out-Blake Blake. Like he saw what Blake was doing, and how people were responding to it, and realized that he was seeing something awesome, but was too dumb and up himself to understand why it was awesome, so he just stuck a shitty R&B beat behind some song that never went anywhere, and then had his feelings hurt because nobody appreciated it like they did Blake. That's what this is like: Danny is cognizant enough to know that Adam has a special thing, but that's as far as he got.

Now, it's Danny: he sounds pretty good at the beginning. And props to him for resisting the urge to grin into the camera, yes, because he's singing "Dream On," which is not a song I really understand but I know it's not a smiling song. But at the end of the second line, his voice sort of swoops up in a weird way, and you start to realize this is going to be awesomely fucked up. If he takes it all the way, it's going to be amazing. Then into the chorus, where he sounds really good still -- if a little bug-eyed and desperate -- and he hits that tone we almost never hear from him, that really rough angry voice, which I love. And I guess that means that he is taking the judges' comments somewhat seriously, which is good. And then even the "dream on" part is pretty good, weird pronunciations and some doo-doo-doos that don't really work at all, and the strobe lights coming on, and it looks like he will survive Rock Week. But then! THEN!

Danny totally starts screaming in this primal, hilarious, depressing way, and it becomes unending, and you can tell he honestly thinks this is his MOMENT and they are going to say all kinds of "didn't know you had it in you" stuff to him, and he drinks in this imaginary praise and it lends his shitty screaming even more POWER. He is incandescent! Afterwards he runs around fronting at the band and pointing at himself and yipping, so they know who's in charge I guess, and oh, Lord what a fine, fine moment. What an awesome nightmare that was!
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Kara's like, "Thanks for listening to us when we told you to bring the edge and swagger. Having said that, we are totally embarrassed for you. And by 'we' I mean America. Even Jesus is really mortified right now, because you took it waaaay too far into a waaaay stupid place, and you ended up looking retarded. BUT. We appreciate risk, and taking chances, because that's what rock and roll is all about." Which is a lie. Rock and roll is about being awesome, which that was not.

Paula sympathizes with him about how hard this genre must have been for him, but gives him A+++ for effort. Which, just no. That wasn't awful because it was rock, that was awful because it was Danny being desperate once again, and not getting 90% of "it" in the largest sense. Simon says the ending was like a horror movie. Which it was, and we are the victim. Then he says the worst thing, which is that he knows exactly what Danny tried, and failed, to do: "With Adam it worked, with you it didn't." But, obviously he's going to be safe. Danny just stares at them like a total nozzle, and then gets really defensive about how he'll have to watch it himself before he believes them about how bad it was. "Doubt it, though." He tosses some snotty notes in the direction of how he was trying to move out of his safety zone, which is just the weakest thing for them to say at this point, but also untrue. You moved out of your -- and our -- safety zone... And into a pale, embarrassing version of Adam's. How is that awesome? He is just such a chumguzzling bottom-feeder that I can't even care about his awesome voice anymore. What a dick move, I'm sorry.

After that I simply cannot believe there's more. That had to be the endpiece, right? No. Allison and Adam have to come out and sing "Slow Ride," the stupidest song of all time, and Allison's still looking ridiculous, and Adam's penis is pretty much wearing the rest of Adam as an afterthought, and they sing the whole song and it's neither comfortable or interesting, but it's like: This is what American Idol does to rock. Allison is much more comfortable with Adam onstage, and she dances around really adorably. It's maybe the most appealing she's ever been onstage. But this is the most boring song of the entire universe. It's just five words over and over and over and over. Immediately after, they give each other a huge hug, rendering the judges powerless because they can't issue any comparisons at that point. If Danny had jumped into Kris's arms at the end of their song, Kris would have had a much less grumpy night. Think about it.
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Kara says that they pushed each other to do better, which is true mostly, and Paula calls them "the perfect marriage," unnecessarily bringing up her imaginary relationship with Simon, and the whole Judgery keeps yelling about how they need to do a rock duet on their album or whatever. Paula tosses in this weird Catskills-inflected "It's a beautiful thing!" that cracked me up, and Simon tries to talk but some tacky Allison people start yelling a chant of some sort. He praises this duet over the other one, and Adam is God some more, and then he says a very smart thing, which is that Allison might not go home tomorrow, thanks to Adam. We'll see if the goodwill carries that far, but there's some merit to it. Adam says she's like his little sister, and Ryan goes, "So cute!" Which is, in itself, so cute.

