Jacob Clifton at TWOP is the most amazingest American Idol recap writer ever. I thought it was time to dust off this gem that amused me greatly at the time it was written, and again today when I sought it out to alleviate some of the crushing boredom induced by this season's crapfest.
Ryan asks if Adam's going to go the same route as Lil, showing some reverence for the style and demonstrating self-control, and Adam's like, "Fucking what?" Ryan points out the total polar opposition of Adam and
Randy Travis
, and Adam refers to him as a real "gentleman." The idea of Ryan Seacrest sitting there talking about how Adam and Randy Travis
could not be more different in every single way especially the ones you're thinking of is exceedingly skeevy. Then we watch Randy Travis stare into the abyss of crazy that is Adam, and wonder if he's going to live through it. Randy asks if he knows "Ring Of Fire" from Johnny Cash, and he says he's going to sing an arrangement he heard that has an "Eastern influence." And I mean, let's all line up for the chorus of "how dare you butcher" and all that, except for how Johnny Cash was the king of crossing genre covers and
loved that shit. He would have laughed his ass off before the song even started, and probably would have grinned his way through the song itself. But we do love our little moral victories.
Randy Travis is completely flummoxed and maybe terrified by Adam Lambert, or at least doing the polished version of confusion and gay panic that a lifetime of being a well-known Blind Item can teach you. They try desperately not to cry having to talk to each other. Randy calls him a "very nice guy" and a "great singer," nailpolish notwithstanding, which makes me think he's intensely heterosexual and not at all gay, which is probably just a coincidence and not a really sad thing about the industry coming true right before your eyes... And then, of course, things get super effing freaky.
It is... I hate this, because he makes me talk like Paula because people words don't work for things that are essentially otherworldly, so every week it's difficult to describe without resorting to these weird labored metaphors. So -- beyond saying that the Jeff Buckley vocal resemblance gets stronger every week and somebody needs to mention that already -- like... It's sort of like what if that
movie Queen Of The Damned were not only real, but interested in slipping you a roofie and selling you on the black market. He screeches out some kind of artsy orgasm and nearly pulls his shirt up over his head, and then just starts wailing like some forgotten homosexual Greek myth about sailors that never come home. It's... Totally awesome. Of course. I feel weird and crazy, and entertained. Those sudden register shifts used to freak me out with Jeff Buckley too, like, "And now I am a lady... And now I am a dude again." I can't imagine how uncomfortable that must have been for lots and lots of people.But also even if this were
Emo-merican Idol, that was still fucking drastic, like, I don't know that the scariest Punky-Colors bisexual weirdo vampire in Westwood would find this less than totally WTF. Or what if you went on a blind date and it turned out to be with Freddy, and then the date went really well and you had to be like, "Unique fashion choices and burned flesh aside, he has a real charisma. A real way about him." Or have you ever read
Perdido Street Station? It's like if Pennywise read you a chapter from that while wearing a corset and garters and then tucked you into bed, like, "Sleep tight!" I can't stop thinking about it. It makes sparks on my eyelids when I try to wish for something else.
And you know, I always had fun with the whole Sanjaya "No Future Punk Papaya God of Anarchy" thing, but now? Not even that funny, because it's like the prophecy is coming true. I feel like Blake and Sanjaya started down a certain road where this show can just go fuck itself, and now Adam is making that happen for real. Any other year I would say that this is the show breaking right in front of you, but God knows. Maybe
Twilight really did just move us all along the road toward Candyland and we're finally going to admit just how fucking weird we all are, like, if we all do it at once nobody has to feel funny about it.
Kara's like, "This is what Adam doing country music looks like, yes." The audience laughs about how weirded out she is by all of this business, which makes me wonder if America can even handle him this week, but then goes, "It left me confused and sort of happy," which is exactly how I feel
every week. (Simon, quietly: "Just like Paula." Zing!) There's this awesome gay version of Maroon 5 with a bleached bouffant sitting with Adam's mom. Paula references "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin, which is savvy in that it makes the whole thing seem less weird, like, "You bought Zeppelin forty years ago, and the Beatles, and honestly if you look back now without taking drugs, that was also a fucked up time in the life of America." A cuddlier kind of apocalypse.
Simon's like, "But what the hell was that?" Randy Travis giggles with quasi-hateful glee and vindication, but then shrinks back and gets pretty disgusted and bummed when Simon further implies that if Adam goes to Nashville he will be gay-bashed. Good on Randy T for feeling yucky about being co-opted into at least one of the ten bullshit things he's been co-opted into. Adam and Ryan agree that Nashville will not welcome them and will not be visiting, and then Ryan giggles about "Remember Taylor Hicks?" I feel like my hatred of the Taylor Hicks thing was actually a time capsule sent back from right now, and my frustration about Constantine and Nadia and Carrie/Taylor was just impatience to get here, where we are
now. Because right now, the show makes sense to me. ["Which is exactly why I voted for Adam repeatedly last night. I should probably be ashamed of that too. --
AC]
ETA: You can follow Jacob on Twitter
@JacobTWOP
Source and other performances continued
HERE.
