1 Happy St

One of the things that bothers me about American Idol outside of the obvious things that would bother me (it's cheesy, Paula sucks, the contestants are barely better at singing than non-famous lounge singers, it's an hour of programming stretched to 2 hours over the course of 2 days, etc. etc. etc.) is how the contestants never know anything about music. They're never familiar with the genre from which they get to choose a song, so they always end up butchering the original. Like last night, the genre was rock and roll. Now this is such a huge category that the producers might as well have just called the night "songs that have words in it". That would have been funny, no?

Ryan Seacrest: "It's 'songs that have words in it' night here on American Idol. This week contestants got to choose from a catalog of songs that have words. First up is David Cook who will sing Duran Duran's.......are you kidding me? Duran Duran? Ugh, I need a new job."

Okay, so it's rock and roll night. Admittedly, I love rock and roll. I put dimes in the jukebox baby. No I won't. So what does 17 year old David Archuletta choose as his two rock and roll songs to sing? Ben King's "Stand by Me" and Elvis Presley's "Love me Tender". Now I don't know about you, but when I think rock and roll, I think "stand by me". A bleeping travesty. I'll recap how it transpired:

First he butchered the song. Of course. Then he stood there on stage and smiled awkwardly as young girls in the audience screamed his name. It was right about this time that I puked a little bit for the first time. He continued to stand there awkwardly and licked his lips a little bit. I puked some more. He licked his lips some more. More screaming from the little girls was heard. Finally, he was praised by the judges while he smiled and licked his lips some more. Lather rinse repeat.

And this is a real show on television that I continue to watch every week.

His second choice was even better. He said something about once hearing an Elvis song so he was going to give it a try. At least I think that's what he said; I may have missed the message because I was too pre-occupied trying to come up with ways to injure myself on purpose. So he chose "Love me Tender". Uh huh. The Elvis song he chose on Rock and Bleeping Roll night was Love Me Tender. Not Jailhouse Rock or Hound Dog or That's All Right; you know, something that would have required that he move around on stage and embrace the category. No he chose Love Me Tender. And he pussified it even more by singing it like it was a show tune. Of course the judges loved it, girls screamed, and I puked again.

God I love this show.