SILVER-MANED SINGER Taylor Hicks made his name by winning the fifth season of "American Idol" in 2006, fueled by the support of his fans, dubbed the Soul Patrol. Since then, the 33-year-old has released two albums and parlayed his "Idol" success into a stint on stages across the country as the Teen Angel in the national tour of "Grease." Hicks and company land at the National Theatre Feb. 9-21.
» EXPRESS: Had you thought of doing professional musical theater before "Idol"?
» HICKS: Never in a million years would I dream that I would actually grace a Broadway stage in New York City. That's what "Idol" allows — the platform to be an entertainer and to experience all facets of the business.
» EXPRESS: What was it about "Grease" that lured you to sign on?
» HICKS: You always want to start small and get bigger, and from just a learning perspective — not having ever had any acting training — I think taking a small role like Teen Angel was the best move for me because it allowed me to get my feet wet.
"THE LONGEST OF JOURNEYS," says Seacrest in a bombastic introduction to the evening's episode, "starts with the smallest of steps."
For most of us, that step was hitting the "Power" button on our TV. And the journey was slogging through four weeks of atonal warbling by nameless ne'er-do-wells on "Idol," with the occasional sob story thrown in.
Oh, and a good singer or two. Occasionally.
Now, we're treated to that most time-honored of TV traditions: a clip show. In this case, one that will introduce us to the final people this season to step into what Seacrest calls "the most famous arena in the history of television."
Unless you count "The Ed Sullivan Show." Or "American Bandstand." Or "Soul Train." Then "Idol" is definitely the most famous. In America, at least. So it's the most famous recent arena on American television. In the 2010s. That airs at night.
Anyway.
This is the broadcast that provides "Idol" with its first real opportunity to comment on its single watershed moment so far this season: The emergence of General Larry Platt's zeitgeist-harnessing hit "Pants on the Ground." And the producers dive in with aplomb, showcasing as many different performances of "Pants" as they can. As if we hadn't been forced to see them all by now.
But can they do us one better by giving us something new to talk about during this episode? Not really. But we at least wind up hearing from more good singers than bad ones, and that's certainly an improvement.
On to the evening's superlatives.
I'M ABOUT AS EXCITED for another "Idol" audition round as I am to see snowflakes falling outside my window as I type this. But as much as I hope that this week's bursts of white flakiness — we're expecting another storm on the East Coast this weekend — will be Washington's last for the winter, "Idol" has at least given me hope without the guesswork. This week will be the last hurrah for auditions, and for that I am glad.
So let's settle in, shall we, as for a burst of flakiness made for our TV screens.
DOPPELGANGER BUSTERS
"I probably get at least once a day that I look like Jack Black," contestant Mark Labriola says with not very much humility. "I don't have a problem getting compared with the ugliest guy in Hollywood, 'cause he's funny and I'm sure he gets girls. So I deal with it, y'know."
Right. Except I don't. Because to my eye, Mark doesn't look a thing like Jack Black. It's almost as bad as the doppelganger fever that's sweeping Facebook right now: the latest meme is to change your profile picture to an image of a celebrity you think you look like.
It's had several lamentable consequences. For example, fielding new friend requests is more of a guessing game than usual, since I'd be a lot more likely to recognize my coworker's pal Charlotte if she didn't have Courteney Cox as her profile pic.
But the worst is watching friends overreach when choosing their doppelganger (having salt-and-pepper hair, for example, doesn't make you George Clooney) — or seeing them pick a lookalike who's just a little too spot-on. Can you ever look at your Aunt Fran the same way now that you know she's a dead ringer for Edie McClurg?
Aside from being a moderately hairy man of somewhat larger carriage, Mark's look doesn't strike me as Jack Black-like. However, Jack Black annoys me. And right off the bat, so does Mark.
Annoying moment #1: This statement: "I'm the guy doing the thing that dudes do, and I'm here." It's like he's channeling late '80s Corey Feldman, but without the bank account and the groupies to back it up.
Annoying moment #2: He greets the judges with a snazzy finger-pointing thing and the word "Cello." It's like he's gearing up to sell them a car.
Annoying moment #3: He sings — sigh — well, which means I'll have to see him again. I'd agree with guest judge Victoria Beckham — I thought Mark was going to be a joke, but it turns out that he's got skills. And quite a curious history, what with living on the lam and what have you, which for some reason piqued Simon's interest. Not so much mine, but whatever.
