Tamyra, Tamyra, Tamyra
Up until now, I always told myself that there was no reason to watch the Wednesday night voting show of “American Idol.” After all, it’s just 30 minutes of filler and ads and fake suspense. Until this week, until tonight, the vote-off was pretty anticlimactic. But I would always end up watching it anyway.
So in the cosmic joke way my life has been playing out lately, the shocker came on the night I decided that the show wasn’t worth watching.
I was so, so wrong.
I have to admit that I thought Tamyra gave the worst performance of the night last night, a bizarre rendering of Patti LaBelle’s “New Attitude.” So her ouster isn’t totally without merit, at least based only on last night (which it shouldn’t be). But Nikki’s singing has been groan-inducing from the start, and I think she did just OK last night. And don’t even get me started about Mr. Floppy Legs Guarini trying to do something I was told was a Michael Jackson impression. I thought he was having a seizure.
I’ve heard some hackers have been using autodialers to flood the phone lines with votes for Nikki. I believe this is one of the preeminent occupations in Hell. The girl knows she’s not going to win, and she wants to go home, people. Let Nikki go home. In the name of all that is holy.
You know, there was really no hope for this show from the beginning, for one good reason: Americans suck. Putting the audience in the driver’s seat is a surefire way to ensure a boring ride with an idiotic destination. (Witness the original Big Brother, which had a terrible cast to begin with but managed to whip through the best of them in a few short weeks.)
I think that Tamyra was trying to pull a Christina-clone thing, and it totally backfired. It’s no accident that she relaxed her hair the week after Christina got the boot. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Tamyra’s big mistake was relaxing her hair. Welcome to America. We don’t like what we don’t recognize, right? Christina came off like a spoiled sorority girl, and Tamyra filled her shoes as soon as she could. As for Nikki, she gets flatter every week.
Oh, I guess the autodialers only make up one percent of the votes. I watch too much Extra. And ET.
I was bracing for the final Kelly vs. Tamyra showdown. I was shocked to see Tamyra gone, yet I understood it. She totally mangled her first song “New Attitude,” going so far as to forget some words. They always vote off people who forget the words. They did it to Ryan and they did it to RJ. As for Nikki, she had a real good first song and did great with her second. I was hoping that the clown Justin would be removed. He butchered “Get Here.” and did not do much better with “P.Y.T.” No amount of eyef*cking should get him through two bad performances.
What are the details of their contracts? If she doesn’t have to sign with the record label sponsoring this thing, maybe she has more room for a deal that rewards her and prolongs her career. If so, she could do the silly American Idols tour, name her terms and see if a bidding war erupts. Geez, why do I even care?
Kelly Clarkson, baby!