A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

NEXT WEEK, WE VOTE BASED ON THE GROUP NUMBER! Last week, Seacrest announced that this week's AI theme would be rock and roll. Now we're hearing that everyone will be singing two classic rock songs from the 70s and 80s, for a total of six. Six? Apparently in another desperate effort to avoid losing an entire song to producorial incompetence (that's incompetence of the producers, not the greengrocer), the final four will be singing one song each and then one other as a duet with someone else.

First of all, I'm not really loving the idea of rock and roll defined exclusively as a 70s/80s rock night. We've done the 80s already (remember "year you were born night," which threw everyone except Allison into that decade?). And while disco is a different beast than 70s rock, still: it was just two weeks ago that we had disco night. So the whole thing is feeling a little unnecessarily redundant. Then there's the duets thing, which is kind of conceptually fun but logistically painful during a voting episode. What happens if A sucks but B would have been awesome but for A's suckiness? We'll see how it goes. Anyway, our thoughts.



America's Sweetheart, Kris Allen.

I went back and forth on a number of Rolling Stones songs, because that is absolutely the first place any person should ever go when instructed to report to "Classic Rock of the 70s." Ultimately, I picked "Angie" (over "Moonlight Mile," which needs more than 90 seconds, and "Sweet Virginia," which has lyrics that can't be cleared), and while I'm not opposed to a KCosmo approved "solo acoustic version of," I think it's a song that could be done nicely with a standard rock band setup (bass-drums-guitar) and some understated horns. Not the kind of full orchestra that Idol would want to give it, but just something to give it a little bit of tartness. -- Isaac


"Angie" is such a nice pick that I'm loath to quarrel with it, but how about Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet" or, as a nod to the Sorkin crowd here, the glory-note-free "Brothers In Arms"? I was going to suggest something off Don Henley's The End of the Innocence, but Henley's burned him once before and I dare not reopen that door. There's always "Dust in the Wind," I suppose. -- Adam


Yeah, "Angie" would be nice for him. I was going down a slightly different road, though -- Dire Straits' "Why Worry." It's such a beautiful song, and sits squarely in Allen's wheelhouse. -- Kim


You Do the Hokey Gokey and You Turn Yourself Around.

I like songs for Danny that play up his tone -- to that end, although I realize that it's unarrangeable down to a good 90 seconds, I keep going back to "Behind Blue Eyes." I know everyone here will hate whatever he does, so let him edit a song down into oblivion and earn everyone's ire fair and square. -- Kim


He's been doing a Michael McDonald impression for so long. Would it be heresy to give him a non-McDonald Doobie Brothers song? How about "Listen to the Music"? To which I will respond, "no, thanks." -- Isaac


No one's ever attempted Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" on the show. Why not? Hell of a climax. I've also recommended Elton John in the past, and I don't have a problem with his trying for "Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters" or even, glurge, "Your Song." (But, then again, no. "Werewolves of London"? Can Gokey have fun again?) -- Adam


She Who Cannot Be Nicknamed.

Who says a woman can't do Zeppelin? [Well, no one. Heart seems to have covered the entire Zeppelin catalog. --ed.] "Whole Lotta Love". Or, sneaking in early in 1970, Janis Joplin's "Cry Baby". Let her wail. -- Adam


Let's make Spacewoman really happy and give her Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide." I thought she did a great job controlling her voice last week. This requires more dynamic range (which is not to say a more dynamic range) than anything she's done, but I think she can do it well. But if she doesn't want that, and if I hadn't already given it to Lambert, "Baba O'Riley." I suspect that, like CtCM last year, nobody this season is quite as familiar with the teenage wasteland as is Iraheta. -- Isaac


I like "Landslide," I like Zeppelin. But what I really want to hear is that awesome scotch-and-cigarettes voice applied to something big and 80s like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" or "Kiss Me Deadly." Neither one of which is getting on the show. So, yeah, let her sing "Landslide." -- Kim


The Lambert.
We've talked so long about Axl Rose for Lambert that Appetite for Destruction seems natural. Still, I don't believe he should be telling the good people of America that they are in the jungle and are going to die (although, holy shit, just to hear him do that long opening scream ... please?), and "Patience" is just too friggin low-key for him. I tend to believe that Idols do well when the message of the song is all optimistic and hokey like Idol itself, so why not David Bowie's "Heroes"? Or, since no one else in Idol history has come close to scaling Mt. Mercury accurately, is it "We Are The Champions" time? Because Lambert can pull it off. -- Adam


Setting aside what we think would be great rock songs for these four to sing, fact is that this is final four week and this may be their last chance to sing something that they really think we should hear them sing. Which means that this is the week that Adam is supposed to sing Queen. I'm a little worried that it may be a little too soon after last season for someone to attempt "We Are the Champions" -- although Adam obviously wouldn't need to rethread the melody through a more limited range like Michael Johns did to good effect -- so how about "Somebody to Love"? Much as I'm dying to get Adam back into the uptempo stuff, this might actually be a more singerly song than "Champions." You also get the nice showy guitar solo for Slash, too, although that might be stacking the deck a bit. -- Kim


"Baba O'Riley." Cook did this, and I think I was underwhelmed. The difference between good and bad versions of this is entirely in the ability to convey both the bravado and the desperation in the vocal. Cook was too humble and stable for either., and Adam might be too, so this is a good test As much as Adam lets his voice out to run, he doesn't do that with his emotions. And I'm kind of interested in hearing him do Daltrey. I'd take "Who are You" or the more melodic "Athena" too. -- Isaac


Duets.

How do you not do "Under Pressure"? Allen and Lambert. For Allison and Gokey, the Springsteen/Etheridge acoustic version of "Thunder Road," only subtracting the guitars because Danny can't play and Allison knows three chords. -- Kim


For Gokey and Iraheta: I know we don't have to give them actual duets, but in the Google of my head, the term "classic rock duet" returns only one search hit: "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (actually, there is a second, "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart," but I have set my internal Google filter to exclude it). That means I'm giving Iraheta two Stevie Nicks tunes, even though I'm not positive she can do justice to even one; so be it. The lyrics would be appropriate too -- just a touch creepy, with dad-like Gokey singing to teen Iraheta that there are people in the world who want to "make a meal of some bright-eyed kid/you need someone looking after you." Then, for Allen-Lambert: There would be so many fun things to do with this pairing. "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin, especially with each taking part of that end-fade where left-speaker Plant is arguing with right-speaker Plant; a goofy, fun-loving "Holiday Road" by Lindsay Buckingham from the Vacation soundtrack; a rousing pub-style singalong of the Kinks' "Lola"; maybe an a cappella "Seven Bridges Road" or "Find the Cost of Freedom" (each minus a voice or two, I guess). Honestly, the way Idol seals its contestants off from each other, it would just be really fun to see the putative top two interact with each other musically, the way The Davids did in the finale last year. -- Isaac


I can go three ways with this, and it's all about highlighting Allison: (1) Iraheta-Lambert do "Beast of Burden", while Gokey-Allen try, hmm, "When Love Comes To Town," with Gokey getting the BB King lines? (2) Iraheta-Gokey do "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," while Allen-Lambert excel on "Under Pressure." Again: let him scale Mt. Mercury. (3) Iraheta-Allen do "Fairytale of New York" (okay, it'll require some editing), while The Presumptive Finalists try to one-up each other on the Bowie-Jagger "Dancing in the Streets." -- Adam