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Unfortunately for Candice, her victory came in what undoubtedly was the worst season in American Idol history. With catastrophically bad ratings that saw the once dominant show fall below Spray-On-Hair infomercials in the 18-49 demographic, Idol is now on the precipice of collapse, due in large part to overt gender manipulation, cancerous diva judges, unbearably old and tired music themes, fierce competition from The Voice, and the general aging of a 12 year old show.
On the bright side, at least this disastrous season will produce the much needed, long overdo Idol house cleaning from the top down, starting with axing the out-of-touch and out-of-date Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe and a full reboot of the judges panel. Idol has much work to do if they hope to regain some of the luster lost in this cluster fuck of a season, and they can't afford another one.
However, I'll leave my full WTF must be done for another time. For now, Kenny Poo's selected highlights of what was otherwise a fittingly lackluster finale.
* * *
Janelle. Fucking. Arthur.
Holy shit, girl!! If you told me beforehand that 5th place Janelle Arthur would steal the show on finale night, I'd have spray-spit my Chivas in your face. Yet, that's exactly what happened. She absolutely slayed, killed, crushed, pummeled and destroyed that performance as if it was The Band Arthur.
This just continued the mojo trajectory she had during the Idol season. Any talk of who grew the most during the season should start and end with Janelle. I was NOT a fan of hers at all in the beginning. In fact, I booed my TV when she advanced to the Top 20 over Rachel Hale, but by the time she was eliminated I had actually become a fan.
In fact, by the end I actually preferred her to Kree, who I felt became a bit stale and boring as the show wore on. No, Janelle was no vocal powerhouse like Candice, but who is? I compare her favorably with 3rd place finisher Angie, only in the country direction. Actually, I liked her even better than Angie. A highly entertaining, frisky, polished performer with surprising artistic depth, I was very disappointed the judges chose not to save Janelle when she was voted out in Top 5 week.
Anyway, what she did with The Band Perry on Finale night was OFF THE HOOK! She took it to a fierce new level, showing all the world she damn sure belongs on the big stage - with a record deal to boot.
* * *
Candice and Jennifer
These two stood toe to toe and belted out an unreal rendition of "Inseparable", with a unanimous victory going to Candice, who showed better styling, range and finesse than J-Hud. This was one for the ages, peeps. Check it out. Awesome sauce to say the least.
* * *
Haley and Casey Duet
Now, there's no doubt in my mind that Season 10 was the best season in Idol history. In addition to tremendous talent depth in multiple genres, it also produced the two HOTTEST women in Idol history: Pia Toscano and Haley Reinhart. There must have been a power outage in LA when these two perfect 10s stood side-by-side as Pia interviewed Haley along with fellow AI10 alum Casey Abrams.
Then, the masterful performance...Oh, you mean you missed this? Shamefully, it was only on the Red Carpet pre-show because they had to fit in some critical lip-synching bullshit from Psy, Mariah, JLo, and Franky Valli on the finale (grrrr). What a dumb-ass decision by Nigel, because the Moanin' performance Haley Reinhart and Casey Abrams delivered here was absolutely jazztastic.
Casey actually looks somewhat civilized again with his wild beard trimmed, and he controlled some of his manic tendencies to deliver a beautiful and refined performance. Meanwhile, my girl Haley was just pure buttah. She's not just eye-popping, jaw-dropping, drool-inducing hot, she's also one of the most gifted jazz vocalists to come along in generations.
In fact, if you've been reading my blog and following my twitter you know it's Kenny Poo's life mission to convince Haley to focus on being a jazz recording artist (See my Open Letter To Haley), so watch the Moanin' video above and if you agree with me that Haley Poo needs to go jazzy poo tweet her so at @HaleyReinhart.
That's it for now. Comments welcome. Poo out.
~Kenny Poo
The Pia interview of Haley and Casey, and the latter's performance of Moanin' was probably better than anything I saw in all of season 12.
ReplyDeleteYes to Haley jazz, yes to Janelle killing it, yes to Casey looking better, yes to firing Nigel and the judges (except hotty Keith), yes to Season 10, and yes to Candice's voice. What we're missing is some Pia music!! Come on, it's been too long!
ReplyDeleteThanks for popping in to leave your two cents Annie and Janet! Appreciate it. :)
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