Australian Idol Round Up: Everybody Wins When It’s Jermaine Jackson Week!

I don’t know whether I’m just weary of Australian Idol because we’re nearing the end of this year’s series or because the franchise itself has outstayed its welcome, but it’s getting harder and harder to tune in on a Sunday night and defend my choice of program to my housemates.

That said, what can go wrong when you’ve got an international star like Jermaine Jackson appearing on the show, huh? And all the contestants are singing Michael Jackson hits? And every promo for the show features James Mathieson grabbing at his crotch? Nothing! Nothing can go wrong! Everyone’s a winner!

I made some notes during the show, and I will reproduce them for you after the jump.As previously mentioned, the special guest judge is the softly spoken Jermaine Jackson (remember, he’s the Jackson who named his son Jermajesty!). It turns out Marcia Hines and Jermaine have known each other for a while, having met many moons ago in Holland when they were both on separate promotional tours. There’s a gleam in Marcia’s eye which tells me these two have a past, and everyone in the studio seems to sense it too. But will we ever find out the whole sordid tale of When Marcia Met Jermaine? Probably not. What happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam, after all.

Our first contestant is Teale, who has decided to sing ‘Billie Jean’. He is making sexy eyes while he belts out a slow rendition of the song, and it makes me uncomfortable. His jawline is terrifyingly impressive when framed with a slight smattering of facial hair. I do not approve of his slow version of ‘Billie Jean’.

After Teale’s done, Marcia gives her usual feedback – she says she could see him thinking “OH MY GOD, IT’S JERMAINE JACKSON!” when he came out on stage. Really? At best, I can imagine Teale thinking “OH MY GOD, IT’S ONE OF THE JACKSONS WHO ISN’T MICHAEL!” Sounds to me like Marcia’s projecting, and it was in fact her who screamed surprised and delighted Jermaine-related things internally , not Teale. Jermaine says “Teale, you were wonderful. Pitch-wise, you convinced me. I was looking to be moved, and you moved me.” Everybody seems happy with Teale, and I can’t understand why. It was dull. Am I too old for Idol? Have I lost my soul?

Ricki-Lee has been playing with the fake tan.

Mark Spano attempts to sex up ‘Bad’. He’s lumbering across the stage, dragging the microphone, and his vocals during the verses seem really boring and soft. Like he does most weeks, Mark makes great use of the squat-and-poo-and-scream pose. Marcia and Jermaine praise Mark (get a room!). Kyle is spot on when he says the verses were boring but the choruses were alright – Dicko agrees. Jermaine gets back on the mic and says they’re both wrong, and Andrew G points out that you really can’t argue with Jermaine – although he doesn’t actually say Jermaine’s name, he just refers to him as “the brother of Michael Jackson”, something that pretty much sums up Jermaine’s post-Jackson 5 career.

We’re meant to be seeing Chrislyn’s interpretation of ‘Thriller’ but it looks like someone queued up the wrong video, and instead of seeing Chrislyn’s pre-performance clip, we receive the McDonalds Most Loved Songs promo instead.

During the next few minutes, we see the ten songs Australia apparently loves performed in a studio by the Idol gang. Upon seeing the male Idols vocally molesting Livin’ On A Prayer, the baby Jesus begins to cry and self-harm. I’ve tried to repress the other nine songs. The whole thing feels like a Time Life Classic Soft Rock informercial, but strangely not in a good way.

Chrislyn sings ‘Thriller‘ and manages to resist doing a whole lot of zombie dancing (although at one point she swipes at the camera as though her hand were a cat’s paw/possessed by the campest homosexual in the world). There’s some great mum dancing going on. Jermaine says “I was very very surprised that i heard that you were just seventeen. Thriller is a very tough song to sing, and umm – you had one or two pitch problems, but still… you did a great job, I heard the rehearsal, and this was much better than that.” He says she could have picked a better song, but at the same time he thinks she did a very good job.

Kyle says he wishes there had been zombie dancing – her performance was nearly there, but not quite. Dicko thought it was “a really dopey song choice – that’s a massive song”. But he thinks she made a valiant effort. Marcia says she does not think of ‘Thriller’ as the kind of musical song one would sit down and listen to, you’d only put it on in order to dance. She thinks Chrislyn could have moved around a bit, but it was still pretty good.

Next up? Luke Dickens. He’s doing ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ and I wonder aloud “Oh, how’s he going to reinterpret this then, eh?” – then the twanging guitar starts and I realise the answer to my question is “pub rock style”. My housemate corrects me though – apparently Luke said he wants to give the tune a “bluesy earthy feel” which is marginally better than pub rock, I suppose. I take a moment to appreciate Luke’s slowly evolving facial hair. He appears to be growing the follicles surrounding his disturbingly pronounced goatee, which makes him look lightly less ridiculous. I am surprised to find myself actually enjoying his performance of ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ and begin to grudgingly accept the fact that although I thought his inclusion in the Top Twelve finalists was incredibly weird at the beginning of the series, I really like him now. How did this happen?! What next, I’ll find Teale as sexy as Marcia tells me he is?!

Kyle calls Luke’s work on stage “brilliant”. Dicko says “You’ve got a really uncanny ability of foraging around in the catalogue and finding the best song choice for you”. Dicko says Luke is “beginning to cook at the right time” which, if memory serves me correctly, is similar to something he said to a Guy Sebastian many years ago at around this point in the show.

Like a drunken and embarrassing aunt at a family Christmas party, Marcia confusingly begins singing “HE’S BRINGING SEXY BACK!” at Luke in an aggressive manner.

Everyone seems slightly weirded out by this.

Apparently her decision to launch into song was because Luke is sexy. Hmmm. Jermaine says he thinks Luke’s use of dynamics was great, and he’s doing “all the right things”.

Wes announces he’s going to sing ‘Black Or White’. From the pre-performance video clip, I thought he was going to do an interesting acoustic version of the song (thus really hammering home the fact that he is The Real Musician TM of the bunch), but no – he’s dressed up in his best Michael Jackson circa 1991 outfit and delivering an authentic and irony free impersonation. His time at the Johnny Young Talent School just paid for itself. He launches into a Jacko dance routine, and my housemate pipes up and says “I will never forgive you for making me watch this.” There’s something completely tragic about it, I agree, but also – awesome. Who knew that underneath all that working-musician-with-long-hair cred was a Timberlake-lite pop star waiting to unleash himself upon an unsuspecting Australian audience? Slinging a guitar over his shoulder and playing Hendrix during auditions was the perfect cover.

Marcia is grooving (grinding?) in her chair. Kyle gives him a standing ovation. Suddenly there’s a TOUCHDOWN! Jermaine congratulates him. Kyle says Wes’ performance was “pure thrill”.

WASN’T IT THOUGH?!

Seriously. Wes has had it in the bag since day one.

Your highlights?