country night: will tomorrow ever come?...

The final nine are strapping on their spurs and donning the 10-gallons tonight and hitting the country charts in an effort to overcome the nasty taste left in the mouths of viewers everywhere from last week's massacre of current tunes.

Ryan, who evidentially has been a bit too busy with Teri to shave recently, introduces us to the footage of Kenny Rogers hanging out with the kids, singing with them to The Gambler. Country music, he tells them, is a story, a journey, one that has to be felt, to be understood.

Note to Kenny: this is American Idol. Understanding the lyrics and knowing them are traditionally two very different things.

Celebrity watch: Whoopi Goldberg is in the audience. And so is Chris Rock. (He should be holding a ChrisRocks sign.)

After giving last week's episode an overall grade of F, this week earns at least a C-. And that's in large part due to Randy's vest and Paula's fading lucidity. Always good times.

Anyway, here they are, my early impressions, subject to review and revision and, as always, from worst to first:

Perhaps Ace should have chosen The Gambler. The only good thing about his Cry is the shot of his really cute brother. Randy calls it boring, except for the falsetto. Paula struggles to find words and then to pronouce them. Simon gives him faint praise. That's normally the curse. Harsh words will send people to the phones.

Mandisa, fresh from an appointment with Katharine's stylist, sings a Shania Twain song I've never heard of called Any Man of Mine (thanks Conni!), that Kenny Rogers says has more words than ever. She struggles with her lower register, as she normally does when she's not belting. The judges universally hate it. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Taylor chooses the wrong John Denver song with Take Me Home Country Road. And they have a fiddler and everything, but even with spotless vocals, the judges are right: it's spiritless, boring and did not, as it should, make me want to clap or tap my feet along.

I am at a total loss to even begin discussing Katharine, who obviously just graduated the Nadia Turner School of Obscure and Never Before Heard of Songs which Bore Audiences to Damn Death. She wanted bluesy, since she doesn't really do country. Kenny calls it sultry. Simon calls it peculiar. She tells Simon to just admit he doesn't like country music. Oh. So that's what it was. Country music. Good to know.

Paris appears with yet another hairstyle, this one I like. She decides to sing How Do I Live Without You, and, like Mandisa, she is fine in the power parts but really shaky in the softer, lower segments. Randy says ick, Paula says she didn't connect with the song and gets booed (what is up with that? She doesn't get booed when she's stoned, but does when she gives an objective opinion??) and Simon tells her she's a young Dionne Warwick. Yeah. And he told Katharine she was almost as good as Christina too.

Kenny Rogers tells Bucky, the lucky pimp spot sitter this week, that it's imperitive he over-enunciate the lyrics to Gary Allan's The Best I Ever Had. Note to Kenny: we know you're new here, but this is Bucky. He doesn't even enunciate, much less overdo it. But he dresses the part and puts more depth into this performance than in past ones, even though I can't understand a word of his enunciation.

Pickler puts to rest all of the mean allegations that she's faking her call-e-maree and sallmon schtick and assures us the person we see is the real and genuine person she is. She chooses Fancy by Reba McEntire, of course a song about a mom who sends her daughter out to the streets in a fancy dress. But, instead of ending in the street, she starts in the audience and does a decent job with a terrible song. (Sorry Reba fans.)

Chris decides to sit on his stool for the duration of Keith Urban's Making Memories of Us. How nice to just hear his voice, rather than the screaming/screeching of his traditional rock turns. I really enjoyed it. Simon calls it boring. I disagree.

Elliott sings the right Garth Brooks song and if I didn't love him already, I would be in love with him now, tweeking If Tomorrow Never Comes just enough to make it his own, but still staying true to the melody, even with a bit too many curly-ques for my taste, despite recommendations to the contrary. Randy calls it hawt, Paula rambles in Paula-speak and Simon, while conceding it was better than Taylor and Mandisa, calls it safe and tentative. I always ask myself if I would buy that performance on a CD, and, for the first time this season, I would.

Now get on those phones!

Tomorrow night we kill another one.

tag: american idol