Rock Star: The originals

Spoilers for the best "Rock Star" episode of the season after this...

Dilana, "Behind Blue Eyes" & "Supersoul": Hard to tell how much of Dilana's recent portrayal is a genuine meltdown and how much is the Burnett editing team needing a villain, but she is not coming off well at all. Crying jags two weeks in a row, followed by her writing a lame-ass song telling the fans to F-off (and that actually contained "Control-Alt-Delete" as a lyric), followed by her singing two sings here about how misunderstood she is and how all this suffering is only going to make her stronger. She's like GOB Bluth in that "Arrested Development" where he goes to work for Stan Sitwell and keeps coming up with variations on the same idea ("I call it 'Swing City'"... "I call it 'Fuck City'"...) Everyone seems to have gotten over the whole Interview-gate except Dilana, and when you couple that with her penchant for writing lyrics that are always way too on the nose (in an earlier webisode-only songwriting clinic, her song topic? why, the experience of being on "Rock Star," of course), and you have somebody who's gone from the runaway winner (when she sang the first Supernova song) to the most obvious potential boot in less than a month.

Whatever her personal issues may be, I really enjoyed her "Behind Blue Eyes" up until she had to, again, make the song all about her and her woe-is-me situation by flipping the gender at the end for the two people who already didn't get the point. She has a great voice and commands the stage and camera; I can't think of anybody else left who could have moshed as well while sitting on a stool. But she no longer has any shot at winning and her exit tomorrow wouldn't stun me in the least.

Magni, "Back in the U.S.S.R." & "When the Time Comes": I think I need a Magni macro at this point: strong voice, interacts well with the band, great energy and passion, throbbing vein, solid but extremely faithful cover, etc. Even Tommy, in his usual numbskull way, noticed this. I think Magni did himself a great disservice by not playing lead guitar on "When the Time Comes." From what we've seen to date, he's far and away the best musician left, the song's strongest attribute is that guitar riff, and Supernova arguably needs a second ax man. Magni's problem at this point is that he's solid in every area but not exceptional in any -- consistent but not creative -- so why not let it rip with the guitar to remind the band and the voters the one area in which he clearly excels over the competition? If Dilana isn't going home, he is, barring some fluke where neither is in the bottom three.

Storm, "Sufragette City" & "Ladylike": Ho. Ly. Crap. That was amazing, and I don't think it's just my gushing Storm fanboy speaking here. First of all, even if Dave's cameo on guitar wasn't a surprise, he and Storm interacted perfectly, and if she really didn't know he was doing it, then she improvised like a champ (loved the "Oh, David!" as he launched into the solo). Throughout the competition, Storm has seemed to sway between performances that were maybe too manic by a third to a half and quiet, solid but uninspiring ballads. Here, she finally put together the vocals and the energy, larger than life but in control of it. Maybe she needs to do an entire show of Bowie covers or something, but that "Sufragette City" was great...

...and so was the PG version of "Ladylike." The song suffers a little with "what" replacing "fuck" (as well as her having to lose the "Hey, motherfucker!" near the end, which you can hear properly here), but the passion made up for the lack of profanity. So glad she got to stick around long enough to sing this song on national TV -- and it, coupled with "Sufragette City," all but guarantee that she'll be on that stage next week. I don't think she's a good match with Supernova, nor do I think she really wants the job, but she's going to get what I'm sure she really wanted out of all of this: a full summer of exposure so she and her band can keep doing what they've been doing, just on a bigger, better-paying scale.

Lukas, "Living on a Prayer" & "Headspin": Lukas is essentially the un-Magni, polarizing where the Iceman is universally-liked (but not necessarily loved), risk-taking where Magni plays it down the middle, probably a pain in the ass on the road and in the studio where Magni's a pro. I don't know that I would want to pay money for a Lukas Rossi album (with or without Supernova), but I understand why the people who love the guy really love him and why the band is so into him.

I may not have been able to decipher all, or even most, of the words to "Headspin" (or "Living on a Prayer," but as a Jersey boy I know those by heart, like it or not), but the man has charisma, he does interesting arrangements (he completely changed the tone of the Bon Jovi song without subverting its meaning), and he's one of the more interesting songwriters (even when I can't make out the lyrics, I appreciate the tunes).

Toby, "Mr. Brightside" & "Throw It Away": On the other hand, you have Toby as sort of the perfect blending of Lukas and Magni: nice guy who won't overshadow the band but does have a certain spark, creative without being so adventurous as to alienate a lot of fans, etc. I thought his voice sounded a little too high and thin on "Mr. Brightside," and the attempt to get the crowd to sing along didn't really work. At first, I thought it was just a case of the studio audience not being properly mic'ed (ditto Storm trying to involve the crowd with the second "Ladylike" chorus, or Magni on "Satisfaction" way back in the premiere), but then you could very clearly hear them on the "oh oh oh oh oh oh" during "Throw It Away." (And stop being so impressed by how quickly the audience picked that up, Navarro: it's six "oh"s in a row, repeated frequently.) Even though he apparently wrote it a while ago (you can hear the original version on his band's MySpace), that song sure as hell sounds like it would fit in on a Supernova album, for good or for ill.

What it comes down to, I think, is the difference between a frontman (or woman) and a lead singer. When Storm and Lukas perform, it's in a very Storm and Lukas way; when Toby does it, I could see him singing for any number of bands, including this one.

What did everybody else think?