Well, this year, they've taken a new approach to hook me: the contestants are singing all of my favorite songs. Literally every single one of them. Songs that nobody else likes. Songs that nobody's heard in years. Songs that have never ever been performed on the show before. And yet week after week, Ryan announces what song they're singing, and then I have about .2 seconds to absorb this information and freak out, before the performance starts.
Here's just a taste of my favorites. And let it be said that these are not just songs that I like, these are songs that at one point or another, I have listened to on repeat on a Walkman, or watched over and over again on YouTube. These songs make me happy, sad, remind me of people, places, and things.
Volcano - Damien Rice
U Got It Bad - Usher
Right Here Waiting - Richard Marx
I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt
Ready For Love - India. Arie
Eternal Flame - The Bangles
But this week....this week was my undoing. Phillips Phillips. Dear God, that irresistible country boy. He sang We've Got Tonight by Bob Seger. That song.....I love that song for multiple reasons. It has long been at the tippy top of my list of songs for someone to dear god please sing on Idol. And if I can direct you to the following excerpt from this very blog, on March 28th of last year (Happy 25th Birthday Leah!):
So aaaaaaaanyway, while listening to the best hits of the 80s 90s and today on Y94FM yesterday, I heard "Why Don't You Stay" [Ed. Note: Apparently this is not the actual title. My bad.] by....I think Bob Seger. And god damn if that wouldn't just make a fantastic Idol song. Why, you ask? Let me tell you. Imagine it's the final weeks of Idol, and two contestants, be they secretly pining for one another, or just super close friends after all their backstage bonding in the mansion, sing a duet of "Why Don't You Stay". Sample lyrics: "We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow/ We've got tonight babe, why don't you stay" Reading between the lines: "We've got tonight [This is so great! We're on TV! With JLo! We live in a mansion! Everything is awesome!], who needs tomorrow [Fuck elimination night, WE'RE CELEBRITIES! We're gonna live forever like the kids from Fame!]/ We've got tonight babe, why don't you stay [how about you NOT get voted off, so that we can throw a huge rave in the mansion this weekend?]" Because if I were on Idol, my song choices would be lousy with clever secret messages. Because I would be the greatest Idol contestant of all time. I've worked it out to a science. If only I can find a lovesick mermaid whose beautiful singing voice I can steal.
So....that's not how it played out at all. Only because I was not there to be the fellow contestant that Phillip is sleeping with behind the producer's backs, but shares an undeniable onstage chemistry. BUT he actually SANG the song, and he KILLED it. Slayed it. Like a dragon slayer. Or a vampire slayer, if you will. It was really the first song he outright sang on the show, without really Phillip-izing it. And he was obviously a little nervous about it, because he kept STROKING HIS THIGH continuously throughout the performance.
His performance closed the show and brought the house down. I had already resigned myself to Phillip going home this week, and rightfully so, because Jessica and Joshua are both AMAZING vocalists. And in Idol situations like this, I don't even vote, because they are all so good. But after he did this...I had to vote for Phillip. And it seems the rest of America felt the same way, and voted him into the finals, sending Joshua home (Which I am super sad about.)
Anyway here it is. Be still my beating lusting heart:
P.S. - Let it be said now, that if ANYONE sings After All by Cher and Peter Cetera in next week's finals, someone please tell my parents I love them, because I will be dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment