Tuesday, February 9, 2010

STRAIGHT UP, NOW, TELL ME: There's nothing like Hollywood Week to restore one's faith in the American Idol franchise. Structurally, it cannot fail; the only failure was that one season when the producers didn't give us enough of it. Take the best and force them to shine to locate the best of the best, with just enough background on the singers to catch up those of us who skip the audition rounds.

Our Friend Dan Fienberg's recap covers the details better than I could. Beyond the reason for this post's title (Andrew Garcia), I was particularly impressed by Mary Powers (the mom who nailed Pink's "Sober"), the hunky guitar player Jen called a Smith Jerrod lookalike, Lilly Scott (who sang Ella Fitzgerald) and the country-western version of Paris Bennett. And most of all, perhaps, I liked Ellen DeGeneres, who fit into the judges' panel with ease and good humor.

Tomorrow, it gets even better: group sing! Who will be the Kimberly Caldwell and Julia DeMato of 2010?

10 comments:

  1. Just watching it now, but yeah, that Straight Up cover was my first "wow" moment during Season 9.

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  2. Loved the Ella Fitzgerald girl. Women seem to be outshining the men so far, but we have a long way to go.

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  3. Wow, some real talent among the people we heard tonight. In addition to the woman who sang Sober and the Ella Fitzgerald girl, I also really liked the blues guy Casey James and the girl who sang next to last, Didi something or other - she did the Kara song.  Oh and that Straight Up cover was great.  I'd snag that off iTunes if it were available. 

    I actually liked a bunch of them so I wrote their names down and emailed them to myself so I can see how far they make it in the competition.  Nerdy, I know, but otherwise they might start to blend together.

    Some random thoughts from tonight's ep:

    Sad to see Vanessa the country girl go home but she totally Live-Taylor-Swifted it this time.

    Does Ryan always hug his coworkers at the end of the day?  

    I'm really looking forward to seeing Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland after it hits theaters March 5. 

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  4. Roger1:03 AM

    So how much Hollywood is there this year?

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  5. isaac_spaceman1:58 AM

    "Straight Up" has to get to return during the season, right?  Disco week?  Year you were born? 

    The only person you left off who I liked was the waitress.  It amused me that at some point between the audition tour and Hollywood Week, somebody passed Simon a note that said "Ingrid Michaelson moves a shitload of downloads -- stop dissing her," because with the waitress, suddenly Simon was like, "hey, that style of singing is current!" instead of "I don't know WOT that was." 

    But this episode is always the top of the Idol bell curve for me (comfortably ahead of Group Sing), because I love love love when the contestants interact with each other (doing the response parts in "Waitin' on the World to Change" and "Natural Woman"; spontaneously clapping and cheering at "Straight Up" and Ella Fitzgerald).  I say every year that I wish Idol would allow more of that kind of interaction during the season. 

    The other reason to love Hollywood Week is that it is when guitars >>> pianos.  Once they get down to 24, Rickey Minor and his bullshit keyboards tinkle the soul out of everything. 

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  6. One more hour tonight (group sing), then an hour each next Tuesday and Wednesday -- presumably, the "one last individual sing"/"four rooms" episode to knock it down to 40ish, and the "Pasadena elevator of doom" to get to 24.

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  7. Roger3:53 PM

    Excellent. From the way they kept saying "Hollywood Week," I thought it might just be these two episodes.

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  8. Sheila3:55 PM

    I watched last night for the first time last season. In what was possibly not a coincidence, I also found this AI quiz on Sporcle: http://www.sporcle.com/games/julvett/idols. Fun to try and remember the names of all those idols past... there were many who I could picture but whose names I had forgotten. (I apologize if I am introducing a new time waster to anyone who didn't already know about Sporcle.)

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  9. Paul Tabachneck4:12 PM

    How are we not talking about how awesome Ellen was, from minute 1?  That was a complete bunch of awesome. 

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  10. isaac_spaceman5:48 PM

    She definitely feels like a heavyweight independent of this show in a way that none of the other non-simon judges have. 

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