"Yo! Yo! Yo! To put all of the speculation to the [sic] rest, after 12 years of judging on American Idol I have decided it is time to leave after this season. I am very proud of how we forever changed television and the music industry. It's been a life changing opportunity but I am looking forward to focusing on my company Dream Merchant 21 and other business ventures." —Randy Jackson to E! last night.
And with those words, delivered a few hours before last night's American Idol results show, Randy Jackson, indefatigable stalwart of all 12 seasons, tendered his resignation.
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. With a potential top-to-bottom shakeup on the horizon, are these the last days of Idol as we know it?
One
Who gave the best performance of the night?
Kang: They all seemed nervous last night, didn’t they? Angie sounded shrill for the first time this season (although I suppose the strain of giving two hours of live performances, recording five Ford commercials, and doing whatever other silly crap they put the singers through might be catching up with the vocal cords) and Kree looked about as happy as my cat does when I pick her up and scream “Who’s a cutie? Who’s a cutie?” in her face. Candice kept up her boring march toward the finale, so I guess I would rate her “Somewhere” as the best performance of the night because it didn’t make me want to shove crayons up my nose.
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. Only four contestants remain. (Again.) But the end is in sight.
One
It must be asked: Is this the worst season of American Idol ever?
Kang: It sure feels like it! Which is strange, because there are two contestants with clear talent (Candice and Angie), a wackadoo judge (Nicki Minaj), and Mariah Carey (Mariah Carey) being weird. So why has this season, which started off so promisingly, slowed down to a death march? Here are three theories.
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. The boys are all gone, dead. Long live the girls.
One
Is Janelle doomed tomorrow?
Kang: At the start of the show, Janelle was my favorite to win it all and I still stand by my logic: She’s an attractive-but-not-threateningly-attractive girl with a good-but-not-silly-good voice who sings country without a hint of pretense. I imagined her all spangled up during glam weeks, à la Carrie Underwood singing “Alone” in Season 4, or stomping around with pigtails and screeching out the chorus to Martina McBride’s “Independence Day.” I imagined America slowly falling for this innocent girl who radiates good health and an IQ hovering right about (or slightly below) the national average.
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. This week: More positivity! And more Mariah!
One
Candice's "Lovesong": One of the greatest Idol performances of all time, or do people have short memories and just love to declare things the best ever?
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. Only seven contestants remain. Things are getting real.
One
We’re down to the Top 7, and usually at this point there’s at least one or two contestants who are primarily rock singers. This season none of them are, and they decided to go ahead and do Rock Night anyway. Is Nigel Lythgoe even watching his own show anymore, or has he switched to The Voice like the rest of America?
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. They're down to nine contestants, and will not rest until there's just one remaining, because that's how it works.
One
It was Beatles Night, because Paul McCartney woke up in a cold sweat, realizing he doesn't have all the money. How do we feel about theme nights? Is this one any better than, say, Elton John Night?
Kang: As a Korean-American, I've seen my fair share of Beatles karaoke, specifically “Yesterday,” which is such a popular standard in nostalgic, weepy Korea that for a while in the early ’90s, every album that was released by the then-nascent Korean music industry had to feature a cover of “Yesterday.” So if anyone can judge Beatles karaoke, it’s me (and maybe Emily, who seems to spend more time than is really healthy in karaoke bars in Koreatown).
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. Well, maybe a little bit broken.
One
How come Nicki has ditched her wigs and wardrobe? She was wearing a hoodie last night, for crying out loud! Has any other judge ever been late to the show and then showed up in sunglasses before chewing gum on camera? Estimate how many fucks Minaj gives at this point of the competition.
Kang: This was Nicki’s critique of Angela “Angie” Miller last night: “Where did you get that dress? Also, it’s awesome that you know how to walk in heels! You’re perfect.” She has completely checked out, probably because she’s realized that THIS IS A SINGING COMPETITION and she can’t entertain herself by trolling America with Zoanette and Charlie Askew anymore.
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. This week: Has the enchantment of an unexpectedly strong season finally worn off?
One
Is the thrill gone?
Kang: The freak show just got sad and I want out now. Throughout this season, we’ve had to defend our love of American Idol, but maybe I’m finally actually crossing over. There’s just a certain cynicism to trotting out Lazaro and Zoanette and Charlie Askew every week and asking us to burn out all our goodwill in their “stories.”
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. They're in it to win it this time, at least until the tweens swoop in to break their spirit.
One
Why is "Somebody That I Used to Know" the Song of Death? Did it move itself into the instant retirement category in a single evening?
Yoshida: Everyone thinks they want to sing the Gotye song. Everyone thinks they can sing the Gotye song. After all, it’s got that really big chorus that fun and recognizable, and it’s on an indie label which means that the guy who sang it originally can’t have been that talented. Like, certainly no Keith Urban. So it should be easy to get the coveted “I liked that even better than the original” comment, right?
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. It's been good so far! They're as surprised as anybody!
One
Do we have any theories about why this season is so good so far? It's really good, isn't it? We were ready to be pulling out our hair by now. When was the last season that was this promising?
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken, to tackle another season of American Idol. Join them on their journey, they'll need fresh meat when things go in a cannibal direction.
One
Is Nicki Minaj the best non-Simon judge the show's ever had? As a reminder, the following other individuals have been full-time judges: Randy Jackson (12 seasons), Paula Abdul (8), Kara DioGuardi (2), Ellen DeGeneres (1), Jennifer "Jen-Lop" Lopez (2), a horny microphone stand draped in silk scarves (2), Mariah Carey (1), and Keith Urban (1).
Kang: My mother called last night to talk about how much she enjoyed this Nicki Manga character and all her wack-a-doo expressions, confectionary wigs, and spontaneous accents. She also praised Minaj’s “good heart,” and the backbone Nicki displayed when she walked off the stage because Randy and Mariah wouldn’t stop shooing that poor “soulful country” girl back to her trailer park because Lord knows it ain’t decent for a nice white girl from the South to sing about anything but her boyfriend’s truck, her father’s drinking problem, and the poor girl from across the tracks who later turned into a serial arsonist.
Whatever doesn't deafen you makes you stronger: Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang, Mark Lisanti, and Emily Yoshida have returned, bowed but not broken by The X Factor, to tackle another season of American Idol. Yes, it's definitely time to start worrying about them.
One
What are your first impressions of Judge Mariah, who is ostensibly the big draw of the season, and probably the single biggest reason Nigel Lythgoe didn't tip over one of Jennifer Lopez's 4,000 dressing room candles and let the whole thing burn?
Kang: Mariah looks like the queen cat in an ASPCA shelter. She’s got that same smug look on her face, the same sense of self-satisfaction that seems to say, “I may be old, I may be mangy, and I’m sure you’d rather adopt Nermal Minaj over there with the marigold hair and the lidless eyes, but you should have seen me play Anna Meowens in The King and I. I was beautiful back then.”
When last we checked in on American Idol's chaotic staffing situation, following a breathless report that Nicki Minaj was "100 percent confirmed" to join soon-to-be mortal diva-enemy Mariah Carey behind the judging table, we'd assumed some kind of announcement solidifying the entire lineup would be forthcoming. And then we waited. Oh, how we waited. We waited through the briefly exciting Kanye rumors, the not-nearly-as-enticing Jo-Bro whisperings, the inter-office who-says-no? fights about getting an increasingly desperate Madonna on the show, and a brief hallucination about a Michael Jackson holo-judge who giggles that every performance is either "delicious" or "devilish." Then came the return of The Voice, and two entire episodes of The X Factor in which a stalker-besieged Britney Spears did not light herself on fire, and still no news. But now, nearly a month after the initial shake-up, we finally have our new and not-improved-in-any-discernible-way Idol panel, via Ryan Seacrest's Twitter feed:
Mariah Carey finally has some company behind the American Idol judging table! (Or underneath it, depending on how things play out.) Us Weekly reports, with language ranging from "two sources confirm" to "a few more slight things to sign off on but it is happening" to "100 percent confirmed," that Nicki Minaj is joining the show as a judge in short order. (To recap the judging situation, for those who've already lost track and/or have important things happening in their lives: J.Lo out, Steven Tyler out, Randy to mentor, Mariah in. Britney still on that other show.)
