Monday, April 5, 2010

American Idol Viewer's Guide - Lennon & McCartney



As Ryan announced last week, we’re back to the Lennon/McCartney songbook. I guess no Taxman. Would have been topical…

Two seasons ago provided some heroics, especially David Cook’s coming out party with Eleanor Rigby.


It also brought along some disasters, like David Hernandez’s swan song with “I Saw Her Standing There”


At IPM Headquarters, we’re expecting the same this time around. With so many songs to choose from, I can already imagine Kara’s condescension and Simon’s exasperation as they wonder how the contestants might not choose the right one of 400 songs.

I’ll just pray that no one sounds like Steven Tyler last night.


Maybe we should add an extra side pot for the person who identifies the woman he won’t take his hands off of during the song.

I try to be forward-looking in these previews, but I can’t help but go back to Didi’s elimination. She was the first contestant to leave that really put a dent in a significant number of pool members’ picks (with apologies to the Alex Lambert fans). Was Ryan too pushy on Tuesday night? Was Didi too visibly irritated? Didi clearly didn’t want to tell her story, but she has since said her friend was on her mind. Would it have helped Didi had she told the story on stage and gotten some extra sympathy votes? Would she have seemed too fragile? We’ll never know. But it’s clear that Ryan is intent on making himself more central to the show this season, perhaps to try to make up for some of the missing excitement in the show overall.

Back to looking forward, here are the results from the IPM supercomputer’s predictions for this week’s performances (again, no order):

Sanja…I mean Tim Urban: I said “Michelle” (reggae style) last week, and the computer agrees. Though it sure would be fun to see Simon’s inevitable reaction if he did “Ticket to Ride”.

Aaron Kelly: Seems like he has “Yesterday” written all over him. It will be boring but solid, and he’ll move on. As usual.

Casey James: I know he said acoustic this week, but I’m betting he won’t be able to resist “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.

Katie Stevens: I’d love to see her do something interesting, like “Norwegian Wood”. She’s not going to win anyway, but the wanna-be diva stuff is getting a bit tiresome and it would be nice to mix it up.

Siobahn Magnus: Seems like a pretty good bet that she’ll move back to some the more haunting songs (House of the Rising Sun, Paint it Black) that she’s thrived on. She would either do an incredible “Day in the Life”, or it will totally bomb.

Michael Lynche: Maybe an R&B version version of “Lovely Rita”? This week could be tougher on him, but, to play Kara for a moment, he seems to know who he is.

Crystal Bowersox: She could go in a lot of directions, but a “Blackbird” cover not so different from Sarah McLachlan’s would be fun to see and would work well with her style.

Lee Dewyze: Am I the only one who thinks his raspy vocal would make for a really good rocker version of “Day Tripper”? I could see that being a highlight.

Andrew Garcia: Finally got back on track last week. Is he building momentum or was it just a flash in the pan? It would be funny to see him sing “Nowhere Man”, but the computer thinks he’ll bring back the guitar on “Here Comes the Sun”.

With so many possibilities, I would guess that all of these are wrong. Please chime in in the comments with your predictions.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

American Idol Viewer's Guide - R&B



Two completely unrelated events crossed over in the Idolverse this week: the debut of the Anderson Cooper 360 special on childhood obesity with Jamie Oliver & Ryan Seacrest discussing it with him, and the use of Usher as this week's mentor on Idol. We've seen pics of Ryan as a kid on the show and while he definitely had glasses straight out of The Facts Of Life, he wasn't obese - connection anyone?

Unfortunately, this season hasn't promoted itself out of IPM's DVR gallows and I've been tempted to maybe even dial in the whole season and just tune in to the final. It's still a great show but this season has been lackluster. Despite the criticism, Ellen Degeneres has added a much needed spark and glow of positivity to this season and while she's not adding a polish of unboringness (that is sooooo a word) to the show, she's chillin with Usher, on a rollercoaster, y'know … just chillin

Usher himself is on the cusp of promoting and touring for his new album Raymond vs Raymond - this is the start of him trying to hang with Stella and get his groove back. But he has to coach the final 10 through a dizzying array of top songs in the R&B category. The full list is available on iTunes here, and it features everyone from Aretha to Barry White to Aaliyah to Alica Keys to The Supremes. Most interesting will be how Usher communicates his connection with the music and how the Idol-wannabes should try to connect with the songs. Here's the IPM supercomputer predictions, in no particular order:

Crystal Bowersox - who cares what she picks. Simon is going to say it's in a league above the rest yet she is still going to somehow sound like every other coffeehouse singer you ever stumbled upon when you were hungover, driving back from that wedding in Scranton

Aaron Kelly, 16 going on 60, and he's totally going to do something anachronistic for his age - think Otis Redding "I've been loving you too long"

Casey James will wear his hair down because he's afraid of losing the cougar contingency and do his best to rock out to Curtis Mayfield or Chris Brown

Andrew Garcia will be destroyed, unfortunately, by the dizzying array of confusing non-advice coming from every judge. No, Paula Abdul songs are not on the R&B list. He's good, but every week is getting more and more painful

Didi Benami will continue to ensnare the young and hormonal male vote and sing about Los Angeles, because she's a waitress there and lives there too and can't not talk about it EVERY episode and because LA is so culturally rich with R&B history… NOT!!!

Katie Stevens will teleport into the future and sing a song from Aretha's unreleased album which is coming out in 2025, because she too is 18 going on 80, or she'll sing Diana Ross

Lee Dewyze will project himself through that commercial and radio-ubiquitous voice of his to rasp his way into a Rob Thomas version of any Al Green song. Even the IPM supercomputer is busy calculating all those variables…

Michael Lynche will sing about a woman and sing with a falsetto of the small boy he squeezed into his biceps. He has Brian McKnight written all over himself this week

Siobhan Magnus will sing any song she can scream at the end. Expect a karaoke-ish version of anything from the James Brown repertoire to come alive when she's on

As for Tim Urban and his beautiful blue eyes which we get lost in everytime he's on stage, does it matter what he'll sing? You know you'll say "That's totally from High School Musical" even though you've never even really seen High School Musical, but you think he wants to hold the mantle of Mini Me next to Zac Efron. We think he'll try Cruisin by Smokey Robinson and maybe do something on a slip-n-slide on stage

With that said, farewell and adieu you fair spanish ladies.

Peace out!
IPM

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Idol Pool Standings Week 3



Week 3 Standings: