Idol Pool Standings Week 4

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

Idol Pool Standings Week 3

Week 3 Standings:

American Idol Viewer's Guide - Not Teen Idol!

I bet you thought it was Teen Idol week. So did I. We were wrong. Americanidolnet.com is confirming a theme change for this week from teen idols to “Billboard #1 hits”.

I find this kind of disappointing since “teen idol” week was going to be new territory for idol. I am assuming that they changed the theme because neither Britney Spears nor Frankie Avalon were available for guest mentoring. There remains, however, a rumor that Miley Cirus will sing this week on the results show. Party in the USA!!


I think many people were pretty surprised last week when Lacey went home, which goes to show that the person that doesn’t do as well often gets votes because people fear they will be sent home, and then the people who did well get forgotten. With that in mind, I think this week has the potential to get a little crazy solely because with a theme as huge as “Billboard # 1’s”, picking the right song is a real challenge. If you want to get a taste for how many songs we’re taking about, here is a list of the Billboard #1 hits from the 60s alone.

I dare Andrew Garcia to do an acoustic guitar version of TLC’s “No Scubs” – Billboard #1 hit from 1999. Just in case you had finally gotten that song out of your head:


The mentor for this week is a secret, though again, with this theme the choices seem endless. Perhaps they will try to go with someone that has had a long of Billboard hits. The Beatles have the most #1 hits of all time, but we can assume they are out for obvious reasons. Guess who #2 is, though? Mariah Carey! No one loves to show up for stuff more than Mariah Carey, so my money is on her. The full list is here.