MY FELLOW "AMERICAN IDOL" VIEWERS, I come to you today to call for change. Change we can believe in. Change we can support. Change that must come.
For too long, we have endured a creatively asphyxiated month-long slog through "Idol" auditions every year. We are tired of being told which singers to like. We're sick of the seemingly endless parade of melvins who warble into our ear like grocery store Muzak. We've had enough of stories so clearly meant to endear us to the poor unfortunate soul at their center — "His uncle had a disease that turned him into a goose. How can I *not* support his bid to become fabulously rich and famous?" — that we'd seem heartless to think otherwise. To think for ourselves!
The state of our "Idol" is weak. But we can make it stronger.
We can speak with one voice and say "No more!" We can tell the "Idol" producers to actually program something in January. To condense these pointless, repetitive auditions into something palatable. To get on with the part of the show in which we get to know people, to root for them because we think they're talented or nice or hot or that they meet whatever subjective criteria we choose to set up for them.
Yes we can! And if they refuse to listen, my friends, we can surely change something else: The channel.
God bless you, and God bless America.
DON'T MESS WITH BRANDING
Wednesday's "Idol" auditions occurred in Dallas, which of course means the producers must delight us with sights and sounds that signify we're in Texas.
Hokey Texas-themed country song playing in the background? Check. Series of signs reading "Don't Mess With Texas," which only serve to make messing with Texas seem all the more appealing? Check. Gratuitous shots of cattle? Check. The Cowboys cheerleaders? Natch. "This is my favorite day ever at work," Seacrest says as he approaches them. It's 2 for 1 sub day at Blimpie. He's a fan.
And I've got to admit right off the bat that I'm a fan of guest judge Neil Patrick Harris, who starts off on a funny foot by telling Karathat his goal in his day of judging is "to shatter the dreams of thousands. If I can make two, three dozen people cry, then I've accomplished my goal."
He gets his first shot with Julie Kevelighan, a gal we first met waaaaaaaay back in season one, when Paula had a perm and Simon was going through his pudgier-Robert-Downey-Jr. phase.
She's disconcerting in several ways. A replay of her 2001 attempt at "Lady Marmalade" doesn't fill me with hope so much as dread, and the combination of the cadence of her speech and her Wonder Woman-esque dress and her cartoonish glittery eye shadow make it pretty clear that this is not the next Kelly Clarkson on my screen.
Her audition proves it. And then after a brusque, but polite, shove-off from Neil, she bursts into "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." And then into Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About." And then she's finally, blissfully, ushered off by security.
On to superlatives.
MANY "AMERICAN IDOL" contestants refer to their singing ambitions as a dream. And whether those dreams are attainable or not, it's clear they didn't start — and likely won't end — with just a few fleeting seconds of national TV time.
Three of Tuesday night's rejects have taken their show to YouTube, the Internet's premier Island of Misfit Toys. Come along and see the fruits of their labor — if you dare.
AUSTIN FULLMER
He confused us all with his Mick Jagger-esque performance of a Cheap Trick tune on "Idol." Now, he's a little more Bowie, but still strangely British-sounding on this video posted just last night for an, um, original tune called "Sex Machine."
Some lyrics: "I'm not just a sex machine, you keep touchin' and touchin' and drivin' me crazy." Uh huh.
The video's worth a watch for the Buster Poindexter-style facial expressions alone. His "Idol" vid's on top, the new one's below that.
Continue Reading "American Idol: Los Angeles, the YouTube Files" »
AT ABOUT THIS TIME during the seemingly never-ending "American Idol" auditions each year, I start to get the impression that the "Idol" powers that be are pretty much phoning it in.
Their formula goes something like this: intersperse decent singers with the miserable ones, throw in at least one, but preferably two stories that tug at the heartstrings and hype, hype, hype like every minute of airtime is freshly spun gold.
Judging by Tuesday's opening, they're not even trying to hide it.
The setting is the studio of Seacrest's radio show, which is broadcast in Los Angeles, the scene of this episode's auditions. It is by no means representative of L.A., unless someone injected Seacrest with Botox, filled the studio with smog and set part of the joint on fire.
It's uninteresting. It's barely even television, really. And it's such an afterthought that the "Idol" producers didn't even make Seacrest leave his other gig to do it.
Can the producers sink lower? We've got two weeks of auditions left to find out!
LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRAZY!
Of course, L.A., the land of the wannabe, would produce a massive crowd of oh-my-God-I-have-to-sing singers — 11,000 in all. This could be one of the few times I actually feel sorry for the millionaires on the judges’ panel.
Speaking of the wealthy, we start the proceedings with guest judge Avril Lavigne, who's looking indie-cutesy in her devil-horned hoodie and sounding especially Canadian. I wonder what that's all aboot.
But very little could prepare me for our leadoff hitter of the evening, Neil Goldstein, a, um, self-confident chap who appears to have made off with Martha Stewart's hair and Neil Diamond's wardrobe.
At his core, though, Neil is a brainy 15-year-old girl with a thesaurus and a dream:
In my heart is the love to perform, the love to touch the souls of others. To exhilarate, to exultate, to exalt in what it is to be human, to be vulnerable, to have strengths and weaknesses and passions and loves and hates and everything bundled up inside, until you can let it out.So he didn't get beat up a lot as a kid, he got beat up a whole lot.
He's very shiny. And has a tic in which he makes a clicking sound with his mouth at the end of every sentence? And he surely has a gift for vibrato. And when the judges, of course, tell him thanks but no thanks, he stages an awkward, but almost endearing protest — like a very proper man telling a firing squad "you can't shoot me because I simply shan't die today!" It's all very Frasier Crane.
"I really do think 'American Idol' lost out today," Neil tells us during his post-flameout interview. "I really do think, in the grand scheme of things, they're going to be the bigger losers."
Don't think that, Neil. Don't ever think that.
LET'S JUST ADMIT IT: Tuesday's auditions in Chicago were a failure. A bomb. A bust. A waste of an hour of airtime. With a mere 13 golden tickets handed out, you could have filled a hotel with angry monkeys and you'd have been as likely to find just as many who could sing.
Fill a room with Monkees and your percentage gets even higher: three out of four. Sorry, Peter Tork.
Would the hopefuls Orlando, Florida fare better? In a word, yes. This episode gives us 31 Hollywood-bound singers — more than double Chicago's haul.
And their story starts with a shazam.
ALL THAT GLITTERS ISN'T GOLD
I have no idea which Lady Gaga fan club Theo Glinton came from, but his sparkly, spangly, mirror-ish getup is a little bit "Terminator," a little bit Cher and fierce enough to make Meshach Taylor scream for his mama.
He makes up for his flashiness with humility ("I am beautiful. I am all that anyone can be.") and a dash of coquettish incoherence ("My gift is something you get only on particular days. I'm just something that you can just get a piece of on Monday and on Tuesday when you put it in the microwave to warm it up, it's still good.").
His family and friends must be patient, saintly people. Who get very strange presents at holidays.
I expect a bedazzled train wreck, but when Theo sings, I'm surprised. I mean, he's not good, but he's not godawful. I've never heard a Pat Benatar song sound as much as an exorcism set to a beat as when Theo sings "Heartbreaker," but I guess there's a first time for everything.
My favorite reaction from the judges is a twofer from Kara: "you're not Jennifer Hudson," which makes poor Theo audibly gasp, and "...but you smell nice." See? Everyone leaves happy. Or at least smelling pleasant.
WHO SAYS TELEVISION isn't educational? Within the first two minutes of this "American Idol" episode, we learn three important pieces of information:
» 1) Chicago is, apparently, a place where people curse like sailors. Maybe it's the proximity to the Navy Pier?
» 2) Guest judge Shania Twain apparently got so stressed once that she, um, peed herself. I hope her assistants take a step back if she starts to look peckish.
» 3) Simon can be very polite when there's a pretty lady in the room. Also, his man boobs are up to a C-cup.
Take that, "Sesame Street." Who needs to learn to count, anyway?
SWEET AND MORE SWEET
Katelyn Epperly is the judges' first victim, and wouldn't you know that the curly-maned 19-year-old has a story to tell? She's auditioning partly for her mom, who was apparently recently left by her husband. Who isn't asked his side of the story. So we're supposed to hate him, right? Boo! Boo, bad man!
Despite her family struggles, Katelyn chooses to sing "Syrup and Honey" by Duffy, and her voice sure does bring the sugar. It's got an intriguing vibrato, and I can't help but think she sounds a bit like Mariah Carey, although I really can't explain why. She's put through to the Hollywood round.
AMY LANG, AMY LANG, AAAAAAAMY LAAAAAAANG, THE MUSICAL
If the world is indeed made of energy, Apples in Stereo fans, then we need to band together to keep Amy Lang from using it all up.
She's perkier than Katie Couric, louder than Fran Drescher and possibly even more bubbly than this guy. And she tells us all about her inappropriate dreams involving Seacrest, which is sure to mean nightmares for at least a thousand or so "Idol" viewers. Sorry, guys.
(By the way, is Seacrest looking particularly reptilian lately or is it just me?)
Can anything bring her down? Yup, botching her audition.
She takes a chance by faking a fainting spell as an intro to Aretha Franklin's "Dr. Feelgood, and Simon is so miffed that even a display of her dancing boobs — or "boobboxing," Kara yips, attempting to add a word of her very own to the lexicon — can't save her. Clearly, she didn't put her breast foot forward.
Good on her for this, though: she didn't make a scene after she got rejected. If only some of her fellow Chicagoans would have followed suit.
Want more boobs? Look no further than superlatives.
FOUR YEARS AGO, Taylor Hicks rode a wave of support from a dedicated group of fans to a win in a competitive "American Idol" season that included contenders like Katharine McPhee, Elliott Yamin, Chris Daughtry and Kellie Pickler, who've all gone on to some measure of professional success.
He released his second album last March, and he's currently touring the country as the Teen Angel in a national production of the musical "Grease."
I talked with the Soul Patrol sovereign ahead of "Grease's" stop at D.C.'s National Theatre in February. I'll have more on that in a couple of weeks. But here are some of Hicks' thoughts on "Idol's" recent judging changes and an activity contestants should steer clear of during the show's run.
» EXPRESS: Simon Cowell's announced that he's going to leave at the end of the season. Do you think "Idol" can go on without him?
» HICKS: I have no doubt in my mind that "Idol" will go on. "Idol" is about the talent and the contestants, not necessarily the judges. I think the judges play a big part, and they can help break up the monotony sometimes. But ultimately the idea is what people love about "American Idol," and that is the American dream.
» EXPRESS: How do you think Ellen DeGeneres will do as a judge?
» HICKS: I definitely think her jokes will be funnier than Simon's. She's obviously made for television. She's an all-around entertainer, and I think she's going to do well for the show.
Continue Reading "American Idol: Taylor Hicks on Ellen, Simon and the New Season" »
THE SECOND HALF of "American Idol's" season premiere starts with very little preamble, and so we shall as well.
Except to say this: How awesome must it be to be Mary J. Blige's kids (whom we saw saunter into the "Idol" audition space with Mom)? I mean, sure, there's some danger in being the child of a famous parent. But Mary J. isn't just famous, she's awesome. And she, my friends, is our guest judge for the episode.
FIRST IS THE WORST
I know we're in for a long night when Dewone Robinson appears on my screen. Right off the bat, he exhibits several of the Signs An Audition Won't Go Well: His speech pattern is slightly askew, his waistband has climbed to Urkel-like heights and he makes wild claims of family musical grandeur.
Then, there's what happens in the audition room. The phrase "I'm singing a song I wrote myself" must be some kind of cosmic code for "And now, prepare for crazy."
For it is crazy he delivers. Here are the lyrics to his song, "Lady, We're Not Together Anymore" — or at least as many as he was able to sing:
"Lady, I know you (<-- sung in an off-key falsetto, with the word "lady" pronounced as "laity")
Baby, I know you (<-- delivered in a deep growl)
Lay-lay-ladyyyy, I knooooow you (<-- falsetto again)
It's over, It's over, it's over, it's overrrrrrrr." (<-- sung just plain badly)
"Was this written as a duet?" Simon asks in all seriousness.
Says Dewone, looking confused and somewhat offended: "No, not a duet, sir. ... I was playing both parts."
Then he mocks Simon? And sings his terrible song again! Are we being punished for something? Also, why is the part addressing the lady sung in a high voice and the part that's presumably the lady responding sung in a low one? The world may never know.
Thank God the next contestant is someone who doesn't make me fear for the future of humanity. Keia Johnson has a sunny disposition and the solar-hued pants and hair to match.
She sings Celene Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," a song that I wish would disappear down a deep, dark hole. But she does a superb job with it, as is noted by the judges. She's through to Hollywood.
Speaking of sun, is Simon looking a little extra spray-on tanned to anyone else? His chest, of which we get a near-constant view thanks to his trademark cheap V-neck, seems to be darker than his neck and face. They clash.
Addison Road
