Recap: American Idol: “You Can’t Kill the Boogie, Man”

“You can’t kill the Boogie Man.” A little girl who saw her parents get murdered said that line on Heroes the other night and I raised my fist in solidarity when she did. You can’t kill the boogie, man. But the boogie can kill you (sorry it got your folks). There are only four Idols left and no one’s safe. Pull out your crucifixes and body glitter, because this is Boogie Night. And this. Is American Idol!Boogie is a nice word for disco, two syllables no one will utter aloud for fear of getting a chair thrown at their head by any nearby rocker. Disco killed rock, and then rock killed disco, then disco killed rock again, and now they both kind of suck. But are either officially dead? Too deep for disco? Speaking of unofficially dead, the first shot of the night is a closeup of Nancy Reagan! Aw! Nancy, where you been?

Tink introduces a video montage of Barry Gibb, tonight’s Guest Mentor. No matter your age, you’ve turned down the volume on at least one of his songs at some point in your life. He wasn’t only the leader of the Bee Gees, he has written and produced songs for some of the biggest names in the business. Barbra, Miss Ross, Celine…wait, I’m sensing a trend here. Nah! Barry’s butch as the Brawny man.

During the get to know me montage, Tink never says the word disco once, even though he shows this album cover. I smell a conspiracy against that word.

Stop running, Barry. It’s called Disco.

Barry looks much different now, and without the huge hair and mom jeans I can’t stop staring at his waddle. It looks like a turkey’s neck before it’s made into giblets.

Barry says that since he is used to working with the ladies, he is glad to have the three divas and a possible bottom to mentor, and he jumps right in. Doolittle is up first with “Lovin’ You Inside and Out”. Barry’s skeptical and surprised at first, but after hearing her he says the song sounds great sung by a lady. Always has, Gibblet. Always has.

She takes the stage wearing tight jeans and a fierce attitude and knocks it out of the park. She makes it her own and looks better than she has yet. Every week her extensions get longer and longer, and she gets younger and younger. Weezy Jefferson travels back in time a decade with each episode.

Simon’s pouting by the time she’s done, which can’t be good. Randy gives her credit for great vocals, but wasn’t wowed. Paula has difficulty criticizing Melinda because the vocals are so spot on, but she wasn’t wowed either. She doesn’t know if it was in the song choice, or the performance, or the styling, but they’re looking for “woah woah woah”. Simon rolls his eyes and says what Paula was trying to say was is that she was unimpressed. LOL. He tosses the ultimate diss, saying it sounded like a back up singer track. Ouch. He’s ruder than he’s ever been to Melinda, and she goes from “Gee wiz, me?” to “Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Willis?” in an instant.

Tink asks Paula if that is in fact what she was trying to say and she replies “I keep it short and succinct.” Oy.

Blake’s up next with “You Should Be Dancing” and Barry loves the beat boxing. Here we go. He starts off in the wrong key and is using heavy echo, which doubles the pain. He does his slow mo MJ moves and sings “you should be dancing, y-y-y-y-y-y–yeah!” Y-y-yy-y–you shouldn’t be. There’s a section towards the end where he can break it down, which means he pulls out the ole bag of record scratching and wiggy wiggy. He sounds like my little niece did when she was struggling to pop out her first word.

Randy thinks sometimes the beat boxing works, but tonight it didn’t. He said it was like being in a weird foreign disco tech. Paula says that he was off the melody but still showed why he’s unique. Simon gives him unique but thinks the performance was absolutely horrible. Cowell’s miffed when the music cuts him off, but Tink promises him a chance to call Blake a poser later.

LaKisha’s singing “Stayin’ Alive”, and again Barry doesn’t know how an actual girl will pull off his song. He wants her to take it up into her head voice and I hope she takes his advice. We’ve never heard her head voice.

She still has the spunk and presence she showed last week and makes the song her own. Right now LaKisha’s the underdog, and she works the stage like she’s fighting for her life. She whips her head around and looks at the camera like she’s about to kick it’s ass as she nails that song. She looks like she’s running out of lung space from all the movement, but what she lacks in breath control she makes up for in riffs and wails. Loved. It.

Randy said the melody was great as written and didn’t need any messing with. He didn’t like the stops and starts and thought it was all over the place. Paula points out that the audience was on their feet and Simon interrupts. “They were heading for the exits.” OUCH. Paula says the slowing down the tempo killed the dancing mood. Simon says “no kiss tonight, baby.” I’m sure LaKisha’s all broken up. All he heard was shouting and said her performance was verging on scary in parts. LaKisha smiles her “Thanks for the diss” smile and keeps her lips zipped. Tink says “Simon’s not the kind of guy to call back after the first date to see how you’re doing.” Silly fairy.

He asks Jordin what she’s learned about herself in the competition and she says that she didn’t know she could handle so much. Two songs, the Ford music video plus school. She learned that she’s strong! Giggle giggle face scrunch. She’s chosen “To Love Somebody” even though it was written for a man. Oooh, brave and strong!

Barry tells us that he’s surprised by her choice, but after hearing her, he admits that over 200 people have sung this song and he’s never heard a greater version. Wow. Go, Spanx.