So: Adam's "Whole Lotta Love" was pretty much sexy, which is funny because it's so unsubtle and unsexy usually, as songs about fucking tend to be. Then, speaking of unsubtle, Allison did a soundalike cover of Janis Joplin, without the roadhouse gangbangs to back it up, and basically excelled at not being Kris or Danny. Kris sure is pretty, which blinds you to a lot of the awesome details about what he does, which was very elaborately constructed and well-rehearsed this week, but suffered from Gokey proximity and inability to rock out. And then, in the recapperator, Danny hits those hideous notes once again. Awesome. Sabotage!
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If you tuned in for tonight's episode of American Idol and worried for a second that Fox was running a Cops marathon, who could blame you? In the course of a single hour — and, naturally, a few additional minutes designed to boost ratings for Fringe and drive DVR users/fans of The Mentalist to the brink of despair — I counted so many heinous crimes that Idol's newest judge would need to remove her shoes to keep count.

Shall we tally? Danny Gokey garroted a defenseless Aerosmith tune till its tongue lolled purple and bloated from its mouth. Kris Allen was casually hurled under the bus by a band of vicious imbeciles. Simon Cowell repeatedly vandalized his own reputation and hacked away at the last remaining threads of credibility that Idol possesses. Kara DioGuardi committed a lewd act, not to mention multiple counts of first-degree stupidity. And with their flawless, episode-ending duet, Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert stole the show.

Really, the only thing missing were blaring sirens, flashing red lights, and a cameo appearance by David Caruso, removing his shades at the end of Danny's solo performance and intoning, ''Somebody'd better request 'American Pie' on the jukebox, because today, the music died.''
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Okay, now let's get back to Danny.

Did he really think he could convert voters from the Glambert nation by trying to pull off a clumsy imitation of their chosen one?

(Funny enough, guest mentor Slash kinda forshadowed the vocal meltdown with that sly grin he gave as he talked about how Danny's whole performance hinged on him nailing the scream.)
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Randy: ''Yo, all right so [laughs] Yo, man. [Interrupting Danny's ''thank yous'' and self-applause.] So listen, listen, listen, listen. You know once again I know this is not your genre either, this is not really what you do, but I'll give you one thing. I mean, it was all right for me. It wasn't like perfect or that great. But I'll give you one thing: I'll give you an A+ for a valiant effort. 'Cause to hit that high note you had three notes jumpin' off at once [Laughs.]...It's just not what you do. You know what I mean?'' [Note from Slezak to Randy: Since when is lack of comfort with a given theme an excuse for a piss-poor performance? Did Adam get extra credit because he actually stayed on pitch during a Grand Ole Opry Week in which his nail polish freaked out the guest mentor? Um, no!]

Kara: ''Danny, I think you took the swagger comment and adding more edge into your performance, and those are all good things, we told you to do that, but I think you took it a little too far. I don't see you on this. I don't see you on this type of song. I see you more early Aerosmith — 'Cryin',' 'Crazy' — but I will say I like to see growth and I like to see risks and I like to see more edge, and I saw that tonight. Was it perfect? No. But I commend you for taking chances. Because rock and roll is about being bold and going for it.'' [Note from Slezak to Kara: Rock and roll is also about singing in tune. Furthermore, ''Cryin''' and ''Crazy'' are from the 1993 album Get a Grip, while ''Dream On,'' from Aerosmith, precedes them by two full decades.]

Paula: ''Danny, I know this was a tricky genre for you. And I told you, you know you've just got to go with the song that you're drawn to. I don't know if this was the right song for you, but again, I am huge fan of yours — a huge fan of yours! How many of you are Danny Gokey fans? It wasn't my favorite choice of song but I give you an A++ for going for it.'' [Note from Slezak to Paula: Abdul! Now you're cribbing from Randy, too! What would you say to an F--? No, that's not a bleeped out expletive, folks, it's F-minus-minus!]

Simon: ''Well, I agree pretty much with what everybody said. But that last note, I mean it was like watching a horror movie. I mean, it's like the scene in Friday the 13th, it was just like this scream...and I think it was actually a little bit off. And where I think for Adam it kind of worked, with you it didn't work so much. But I still think you're gonna be safe tonight though.'' [Note from Slezak to Simon: Nice way to replace ''f---ing awful'' with ''a little bit off.'' Also, I believe that instead of ''so much,'' you meant to say ''at all.'' Finally, please substitute ''dismissed without prejudice'' for ''safe.'' Aaaand, we're all done!]

