Idol Recap: Lambert Redeems Himself, Lil Rounds Stinks On Motown Night

Every week, the musical genre is supposed to “belong” to one or two specific contestants. Last week people figured Michael Sarver and his Texan oil-rigging ways would kill the country genre, but his performance was a barely intelligible, only just-good-enough performance. This week was Motown week with special mentor Smokey Robinson, and Kara DioGuardi said to Lil Rounds, “This was your week – if you don’t nail it, well, I don’t know.” Sure, plenty of stereotypes play into these assumptions (“Lil, you’re black, please represent Motown”), but the interesting thing is that they haven’t proven to be true yet and there’s always a surprising outcome and elimination as a result. We always figured Allison Iraheta would be a likely candidate to win heavy metal week, but who knew Motown would be her thing? Her performance was one of the best moments of the night, here are the rest (plus photos).

5. The One Trick Ponies

Ever since “Mandolin Rain,” our problem with Scott MacIntyre is that he seems to Bruce Hornsbify all his songs. He has talent, yet somehow all his songs take on a bland, generic feeling. By contrast, Megan Joy was a fruit basket short of getting a job at the Copacabana last night – she was dressed somewhere between a Delia’s catalog model and Carmen Miranda, and despite that, her looks were the only thing the judges could compliment her on. When Paula Abdul told her, “Megan, your stunning beauty takes my breath away,” Simon Cowell retorted “It’s not Top Model.” Megan’s warble did no favors to Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life” and Randy Jackson even went to far as to call it a trainwreck. It’s clear by now that Megan and Scott can’t win this competition because each of them is a one-trick pony. While Scott’s trick is being inoffensive and soft-rock-y, Megan’s is that she makes us wish our hearing would disappear.

4. Was it Lil’s Night to Lose?

Lil Rounds certainly looked the part when she sang the Martha Reeves & The Vandellas song “Heat Wave” – we barely recognized her when she walked onstage at the top of the show. She looked gorgeous (finally, the stylists are getting it right) and was given a throwback hairstyle to match the era of the song, but there was definitely something missing from the performance because it felt like a straight-up cover of the song. Also, we love that when Randy Jackson needs to get critical, he really pays attention to his accusatory tone – he would sooner die than tell someone in a very direct way that they stunk. So he explained to Lil in a roundabout fashion that the song was “not my best performance for me from you.” We didn’t actually think Lil stunk – during the gang’s trip to Hitsville, USA she was really emotional and she was overcome during the Motown studio tour given by Berry Gordy, it obviously meant a lot for her – but the challenge she faced was taking a classic song and owning it. We think maybe she was just too polite to riff on it too much.

3. Adam Croons, The Judges Swoon

Did you guys know k.d. lang was going to be on the show last night singing “Tracks of My Tears”? It was a total surprise to us, too, we had no ide- what? That was Adam Lambert? For real? With the shiny suit and pompadour, crooning that ever-so-gentle, howl-free version? Holy shit. We didn’t hate it. We must be feeling sick right now, maybe we caught Megan Joy’s flu. Simon called it the best performance of the night and while we wouldn’t go that far, Adam removed some of our doubts about him.

2. The Underdogs

We admitted last week that Matt Giraud (pictured, right) was not the most memorable contestant for us, but surprisingly, he and other generic white guy Kris Allen (pictured, left) have started to become less forgettable. We’re almost starting to like them – it hurts so bad to to admit this – as much as we like Danny Gokey. Each week, Danny performs a great version of a great song, but it’s become like, okay, we get it, we’ve always known you’re good. But Matt and Kris continue to impress (and they play instruments – where’s your instrument, Gokey??) and get better. As much as Lil was supposed to own Motown night, we actually think maybe Matt and his version of “Let’s Get It On” did since, let’s be honest, Matt steals from Justin Timberlake, who steals from Michael Jackson, whose career was born in Motown. By way of all that theft, Matt knows how to perform these songs. In our opinion, Allison, Adam and Matt gave the night’s best performances.

1. Paula and Simon Remind Us That Really, This Is Their Show

During a particularly feisty moment, Paula showed that she was prepared to take on Simon’s interruptions and juvenile behavior by reaching under the desk, pulling out a coloring book and crayons and throwing them at him and calling him a 6 year old. Came back to haunt her though because at the end of the show, Simon drew a moustache on Paula with one of the markers she gave him. This is why we love this show.

Final Thoughts:

Scott MacIntyre answered the question we were asking ourselves from the get-go: “They didnt tell me my pants were pink till 10 minutes before the show.”

Kara DioGuardi, Math Major: “I have six words for you – one of the best performances of the night.”

And please judges (and guest judges including you, Smokey Robinson), enough with the “she could sing the phone book” cliche.

[Photos (except Paula Abdul): Michael Becker / FOX]