Did Lambert’s ‘Mad World’ Deserve Standing O?

The American Idol theme last night was “Songs from the Year You Were Born” and we can think of about ten thousand songs we would have preferred to hear instead of the dreck that was sung last night. We were surprised by how much we liked hearing Allison Iraheta‘s version of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and we give credit to Adam Lambert for making the best song choice of the night with “Mad World” but we still don’t like that guy and ain’t nothing gonna change that. Here are a few things we did like:

5. Simon’s Standing O – Undeserved, We Think.

The best thing about the last fifteen minutes of Idol lately is that the judges have to rush through their critiques and give quicker-than-normal notes on a performance, like Kara DioGuardi saying to second-to-last performer Matt Giraud “Incredible on every level! Unbelievable!” and not trying to get poetic and verbose as she often does. So we were kind of shocked at Simon Cowell who chose critiqued Adam Lambert by simply saying “Words aren’t necessary, I’m just going to give you a standing ovation.” Simon, if he had the time, may have wanted to ask what, exactly, Adam did in that song that was so innovative or different from the version sung by Gary Jules for the Donnie Darko soundtrack. The song was written originally by Tears for Fears whose version was kind of uptempo-new wave, but then it was covered by Jules who uh, Adam basically ripped off. We still love the song and think it was a great oasis in a desert of blah song choices, but if you’re going to call something karaoke, this was it.

4. The Lil Rounds Creation Myth

Finally, the moment we had been waiting for happened last night when we found out what the story was with Lil Rounds‘ name. Lil doesn’t stand for anything and has no apostrophes, and it definitely isn’t an abbreviation for “Little”. Long, long ago in the year 1984, a baby girl was born in Memphis, Tennessee. The baby was named for her grandmother Lily, but her mother thought it would be cute to leave the “y” off. Hence the name Lil. End of story. We can’t believe she’s only 24. Gah, we feel old.

3. Come On, 1985!

Three contestants were born in 1985 and we were seriously disappointed by their song choices from that year. Matt Giraud sand “Part-Time Lover” which, if we had to pick, was our only passable song choice from that year. Scott MacIntyre sang “The Search Is Over” by Survivor and just emphasized the fact that even when Scott wants to rock, it’s very, very gently. (Who here remembered that Survivor had another hit besides “Eye of the Tiger”? And who here also thought “The Search Is Over” was called “I Was Living For a Dream? Just us? Heh.) And finally, the worst song-choice offender of 1985 was Kris Allen. “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”? SERIOUSLY? You’re picking Don Henley? “Boys of Summer” we can see, but good golly, of all the songs available to you, we would not have dreamed up that one. All we want to do is turn down the volume. What about some “Careless Whisper”? Some “Easy Lover”? “Crazy for You”??? Our heart weeps for the songs that could have been.

2. Indulge Me

When Simon hears something he doesn’t like, his go-to criticism is that it feels indulgent. He called Kris Allen’s crappy song choice and uptempo arrangement last night self-indulgent. He told Megan Joy she was indulgent a few times. We don’t think these kids are really confident enough to be overly indulgent, we just think Simon has run out of words. Kris sang a lame song and thought he could freshen it up and make it cool. That’s not indulgent, that’s just bad decision-making.

1. Allison, I Know This World Is Killing You

We fully love Allison Iraheta at this point. We agree with Randy Jackson‘s assessment that she’s reminiscent of Kelly Clarkson, but we actually think Allison has a more versatile range. This was especially obvious when she sang “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” a song we originally weren’t psyched to hear, but damn if she didn’t sing the hell out of it and make us a fan. We wanted so bad to criticize the song choice (again, 1992, great year, how awesome would it have been to hear her sing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”?) but somehow she made that kind of sad, adult contemporary song into something really great and fresh. Simon thinks she needs to show more personality and try harder to connect with the fans which would probably help and get her out of the bottom three every week, but we think she shouldn’t try too hard – one too many bird calls and you’ll end up like Megan Joy.

Final Thoughts:

Danny Gokey is growing out some pointy-ass facial hair.

Lil Rounds wore her best wig yet.

Anoop. Tarheels. We get it.

Adam Lambert, Child Drag Queen: “I liked playing dress-up, not soccer.”