American Idol - The 90s

UPDATE (May 15, 2005)
I removed the files of contestants that have already been eliminated, because I'm running out of bandwidth. :-) I could afford to host more files if y'all would refrain from ignoring my shameless begging section in yonder sidebar. :-)

I disappeared for a couple of days, because I was busy rehearsing. See, I learned on Monday morning at about 5:00 A.M. that the role of Girl Who is About to Hurl would be played by me, and I found it difficult to be anything other than horizontal for about 48 hours. Blech. That was a really mean little critter. I still feel weak and generally crappy, but at least I haven't been seeing any meals in reverse lately.

Anyway, on to American Idol. I had a lot of hits last week from people searching for things like "carrie underwood alone mpeg", and since I was recording AI with my capture card anyway, I thought I'd make clips of some of the performances and post the download links. I have to give the people what they want, you know. Unless you're the person who was searching for "Sally Field rear" (no, just no) or "Clay Aiken Waldo" (oh, THE HORROR.) Incidentally, I hope that wasn't the same person, because that would be even more disturbing than they are separately. I didn't bother with clips of people who sang like elephant sedatives (Bo, Jessica, Scott), who made me feel violated (Constantine), or who gratuitously mentioned their professional baseball-playing father (Nikko).

Depending on how the bandwidth goes, I probably won't be able to leave these up very long - I have to stick with the cheap hosting package because everyone seems to be running from my Amazon links like they're a necrotizing strain of Streptococcus or something. Seriously, if you're just using www.amazon.com as your Amazon URL, you can use mine instead - it's much more interesting. And all the cool kids are doing it. Except that they aren't, because Amazon keeps emailing me to tell me how to activate my associate ID - which makes me shout, tearfully, "It IS active! But nobody will use it! Waaaah!"

Okay, contestants.

What kind of exciting footage are they hoping for when they announce the theme to the contestants? Do the producers think someone is going to start cartwheeling around the room going, "The NIIIIINEEEETEEEEESSS! Yaaaaaaay!" Or the opposite - that someone would fitfully start yanking out chunks of their hair, crying, "The NINETES?? Why?? WHY?????" Anyway, I thought that little segment was pointless.

1. Bo Bice - Remedy by The Black Crowes
   If the female judge had been me instead of Pauler, that cute little hat trick would have been nothing but unfortunate. Poor Bo would have stopped singing and been all, "Errrr ... didn't realize your head was so freakishly large. Hm. Awkward." His voice isn't better than anyone else's in the competition - he's just different. And that's about all I have to say about Bo. Oh wait, no it isn't. The 90s were a blur to him? The entire 90s? Like, from January 1990 - December 1999? That's a whole decade, man - and I haven't decided if that means that his drugs were very good or very bad.
2. Jessica Sierra - On the Side of Angels by Leann Rimes
   Meh. She can do better than that - I'm afraid she won't have a chance, though.
3. Anwar Robinson - I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly
   He sang the first part of the song through his nose, but the second half was good. Ish. Just good-ish. Please get better, Anwar, because I want to like you.
4. Nadia Turner - I'm the Only One by Melissa Etheridge
   Much better than last week. Actually, though, I didn't pay much attention to her singing last week. I was too busy going, "A mohawk?? Is that MOHAWK??" for the entire 90 seconds.
5. Constantine Maroulis - I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt
   Ew, ew, ew. Stop looking at me like that. Please. Ew. Aside from all of the skeeviness, it was a pretty good vocal performance. Although I'm confused by Paula's comment about it being "[his] best male vocal performance". Huh? He performed as a female and thank goodness I missed it?!?!
6. Nikko Smith - Can We Talk by Tevin Campbell
   I really don't have anything to say about him. His jacket looks very vandalized, and that's about all I've got.
7. Anthony Federov - Something About the Way You Look Tonight
   performance clip ~15MB, please right-click and "save as"
   I love, love, love this song. But you know what? Anthony is an example of the problem with cloning - clones just don't have the lifespan of the original. And unfortunately, I think Clay 2.0 is about to fizzle out. I see he's ditched his glasses and his hair is a little Clay-ed - if he stays around a couple more weeks, we may get to see him look as if he's just fallen face first into a vat of bronzer. Ack. And also, someone needs to explain to Paula what an "opinion" is.
8. Carrie Underwood - Independence Day
   (performance clip ~15MB, right-click and "save as", please)
   Aww, she's just as cute as she can be. She did a great job on a song that I really like, and her hair wasn't ginormous this week, so yay.
9. Scott Savol - One Last Cry by Brian McKnight
   I'm going to have to quote SarahK when she said:

   ... he bores me as much as Ruben Studdard did the last 5 weeks of Clay's season.

   Yep. He's very much a Ruben of a different color, minus the scary, giant tongue, the endless parade of "205" jerseys, and the "don't take my baby away" gesture. Right down to that one facial expression of his. I mean, the only one that he seems to have. Maybe he had an unfortunate incident similar to Clay and the bronzer - maybe he fell face first into a vat of Botox. In conclusion, zzzzzzzz.
10. Vonzell Solomon - I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston
    (performance clip ~16MB, right-click and "save as", please)
    I think she's getting much better. The girls seem to be singing circles around the guys, in my opinion. And she didn't say that she has nothing if she doesn't have "Hugh" - Whitney Houston was always very fond of Hugh (I have nothing if I don't have Hugh, I will always love Hugh, etc.) and it always bugged me.