Posted by Katherine St Asaph and Samantha Martin on 02/09/2012 at 1:01 PM News

The Popdust Files: american idol, power rankings, tv recaps

Dear readers: By sticking around with our power rankings up to now, you’ve shown more perseverance than 50% of American Idol‘s former audience! We are truly proud of you. we’d like to bestow a gift upon you, by which we mean we’d like to recruit and badger you into helping us coin a new word. That new word is Krajciking: singing like The X Factor‘s Josh Krajcik, i.e. burly, growly, a big ol’ voice that could plausibly belong to a big ol’ dude named, I dunno, Wolf. (Idol‘s dude named Wolf, sadly, did not make the cut. Maybe he ran out of animal puns.)

See, you almost need shorthand like that to make sense of Hollywood Week, always the most chaotic part of Idol. Entire segments are strung together from five beady little notes per vocalist and maybe one or two showcase pieces, until hundreds are axed but maybe a dozen are seen. You cannot capture a Kelly Clarkson or Fantasia Barrino in five beady little notes; they all blend together into one adequate wash of decent-to-good singing. Even the faces start to look the same, although that part might be Steven Tyler’s influence. This means that given another producers’ cut, our Power Rankings could look totally different and yet still be just as accurate! Well, almost; the horrific parts would probably remain just as horrific. And most of them belonged to Idol‘s inner ticking workings. Witness:

THE HOPELESS: 38-30

38. Nigel Lythgoe: Joined the world on Twitter with his so-called “tweet-a-long” (the British term for “live-tweet,” surely) even if he used his one Adele-comparison allotment and compared someone to Gokey as a compliment. Then he killed that by being all smug about the Symone Zaire cliffhanger. And then became all smug about that: “It’s not a “cliffhanger.” She didn’t hang, she fell.” #classy

37. These Two Quotes: “The one, the only, Hollywood Week!” Well, other than the ten Hollywood Weeks that came before, that is. And later: “After the break, the best singers of season 11 stake their claim to becoming the next American Idol.” In other words, the premise of American Idol will not change after the break.

36. Coca-Cola: Fox, to the college kid who answered their want ad weeks ago: “Here’s a lot of money. Now just film some extreme close-ups of the judges’ hands fondling mugs of Coca-Cola®. No one will notice.”

35. The Woman Who Sang One High Note To Redeem Her Bad Audition: See, but Christina Aguilera sang other notes in “Reflection.” Adele had other things before she had it aaaalllll. Whitney Houston did an entire verse of a Dolly Parton song before AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. Johnny One Note is fictional. Your plan was doomed from the start.

34. Steven Tyler: His speech quoted and recalled the Cowardlyj Lion, if the Cowardly Lion’s mane was made of the entire JC Penneys jewelry section and if he spent the entire movie hitting on Dorothy and Glinda. This extended act made his “deliberations” rather unconvincing; he probably wished he had contestants’ photos like on X Factor.

33. Randy’s Necklace: Randy accidentally stumbled into Steven’s necklace nook and this blue and white pearl crucifix accidentally fell on him. That’s the only explanation. Thank goodness this didn’t also fall on him…

32. Steven’s Shiny Silver Shirt: No.

31. Shannon Magrane, Who Started With The Worst Possible Section Of “Fallin’”: NO.

30. Jeremy Rosado: A newbie! He got the nickname “Dirty” because he is dramatically ironic (he works the front desk at an infectious disease clinic! But he hates germs! Somewhere out there is his soulmate, a receptionist at a dentist’s office with terrible hygiene.) And he gave Randy the nickname “Dawg” because he is dramatically unoriginal. Anyway, he’s off-key and whiny and does nothing Aaron Marcellus hadn’t done a lot better before him.

For quotability, quirkiness and gimmicks that don’t quit, click NEXT.