This girl keeps me wondering. She sucked it hard last week, but tonight she is on it. She went from soft to wail, purr to grind, then belted a couple high notes at the end. Nice work, Spanx! Randy says it was the best vocal so far and he liked the Mariah and Aretha thing she brought. Ok, that’s over doing it a little. Paula says there is no kinda. That was hands down the best vocal. Simon agrees and adds “we’re back in the competition!” Jordin smiles twenty smiles in five seconds and giggle giggle grimaces. She’s only 17!

Glad I could help!

Tink asks Doolittle what the first tape or CD she bought was and she says that it was a tape of Michael Jackson’s “Bad”. Her mom scratched out the title and wrote in “Good”. Aw, moms. For her second song she will be singing “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” and the only criticism Gibblet can come up with is that she cuts out part of the song. She explains that she is careful with her lyrics and isn’t about to sing “I’m a loser” on American Idol. LOL, Doolittle. No goin’ down in a blaze of glory for Melinda.

She takes it slow and soft and acts like she’s emoting with the best of them, but I looked down at my wrist three times and I don’t own a watch. I put a cigarette up to my leg hair and burn a little, just to remind myself I’m alive.

Randy says that the second song was much better and she proved once again that she’s the resident pro. Paula still didn’t feel anything, though. You should try the leg hair thing, it totally works. She wants Melinda to throw all her technique out the window and surprise her. Only Paula would suggest not singing so well as a plan to get to the top. She’s waiting for Melinda to jump out. “Like you do, Randy!” When in his life has Randy ever jumped? Simon asks Doolittle “you didn’t understand a word of that, did you?”

Simon thinks the last half of the song put her into the semi-finals. Will Blake be so lucky? He has chosen a more obscure song called “This is Where I Come In”, and Barry is shocked. He has been shocked at pretty much every song choice so far tonight, and he was also shocked that this song wasn’t a hit in the first place. Will Blake’s repeated syllables and hipandcool make it the success Gibblet always knew it could be or will it bomb? Shockingly?

To keep with the times, Blake’s modernized his argyle sweater and put a white streak in his hair, but his beats are the same as always. He can’t stay on pitch through one entire phrase, but his dancing is the most entertaining thing I’ve seen all night. It’s exciting to see someone so unafraid to suck it. Next to Elaine’s idiot dance on Seinfeld, this is my favorite TV choreography ever.

Randy liked this one better than his last, and he dug the reggae spin, but he still wasn’t jumping up and down. He tells Blake that he doesn’t have to beat box on every song. Paula growls “but if you can…” And if you can’t? She calls Blake the “contemporary rebel of this competition”. Umkay. She officially loses all credibility with me (for tonight) when she tells him he sang every note “spot on key”. Pull your labia out of your ears, woman. Simon says that was a horrible choice of song and was “utterly tuneless”. He knows Blake has a lot of “young support”, but he had a bad night. Randy agrees, and Paula says “jive talkin’” about seven or eight times. Tink asks Blake if he thought Simon would get it and Blake says “I didn’t think so.” It wasn’t hard to grasp, ass. Just to listen to.

Tink goes over to say hi to Nancy Reagan in the audience. Wait a second, that’s a drunk ass Judge Judy! My bad. She gets up and tries to kiss the Judges like they’re at a cocktail party and have all the time in the world. Tink jokes that she and Simon were separated at birth, and she waves like she’s on a parade float. I wish the fairy put the time to good use and asked her to judge Blake’s performance.

LaKisha has chosen “Run to Me” as her second song, and you’ll never believe this but Gibblet found it surprising. He tries to talk her into using her high register again, and this time she listens. Wow. She does have an upper range. Who knew?

She does a beautiful job and makes me feel it. I am loving this woman tonight. And then she bones the last note and does that pull the microphone away from the face thing so maybe we’d just think we couldn’t hear the part where she came back on track. Ok, so the upper register is iffy, but I vote for her fifty times anyways because she had the balls to sport the biggest panty line in AI history. Now that’s a contemporary rebel.

Randy said it was much better than the first number, even with the hoarse ending. Paula tells her not to beat herself up over it at all, she’s still a champ. Simon keeps it short. It was better than the first one but she and Blake are both vulnerable tonight. Aw. One crap note and no love? Boooooo.

Jordin’s closing out the show with “Woman in Love” which was sung by Barbra Streisand. The girl’s got a pair, I’ll give her that. Gibblet is impressed with her control and thinks she’s going to turn in the best performance of the night. She starts off strong, but there’s only so much yelling one girl can do in a night. Her voice is wobbly and off key by the middle, and by the end she is screeching like she just found out Barbra originally dedicated this song to Elliot Gould.

Randy calls her pitchiness out and Paula calls her beautiful. Harsh. Simon says it was very old fashioned and pageant-y. What the hell kind of pageants does this guy watch?

I light a smoke and cry for Boogie. You may not be able to kill it, but you can sure beat(box) the hell out of it and make it wish it were dead. I know my sadness has nothing to do with wiggy and a lot to do with the storm of injustice brewing for Wednesday night. I dial and I pray, but I have a feeling LaKisha’s out. What do you think?