American Idol 5, March 14: Stevie Wonderful

Ryan greets us and reminds us that we are now in the finals of American Idol. The shows are live, the stage is big, there’s a bigger band with a great sound system, and a huge studio audience. How did we get here? It’s time for a quick Idol journey montage.

We see quick glimpses of Bucky, Melissa, Chris, Taylor, Katharine, Ace, Mandisa, Kellie, Elliot, and Lisa. Chris makes it to Hollywood and kisses his wife. Kevin looks happily stunned. Paris hugs her grandma. Chris announces, “I’m going to change my life right now.” The Hollywood rounds come next. Kevin sings with the crooners. Melissa rocks some serious cleavage. Elliott cries tears of joy. Taylor plays his harmonica, and Mandisa forgives Simon for his “bigger stage” comment. The top twenty-four rounds begin. Kellie is a “naughty little minx.” Kevin is a sex symbol (or so he tells us). Finally, we announce the top twelve.

Ryan brings them out, in case we’ve forgotten them: Ace, Kellie, Elliott, Mandisa, Bucky, Melissa, Lisa, Kevin, Katharine, Taylor, Paris, and Chris. Then he introduces the judges. Paula thinks this is the “most unique, well diverse, most talked about top twelve we’ve ever had.” Ryan asks if Randy is missing his dawg pound. No way- the dawg pound just got bigger, Randy says, gesturing to the audience. Simon thinks that the themed weeks will be difficult for some of the contestants. “At this stage, it either makes or breaks you.”

Now it’s time to get to know tonight’s featured artist, Stevie Wonder. Stevie was signed in 1960 at the tender age of ten and quickly became a superstar. He’s sold over a million albums and has won 24 Grammies and an Oscar for Best Song. He surprises the top twelve as they sing “My Cherie Amor.” Kellie and Elliott both cry. Stevie says that he loves Idol because it brings people together “in the spirit of song.”

Enough talking, let’s get to the contestants! We start with Ace Young, who will be singing “Do I Do.” Ace is thrilled to have met Stevie. He feels totally overjoyed and overwhelmed to have met him.

Randy: Stevie Wonder is hard to sing, so Randy was worried. Ace started off key, but he got it in the middle. It was all right. The crowd boos.

Paula: Ace started the night fantastic. She loves his spirit and was entertained.

Simon: Ace is lucky because the audience is easily pleased (though not that easily, as they boo Simon). He agrees with Randy that the vocals were not great, and he thinks there will be better performances later on.

Betsy: I liked hearing Ace sing something up tempo, but I would have rather seen him sing “Isn’t She Lovely.” Ace would have been incredible on that one. Still, I enjoyed this.

Ace tells Ryan that he does feel a little different in the bigger venue, but it’s amazing. He was nervous beforehand. Ryan notes that Randy and Paula are on different pages. Randy shrugs that maybe it’ll be different tomorrow.

Kellie Pickler admits that she’s not familiar with Stevie’s music. She tells him that her preferred genre of music is country, if he couldn’t tell by her accent. Stevie jokes that he thought she was English, which Kellie claims to believe for a second. Kellie is wearing an “Everybody Loves a Blonde” t-shirt in this interview, because Melissa is wearing an “Everybody Loves a Brunette” t-shirt on the same day. Kellie says that she’ll sing “Blame It on the Sun,” but she doesn’t feel confident.

Randy: It was like a non-event. There was no spark… but he does love her shoes. “I got ‘em on sale!” Kellie chirps.

Paula: Kellie seemed nervous tonight, out of her comfort zone. She played it too safe, and there was no razzle dazzle. But, Paula adds her patented blow-cushioner- Kellie looks beautiful.

Simon: “Everything was wrong tonight.” She was boring, and he felt like it would never end. Plus, Simon adds, her outfit reminded him of Dolly Parton. She was safe, old, and boring, and it was her worst performance so far. Kellie apologizes.

Betsy: This was perfectly nice, but boring. Kellie did not seem to connect with the song remotely. I’ll be interested to hear how other singers who find Stevie out of their comfort zone, like Bucky and Chris, handle it. I do agree with Randy, though- those were some awesome shoes.

Ryan assures Kellie that she needed worry about taking fashion advice from Simon. After all, now she has stylists to work with. Kellie says she’s wearing false eyelashes for the first time. They’re like tarantulas. Ryan asks if she has arachnophobia. Kellie says she’s terrified of bugs, isn’t that what that means? Then she adds, in case we were worried, that they are not real tarantulas.

It’s official: Pickler needs to cut the crap. She is completely overplaying her, “Aw, shucks, I’m jus’ a little ol’ country girl and I don’t know nothin’ about your big city things” routine. We’ve heard her claim to have never had a spinach salad before, to have had “sal-mon” for the first time, to not understand what a naughty little minx is, and now this silliness with the spider eyelashes. It’s just too much, and I for one am not buying it. Need more proof? She teared up when Stevie Wonder walked into the room, yet she admitted that she doesn’t really know his music. It comes across as totally fake and I think it’s really going to turn people off.

There. I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now can we listen to Elliott Yamin? Elliott says that he has not only always wanted to be a singer, he has also always wanted to meet Stevie Wonder. In fact, he’s such a fan that when Stevie arrives, the other contestants insist that he sit with him at the piano first. Elliott says he’ll remember it forever. He will sing “Knocks Me Off My Feet.” Stevie says that he was impressed by Elliott, then says he should definitely do this as a profession.

Randy: This is Elliott’s comfort zone, but not his best performance. He showed some flavor at the end, though.

Paula: She likes that he wasn’t afraid to show how moved he was to meet Stevie. She loves his passion and knows we’ll see many more weeks of him.

Simon: Elliott is the best so far, but he agrees with Randy that there was no wow factor. Elliott needs to show some originality. It was good, which is not good enough.

Betsy: Elliott looked so darned happy to be up there singing a Stevie Wonder song that it was hard not to enjoy this performance. He sounded clear and true, and the ending was really strong.

Ryan says that Simon seems miserable. Does he have any advice for the contestants listening backstage? Simon says to show originality, which he has yet to see.