American Idol Viewer's Guide - Top 3

First of all, this week's Viewer's Guide needs to dedicate a large chunk of space to our favorite Danny Bonaduce lookalike, Jeff Archuleta. For those of you who have been hiding under a rock this week, Jeff (who is David's father), is a terrible stage dad and American Idol has had enough. The producers banned Jeff from all rehersals or backstage activities starting this week.

As I mentioned earlier this season, rumors have been flying around all season that the guy is just a nightmare. Well, I guess the straw that finally broke the camel's back was that Jeff "urged" David to include lyrics from Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" during his performance of "Stand By Me" last week. Little did we all know that when a performer sings the lyrics from a 2nd song into a 1st one, the publisher of the 2nd song is due some sort of compensation. That is obviously great news to Sean Kingston's publishers. Even less well known....American Idol is so strapped for cash that this is a big deal.

Of course the Archuleta camp is now calling this completely unfair and that Jeff just "happens" to be there because David is a minor and needs a guardian to be with him. I mean, if he repeatedly blurts out to his son that the lyrics to "Stand By Me" need to be changed, he can't help it.

The reason this stupid argument is completely unfounded is because Entertainment Weekly ran a piece about what it was like behind-the-scenes for the song selection and arrangement process for Neil Diamond week, and they specifically mentioned Jeff's meddling in the process. For example, and I quote:

There's been a lot of speculation over whether 17-year-old David Archuleta's father Jeff is an overinvolved stage dad. This Thursday morning, Papa isn't doing much to dispel the rumors as his son rehearses the Neil Diamond anthem ''America.'' ''There's too many 'Todays,''' he tells associate musical director Michael Orland of the climactic, repeated lyric, while pacing around the room. The comments continue throughout the rehearsal: ''Neil Diamond's voice is a fifth lower than his'' and ''The edit to do is 8 to 10 seconds before 'My country 'tis of thee''' and ''The beginning needs to have a U2 vibe.''

That doesn't sound like someone who's getting a bad rap because he just happens to be there. It does sound like someone who doesn't know the most awesome part of "America" is screaming "Today!".

Speaking of that EW piece and the comments about David A., I found this interesting:

He (David Archuleta) then methodically went through the Diamond song catalog...before eventually settling on ''America'' and ''Sweet Caroline.'' ''I don't want to be singing about partying all night with a woman, and a lot of his lyrics were talking about that kind of stuff,''

Two thoughts -
1. Does this mean that we won't hear "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw" Tuesday night?
2. Is he implying that he'd much rather sing about partying all night with a man? Because that's what I'm taking away from this.


This week we're going to see each contestant sing 3 songs - a song of their choice, a son of the judges' choice, and a song of the producers' choice. We're also going to see what kind of events happened when all went to their hometowns for a few days. Fortunately, youtube is going to give us some hints.

For example, David Archuleta sang the National Anthem at a Utah Jazz game. He also cried like a girl:


And Syesha sang the National Album at a Tampa Bay (don't call them the Devil) Rays game:


And David Cook sang the National Anthem at a Kansas City.....oh wait. Turns out that David Cook was asked to sing the National Anthem at a Royals game, but there were a bunch of snot nosed kids already scheduled to sing it. Partly because of that, and partly because he couldn't find a pseudo-emo version of the song, a sharpee for his palm, and a pick to throw into the crowd, he decided to poorly sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" instead. Plus he forgot how many strikes there are before you're out at the old ball game. Way to drop a lyric:


I'm sure we'll see all sorts of other clips from their visits home. I'm willing to bet they all get keys to their respective cities. I'm also willing to bet they all made an appearance on their hometown Fox affiliate morning show. I hope to God Syesha spent her time home in FLA in a bikini on the beach.


Final thought before I leave you for the week - do you all know whose album just dropped? No, I'm not talking about Chris Sligh's. I'm talking about Clay Aiken!!!! Check out a little video about that here and listen to the title track here.