Idolatry - The Show Must Go On - The Music of Queen - 4-11

So, after two weeks of music I wasn't really feeling, we get to a catalog I am both familiar with and love deeply. If there is a true band of the age of the thing, Queen was it. If the road to wisdom is paved with excess, Queen must be pretty smart. Therefore, they are, more than Supertramp, Foreigner, The Backstreet Boys or any techno artist you can think of, the Official Band of the Age of the Thing. Since Idol is one of the high water marks of the Age, it only follows that the two would eventually meet. Granted, there have been some encounters before, like Constantine's Bohemian Rhapsody, but never have the two touched so formally and so deeply. With a mixture of anticipation and trepidation, I watched. Anticipation because I lvoe the music of the most popular Prog Rock band ever (think deep on this... it is true). Trepidation because Idols mostly murder songs I love. It was also with a little bit of sadness. I would have paid money to hear Mandisa sing Fat Bottomed Girls. If that wouldn't make the show's entire history in great comedy moments, I dunno what would. Any rate, on with the commentary.

Bucky opened the show with Fat Bottomed Girls. Great song, great song for him. He sounded pretty good. The band and the background vocals don't mesh with him and I think it's to his detriment. I determined this by listening to his vocal and tuning out the band. He sounded good. With the band and the accompanying stuff, he sounded out of sorts. Since the show is designed to SELL the SINGERS, I think this is junk and should be fixed sooner rather than later. It's not that Buck can't sing (he can) it's that he can't sing with the house band tuned for McPhee, Paris, and company. At any rate, I liked the performance. A lot of fun and I like that they let Bucky on with just regular long hair (as opposed to the "Miss Farrah Fawcett From TV" look they had him working a few weeks ago). While Bucky has been hanging around longer than I thought he would/could, and he went first, I dunno that I see him in the bottom three. Granted, he's been there before, though not recently. But if we're grading on performance, he wasn't one of the worst three. And his fan base has grown and become more resilient, so I'm not going to say it just now.

Ace did We Will Rock You. Lemme start by saying I didn't not like it and there were worse performances on the night. And also, I don't have a problem with Ace's arrangement of the song. That said, let's get critical. Ace's voice just doesn't sound good. Last week, I think I opined that he and The Buckster had the same problem, the band. This week, I decided that this is only Bucky's problem. I tuned out the band and Ace sounded WORSE. I think the showmanship works for some and won't work for others. I wasn't moved one way or the other. And I think that's the problem. Ace also strayed FAR from the script here. He could have done something like (just picking from the highlights page at Allmusic.com) Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Love of My Life (my pick for Ace) or You're My Best Friend (second choice). Keep reminding people that you're good looking and the girls (the ones young enough not to know better) will keep voting for you. And there's more room for goofy facial expressions in those songs. We Will Rock You just doesn't have enough room for closeups and that means no Funny Ace Face. And at this point, even though he's probably the contestant whose musical taste most closely mirrors my own, Funny Ace Face is the main asset.

I would say that Bumkin sang Bohemian Rhapsody, but that'd be a very loose definition of what she did. Murdered would be closer to the mark. Let's think about this. Contestants are given One Minute and Twenty Seconds in which to style some vocals that will persuade viewers at home to pick up the phone and dial 10 numbers for two hours. If you knew, going in, that you had a scant 80 seconds, would you pick a song that has the following characteristics:

1. Is THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY FIVE seconds (enabling you to sing less than 25% of the song)
2. Has FOUR clearly delimited sections (the Opening, Scaramouch, the Rocking Out, and the Close) that have four distinct tempos, moods, tones, ranges and everything (that's 20 seconds to each segment, unless you axe one)
3. Is a beloved classic in the full form to pretty much anyone old enough to have seen Wayne's World (never mind the millions of fans who loved the song before it was reintroduced in that flick).
4. Barely makes sense when performed in it's long form.
   

