Casting aside any credibility I ever hoped to earn at the Straight Dope, I have to say that I liked and enjoyed Sanjaya’s performance this week. I throw myself upon the mercy of the court!
Well, Sanjaya was the least boring of the lot tonight, I’ll agree.
I’m so suffering from a lack of snark, it’s just not nearly as fun reading afterward. 
(Boyfriend’s nights off changed, and since he hates having Idol even on the least I can do is give up the computer so he can try and ignore it.)
Loved Gina, as I usually do. I think she’d be a blast to hang out with, as well.
Sanjaya’s hair was hysterical, I can’t even remember what he sang but the fauxhawk will stay imprinted forevah.
Sligh started out so promising at the beginning, remember? I think we should just drop the L like he dropped the personality, sigh.
Loved Jordin even though I don’t think the song was a good fit, not a lot of melodic stuff going on, the verses were awfully low for her, more of a song to showcase the backup singers, but still just adore her.
Blake was rather dreary, Powder was better than the last few weeks and Chris R needs to visit an otolaryngist, stat.
You misspelled “clowning”.
Haley loungified Cyndi I love Cyndi. You don’t lounge-ify CYNDI damnit! Such a pretty song, and so boringly sung
OH CREEPY! If I don’t look at the TV, Phil actually kinda sounds like Sting on parts of this song. Probably my favorite vocal by him so far. Usually he annoys me.
Melinda takes songs from every genre so far… and makes them all sound the same 
Was Gwen Stefani actually there with the performers, or did she watch them on tape and get edited into the footage? There was something very weird about her participation. No interaction at all.
She does look good all cleaned up.
I like Jordin…but that song was kinda buh??
Chris R… I LOVE that song… I HATE his version. (Did he mess up the lyrics at the end?)
Oh, the high hopes I had for tonight…
Anyway – it’s kind of interesting how things like this come together. Every week I jot down my rankings when each singer finishes, and then at the end I put them all in order. And every week it seems I have a couple of “Huh…I liked this person more than that person?? Well, yeah, I guess I did…”
[ol][li]Phil[/li][li]Gina[/li][li]Melinda[/li][li]Blake[/li][li]Chris R.[/li][li]Jordin[/li][li]Haley[/li][li]LaKisha[/li][li]Chris S.[/li][li]Cutting off my own foot with used dental floss[/li][li]Sanjaya[/li][/ol]
[ul]
[li]Wow…I liked Phil best tonight? Phil? Go figure. [/li][li]I’m surprised I didn’t have Gina on top of the list – in retrospect, she seemed like the strongest vocal. Certainly better than the usual contenders, who all seemed to have taken Slouch Pills or something. But, I try and stick with my first impressions.[/li][li]Speaking of “usually much better”…LaKisha, what the hell was that? She sounded like a singing sheep, bleating out the notes. Nowhere near up to her par.[/li][li]If people can manage to let the above note slide without comment, that’d be just great, thanks.[/li][li]Blake, the only reason I have you in 4th place is because so many others were worse, not because I found you to be good – and it’s not your fault. Seacrest said at the beginning that someone would be singing a song by The Cure. He lied. You didn’t sign a Cure song, you sang a 311 song. Robert Smith has more feeling in…ummm…some sort of analogy that would convey a tiny part of his voice…than 311 could muster up in seven albums. I was pissed to hear that soulless version…but, he managed as decent a job as possible with it, I suppose.[/li][li]Haley, please. Don’t even try and fuck with Cyndi – you sound like Capt. Lou Albano compared to her.[/li][li]Sligh, you plain-out sucked ass tonight. I thought you were decent last week when everyone raked you over the coals, but man, your AI stock is really tanking, dude.[/li][li]How fitting was that one line Sanjaya sang? “I know I’m diving into my own destruction”. Too bad he’ll be here to make me hate him even more next week.[/li][li]Jordin, that didn’t sound too good, but don’t feel bad. That song needs studio production in order to pull it off. It just doesn’t translate to the stage.[/li][/ul]
I can’t get over the image of Melinda as a bobblehead doll. She should NOT wear a belt at her waistline; it makes her torso look even shorter than it actually is. She needs to wear belts slung low on her waist.
I still think she looks like a bobblehead, though. Hmm… Melinda DooBobble… I like it
Show hasn’t aired here (CA) yet, and I haven’t read the thread.
I’m just trying a little experiment.
It is now 10:30 Eastern Daylight Time, and so far DialIdol has:
Melinda Doolittle
Chris Richardson
Lakisha Jones
Gina Glocksen
Phil Stacey
Sanjaya Malakar
Blake Lewis
Jordin Sparks
Chris Sligh
Haley Scarnato
It has seemed to me that in past weeks, the DialIdol results are skewed by the time we get to the West Coast. So I’ll post again in about an hour, when the votes from Central time start to come in.
