Subject: Danny Gokey

• Idol Beat: Hollywood Week, Part 1

  [Note: Because a lot of people are apparently into American Idol, Rocks Off asked contributor Ray Cummings to keep track of this season for us. This is his first report.] "Hollywood Week" marks the point in American Idol's grist-mill rigamorole calendar where the kid gloves come off, when being cute 'n' quirky with the hint of a decent set of pipes isn't enough anymore, when it's time to separate the Kimberly Caldwells from the Josiah Lemings, when the cavalcade of Ford product placement be

  February 5, 2009

• Idol Beat, Part 1: More Hollywood Week

  Photos courtesy FoxYou thought the funeral was over? You thought all those tears were dried up? You were wrong, my friends - so very, very wrong. Aye, verily, the bloodletting continued unabated as Hollywood Week wound down. Hey, Ryan Seacrest warned us at the outset: "The stakes are as high as they've ever been, and the pressure is even higher. This... is American Idol!" DAY 4 Seacrest: "It's Day 4 of a long and grinding Hell week." Indeed, but with all due respect to the nervous, s

  February 12, 2009

• Idol Beat, Part 2: Still More Hollywood Week

  Michael Becker/ Fox AI judges Simon Cowell and Kara DioguardiDAY 5 This new Idol concept - a lushly appointed "judges' mansion" where contestants on thin ice are forced to sing for their survival - was squandered, somewhat, by the producers. I mean, this was a two-hour show, and really, there was time to make it a bit wacky, with mock bits wherein Simon, Kara, Paula and Randy pretend to live the high life: pedicures, pampering, sending butlers on petty errands, flipping out on chambermai

  February 12, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top 11

  Photo by Ray Mickshaw / FOXPictured: Matt Giraud, exquisite gumline Traditionally, I've concluded the first Idol Beat of any given week with predictions as to who the American Idol judges or viewing public will send home the next night. This week I'm upending that, and predicting that no one will go home. That's right: all eleven of the remaining finalists are safe as houses. "But how is that even possible," you ask, you cry, you pound the sides of your PC monitor. Well, the judges have that

  March 18, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Ten

  Photos by Michael Becker/ Fox Michael Sarver couldn't patch Motown's soul.Man, Sarvernator! What happened? When first we met, you were so dope, flexing serious white-soul chops - minus a soul patch - and you had the sort of blue-collar backstory that seemed to make you a lock for the Top Seven or Top Eight. But it turned out that you had an Achilles heel: the audience. When you sang for the American Idol judges' panel, you were golden; when you had to get up in front of a studio audience

  March 26, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Nine

  Fox Scott McIntyre: Don't go changin'...Remember last week's requiem for the Sarvernator? Turns out that Anoop - Season 8's Great Dork Hope - is in the same damn leaky boat: a phenom before the judges, a lamestain when serenading America. His put-on Usher turn last night cemented his unworthy status, and officially killed any affection I ever had for the guy. In all likelihood, Anoop will be in tonight's bottom three with Megan Joy and Lil Rounds, and he will deserve it. Last night was r

  April 1, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Eight

  Photos by Michael Becker/ Fox Front runner: Adam Lambert, American Idol's likely last man standing.Long before being voted in as California's current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a popular sci-fi action movie called Predator. The specifics of the plot aren't important, but the underlying schematic is a bunch of characters getting picked off, one by one, by some dangerous, mysterious other. (See also Alien, Sunshine, Event Horizon, and a billion other movies.) And so the big

  April 8, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Seven

  Michael Becker/ Fox Somehow Still Hanging Around: The bloom is off Lil Rounds' "Rose."Perhaps delusionally, I nursed a desperate hope that this week's American Idol theme would be "songs used in Quentin Tarantino movies." Seriously, I even worked up a sort of dream list of songs I thought the seven remaining contestants would choose from brilliantly soundtracked flicks like Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, and Death Proof. Alas. I was mistaken, of course: this is "Music from Films" week, an

  April 15, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Five

  That Jamie Foxx, right? A Rennaisance man if there ever was one: the guy's a comedic genius (see In Living Color; tons of flicks), a big-screen leading man, credible action star, R&B champion - plus, as it turns out, he's a natural at mentoring American Idol hopefuls. I wouldn't have figured on him doling out advice to contestants during "Rat Pack Week," yet there he was. (I smell a Foxx-as-Sammy-Davis-Jr. in an as-yet-unconceived Rat Pack biopic, don't you?) Let's consider our Top Five from

  April 29, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Five Results

  Photos by Frank Micelotta/ FoxAuto Pilot: Jaime Foxx "performs" on American Idol Wednesday night.Blame it on the vodka, blame it on the Henny, blame it on whatever you wanna, but I'm going to place blame for the hiply generic feel of Jamie Foxx's new single squarely on the shoulders of everybody responsible for perpetuating the increasingly dispiriting ubiquity of AutoTune-slimed pop hits this decade: Lil Wayne, Kanye West, Akon, and most especially T-Pain. See, "Blame It" - the T-Pain-assisted

  April 30, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Four Results

  Photos by Ray Mickshaw/ FoxNo More Pencils: Slash (right) took American Idol's Final 4 to school Wednesday night. "Who will graduate from the school of rock? And who will just get schooled?" Ryan Seacrest asked, rhetorically, at the beginning of Wednesday night's episode of American Idol. We wondered, then. I smelled an upset, myself. Just felt it. Kris Allen should be going home, I knew - but the likelihood that America could screw up and shaft Allison Iraheta or Adam Lambert just as easily. (L

  May 7, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Four

  Photos by Ray Mickshaw/ FoxMan alive! Jamie Foxx mentored last week, and now guitarist-celeb Slash is in the proverbial American Idol house for "Rock and Roll Week"! Okay, sure, these people have projects and albums to promote, but these still feel like coups. Lot to address, so today I'm skipping the expository rant and going straight to my patented bullet-point breakdown: * Slash is looking rough! He's like a cross between Lenny Kravitz, Howard Stern and Bloom County asswipe Steve Dallas or so

  May 6, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Three

  Disclaimer: Thanks to technical difficulties brought about by the crap DVR capture feature of our limp-ass new cable box/provider, I missed the first 15-20 minutes of Tuesday's episode of American Idol. Please feel free to attempt to conjecture about whatever you think I would have said - had I been able to watch - in the comment section. Or just call me a homophobe, or get all up in my grill for screwing something up! Whatever. So I have no idea what song the American Idol judges decided

  May 13, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top Three Results

  Photos by Frank Micelotta/ Fox Homeward Bound: Danny Gokey's exit didn't prompt a whole lot of tears."I think we've had enough suspense, enough commercials - let's just get to it." This is what Danny Gokey told Ryan Seacrest, and, by proxy, America. We were in agreeance - Wednesday night's show was almost over, and at the point Gokey said the above, Katy Perry's appearance was the last roadblock standing in the way of everybody on Earth discovering whether the Idol axe would fall on MOR

  May 14, 2009