‘American Idol’ recap: Crystal speaks, the Rolling Stones get censored

Ladies and gentlemen... the American Idols! (Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife)

What was the most annoying thing about “American Idol” tonight and its tribute to the Rolling Stones?

1. Was it the way the less-talented contestants, when given the chance to break free and perform any song from the incendiary catalog of the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, choose instead to hide behind ballads covered in a layer of schmaltz?

2. Was it the way Didi Benami, while trying to be smoldering and mysterious as she sang “Play With Fire,” actually gritted her teeth and scowled with all the theatricality of an acting student who’s been told to “pretend you’re a puma”?

3. Was it the way idiotic judge Kara DioGuardi kept referring to the Stones in the past tense, apparently unaware that Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ron — still very much a working, touring, recording band — just finished a historic world tour?

4. Or was it the way Lee Dewyze mumbled his way through the line “C’mon baby, make love to me” while singing “Beast of Burden,” obscuring the lyrics in an unintelligible mishmash of syllables? Was it Fox itself, or “Idol” producers, who instructed him to neuter the song’s sexual pleading for the 8 p.m. family audience — or did Lee just decide to do that himself? Either way, it’s outrageous and shameful — and somewhere Ed Sullivan is smiling.

But despite all of those insults to the Rolling Stones — and there were more along the way — the night ends on a high note as eventual winner Crystal Bowersox actually — take a seat if you’re startled easily, pregnant or have a heart condition — smiles and banters with the judges after her closing performance, allaying one of my greatest fears that might prove an obstacle to what should otherwise be a foregone coronation.

Crystal is far and away the most talented artist of the group this year. She’s a self-assured performer with a powerful voice and a clear and confident vision of who she wants to be — she can run rings around the competition and make it look easy. Her version tonight of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was the perfect choice for her — and she matched the original’s power while managing to add a little Crystal sass to it, too.

But Crystal’s performances are usually coupled with a humble, almost painfully shy, facade that’s usually endearing when it’s contrasted with her immense talent. But those two traits — talent and humility — in the wrong light, can be off-putting, too; taken the wrong way, Bowersox could be interpreted as a talented, but aloof, performer who isn’t really enjoying herself and can’t be bothered to reveal anything about herself beyond her singing voice.

But that changed tonight — as she 1. added a little ad-lib sass to her song, 2. smiled and chatted with the judges, 3. revealed that she’s wearing one of departed contestant Lilly Scott’s feather earrings in her hair as a tribute to the contestant she was closest to, and 4. compliments contestant Siobhan Magnus’s performace when judge Simon Cowell says he thinks she was good, but that Siobhan was better. “She was amazing” Crystal nodded in agreement.

The end result? I love her even more … and wish we could watch her perform for an hour each week instead of being made to sit through dreck such as… oh, I don’t know… say Tim Urban’s seminal, historically notable, train-wreck of a version of  ”Under My Thumb.”

Tim takes one of the Stones’ early controversial hits and Mraz-es the hell out of it, reconstituting the dark misogyny of Jagger’s lyrics into a slight and lilting island reggae breeze as imagined by Mel Torme. Different doesn’t always mean good, Tim, and this is beyond awful. Simon crushes him, saying that any Stones fan would turn off his TV immediately and that what Tim just did on the stage was, simply put, “crazy.”

As for those aforementioned ballads, they were predictable choices from the usual suspects — the contestants who wouldn’t dare touch anything more challenging:

– Lacey Brown’s takes on “Ruby Tuesday” and it’s funny to think that a Jagger/Richards ballad could be challenging vocally — but somehow this chorus seems a stetch for her at times. Oh, it’s also incredibly boring. She actually sits down halfway through, as if she’s as uninvested as the song as I am.

– Katie Price sings”Wild Horses. It’s competant, but generic, which is a shame because she does have a lovely voice.

– And 16-year-old Aaron Kelly is introduced by host Ryan Seacrest with the phrase: “Let’s keep it rockin’ and rollin’ with Aaron Kelly…” Has a more incongruous sentence ever been uttered this season? Aaron, of course sings “Angie” — an OK song (not one of the Stones’ finest), but one that neither rocks nor rolls. And it just doesn’t fit him.

The oddest point of the night is Siobhan Magnus’ “Paint It Black.” While Crystal seems to refuse to let the “Idol” stylists change her look, the quirky Siobhan has happily given herself over to the in-house fashion squad and saunters on stage tonight in an arresting sexy-goth-riot-grrl look. But she does a good job anyway, though, as Simon points out, she doesn’t need to scream at the end of every song from now on.

Paige Miles is not a bad singer, and she puts a fair amount of fun into “Honky Tonk Woman,” but she’s undermined by the show’s house band. An approximation of an iconic Keef guitar riff is just that — an approximation, and since they’re playing one of Keef’s most iconic, it’s clearly nothing close to the real thing. And it totally distracts me from Paige’s performance.

Michael Lynche sings “Miss You” — and he’s very smart to take the Stones’ semi-disco tune and update it into a modern dance track tailored to his vocals and style. Of course, he’s actually not much of a dancer, as Simon points out, but it’s not bad, though I nearly miss half the song trying to figure out if this personal trainer is wearing eyeliner.

Casey James does with “It’s All Over Now” what Casey James does every other week: country-fy the song and then dazzle with lead guitar licks. He’s talented, but not exactly trying very hard.

And as epically bad as Tim Urban’s undercooked scramble of a song was, the true lowlight of the night is Andrew Garcia. Tim was laughably bad; Andrew is sacrilegious. To his credit, he drops the guitar pop shtick and goes for something bigger — but that’s where the plusses end. He blurts out a tepid and insulting version of “Gimme Shelter,” turning the Stones’ most threatening, menacing and emotionally apocalyptic political anthem into a bar band performance on covers night. He’s looking for an Adam Lambert moment, but it’s not to be; his voice falters when he goes for the big note/scream at the end.

Andrew, “Gimme Shelter” is sacred ground. Don’t ever do that again.