Smart Cars and American Idol!

OK, I wanted a lame excuse to put "smart" and "Americal Idol" in the same sentence, because let's face it, its not likely to happen any other way.

I saw a promo on tv this morning for the new "Smart Car" and I have to say I totally want one! They are so tiny and cute, awesome on gas, and can fit 7 big paper bags of Groceries in the trunk. Not that I ever have that many groceries at once, but maybe I have that many bags from a major mall shopping spree! Ok, I'm too poor for that too, but a girl can dream! I just like to have the option, ya know?

So onto my soon-to-be-over guilty pleasure. I have to say, Idol has been a let down lately. Probably since Mariah Carey week, its been a little stale. Last night could have been really good, but the judges and producers picked worse songs for the Idols than they typically choose for themselves! I find it REALLY hard to believe that the producers-who should have picked songs that could actually end up as hits for these kiddos-did the worst of the night in choosing good songs for the contestants. But more than anything, the judges are kind of driving me crazy-I feel like they should be COACHING more than critiquing-particularly since their opinions don't "count" as far as who stays and goes. If they are not going to try and help the kids improve, why don't we jsut get rid of them? I don't get how everyone dogs on Paula for not giving coherent critiques-as opposed to Randy-how are they supposed to get anything constructive out of "Dawg, that was molten hot lava! You rocked tonight!" At least Paula banters around real musical terms like "timbre" "lower/upper register" and "falsetto" which is more than we can say for Randy OR Simon on a typical night. I actually think that she knows what she is talking about more than anyone else! I think she is the most constructive and able to give advice that will be well-recieved because she does it in a pleasant way. I do think Simon tries to be helpful but the way it comes out is sometimes distracting from the fact that he is trying to help them improve(ex-when he told Carly "You need to have a word with whomoever is dressing you" people could not get past the fact that it sounded like he was telling her she looked bad, when actually he just meant that she should be looking more polished, like a STAR, and he was actually giving her advice to be more successful. I get him, but I get why a lot of people don't.

There is really not a lot to say about what they sang...mostly bad song choices, which was mostly not their fault since they only picked one out of 3. Which was another reason why the judges irritated me....they have no business knocking song choice at this point for the ones the Idols did not pick themselves. Sure, a good entertainer can make lemons out of lemonade (As David Cook did with the Roberta Flack song given to him by Simon and the AWFUL movie-theme "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" the producers picked) but with so little time to rearrange and "make it their own" its almost not fair to expect them to pull that off.

Cook faked us out because during his hometown visit he said he was going to do Collective Soul for his personal choice, but then ended up doing that Switchfoot song that was WAY overplayed on Nashville radio. And he was horribly off pitch almost the entire time. The good news was he did not disappoint on hooking up "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" with some awesome vocals and arrangement and even on the bad movie song-there was a whole violin/light show thing going on and he sang it really well.

Syesha's performances-especially her own pick of "Fever" was basically an open audition for Broadway. The judges criticized her all night for not showing what kind of recording artist she would be, but I thought it was a smart move. She probably WON'T be a successful recording artist, and I think the J-Hudson route is the best she can hope for at this point. I cannot even talk about the horrible songs they threw her under the bus with. So not fair.

And Archie-my little puppy dog-ready to face the world without Daddy's help for the first time. Again, song choices for him were SOOOO "gooey" to quote Simon-is that really the kind of music they want to have him put on an album? The only stations that play Billy Joel and Dan Fogelberg anymore are Easy Listening and Muzak elevator tunes. Actually, take that back-my Muzak at work is WAY more hip than anything Archie has sung during the entire show. For his own pick, he did attempt to join his age group for a moment, but AGAIN flubbed the lyrics which AGAIN went uncritiqued by the judges (WHHHAAATTTT?????), but at least they did address that while this is the TYPE of song he should start leaning toward (Paula) he was out of his league (Simon) and not really believable saying lines like "my boo" and "lil' mama" (Randy). And he wasn't-I mean, this kid is whiter than me! I have more street cred than Archie! I think he would have been better off doing, say, a Jonas Brothers tune or Jesse McCartney-would have appealed to a similar demographic, but been a little more white bread to fit his innocent puppy rep.

All in all, we are one step away from an expected Dueling David finale. Archie needs to lay off the old fogey sap and find a more youthful brand of cheese to force feed us, while Cookie needs to go back to rearranging pop into emo-rock or at least singer/songwriter. I saw this video online last week, and found it again on YouTube. I hope this is one of the songs he sings next week-it's a mellow, acoustic version of the Foo Fighters song "My Hero" and it's REALLY good! I like it better than the original.....and that is what we have come to love about DC. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coXK-sA4MBE&feature=related