The SmarK Rant for ‘Rock Star: INXS’ – Week Seven

Monday Night:

The Monday show is BACK, baby, as I missed the original showing on Global Hamilton, but a CTV station in Newfoundland shows a replay on Tuesday afternoon, so here we are.

Suzie is frustrated at being in the bottom three again, and decides to express it with some drinking. Dave interrupts and announces the challenge for this week – writing ORIGINAL songs for the live performance show. Oh, nasty. Ty thinks they'll be out there in the water all naked, and he's best when he's wet and naked. Well, that's nice to know.

Mig gets another phone call from his sweetie in London, but this time she's really there. Oh, sneaky. Well at least we don't have to listen to him telling her how he "wuvs her wuvs her wuvs her" this time around.

Meanwhile, J.D. and Suzie win a random draw and get to sing with INXS on a radio show. When they get back, they discover that only two people have to do originals and the rest get kickass rock songs. They decide to go by blind draw, and the result is that Mig and Deanna get to do their own songs. J.D. gets Foreigner, Jordis gets Aerosmith, and Deanna is stressing. Ty actually co-wrote her song, which doesn't bode well for her given that INXS kind of crapped on his songwriting efforts last week. Suzie is stressing even more and tries to negotiate a trade to get an original song, but Mig is cold as ice, like J.D.'s song says, and stresses to Deanna that it's a competition. Preach on, man. But then he cracks later and admits that he's thinking about being a nice guy and doing it.

Marty saves the day and talks Mig out of trading, as J.D. asks Suzie if she's so arrogant as to assume that her song is stronger than "Start Me Up." Good point, dude. Things get worse for the guys and gals, as the house band thinks that Deanna's song is too safe and Mig's song is pretty lame compared to his performance last week.

Wow, I didn't really miss much when this was gone.

Tuesday Night:

Ty is back to the spikes, so you know he means business.

Suzie starts us out with "Start Me Up," doing a good job of rocking the house with it, but ultimately doomed by the voting public I think. Still, the other wannabes help her with a group hug onstage and she hams it up with a stage dive, so the performance aspects are there. Dave is in shock that she was ever in the bottom three. Well, prepare to be shocked again, Dave.

J.D., confident as always and wishing he had gotten his own song, gets Foreigner's "Cold As Ice" instead. Well, the cheesy nature of the band matches his own internal cheese, so it's a good fit. He's even got screaming girls in the front row for him. It's actually a pretty faithful rendition of the song compared to the way he generally alters his songs, and it works great. This gets my vote this week barring something else great.

Deanna debuts her original song, "My Truth," which was co-written with Ty. See, now this is the kind of interesting twist in the contest you don't get on Idol, mainly because they're not expected to actually write their own material on those sort of shows. She brings out a chunky post-grunge rocker, with the "waka waka waka" guitars on the verses that are always so cool. Holy cow, with some production upgrades I'd totally put this on a mix CD. Doesn't sound a lot like INXS, but damn it rocks. INXS thinks she's playing it too safe again, but I think this will save her for a week.

Ty gets "Proud Mary," obviously going for the Tina Turner version rather than the CCR version. As long as he doesn't do the Ike Turner version and beat up Brooke Burke. Suzie, Deanna, and Jordis are doing backup vocals here as Ty is all soulful and fun, but I think the CCR version would have served him better, with less of a manic pace and more of a chance to showcase his vocals. Still, it's a tough to screw up. Dave calls it "Ty-riffic," thus dropping my respect of him a little more.

Next up on the original song bullseye, Mig. His song is "Do Or Die." Boy, that's more than a little apropos for some of the people on this show. He goes for the melodic rock approach, and when he talks about "holding onto castles in the sky" and rhymes it with "do or die," you just know that he's listened to more than one Bon Jovi CD in his lifetime. In fact, this sounds, to me, almost exactly like an outtake from Crush or Bounce. Needed better production, again, but I'd buy it. This sounded more like what would be needed as singer of INXS, although INXS doesn't think it sounds like them. Well, what do they know?

Marty keeps on the "tortured loner" track with Live's "I Alone." Geez, I dunno if that's gonna be a smart move after all those weeks of creepy gazes at the camera. I mean, I already suspect he's a serial killer as it is, this kind of song doesn't help his cause. And I LIKE him. He rocks it as usual, but I think he stayed too safe with it. Either way, he's awesome and will carry it to the final three at least. INXS remind him that it's about who's right for INXS, though, and I don't know if he is or not.