It's Almost Tuesday...

Another Tuesday, another American Idol. Country week was pretty awesome, probably from low expectations, Motown week was a'aight, probably because Motown is awesome and as long as you sing in key its pretty hard to totally ruin it, although a couple of them tried (Megan-how could you do that to Stevie? And Danny Gokey-OMG-"Re-tay" is not a word, "Ready" is).

Then came last week. "Top Downloads." In other words: Sing whatever you want, we can't afford mentors every week in this economy. So this is the week they've been waiting for, the week they can be "current" and sing a song out of this decade, right? RIGHT? Sigh. NOT RIGHT. Only three contestants even picked songs sung in the last 10 years, and both got SLAMMED hard. Only one, Matt, picked a song out within the last year-and he got slammed hard-and didn't deserve it. Was it a little "soundalike" as one of the judges said? Sure. But Gokey's Rascal Flatt's cover didn't stray too far from the original either. (Side note: I really hope he is not trying to be a country singer.) Matt always looks so dejected when the judges criticize him. It makes me feel bad for him. It makes me mad that the judges only like him when he sings what they want him to sing. When he sings what he likes, they are mad because its not what they told him to do. Now, I know that (arguably) they are "professionals" and the kids should listen to them to a certain extent-after all, if they knew it all, they wouldn't have had to go on AI to try and get a record deal. BUT, if Matt wants to sing rock, they need to help him figure out how to mesh his abilities with that style. Note to Matt: Forget the Fray. (Love them, liked your in-the-round performance, but trying to keep you in the competition after multiple trips to the B3) Go listen to Amos Lee, Ray Lamontagne, James Morrison, and Ben Harper. Bluesy voices, making it work without having to sing R&B. That is your homework.

Anyway-someone who did knock it out of the park last week was little Kris Allen. Took an old song-one of the best songs EVER IMO-Bill Withers' Ain't No Sunshine-and made it current, playing the piano (we'd seen him on guitar or solo up to this point-man of many talents!), singing the H-E-C-K out of it, this kid didn't miss a note-and that is a HARD song. Best of all-he experimented with the phrasing and melody, so it wasn't "soundalike" (I think that is the new buzzword for this year). Loved.It.

And tomorrow is going to be "Songs from the Year you were Born" week (which brought us David Cook's "Billie Jean" moment last year) which is essentially 80's week, save for youngin' Allison, born in 1992. So, with everyone else being born between 1980 and '86, I think, here is what I think we could possibly hear come tomorrow night: Pat Benetar, George Michael/Wham, Prince (although I am not sure he clears his songs for Idol), Bryan Adams, Lionel Richie/Commodores, and maybe Bruce Springsteen. Its hard for me to think EARLY eighties because I was pretty young-I think Bon Jovi was probably a little past these folks birth date, but lots of AI peeps have done interesting Bon Jovi covers (the band themselves did an acoustic album of their eighties hits a few years ago). I can totally see Scott doing REO Speedwagon for some reason. LOL. Don't know why...anyway, I am sure I am way off but it is fun to guess!

I hope to NOT hear Phil Collins (or anyone else's version of True Colors for that matter), Chicago/Peter Cetera, Journey, Billy Joel, or Stevie Wonder. Nothing against any of them-love some of them very much-but folks had the chance to do Stevie last week, and the others are just WAY overdone on this show and unless you are going to change it up big time, it's probably not a good idea.

Anyway, I guess we'll see! And SHOUT OUT to the ladies of country music this week-despite country music long being a good ole boys club, the ladies DOMINATED the ACM Awards last night, with the biggest awards of the night going to two pretty young ladies-Carrie Underpants becoming the 7th woman ever to win Entertainer of the Year, and Taylor Swift winning album of the year for "Fearless." Now, I'm not a big Carrie fan, and I've seen her in concert and calling her a master entertainer is fine if you like people with the stage presence of a paper clip-but I am happy to see a lady win nonetheless. (Now Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland-that is an entertainer. But I digress.) And while Taylor Swift is pretty polarizing, you can't deny that selling a bajillion albums in four months doesn't deserve some kind of award, especially when we keep hearing how album sales are in the crapper and the music industry is dying. And I will admit that I am slightly biased, as my best friend's husband is one of Taylor's studio musicians AND I went to high school with that red-headed guy you saw on TV last night accepting the award (her producer). He used to charge me and his sister to drive us around in his old gas guzzling pickup truck. Anyway, happy to see people I know have success! Mazel Tov to the winners.