Big Blah

Australian Idol producers? That? Was painful. If you get a fourth season of this show, which I doubt (and I’m starting to think that might not be such a bad thing because that barrel’s bottom would appear to have been well and truly scraped) then before you subject us to a bunch of kids who wouldn’t know how to perform Big Band unless Courtney Murphy 'Freaky Friday'ed them and took over their bodies for the duration, please make them watch The Glenn Miller Story, the Benny Goodman Story, and an assortment of Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney ‘hey lets put on a show in the old barn/school gymnasium/town theatre hall’ classics as predetermined by Mr Bill Collins. They all picked great songs, but the performances. Oy, the letdown . . .

The dirt atop DeadtomeLee's grave had barely had a chance to settle but after last nights performance, I have ordered the headstone. DTML’s lacklustre singing and painfully cheesy performance was the final nail in the coffin that I had exhumed purely so I could angrily hammer on it a few more times. Very very blah. He looked extremely uncomfortable and his voice, which is not the strongest in the competition anyway, sounded flat and just terrible. He was one of the worst of the night and an unfortunate harbinger of the DOOM that was to follow . . .

That guy no-one heard of before he suddenly turned up pimping himself on AI:BB said Milly has a Judy Garland quality to her voice. (Somewhere Fosse bursts into tears. Next to me, Shaneequa spat that it was because Milly was merely mimicking Garland’s vowels and then ranted about ‘karaoke’this and ‘they’re all shit except for Kate’ that. I edged closer to the door.) Milly was awful again. She was panting weirdly, she was pitchy, she was NO JUDY GARLAND, sir. Yes, she looked like she was actually having fun for the first time since the Top 30. Yes, she obviously loves jazz and big band and it was soooooo her genre, but she didn’t capitalise on it. She chose a song that was too big for her britches and she underperformed it badly. I don’t understand why the 12 to 15 year old girls love her like they do, but boy do they love her. She is my tip to go again this week, but hell – when am I ever right?

Oh DanS, this is a BIG song to attempt. Really big. I know you guys saw Buble perform this at the AFL Grand Final recently and you must have been in absolute awe at how massive and powerful that man’s vocal cords are. I was in the crowd and he was phenomenal – totally worth the price of the incredibly overpriced ticket. Sooooo. Why did you think you could do that? Have . . . you . . . heard you? This song should soar, it IS a new dawn, it IS a new day, they're uplifting wonderful lyrics but Dan, you were pitchy, you were so nervous your microphone was visibly shaking in your hand towards the end and the look you gave the crowd when you had finished signalled to me that you knew you hadn’t been great and that it might mean (SHOULD mean) bottom three again for you this week.

She may not have gotten a touchdown from Holden but in my eyes Anne threw a Hail Mary pass (no, I don’t really know what that means, only that it’s a good thing.) This was the best performance of the night. She sounded fantastic vocally (even if she wasn’t 100% pitch perfect), she included the crowd and played with the band and best of all, she performed the shit out this song. She didn’t just stand there and sing it. She took the Destiny’s Child perf from last week and kicked it up several notches. Flat. Out. Awesome. Thank you Anne, love your work.

Say it with me. FUCK I hate James. Out of pitch, wavering all over the place, uncomfortable on stage, he is just so very OUT OF HIS DEPTH. Can we bin FIHJ and Milly tonight because honestly . . .

Touchdown? I don’t get the Emily-love the judges seem to have, I just don’t get it. She sang last night and I wanted to put on an extra pair of socks, tracksuit pants, two jumpers, gloves, a scarf, that beanie I never wear that I got at Mt Buller that one time it snowed and then have the character Selma Blair played in Hellboy get really angry with me and set me on fire. Maybe that would do something about the Emily induced frostbite. She’s just without. I know I’m repeating myself here, but what else can I say? She sings well, but she does NOTHING for me. And quite frankly I didn’t think she sang that well last night. She let her emotions get the better of her, which on one level I can understand, but on another – its called professionalism (and also? It stank of ‘staged for the camera’s’ – call me cynical but I didn’t buy it for a second.) And if Kate ever loses control during a song because her significant other is in the audience, then I will buy a hat just so I can eat it.

DreadyDan might have cause for concern this week. He has underperformed a couple of weeks in a row now and has officially earned himself the title of this years Wedding Singer (which Mark Holden said in Who Weekly on Friday BLATENTLY ripping off my recap last week – the first person to tell me that weak and feeble minds think alike will get slapped.) He is beginning to look a little too comfortable sitting next to Milly in the Started Off Great But How Disappointed Are We With Them Now box? Great song – but apparently only when Harry Connick Jr sings it.

Lets get ready to RUUUUUMBLE. TeamKate tackles Anne for best performance of the night but Anne totally flips her and pins her to the floor (oooh, look at me with all the sports analogies! I’m sorry, I’ll stop now – mostly because I’m getting out of my depth.) Kate was still fantastic, at Chez Shaneequa we could only pick one obviously pitch weak moment, the rest was vocally without flaw. This girl is just fab and I admire the hell out of her for coming in every week and doing great work. Both Anne and Kate do consistently well and out perform the majority of the other contestants, but week after week they seem to be damned with faint praise. Colour me confused.

Top three : Anne, Kate and (lagging waaaaay behind) Emily
Bottom three : Take your pick – Milly, the Dans’s, FIHJ, even DeadtomeLee deserves to be here this week. If either Anne or Kate are anywhere near the bottom three I’ll be very very unhappy . . . which means one of them will probably go. Bah.

Oh and a word to Kyle Sandilands. You are a moron. I don’t give a flying fuck that you ‘hate big band’ and are therefore going to need someone to practically fellate you before you give them any kind of constructive criticism. You are there to judge these singers and NOT the genre. Give them help, tell them when they do right and when they majorly sod it up. Don’t dismiss a genre just because it involves a basic third grade understanding or musicality, you neanderthalic genetic throwback. Don’t start off telling us how much you hate this genre. I don’t much like RnB but I know that it is important for these guys to understand and appreciate all styles of music and its history. Feel free to not show up next year (should there be a next year yadda yadda) and let John Foreman take your spot (mad props to sinclair from Television Without Pity whose outstanding idea this is.)