Casey, Lee and Crystal. Three more boring words have never been uttered on the Idol stage. Well, okay, maybe the words Kara Dio Guardi.

We Are The Fallen
Tear The World Down
Universal Republic. 11 Tracks.
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Remember Carly Smithson’s wild ride on season seven of American Idol?  The Irish expat, who finished sixth in a strong pack that included eventual winner David Cook, always came off as a natural-born belter-- Ann Wilson with a brogue, if you will. Yet sometimes it proved difficult to shoehorn her prodigious vocal talents into the show’s narrow musical themes. (Dolly Parton week was not her best moment.) It’s a treat, then, to hear her tackle a genre for which she’s extremely well-suited, namely the sleek goth-pop-metal forged by her new band, We Are The Fallen.

It really must be difficult to come up with a different opening every week, so tonight, with the usual police line-up of the kids, Ryan lists what they did before they became E-list celebrities. Lee was a paint store clerk; Aaron, a high school student; Crystal, apparently a non-working mother; Mike, although earlier identified as a personal trainer, is now called a father, possibly because the lard bucket was more successful at that; Casey, a construction worker; and Siobhan, a glassblower, which I didn’t know you could make a living from. Unless, of course, you were a prostitute with a lot of clients named Glass.

This week’s theme is Shania Twain songs. According to Wikipedia, she hasn’t produced an original CD since 2002. I understand some of these decrepit types being dragged out of mothballs to mentor, like Barry Manilow, Rod Stewart and Wayne Newton, because they have Vegas acts and staying power, if mostly due to the cosmetic surgeons, but this chick seems an odd choice.

It’s the long-anticipated Idol Gives Back week, or IGB, which sounds like an insurance company or texting abbreviation (perhaps “I’ve Got Bupgus”?). Ryan opens the show by announcing, rather dramatically, that the audience will help to save lives tonight. Although when you think about it, we can give to charity any time to help save lives, but if we skip this drek, we can also save a couple hours of our own lives.

The mentor is Alicia Keys, Princess of Soul. Royal musician titles are so repetitive. Can’t whoever is in charge of this stuff try to shake things up a bit and choose a different one? Maybe Dutchess of Soul or Marchioness of Pop. Ryan tells us that Alicia changed the dynamic of R&B forever. I can’t comment on that because I didn’t know what the dynamic was before.

	

		Write comment (0 Comments)
	
	

Natalie Merchant
Leave Your Sleep
Nonesuch. 26 Tracks.
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Not only am I horribly late with this week’s recap, but sadly, there are again no Murghs screencaps. We are all lesser people for this. Also, since she proofreads, there are probably a lot of typos. The show opens with Ryan in the control room, spying on everyone. At least I think it’s the control room. It could be Simon’s office, from which he directs his media empire and plots his world takeover with Ryan as his evil henchman.  

The next unappetizing sight is Kara in a sequined mini-dress with leggings. Stylist Idol should be her next gig.

As my fellow tribeswoman Murghs knows, this week’s performance night fell during the second seder of Passover, Festival of Matzoh, so I was otherwise engaged and had to miss the live show in order to sing Had Gadya with my pitchy cousins. The Holy One, blessed be He, apparently felt that, like our forefathers in Egypt, I shouldn’t be allowed to view the show later, because my laptop is messed up and shuts down when I try to watch an online version, even after I paid a geek to fix it.