Idol Chatter: Standards and No Practice

Is it over yet? No. Express’ Arion Berger, at her usual post, digests all of this week’s “American Idol” action.

“THEY’RE ALL VERY COMPETENT,” says “American Idol” guest mentor Tony Bennett, who can’t be bothered to care about these grinning kids with their weird haircuts. Can I tell you a story about seeing Tony Bennett live? It involved his daughter Antonia being trotted out on the stage dressed like the little-girl robot from “Small Wonder” and, at intermission, the sound of many high heels attached to middle-aged ladies with fur coats and spectacular hairdos click-clacking toward the parking lot. Overheard on the way out: “I’ve heard better pipes under my sink.”

The Top 9 are to sing standards, an episode that has sunk many a battleship and raised one Titanic (Kelly!) “These songs are classic,” says Bennett, directing his comments to I-don’t-know-who. “They will never go out of style.” Unlike some tunes, Stefani.

Blake is singing “Mack the Knife.” Bennett wants him to get at the meaning of the song, rather than Bobby Darin it up all over the place. It was words, see, and it tells a very vivid and specific story. Which Blake can’t follow. Bennett smartly tries another tack, telling Blake he knows the song comes “pre-wrapped” (which is code for that goddamn Darin; if I ever get my hands on Kevin Spacey, I’ll beat him senseless) and Blake has to actually sing it. The song. With the words.

What’s wrong with Blake? A week, ago, I would have said nothing. Now I would say that what’s wrong with Blake is he doesn’t know what “scarlet billows” are. And that his sky-blue jacket is too long and looks like the kind of thing they give you in a fine restaurant when you show up for dinner in a hoodie to meet your girlfriend, who’s about to dump you anyway. The way he’s jazzing it up with finger-guns (maybe not, but his voice is finger-gunning us), it has no meaning; it is sucked of meaning; it’s a black hole of meaning. He cool-jazz vibes the end with a little scat and God, did Leslie teach you nothing?

Paula is wearing a hideous black-and-white striped jacket and rodeo bandanna and says “PIZAZZ” with such creepy ferocity my screen actually buckles. She bares her teeth at Blake and we move on to Simon, who doesn’t appear to have been listening.

THE SLUTTY & THE UNDEAD: “Here’s the plan,” says Ryan …. Hey, Ryan? The plan is that you buy some ties with color, and then maybe I will listen to what happens “after the break.” And speaking of the break, why do they keep running those ads about a stoner dude disappointing his dog? How many potheads watch this? Are they voting for Sanjaya? What does he look like to them? A huge smiling balloon head? A menacing mass of hair?

Phil Stacey is all up in Tony Bennett’s genius, and then sings the first three notes of “Night and Day” for him in rehearsal and doesn’t hit a single one. Tony tells him to syncopate his stuff. Turns out he can’t because the band is so slow, he has to expand on the big notes (which he does, OK), but he can’t make it connect, all over-enunciating on the verses. He busts out the end, and I realize I’ve forgotten how nice and warm his voice can be because he’s so scary to look at.

Randy didn’t love it, so the audience boos. Obeeedient bitches.

Paula calls him reminiscent of a young Frank Sinatra and a curtain of red descends before my eyes. She just … has no resources, you know? She goes to the nearest card in her little Paula Decimal System boxes, and reads the scribble, and smiles at us.

Simon tries to blow a gasket over this, but decides, rightly, it’s not worth the bother. Then he calls Phil’s performance “gloomy and dark.” No life. Yes, because he is undead. That’s how he rolls. Undeadly.

Phil plays the wife card in order to stay for another week, but Haley‘s gonna have to come out on a chador to get him to stick around.

Tony is polite but equivocal about Melinda, which must bug her, after the relentless waterfall o’ love in which she has been bathing all these weeks. But she reacts with typical humble exuberance.

She sings “I’ve Got Rhythm” in a paint-splattered dress that’s very cute, especially on the false-halter shoulders. That’s not the point, though; she does a lovely, lively job on this very syncopated tune and stah-ruts out the end of it.

You know, that’s a issue with those supposedly gimme weeks, with the pop music and the Gwen and whatnot. Disco tunes demand an even 128 bpm rhythm, and it’s hard to whip out any rhythmic sense from them, much less a felicitous syncopation. Simplistic they are, but they’re not simple to sing.

Paula peeks at her cards and finds “master class.” Simon tries to give Melinda some useful (and very complementary) criticism, and still has to yell to the audience of booing boobs to “Oh, shut up!”

Ryan and Simon bicker over whether it is worth preserving Simon’s amour-propre to host a contestant who can’t bring out the mean in him, and finally, Paula grabs at a card (the box is labeled “Simon”) and barks out “case study!,” sitting back happily and waiting for someone to pet her hair.

Both Tony and Chris R. admit that Chris has trouble with the lyrics of “Mr. Saturday Night“) (the “don’t get around much anymore” song). But he sings it slinkily, as if he’s not at all wistful that he doesn’t get around much anymore without her, because he’s got hotter places to go.

Paula does the I-poke-out-my-eyes/I-poke-out-your-eyes finger gesture a million scary times. What box was that in?

Jordin is singing “On a Clear Day,” because Stephanie is gone and someone has to step up and be the classy young lady. Tony praises the fact that she’s in tune. Man, no wonder he can’t get worked up about this gig.

She is wearing an eeny-teeny vest over a white shirt and jersey pants and sounds excellent. I hate this song and the way Barbra develops it mouthily and ostentatiously from the beginning of a line to the end. I never know what the judges are talking about when they praise a contestant for making standards “modern,” (you’re asking them to sing, like standards; also, see exhibit Kelly!, who rocked a pure hot-jazz cabaret version that still reigns supreme). All I can hear is how good Jordin sounds and how comfortable she looks.

Gina is singing “Smile.” The strings are all vibrato; Gina is on the Stool of Smiling Through Tears. It is not good. The orchestra is drowning her out. Yuck; the last note blows. And the crowd goes crazy. Waaaaah!

SANJAYA: Sigh. He’s about to hijack the show again. The show rolls over and acknowledges that he is a phenomenon separate from its stated intentions. Sanjaya has accepted this as well. After last week’s sassy smirkfest before the judges, he knows he’s won, whatever happens next, so he puts on a ridiculous white suit, slicks back his endlessly discussable (but is it really?) hair and demonstrates how very uninterested he is in singing “Cheek to Cheek.” He dips and swings Paula around, who doesn’t get it yet, and is delighted. (All eyes on meeeee!) Sanjaya just doesn’t care; he’s doing VFTW’s job for them. The entire performance tells America to jump off a cliff. This is still funny, though. Simon knits up something to say that won’t mobilize the fangirlies; Ryan gleefully unravels it.

And Haley is telling you she’s not going. Not if her very short, very low-cut, very bright green, very glittery dress has anything to say about it. Girl is hanging on with all teeth. She tries to slut up her song “Ain’t Misbehavin‘” by indicating that she is willing to misbehave — to bring it Antonella-style, if necessary — with any man in sight. Bennett placidly points out that the song is directed at only one man. Oh, Haley; you just make me so tired. So she fixes the lyrics but stalks the audience, actually pausing before a group of men to vamp them, and they start clapping. She throws in hip-cocks, shoulder-pops and flirty eyes. Can she even sing? I have no idea. All I can hear is that she wants to go to bed with me SO BAD.

Thanks, Haley! I swing the other way, but nice legs. The judges make a phenomenal mess of their moment, and Haley looks confused and angry and rueful all at once, a look we’ll experience with a side of eye-rolling and snark tomorrow night. Oh, was that a spoiler? Whoopsie!

Tony says LaKisha is very good. Tony is not pouring on the praise, because he is over it. She sings “Stormy Weather” and kind of, well, Haleys it up rather than sounding sad about her man being gone. Her voice is great, but she’s “putting out contradictory signals,” as my Heterosexual Viewing Companion notes ruefully, about how very hot this absence from her man is making her.

WEDNESDAY ROCK CITY: Flashback to last night, out of which boringness/craziness the only image that remains, like the residue on your eyelids after a flashbulb goes off, is of Gina’s insane clown (posse) makeup.

They pants around cleaning cars to the reggae strains of “One Love,” with a cameo by Kermit the Frog at the end. I dunno. It’s organic?

There are three groups, and of the three, the Jordin, LaKisha and Melinda Axis of Talent is the safest one. Blake, Chris R. and Sanjaya are merely safe. Haley, Gina and Phil are unsafe.

Tony Bennett has come down with the “flu,” the symptoms of which are hating “American Idol” and feeling like a chump for listening to his agent. Michael Buble, a far better choice anyway, has found a gap in his schedule and shows up to sing “Call Me Irresponsible.” Now, I thought he was supposed to be cute. But the boy has no profile. He does a Frankenstein’s monster walk that’s supposed to be dancing and sings very lazily. Well, I can’t blame him. Buble makes a kind of funny joke about wasting his votes continuing to call in for Antonella, and it’s cute with Ryan, who then tries to recalibrate the balance of the show by muttering “She’s not with us anymore,” as they go to break. Which … was the joke, Ryan.

Haley, Gina and Phil redux. Phil is magically safe. (You are magic, America! Stupid, but magic.) So here are you bottom two. Ryan throws the ladies on the judges’ tender mercies, and, boy, did he pick the wrong week to piss off Haley, after they toyed with her like cats with one of those feather-on-a-whip thingies. Randy are you surprised?, purrs Ryan. “A little.” Haley examines her nails and ruefully laugh-harrumphs with a sarcastic smirk. It’s fantastic. She is going to go out with a fury, and if she isn’t the one eliminated this week, she’ll have to crawl back into everyone’s good graces after acting out like an aggrieved 8-year-old. So it’s win-win for the viewer.

And — Gina is gone! There are rampant boos, which is heartwarming. Now she has to sing “Smile, though your heart is breaking.” Nice.

Next week: Jennifer Lopez drops by to discuss the merits of doublestick tape, bilingualism and marrying down.

Photos courtesy Fox