Very surprising show…
The best two for me were Phil (shock horror!) and Gina. I don’t think I even like Phil, and I don’t really remember anything that Gina has done. But both did an excellent job. Phil sounded enough like Sting to make it authentic but made it his own with the coda. Gina picked the right song and gave it the right tone - it’s a heartachy song and that came across. (As a Pretenders fan, I’m mixed on how I feel about the song - it revived the band’s career, but it was a Dianne Warren monstrosity.)
Lakisha bored me. So did Melinda. These women have incredible voices. What else?
Blake - 311 wants their version of “Love Song” back. Now.
Chris R. was a big bowl of meh.
Chris Sligh sucks so bad. I want him run out of town, stat. He butchered that song. And it isn’t a hard song to sing… is it? The experiment is over. Send his ass home, America. Please.
Jordin is so cute - but she is massive. Like she was built on a slightly larger scale than everyone else. But it works for her. Her dad played in the NFL, but I think he was a corner - not a particularly big guy. No idea where the bigness comes from. I liked what she did with a unsingable song.
Haley - zzz. Isn’t she about four weeks beyond her shelf date?
Sanjaya. There are no words, and I’m only talking about the hair.
Gwen looked incredibly botox-ed, didn’t she?
Dang, couldn’t get on an hour ago.
As of 10:30 Western Daylight Time:
Melinda
Chris
Lakisha
Sanjaya
Gina
Phil
Blake
Haley
Chris
Jordin
I’d vote for Jordin and Melinda, but that’s about it. They ought to have a separate number you could use to vote against someone.
Somebody, please grab Sanjaya by his stupid topknot and drag him the hell off the screen!
OK, well now it’s past 11:00 on the West Coast, and the voting in the continental US is closed. DialIdol reports:
Melinda
Chris R.
Lakisha
Sanjaya
Gina
Phil
Blake
Jordin
Haley
Chris S.
So except for the top three, I think there’s something of a case to be made for some regional variation.
Past weeks’ results suggest to me that DialIdol has lost its predictive ability. part of it seems to be that there is a regional variation in taste this season, but DialIdol is West-Coast heavy. The first week of the main competition, the bottom three were given as Brandon, Phil and Sanjaya, who ranked 5th, 6th and 3rd that week on DialIdol after all the votes were in. The thing is, I had checked DialIdol earlier and Sanjaya at least, was in the bottom 3 or 4 at that time, before the West Coast feed was over.
So I want to check these three samples against whatever they tell us about tomorrow’s bottom three, and see what’s what.
Who sucked: Chris Richardson, Sanjaya, Haley and Chris Sligh
Who I just don’t like: Phil and Blake. They’re not terrible, certainly not the worst on the show, but they’ve got way too high an opinion of themselves while demonstrating a very consistent lack of ability to deliver up to that level. Longevity in the competition is not equivalent to talent, Phil. Take off that stupid hat. And Blake, you’ve got a knack for original settings for songs, now learn to sing them.
Who bored: Gina, Jordin, Lakisha and Melinda. This was not a good week.
Maybe you don’t like seamen. Speaking of which, Sanjaya is creepy to the extreme.
This is the worst season ever. If Melinda gets voted off a la Jennifer Hudson, I’ll quit watching entirely. I think Gina and Jordin might do well but really, it’s not a contest at all.
And what was with Stefani? She looked bored and was boring - zero personality. Compare her to Dionne Warwick on Dancing With the Stars - that’s star power. I think Melinda will still be going strong when she’s Warwick’s age where Stefani will be long forgotten.
Posting blind again, just raw reactions: it’s time for Chris to go home. Oh which Chris? Yeah, exactly.
Melinda, duh, owned it again. It’s time for her to go home too; she’s wasting valuable recording time.
Haley has less stage presence than the last pair of underwear I threw away. She’ll make a decent living–say, roughly double minimum wage–on some Riverboat Casino microstage.
Gina, best performance. Sanjaya, best performance. Dude has a bit of a Rufus Wainwright potentiality there, if he’d just step up to it.
Blake, yawn, not sure but don’t think that was an original arrangement. Phil SUCKS. Lakisha rocked, but she’s no Melinda. Almost.
Jordin faded out entirely on the low notes, but did OK–just OK–otherwise.
What’s up with the generic blond who claimed to be Gwen Stefani? Did she get a nosejob? Her most distinctive feature? “Yeah, doc, here’s a buttload of money. Make me look like everyone else.” What. The. Fuck.