American Idol: Top 9 Recap

TRACY: Before we start this week’s recap, let us take a moment to pause and remember Paula Abdul’s breasts, which looked so painfully tortured all smashed together, duct-taped down, and stuffed and steamrolled into that horrible dress, I don’t see how they could possibly have survived. Every time the camera zoomed in on her leaning forward, I reflexively crossed my arms and started whimpering.

TROY: Oh Paula. "Forever Your Girl," but pleaaaase stop shopping at Forever 21.

TRACY: Anyway, just as I predicted after seeing last week’s show, ANOOP DESAI brought the trainwreck back with a cover of Usher’s “Caught Up.”

It’s just a testament to how great that song is that I still enjoyed this performance and went running to iTunes to download the original for my workout mix. (Don’t worry, Troy—I liked it back when it was popular and am not actually discovering it 20 years too late, like I did with Flo Rida.)

TROY: (You JUST discovering "Low" is such a travesty)

TRACY: But Anoop’s take on it? Man.

My main thought is that he really, really has to lose the sneer and swagger, because it’s creepy. Even though he’s a good-looking guy, he has an irrevocable “lovable geek” vibe about him, which makes all that stomping and stalking around the stage in his turned-up-collar shirts purely ridiculous. That had all the street cred of Michael Bolton doing Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

TROY: I get a little bit of a wannabe-K.Fed vibe from Anoop. Just saying...

TRACY: I think Anoop doing a song like “Caught Up” COULD marginally work if he delivers it with a smile and loose confidence, but that overly serious“I’m a gangsta-no really” schtick he’s been working is just silly.


TROY: "Caught Up" was so not the right song choice. Usher has some awesome songs that would have a) showcased Anoop's vocals and b) been much more of a crowd pleaser. "Yeah" or even "Confessions," anyone?

TRACY: And was it my imagination, or did Anoop TOTALLY TALK SMACK TO THE JUDGES?!?!?! I couldn’t believe it—Idol’s resident nice guy acting like a two-year-old denied a candy bar at SuperTarget. Seriously, man, you need to step up your game AND your manners if you want to20make it much farther in this competition.

TROY: Not your imagination and it totally should have equaled a AUTOMATIC ELIMINATION! He totally had a Guarini face when talking smack too, "I respect your opinion, but I'M AN R&B singer!" Whatever.

TRACY: Another person bringing the trainwreck back was MEGAN JOY CORKREY, with a very hammy, off-key, painful version of “Turn Your Lights Down Low.” I would say that Megan could have been helped by picking a song with more melody, but I don’t think she could have hit those notes, either.

TROY: Holy Smurf, this was bad. Megan Joy (where art thou, Corkrey?) was like a drunk girl doing karaoke, swaying and staggering, totally thinking she is the second coming of Lauryn Hill, but just embarassing the frak out of herself. This was so dreadful, and WHAT was going on with that hair? It was so unwashed and uncleaned that I wanted to perform an exorcism on it.

TRACY: They really should make frozen chopsticks, because I really need to ice down my eardrums after hearing that mess.

DANNY FREAKING GOKEY sang “What Hurts the Most,” about which I would have had fairly benign commentary except for the fact that I had both of this week’s shows on Tivo and watched them back to back.

During the results show, Ryan asked some of the contestants to do some imitations of each other, which they’d obviously been having fun with back at the mansion. Both Matt and Allison’s impressions were charming and obviously well-meant.

But I was stunned (but not surprised) to see DFG continue his “I’m A Douchebag” streak by not only choosing to imitate Matt Giraud’s worst performance, but by literally bleating like a goat during said imitation. Niiiiiiiiiice.

DFG, you and your ginormous ego are dead to me.

TROY: Amen. Unfortunately, I think we're stuck with Danny "What's 'Subtle' Mean?" Gokey for awhile due to the Christian/sympathy vote. The problem is this guy CLEARLY knows he's a ringer and he exploits this. The smug facial expressions! The creepy dance moves! Basically singing the same song every week!

I despise this man.

TRACY: The always charming (if not polysyllabic) ALLISON IRAHETA did a nice version of “Don’t Speak,” but like the judges, I was distracted by that Insane Marie Antoinette impression she was doing on the stage. That dress! That hair! Those horrible, horrible shoes! The pain!

TROY: It's totally fine for us to bash that horrifying outfit, but I'm so mad at the judges for ONLY concentrating on that. This is why Allison unfairly wound up in the bottom 3. Stop telling DFG that he's a god and save the praise for the contestants that deserve it. GAWD.

I'm biased because of my Gwen/No Doubt love, but I really enjoyed Allison's performance. The acoustic portion at the beginning was especially fantastic.

