American Idol 4/30/08

Can anybody but Neil Diamond sing "Cracklin' Rosie?" Can anybody but Neil Diamond sing "Song Sung Blue?" Can anybody but Neil Diamond sing "Brother Love Travelin' Salvation Show?" Apparently, Neil Diamond has more of a range than most people realize. Or the Top 5 were performing at gun point. What else could explain that atrocious opening medley?

After watching last night and tonight, I'm beginning to think that none of the contestants were the least bit familiar with Diamond or his songs prior to being handed sheet music last week. They probably thought they were performing songs by Dustin Diamond.

In an interview shown tonight, Neil Diamond said, "The remaining contestants couldn't make it this far by just being average." Oh, how wrong he is.

In another awkward moment, it was revealed that former Idols Gina and Constantine are now hosting an American Idol backstage reality show? Couldn't they have at least given the job to an Idol who had won? You can't tell me Taylor Hicks isn't looking for work.

And in another even more awkward moment, Seacrest said the rumors about Paula are not true. A weepy Paula looked confused. I'm guessing some folks think she's going to be replaced. I think she's so out of it these days that you could fire her and she wouldn't know the difference. Just do her hair and make-up every Tuesday and Wednesday, ask her to mumble something incoherent and she'd be perfectly happy.

Jason Castro is safe. There's simply no way he should have survived this week. This competition has definitely turned into a popularity contest.

David Archuleta is safe. Some tart-like chick in the crowd was happy. Who was she and why did she merit a close-up? (I sure hope it wasn't his mother.)

David Cook is safe. Last night, Paula said to Cook that she thought she was looking at the next American Idol. But, she also said the same thing to her toaster, her limo driver and her little dog, Toto.

Syesha Mercado and Brooke White landed in the bottom two.

Natsha Bedingfield and Neil Diamond performed while Mercado and White made sweat stains on the couch. Bedingfield sang "Pocket Full of Sunshine" a song most people probably call "Take Me Away." (Paula probably calls it "Pocket Full of Vodka.") I couldn't help but notice that when Bedingfield walked over to the couch to "say hi to David" David Cook stood up not realizing that she was talking about David Archuleta. At least that's what it looked like.

Neil Diamond sang "Pretty Amazing Grace" from his new album. It sounded like something off the soundtrack from a western. He should have performed while riding on a horse. But, he does sound eerily similar to the Diamond of 40 years ago. Well, if 40 years ago he was strung out on Valium.

While I usually find the phone-in portion of the show to be excruciating, I did think it was cute that Simon got to talk to the girl he had a crush on when he was nine years old. It made him seem almost...human.

Brooke White is gone! Carly Simon will be so disappointed. Just this week she said Brooke should win. Brooke cried her eyes and she could barely get through the song.

And, once again, Syesha dodges the Idol bullet.

Here's Natasha Bedingfield talking about David Archuleta on TRL.



Here's Neil Diamond singing "I Am, I Said" back in the '70's.




More Idol chatter at humor-blogs.