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from TWOP.. It kinda sums up my feelings
It's 1950s night, and Barry Manilow, Ryan Cabrera, and Constantine are all in the house. Okay? I'm not sure what's going on, exactly, but I won't rule out a zoological event of some kind. So, but except for the many rodent-like facial qualities that Barry possesses, he's also chock full of shit-talk and even a truly committed Pickler gag, and who knew I'd end up kind of liking him?
Anyway, Mandisa does her hair up all big and beautiful for her version of Dinah Washington's "I Don't Hurt Anymore." She renders the judges incapable of words, except for Simon who manages "stripper." Strangely enough, he's not wrong, and it is awesome. The theme with the judges this week, by the way, is "The Vocals Aren't the Best, But…" To wit: Bucky sings Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy," and he sounds like no fewer than three different singers, none of whom I'd really care to hear again. His hair is back to looking like he slept in a back alley somewhere, though it's still slightly poofy, enough to make you think the alley is behind the unisex salon. Paris is resplendent in yellow and we finally get to see her do "Fever," and it's great. She's pretty and the performance is on point and she manages to not be an asshole even once, so we're cool for this week, I guess. Chris performs "Walk the Line" in name only, let me tell you. It's the Stappiest version of a country song you could ever possibly imagine, and the light show is frankly embarrassing, but I admire Chris's fierce devotion to subverting the show's actual rules and regulations, whereas somewhere in America, Jacob's head popped clean off his body.
Kat McVee McPhee has some giggly harsh words for too-cool-for-school Simon, before knocking Ella Fitzgerald's "Come Rain or Come Shine" out of the damn ballpark. Vocally she's playing catch-up a lot, but girlfriend knows how to move about a stage and is one of the precious few who looks like an actual performer in her own right. She's gorgeous and wonderful and her free-wheeling boobs make Ryan so very nervous. Not even Barry Manilow is safe from Taylor Hicks's in-your-face brand of jackassery, and he sings that song that sort of sounds like "Hand Jive" and sort of like "I Want Candy" but is actually "Not Fade Away" by Buddy Holly. It sounds both like Taylor and yet also like nothing at all. It disappears from your ears the second it hits them. Additionally, it sparks a Watts-level riot amongst the judges, for whatever reason
Lisa ("Why Do Fools Fall in Love?") and Kevin ("When I Fall in Love") both take it to the high school musical revue place, and Simon calls one of them on it. He also goes for the reverse juju on Kevin like he should have been doing for a couple weeks now, so we'll see how that works out. Elliott absolutely hates Barry Manilow and isn't afraid to say so. I was not expecting that. Ryan tries to bail him out for a hundred hours, but Elliott's sticking by his profound distaste. Guess we found someone he won't be crying over, eh? He sings "Teach Me Tonight," and it's once again brilliantly sung and boring as sin. Everybody's so elderly this year! Young ones, old ones, dumb ones, cute ones, they all grew up inside their grandparents' record collections. Kellie Pickler set her own personal make-up gun to "corpse," I think. What the holy hell is going on there? Barry makes fun of her totally hardcore, and it's lovely, and then she sings some Patsy Cline in her usual shit-kicker bar style, and I've heard worse, but I am not kidding when I say that she looks like the Grim Reaper's court jester. Finally, Ace sings a "jazzy" version of "In the Still of the Night," and all the things he's good at, he does well. "Singing" not being particularly one of them, but that has never really mattered in the slightest. He's also got a bit of the "open casket Irish wake" thing happening, but I'm sure some of that is his usual perma-blush.
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