If you watched American Idol last night, you might agree with Simon – it was “officially the strangest show we’ve ever done.”
Last night, Ryan Seacrest told everyone that he or she would sing two songs. But, unlike the usual format, they would not hear from the judges until after the second song. Therefore, everyone sang his or her first song and it was a true snoozefest in my opinion. I thought my original favorite, Brooke White, would do great with Neil Diamond since she has a Carol King/Carly Simon feel to her singing. But no, she chose to sing “I’m a Believer.” What was up with that? I never knew Neil wrote that (not that I thought any of the Monkees really did).
Ryan went back on his word a bit – he asked the judges for a quick rundown of the first round of songs before the Idols sang the second round of songs. Randy said what he thought about everyone, and then the camera cut to Paula Abdul. Now, I must admit, I rarely pay attention to what Paula says. She always seems to talk about someone’s spirit being beautiful, how he or she looks, or just paraphrases what Randy just said. However, last night I was listening and she went over Jason’s first song, saying she was happy to hear his lower register. Then, she started critiquing his second song, saying that it didn’t have his usual charm. At this point, I feel like I am the one losing my mind – did Jason sing a second song already?
As it turns out, no, he didn’t. At least not that we saw. After a few moments of everyone looking confused and nervous giggles from the audience, Randy finally corrected her. She then said, “Oh my god, I thought you — I thought you sang twice!” Simon Cowell just rolled his eyes.
So what happened? The show is live, so it couldn’t have been the editing that screwed her up. Maybe she was just caffeined up like she was when she acted crazy on her reality series on Bravo. Paula said she got confused by her notes and was actually looking at the notes for David Cook’s song. Simon asked who her favorite was and she said “David Cook” even though if she was reading her David Cook notes instead of Jason’s second song, she said it lacked charm. Still confused? So am I. But, Simon saved the day with his machine gun run through his comments (his best comment was reserved for David Cook – “just above average”) and the show went on.
Guess what? Jason’s second song did lack charm. Is Paula really psychic? Given her past strange behavior, it could have just been a moment of true confusion – you never know with Paula.