If you are smarter than your average house brick, you probably would pick something else, given the 80 second limit. Even if you got two minutes (on the 80 second thing, I'm going by Paula's comment, so she might mean 120 seconds and be confused), you're still leaving more than HALF of a song on the cutting room floor. That works fine for your typical Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus song. You can axe it to a Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus structure and life is good. Bohemian Rhapsody's structure is V-V-V-B-Alt.V-Alt.V-Third V-V. It doesn't make sense with missing pieces. It makes even less sense with abbreviated peices. And that's what the Pickler did. We cut the first verse, then skipped to the Third Verse and abbreviated the final verse. It made no sense. On top of that, she was pitchy in EVERY piece of it she sang. She sounded horrible going Oooooh-Oooooh. She sounded horrible in other parts too. But apparently no one noticed, so transfixed by the spectacle that was this abuse of music. I HATED it and if there is any justice, we will be free from her abuse by this time tomorrow. The only thing that would keep me from wanting to see her voted off tomorrow is that she would have to perform this monstrosity AGAIN and I don't know if I can handle that.

And, as if murdering the song wasn't enough, she had to play IDIOT again when Simon tried to say he liked it (Did he listen to it? Is he deaf? I expect this shit from Paula, but not Simon). She came off as dumb as a house brick. And I guess that explains the whole thing. Folks who are saying that she plays dumb have it wrong. She really is this dumb. And it's not just dumb. It's ignorant. She's as dumb as a brick, and, if asked, would probably admit to being dumber than some of your big city bricks that have had some larnin'. I knew willful ignorance was a pet peeve, but this is like a raw nerve by now. Please, put me out of my misery. Before they negotiate to have Prince night. I might break my TV.

Chris sang the title song from the last Queen album, Innuendo. While Innuendo was a pretty good end to a great career of new music, went multiple gold, and produced a number of radio hits, Queen never got to tour in support of it. Freddie was pretty sick. They released the album. A couple weeks later, he came out (not exactly the biggest state secret). A week or two later, he admitted to having AIDS and then a week or two later, he was dead. If they toured the album, they didn't tour it heavily or much as Freddie's health was in a pretty sad state. If you listen to the album, it's a lot about issues of dying and failing health. The Show Must Go On is clearly about going on when the ghost has pretty much given up. And Innuendo is about the same stuff, and probably about coming out too. So, it's a weird song for Chris to sing. Granted, it fit his vocal styling well. And it felt pretty commercial. Afterall, Freddie and Queen were great pop song writers, in addition to virtuosos of glam-prog rock. If you were Chris, and you were gonna pick Queen songs that people other than hard core Queen fans had heard, you might pick I'm in Love with My Car or We are the Champions or even "Another One Bites the Dust." If you wanted to take ownership of something, you might pick Killer Queen and restyle it (This would be a good move). At any rate, I thought it was pretty good. Wife liked the vocal, didn't like the song. By picking a deep cut from a less known album, that's the risk you run. I think it's getting to be a little late in the competition for that risk. All that said, I think Chris was #2 on the night, and #1 at this point. Simon as much said so.

Katharine did Who Wants to Live Forever made popular in the Highlander movie. Queen released it on A Kind of Magic, which was effectively an expanded soundtrack album for Highlander. Massively popular in Europe (aka Goofy Europe) but less so in the States. Toured massively there, not so much here. Pretty good song, maybe the most interesting of the Queen Ballads. Katharine came out dressed as an extra from Highlander, some immortal with time confused fashion sense and an allergy to natural fibers. She sang the song pretty well. Little stiff, a little pitchy, a little blah, but McPhee is always Blah for me, so I can't count that against this performance (only against the total body of work). Not my favorite, though I think she picked a good song for her. Simon was right, saying she wasn't big enough for the song, but I think that's the difference between manufactured stars and people who build it themselves. Let's take Queen and N'Sync. Yes, there are members of NSync who can sing big (J-Timber and JC) but would you really want any of them fronting Queen? Let's just say this: McPhee will not be fronting an arena rock band anytime ever. It's just not her deal. At this point, she was #2 behind Chris, even with the bad song choice by Chris. Last note here: she changed her song once Mandisa got voted off. She was gonna do Don't Stop Me Now. I would've liked to see her murder this song, only because of the lyrics. For your viewing pleasure, some excerpts from Don't Stop Me Now that I would have found amusing for McPhee to sing:

I'm a shooting star leaping through the skies
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva
I'm gonna go go go

I'm trav'ling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic woman of you

I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars
On a collision course
I am a satellite I'm out of control
I am a sex machine ready to reload
Like an atom bomb about to
Oh oh oh oh oh explode

While not exactly R. Kelly's Bump and Grind, I want to hear her say "sex machine ready to reload" real bad. The uninentional comedy scale would break. Yes, break.

