American Idol Recap

I won't go blow-by-blow but here are a few general thoughts. After Sunday's miserable "Grease" reality show, watching Idol is a downright pleasure. It is extremely well-put together with probably 100+ hours of footage from Hollywood boiled down to a concise hour. I actually wanted a TWO hour show so we could see more people perform. (I hate it when they pad out the results shows to an hour, on the other hand.) The Shakira-wanna be (who always seemed weak) was clearly in trouble when she bounced off the plane and started strutting in the airport. Poor Baylie Brown froze up on stage, but hopefully she'll wait a few years, perform locally and come back. I don't know why she slagged her fellow group member who went off flirting with guys. No one was stopping Brown from learning her lines -- she doesn't need the other girls to do that. But the other girl's response -- that she got through and Baylie didn't because "God likes good people" was truly jaw-dropping. The four guys who sounded like Boyz II Men (the group with the beat boxer) would go far if they could always perform together. They were definitely the vocal highlight. And cute little Matt, the gay kid with a mom who never says she's proud of him, never says she loves him and never hugs him -- well, they've got a lot to talk about, don't they? Finally, it was definitely smart of them to compress Hollywood down to one week. The show feels like it is zooming along.