I know there are a lot of people (“the Voice of Reason”
specifically) who view this past season of “Idol” as a failure. And sure, there wasn’t a lot of drama this
year. But in terms of talent? I’m not sure any season has equaled what we
just watched.
At worst, Phil is the fourth “least deserving” winner,
behind (in chronological order) Ruben, Taylor, and Lee (who is without question
not only the least-deserving winner of this show, I continue to this day to
question what sane, rational person would pick him over Crystal. I mean, DID YOU NOT LISTEN TO THIS, YOU DUMB ASS FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS WHO HAVE HIJACKED THE VOTING THE LAST THREE YEARS?!?!?!?! I have rarely been accused of being “sane” or “rational”, and even I think people who voted for Lee are bat sh*t crazy, save for his immediate friends and family and hometown folks, of course.)
So, since there were 13 finalists this year, here then are my 13 favorite “Idol” moments from this past season, with the caveat (as always) that I don’t watch a second of this show until they hit the Top 24 (and
then rarely miss a moment of it afterwards …)
13. Jessica “The Sanchize” Sanchez covering “I Will Always
Love You”, Top 13 (Whitney Houston / Stevie Wonder night). When this ranks 13th? You had one helluva season. For the record, I’m fine with Phil winning
because (a) The Sanchize screwed up her finale song choice worse than any other
contestant ever in the finale save for maybe Blaker (which wasn’t his fault – “This
is My Now” is not exactly in his vocal range or musical taste), and (b) like
Mindy Doo in season six, she peaked too soon.
The Sanchize was so good, so soon, that there was no room to grow and
get demonstratively better (like Phil did, like Haley did last year, like
Blaker in my favorite season to date).
Yes, I am flat out saying that you need to be “just good enough” until
top 8 night. Kind of like a bowling
league – you always tank night one to screw your average and build up handicap
points. You bowl just bad enough to eek
out the victory. The Sanchize threw a
298 on night one. Not a good idea.
12. Heejun Han covering “Right Here Waiting” by Richard
Marx, Top 11 (Year You Were Born night).
This haunting anthem that Heejun covered is pretty good. Although I still don’t get “The Voice of
Reason”’s infatuation with this guy. I
didn’t find him funny – I found him to be annoying as holy hell, in a
Sanjaya-esque kind of way. (Albeit with
a better voice than Mr. Malakar).
11. Joshua Ledet covering “No More Drama”, Top 3 (“Sweet, I
Got a Homecoming!” Night). For the most
part, I hate over-dramatic performers who extend a 3 minute song into 4 ½ painful
minutes of riffs, raffs, and other assorted ridiculous vocal tricks that
roo-een the song for me. Josh is the most
blatant violator of this I’ve ever seen on this show … but in this one
instance, it worked. I wish the Final
had been Josh v Phil. (OK, that’s a lie:
I wanted Colton v Skylar, with Phil an acceptable alternative to one of
them.) The only other time all season I
actually enjoyed a Josh performance was …
10. Joshua Ledet covering “When a Man Loves a Woman”, Top 11
(Year They Were Born). I absolutely love
the hell out of this song. Josh did a
perfectly adequate job whizzing all over it.
OK, fine, he did a tremendous job with it. Other than these two performances though? Every time that kid took the stage, I grabbed
an adult beverage and began drinking heavily.
9. Colton Dixon and Skylar Laine, “Islands in the Stream”,
Top 8 (Songs of the 1980s). The duets
rarely worked this year … but this was really good. I thought these two had tremendous chemistry
together. Some pairings are so good,
that no matter how sh*tty the song is, you just clap like a trained Pauler … I
mean, trained seal, along in delight.
Loved that they nailed this classic.
(Although, and I’m just chucking this out there, how epic would the two
of them nailing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” have been? That won a Grammy in the 1980s. And it’s also number one on the “Songs Stevo
Irrationally, Inexplicably, and Unbelievably Loves the Hell Out Of”-o-Meter. Ooh, I could so milk a post out of that “Steve-o-Meter”! Something to file for later this week.
8. Colton Dixon
covering “Piano Man”, Top 10 (Billy Joel).
For about six weeks, this was the ringtone to my phone, it was that
good. It got booted for a week by
something better (a song to appear in about six more slots, give or take a
slot) … and then really got booted by the clutch performance of the season …
7. Phillip Phillips “Home”, Top 2. I’d argue Phil and The Sanchize were neck and
neck at the quarter mile to go mark.
Jessica totally bombed on her single pick, while Phil nailed his. And so I’m going to walk out on a two inch
thick twig and make this prediction: “Home” will be the surprise smash hit of
2012. This is the best “Idol” debut
single since (and please, dear God, don’t strike me with a bolt of lightning
for what I’m about to type) this is the best “Idol” debut single since the
contestant I call “Asshat” Archuleta released “Crush” four years ago. This song is really good. Possibly in a surprise “charts top 100 all
summer long” kind of way.
