"Rock Star" line of the night, if not the season, goes to Storm for her comeback to Navarro. (Which I understand wasn't even the sauciest thing said during that exchange, since they had a whole back and forth about safewords and ball-gags. Ah, the FCC.) Singer-by-singer breakdown after the jump...Patrice, "Beautiful Thing": This, I liked -- and a lot more than that T-Rex by way of Poison and Warrant song that Supernova (Featuring Dilana!) performed last Wednesday. Peppy guitar pop is one of my things, and I could imagine this in heavy iPod rotation without difficulty. As Dave said, not sure it's right for whatever the hell it is Tommy and the guys want to do, but the best Patrice has been since "My Iron Lung," if not "Somebody to Love" on opening night.
Magni, "Smells Like Teen Spirit": Tough song to make your own, because it's so indelibly Nirvana in a way that no other Cobain song is. Magni played it straight down the middle, doing a very faithful cover (has he ever really mixed up an arrangement?) and screaming his lungs out in honorable fashion. Not mind-blowing, but solid, and one of those numbers that I imagine played better in the room than at home. Also, why hide the head vein beneath the wool cap on a song where you're going to go this bonko?
Ryan, "Back of Your Car": No. While his ability to move with the guitar was better, I feel like this guy gives the same. exact. performance. every damn week, and I'm bored with him. Plus, how much of a blatant suck-up was the guitar toss? Way to congratulate him for doing something the guys just suggested five minutes earlier, Dave.
Storm, "Crying": Stormy was in her element on this one, with the dramatics and the high notes and all the gyrations, and yet I kept being reminded of how much better Steven Tyler's voice sounds on this -- and that's coming from someone who always gets sad listening to early Aerosmith and imagining what Tyler would sound like today if he hadn't done so many drugs. Storm has a great voice and nobody else left would have come close to what she did with this, but if you can't match an iconic singer's voice, you should change the song up enough to cover for that.
This is also, like, Storm's fourth ballad in a row, and if she wants to even be included in the discussion with Lukas and Dilana, she needs to get out there and kick some ass on a harder, preferably faster song. That's why I was so frustrated she gave in to Ryan on the original song. (If you want an R-rated preview of what she plans to sing if she ever gets that chance, click here. There's a version with PG lyrics out there somewhere -- "What" in place of the F-word.) Question is, does she even want to win anymore, or does she just want to stick around a long time, then go back to doing her old gigs, only with a higher profile? I have this weird feeling her heart's not in it anymore, but I enjoy watching her and hope she has another "Anything Anything"-esque performance in her.
Dilana, "Every Breath You Take": OMFG, did she really sing her own name repeatedly at the end? I don't care if the "la la"s in the actual song sound a little like "Dilana," that's like one of those Pizza Hut pizzas where, just in case your cholestorol wasn't already jacked up, they have to shove extra cheese into the crust. That moment was an angioplasty special, and the capper to Dilana's most pedestrian performance by far. (Though it was still a step up from the version she was practicing in the webisode, where her falsetto sounded like a strangled dog.) I still think she has in the inside track on the job, but it's been a while since she really dazzled me performance-wise.
Toby, "Layla": I'm usually pro-rearrangement, and anything to take the song the hell away from the godawful Unplugged version Clapton perpetrated a decade or so ago is alright in my book, but this one just felt off. In general, Toby's been really manic and trying too hard the last few weeks. Plus, with the hoodie on, I kept wondering when he was going to break into "You All, Everybody." (Or am I the only one who thinks he looks a bit like Charlie from "Lost"?)
Lukas, "All These Things That I've Done": Great manic energy and vocal intensity, if not quality. Maybe he was just out of breath from all the moving around, but his voice wasn't a patch on the original, which is one of my favorite songs of the last five years. Still, I like watching the guy jump around, but I'd like to hear him sing in his "Creep" voice again, and soon.
I think Patrice is going home no matter what. Hard to figure the encore, since nobody was head-and-shoulders dazzling. I'll be stunned if anyone but Lukas gets to play with Supernova.
What did everybody else think?
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