Elliot did Somebody to Love. Every week, his hair grows a little and his looks get better. I think we can call a moratorium on the haircut that Yamin came to the show with. Only guys who look like Brad Pitt, Ralph Fiennes or Russell Crowe (* I dunno if these are hot guys or not, but that's what the media seems to want me to think) can wear their hair cut that tight to their head with bangs. On the performance, it wasn't my favorite Elliot song. Just didn't move me. Still making all the right choices, and I don't think there was a lot of room in the Queen catalog for him, so it's still good enough for the top half, but in the words of the Randy Robot, It's not my favorite for him for me for him.

Taylor did Crazy Little Thing Called Love in the Taylor Style. It worked. He was back to what he does. Predictably, Simon didn't like it. I might buy the Taylor album when it comes out. I like some good soul music. I dunno that I need to see him live. At any rate, I dunno where I place him this week right now. I will sum up the bottom three at the end. I think we are running out of time before he should do Yah Mo B There.

Paris went last. She reminded me of Countess Vaughn on Celebrity Fit Club this week. Something in the face and hair. Maybe Paris's body should be Countess's aspiration. Any rate, she did the Show Must Go On, also from Innuendo. I want to take this time to look at song choice, on a more macro level.

According to Allmusic.com, these are Queen's albums of original material with ratings (1 to 5)

• Queen (2.5)
• Queen II (2.5)
• Sheer Heart Attack (4.5)
• A Night at the Opera (5)
• A Day at the Races (3.5)
• News of the World (3)
• Jazz (4)
• The Game (4.5)
• Flash Gordon (2)
• Hot Space (3)
• The Works (2)
• A Kind of Magic (2)
• The Miracle (2)
• Innuendo (3)
• Made in Heaven (one of those ghost albums of newly finished unfinished recordings) (2)

Good songs, in theory, could be found on the five best albums, right? According to the rankings, that's:

• A Night at the Opera
• Sheer Heart Attack
• The Game
• Jazz
• A Day at the Races

Our contestants picked songs from the following albums:

• Jazz (Bucky)
  
• News of the World (Ace)
• A Night at the Opera (Bumkin)
• Innuendo (Chris, Paris)
• A Kind of Magic (McPhee)
• A Day at the Races (Elliot)
• The Game (Taylor)

Sheer Heart Attack is unreprestented, while some of their worst albums (aka the 80's not including The Game) are heavily represtented. Even figuring that McPhee was originally going to do a track off Jazz, that makes Jazz equal to Innuendo, and it's not even close. The same thing happened on Stevie Wonder night, which leads me to believe that either great songs don't make great albums (not really) or that a collection of great singles don't make great albums. If you look at the track listing for Queen's best Album, Night at the Opera, there are two songs that the casual fan probably knows, Rhapsody and You're My Best Friend. There are, on the other hand, a lot of great songs on that, to the point where you could do a night of A Night at the Opera on Idol and no one would feel very short changed. But I guess that's not the measure of a band in the Age of the Thing. Any rate, I think this started as a comment on Paris. I enjoyed Paris's performance. Simon called it weird, but refused (or didn't have time) to elaborate. I'd've liked to know what to make of that.

Any rate, the worst three performances were:

1. Pickler (far and away)
2. Ace
3. and probably Bucky

The Bottom Three will hopefully be the same, with Pickler going home. I mean, really folks, she was GAWD AWFUL and her schtick is running very thin (if you think it's schtick, and not just she's dumber than my Air Jordan's).

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