Why is it that somewhere in my imagination, I'm imagining Ramiele Malubay texting Kristy Lee Cook and saying: ''OMG grl. WTF? 'Drm On' was atroshe! Adam 4EVA. Put the 'Go' in Gokey!''
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All kidding aside, though, if Simon is right, if his subtle suggestion that Danny is an inevitable final-three finisher takes root with the viewing public, that spells trouble for either Allison or Kris. Stress not, Glambert lovers, I'm not dissing your dude. I'm just saying there's no way he's in the bottom two again this week.

Think about it: The show opened tonight with a replay of the ''THIS is your bottom three'' heard 'round the world (nice way to re-motivate the troops!) and then Adam came out and nailed Led Zeppelin's ''Whole Lotta Love,'' probably the night's most difficult melody. Not that it showed on Glambert's face. Decked out like he'd just finished up a very easy cage-match at the Thunderdome, Adam sauntered onto the stage and suddenly, effortlessly, was hitting the kinds of notes Paula couldn't buy if she spent her entire Idol salary on Auto-Tune. (Which isn't to say I didn't give her new single an okay review on EW's Music Mix blog.) Adam is literally that guy at the gym lifting 400 pounds and not even grunting, while you make asthma-wheezing sounds picking up the bar. (And by ''you,'' I am referring to ''me.'')

I only had two issues with Adam's performance: First, that the jittery, amateurish camera work and cuts distracted from the emotional strength of the number (thank heavens for DVRs) and, second, that Adam didn't color much outside the lines of Robert Plant's original. In his defense, though, none of the contestants tonight attempted any new or daring remixes, and after all, this isn't Song Arrangement Idol. I just fear that Adam's decision not to eschew one very gender-specific line — ''Way down inside, woman, you need love'' — may have unleashed that head-throwing, table-slamming climax to Kara's critique. [Cue: Silkwood shower!]

As if ''Whole Lotta Love'' wasn't enough to take Adam to the top three on its own, though, he returned at the end of the show (in some muy tight trousers) for a show-stopping duet with Allison set to Foghat's ''Slow Ride.'' FOR ONCE, KARA WAS RIGHT. [Apologies: In all honesty, I just realized I hit the ''Caps Lock'' button on my keyboard instead of shift when I started that sentence, but it seems too poetic to lowercase the whole thought.] A duet should, as she explained, push both parties to be even better, and under those parameters, Adam and Allison succeeded in making me thoroughly enjoy a song I'm not certain I ever dug before tonight. Yet as pitch-perfect and authentically jammy as their vocals were, my favorite part of the number was the gleeful hug the rival contestants shared when they finished. The way Adam grinned when Allison was nailing her solo lines, the way Alli gave props to Adam for sharing his hairstylist with her, felt as authentic as Ryan's spray tan looked fake. These two totally have mad love for each other, and that warms my cynical heart. For real. (What a contrast to the utterly chemistry-free and time-wasting pairing of Danny and Kris on the thematically dubious ''Renegade.'' The whole affair was such a non-starter, the only significant note I took on it was to note the fury in Kris' eyes when Simon blithely (and incorrectly) decided he'd been outsung by a showboating Danny.)
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The lone female contestant in the competition probably benefited more from ''Slow Ride'' than Adam, seeing as how Randy, Kara, and Simon all used treacherous keywords — ''didn't love the song choice,'' ''nervous,'' and ''tried too hard to sound like the original,'' respectively — to undermine a vocal on Allison's solo performance of Janis Joplin's ''Cry Baby'' that they knew was pretty damn stellar. Granted, I thought Allison sort of rushed the transition from verse to chorus each time — losing out on the repetition of ''come on, come on, come on...'' that gives Joplin's original that extra touch of urgency, but who the hell is Randy to question the merits of anything from the Janis Joplin Songbook? Come on, Dawg! ''Whole Lotta Love'' and ''Dream On'' repeat their choruses with as much (if not greater) frequency, and yet you're only gonna pick a bone with one of the female-fronted number? The last hit you worked on was ''Dance Like There's No Tomorrow,'' dawg!
If we assume for a moment that Adam is safe — not really an assumption so much as a statement of fact — and we surmise that the pimp-slot positioning and epic win of Allison's ''Slow Ride'' duet also carries her into next week, then we're looking at either Danny or Kris heading home on Wednesday.
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We saw four singers get up on stage tonight to make a case for advancing to next Tuesday's performance show, and only one of 'em failed on an eye-popping level. That person is the one who should go and will go home. And I'm willing to bet my lunch money I'm right.
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