Idol chatter

So I had three hours of freedom when I got home today. And I had a choice -- take a much-desired nap or get some much-needed work done around the house.

I did neither. I caught up on the three hours of “American Idol” I had avoided up until this point in the week. … Not that I was yearning to watch it. I’m fighting my lack of interest in this year’s contestants -- and television in general -- more each week, and Alexis Grace getting the boot last week didn’t help.

But then my love of music overpowers. And you can’t go wrong with Motown … Truth be told there were some parts of Wednesday’s show I really dug -- including Paula throwing a set of coloring books and box of crayons at Simon.

Starting with Matt Giraud’s opener on “Let’s Get It On” … The piano intro, the falsetto -- the whole thing was brilliant … I enjoyed it so much I figured I’d go down and download it from iTunes as soon as I finished this post. Then Ryan mentioned after the first commercial break that all of this week’s songs are set to the original instrumentals … Doh! The updated piano and instrumental was one of the things I really liked about Matt’s version.

I thought Kris Allen (“How Sweet It Is”), Danny Gokey (“Get Ready”) and Allison Iraheta (“Papa Had a Rolling Stone”) were just OK.

On Scott MacIntyre’s “You Can’t Hurry Love,” I loved his rockin’ piano accompaniment. But his voice is wearing on me more each week. He just isn’t cutting it for me anymore.

Megan Joy really hasn’t been cutting it since her audition … I’ll give her some props for picking Stevie Wonder‘s “For Once In My Life.” I don’t have to go on about how much I love that song or even Stevie Wonder’s music ...

(Speaking of Stevie, how awesome was his medley performance during Thursday's results show!? ... On a few other notes, did anybody else get the sour feeling the gang was lip-syncing during their group performance? Apparently others realized this sooner than I did ... I ended up really liking Ruben Studdard’s performance of “Together.” I had planned to fast-forward through it, but the piano intro helped change my mind … It turned out Joss Stone and Smokey Robinson was the performance I should have skipped.)

But as I watched another week of Megan shuffling awkwardly around the stage, I was certain the judges were going to blast her. I know she doesn’t stand a Sanjaya’s chance of winning the thing. Still, I love her personality, she’s fun to watch and I love seeing what she’s going to come up with each week … At least on Wednesday night, aside from all the criticism, the judges duly noted how gorgeous she looked.

Anoop on “Ooh, baby baby.” … Um, Noop. Same goes for Michael Sarver and Lil Rounds. Sorry, folks. It’s nothing against them, I just haven’t seen or heard anything from them that makes me want to latch on.

See ya later, Sarver. It's a week too late, but I'll take it.

And then there was Adam Lambert, another guy I just haven’t understood. … His performance this week, however, completely blew me away. To echo Smokey Robinson, I loved his tender, stripped-down, mellow treatment of the song. And to jump off of Kara’s critique -- one of the best performances of the season. … Chalk it up as another performance I’d be racing to download -- if it had Adam’s accompaniment. Double-doh!

Good reads...
a Most Awkward Mentor Moments
a America worships 'Idol'
a `Idol' finalists savor group prize: concert tour