TRACY: She’s also still swallowing her consonants. Doesn’t that Idol voice coach teach these people ANYTHING?!

TROY: It's the braces! Stop making fun of her braces, Stan!

TRACY: Really? Having never had braces, I have no idea whether you need to swallow your consonants to avoid lisping or not. But seriously, if I made AI's top ten and had braces, I think I'd be taking a wire cutters to those things....

Don’t fall over, but I didn’t think SCOTT MCINTYRE was half bad this week. I’m not really a Billy Joel fan, but lots of people are, and Scott’s version of “Just the Way You Are” was emotive and kind of pretty. I thought his piano-playing was stellar, and I didn’t mind his occasional note shriekage.

TROY: I honestly cannot comment too much on Scott's performance because I fast forwarded through it. His 10 minutes of screentime each week make me feel like I'm one of Jigsaw's victims in the SAW movies.

It's like Seacrest's voice each week saying, "Hello, Troy. Do you wanna play a game? How much blood can you afford to lose as your ears bleed in the next two minutes."

That...or I fall asleep instantly. Sorry.

TRACY: Heh. I’m not saying I want him to stay much longer, but I didn’t hate the performance as much as usual. I would love to see him get a job as some famous band or musician’s piano player. (Somewhere where someone ELSE could pick the songs and arrangements for him, but he could still reap the good karma of his sweet personality by making money from his music.)

TROY: He's sassed back to the judges previously! AUTOMATIC ELIMINATION.

TRACY: Oooh, I forgot about that!

And again, Evil Idol Stylists, what are you doing to this poor guy?! Not only have they not fixed the Art Garfunkel hair, they made it exponentially worse by mousse-ing and blow drying it within an inch of its life. It’s not 1983, people! The guy said he’s looking for a nice woman to share his life with, and unless she is also blind, YOU ARE NOT HELPING.

TROY: We should start taking bets on how the AI crew will style him each week. I'm predicted Guarini-sized hair and Miami Vice-style suits for next week...

TRACY: As long as they don't bring out leather pants....

I’m not sure why the judges were so hard on MATT GIRAUD, but I really liked his take on “You Found Me.” I liked the gravel in his voice, and I thought the performance was contemporary and cool. (What was not cool was putting him in the middle of that group of swaying zombies from the Idol mosh pit. I was afraid that any second, one of them was going to jump up and start gnawing on his arm, which distracted me from the singing.)

TROY: I really like Matt, but I was a bit MEH on the performance. The vocals were a bit off (but the studio recording sounds FANTASTIC--go figure). And WORD to that horrible placement of him in the crowd. I really didn't think that would end well.

TRACY: I was also peeved at Simon for laying into Matt for “frowning” at him. Really? Really, Simon?!?! Danny Freaking Gokey, Lil, Michael, Megan, and Anoop all take a turn stomping, whining, and sassing back, and you pick on gentlemanly MATT for FROWNING?!?!?! WTF?!?!?!?!

TROY: Again, all of the judges are on Paula's crack this year (except, oddly, Paula herself. Go figure.).

TRACY: That said, I do understand their feedback that they want Matt to find his niche, but that is no reason to be hyper-critical about a really nice performance.

Oh, LIL ROUNDS. Such a powerful voice. Such a bad song selection. Celine Dion?! Really?

TROY: What's even worse is that Kelly Clarkson KILLED this song season one....and she was deathly ill at the time!

TRACY: It was funny, because the minute she started doing “I Surrender,” I started shrieking “MARY J. WHY DID YOU NOT SING MARY J!?!?!?!” at the television, completely with expansive, Italianate gestures. And then Simon apparently read my mind and asked her why she didn’t do Mary J. Blige’s version of U2’s “One,” which is so utterly kickass, that she wouldn’t have even had to have changed it up and made it her own. If you can actually keep up with the divine (but crazy) Mary J. and sing her version of “One,” which Lil absolutely can, you would have the judges and the audience eating out of your hand.

TROY: Preach. Lil and Scott are in the same "SOS--We can't pick our own songs!" boat. I started fast-forwarding around the :55 second mark...

TRACY: Note to Lil: If the show producers give you another opportunity to haul out “One” during a theme week, for the love of all that is holy, DO IT.

Also, she looked beautiful from the front, but baby got back, and that back in that dress looked like it was about to pseudopod around the stage. She has a slamming figure, but unless we are a size zero with no butt to speak of, the rest of us really need to understand some fabrics REALLY need to be accompanied by a good dose of la-la-la-lycra.

Oh, and another pun on Lil Rounds’ name. Thanks so much, Kara. You really add a lot to this show. ::::icepick::::

TROY: Is Kara the new Dunkleman? Talk amongst yourselves...

TRACY: OMG, she totally is!

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I love the original “Play That Funky Music” (How can you NOT dance when that starts playing?), and I don’t think anyone needs to be messing with it. But ADAM LAMBERT did, and I liked it! It wasn’t going to make me choke up like last week’s “Tracks of My Tears," but it was original and fun, which is more than I can say for a lot of these contestants.

(:::deep Mortal Kombat voice:::: FATALITY. Adam Lambert wins again.)

TROY: "Play that Funky Music," Tracy? REALLY? I weep for your iPod.

TRACY: Mean! I will find your guilty musical pleasure and exploit it seriously next round.

TROY: Adam was brilliant, but I still couldn't get over the fact that he sang this ridiculous song. What's next week? "Ice Ice Baby?" I did read that he wanted to perform "Don't Stop Believing," but wasn't allowed because it was the choice for the group lip-sync on Wednesday. Hmph.

TRACY: Paula continued her bizarre streak of coherence by comparing Adam to Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler, which I have to say is right on the money.

I have to confess, when he was all, “I just have to say a couple of things” right after Simon’s middling-to-positive feedback, I had a moment where I was really scared he was about to lose his shizz and backtalk the judges. (I mean, ANOOP just had!) But to my everlasting relief, he instead took that moment to praise and thank Ricky Minor and the band for his song arrangement. Now THAT is class. Can I adopt him?

TROY: Adam's a real class act this year, which is so refreshing in comparison to all of the other nutjobs this year. Even during the "Ring of Fyyy-yahhh" week, he kept his cool. Here's hoping he continues to get the support he deserves from middle-America.

TRACY: The one thing he MUST lose, though, is the jaunty little pompadour, which was charming during Motown Week and SO not working now. I love Adam’s razored cut, but the Elvis hair just makes him look like a Baldwin brother with a sad Dippity Do addiction. Curse the judges for overpraising how he “cleaned himself up” last week, because he’s great just the way he is, black nail polish and all.

You know, I totally would be writing about how KRIS ALLEN just had has Idol Moment with his utterly, utterly perfect “Ain’t No Sunshine,” if he hadn’t spent his entire interview package telling us that he was going to have his Idol Moment. AWWWWWKward.

TROY: You totally read my mind. You can't FORCE a moment...it just has to happen! If Kris wouldn't have kept campaigning, it totally would have been his moment. Either way, I loved the performance, even if the song wasn't as modern of a choice that I was hoping for.

TRACY: The strings were genius, though, and so was the singing. I wish he hadn't spoiled his moment with the verbal neon signs....

(And there was his wife, Anger Management Barbie, again. How do you get married at 12 and not have to work for a living? It’s all just lending further credence to my theory that she escaped from Hef’s clutches.)

TROY: She doesn't work??? Whaaaat!

TRACY: And then we had the results show, where Megan Joy Corkrey managed to not only get the boot, but to kill any hopes of a post-Idol contract.

What’s up with the insane CAW! on her way to the Stool of Doom? It was marginally okay after “Rockin’ Robin,” but on results night? And all that hopping around and hammy facial expressoins?

TROY: So MY theory is that she must have had Jason Castro's room and started taking some of whatever he was on. That girl was frakked up and I LOVED it. This was probably the biggest meltdown ever on the Idol stage and it will live on forever on my Tivo.

TRACY: After that mess AND sassing back to Simon about not caring about his feedback (and, by association, the competition), I think Megan not only drove a stake through her fledgling career, she drowned it in holy water, pelted it with crosses, and forced it to eat garlic. GAH. I would otherwise have been sad to see her go before Scott or Gokey, but seriously. That was bad.

TROY: But she has all of her FANS! "Megan Joy--'Where Did My Name Go?' Warbles The Hits" coming to a Walgreens 99 cent bin near you!

Also, I loved Lady Gaga's hot mess of a performance on the Results show. I do love "Poker Face", but what was that???

TRACY: The second Hot Mess of the Night, after Megan CAW! Corkrey.

TROY: (And Gaga says she's 23...um...someone's on the Catherine Zeta Jones age scale).

TRACY: Tracy’s top 3: Kris Allen, Adam Lambert, Paula Abdul’s chest for living to see another day

TROY: Troy's Top 3: Kris Allen, Allison Iraheta, The Ghost of Tatiana Inhabiting Megan's Body on the Result Show

TRACY: Tracy’s bottom 3: Megan CAW! Corkrey, Anoop Desai’s attitude, Danny Freaking Gokey’s ego

TROY: Troy's Bottom 3: Megan Joy's "Vocals" and smelly hair, Jigsaw McIntiyre, Danny Gokey's face