6. Skylar Laine “Wind Beneath My Wings”, Top 8 (Songs of the
1980s). If anyone doubts that this girl
has talent, just click and listen. This
was ridiculously good. And I absolutely
paid $1.29 on iTunes for the privilege of hearing this whenever I want to.
5. Elise Testone, “Whole Lotta Love”, Top 9 (Personal
Idols). Whoa, a chick taking on Led
Zeppelin? And nailing it? Oh hell to the mo’ fo’ yes!
(And if you’re looking for the next dark-horse Idol
contestant to establish a massive career despite not getting a homecoming (aka “finished
top three)? You can do worse than laying
odds on Elise to be that person. There’s
four of them that have made it big (at least three major post-Idol hits, either
in theater, film, or music) despite crapping out early: Daughtry (duh; finished
fourth in Season Five); Jennifer Hudson (finished seventh in Season Three);
Josh Gracin (fourth in Season Two); and Kellie Pickler (sixth in Season Five). Elise absolutely has the talent to join that
damned talented group.)
4. Colton Dixon,
“Love The Way You Lie”, Top 7 Part One (Songs of the 2010s). When Colton is your seventh place
finisher? And it’s a legitimate seventh
place finish – not a “whoa, his voters got lazy” type of seventh place finish,
but a “yeah, he probably was the seventh best singer” finish? Sweet freaking Jesus this season had some
talent.
(If I’m being totally honest? I liked “Piano Man” better. I absolutely loved how Colton took a
depressing drinking song and made it into an upbeat anthem. But this?
Covering a song whose chorus at least every person alive has heard
(Eminem and Rihanna used it for their “Love The Way You Lie”)? And actually delivering a “holy f*cking sh*t!”
epic moment out of it? Get you ranked
higher than the song I liked better.)
3. Skylar Laine, “Tattoos On This Town”, Top 6 (Queen /
Contestant’s Choice). In the interest of
full disclosure, I love this song. I
also love the two songs remaining on the “Stevo Favorites of 2012’s Idol
Season” list. Having said that, congrats
to Skylar for being the highest ranked non-winner choice for this season, and
this effort was epically good.
2. Phillip Phillips, “Volcano” by Damien Rice, Top 4
(California / Songs They Wish They’d Written).
A lot of my favorite music is not exactly “mainstream”, which probably
explains why I pay $20 / month to XM radio, and listen to Pandora all day at
work rather than local radio*.
(*: at least until 11am.
Then, depending on the driving stories of the last 24 hours, either I stick
with Pandora or put on Rush, then Radioactive, on 980. Most days?
Talk radio come 11am. This
election is so damned crucial to our nation’s futu – I will stop. I will not turn an “Idol” post into a
damnation of the inept f*cking idiot currently in the Oval Off – again, I will
stop. (stevo struggling to stop …))
Ben Harper, Damien Rice, Our Lady Peace, Remy Zero – not
exactly household names, but it’s what I love.
And this song, which I’d rank third if I had to rank Damien’s efforts
(behind “Rootless Tree” and the hauntingly epic “9 Crimes”), I honestly thought
would be THE Idol Moment of Season 11 for me.
Hell, even Slezak declared it his favorite Phil moment of the year, and
Michael Slezak is pretty much the Bible of American Idol commentary.
It was good … it was surprisingly good … but in the mother
of all shockers, it wasn’t my favorite Idol Moment of Season 11. Instead, that came one week later, with
arguably the most inspired Jimmy Iovine pick of his long career …
1. Phillip Phillips, “We’ve Got Tonight”, Top 3 (Just Try To
Survive and Advance Night).
OK, Idol Nation, can we just dump Randy Jackson and make
Jimmy the third judge already? This guy’s
choices the last two years for the eventual champ were beyond inspired – Scotty
getting “She Believes In Me” last year, and Phil nailing Bob Seger’s haunting
classic this year. (I refuse to admit
the Kenny Rogers / Sheena Easton version exists, let alone that it hit number
one thirty years ago. It’s sh*tter than
sh*t.)
In the wrong hands (see Rogers, Kenny; Easton, Sheena), this
song is a crappy karaoke song that you’d rather lose five years off of your
life to avoid having to listen to. In
the right hands? It perfectly captures
what Bob Seger was trying to capture 35 years ago – a guy trying to take the
relationship with the girl he loves to the ultimate step: the first night “sleepover”
(ideally with as little sleep as possible.
Cue the Dusty “damn skippy!” voice …)
Phil got it. Jimmy
knew he would.
Congrats to Phil for winning this year’s “Idol”. You weren’t my first choice, but you were in
the top three. And please, do your part
to make “Home” the top selling single for the third straight week by going to
iTunes and paying $1.29 for it. You won’t
regret it – this song is epically catchy, and I’d wager that even my non-DMB /
Ben Harper / Damien Rice / Foster the People / Gotye loving readers (which is
virtually all of them) will actually enjoy the hell out of this effort if you
give it even 2/1000ths of an impartial fair first listen …
No comments:
Post a Comment