Leave your heart
Lay down your art
You're here for the party...
Smile and wave
Try to behave
Be happy that they've
Made you a celebrity...

--Barenaked Ladies, Celebrity

As attentive readers may have noticed, my musical tastes aren't exactly, er, avant-garde. I only have one really good 'I've been a fan from waaaay back' story to tell when the cool kids get together...and it involves the year 1990, the Barenaked Ladies, and a cousin in Saint John NB with a spare concert ticket. All I knew about the Ladies (they weren't anywhere close to BNL yet) was that they'd gotten themselves banned from New Year's in Toronto because of their name - but attentive readers of the Guess Who recap especially will understand how eager I was to check 'em out.
I don't remember much about the concert itself, beyond them interrupting Hello City to anxiously explain that they didn't actually mean that this 'seaside beer hall should sink into the bay', or anything. What I mostly remember is first, thinking that this is some seriously good music...and then later, being intensely frustrated that I couldn't sing along, because this was great music. Clever music. Even...dare I think it? Cool music. Buncha geeky guys that resembled nothing so much as my bookstore co-workers, up there being cool. My journey to Idol recapper was complete.

Which is why I can't quite bring myself to scorn the notion of the BNL as a Canadian Idol theme...and why, despite everything that's happened to disillusion me this season, I can't quite scorn Canadian Idol itself. Because although forcing Idol contestants in general and this crew in particular to sing with individuality, wit and insight might very possibly turn out to be the worst Idol innovation since Carmen sang Billy Joel... somehow, it never quite occurred to either the CI TPTB, or the band themselves, why they shouldn't at least try to reach that far.

Oh, look, it's Benedict being fun! Why does it not surprise me that it involves bubblegum pink under a polyester prom suit? Seriously, right down to the little pink satin pocket square. He looks like a BNL lyric just standing there. Dad said I have to be home by eleven/Aww, man, I’m gonna miss Stairway to Heaven!

“We got Barenaked Ladies in the house!!” Heh. I’m really torn on whether to credit him for that one or not, because it’s just so bloody obvious. Anyway, the BNL are indeed in the audience. Which is great, really…although I’m still sulking a little because Ben said they were gonna be onstage ‘backing [the Idols] up, and I would’ve given them all of about ten seconds before they got bored and started switching lyrics at random, and that would have basically made up for every single previous moment spent recapping this dreary season…

…However. Apparently that was it for Ben’s cleverness quota either way, because all we get in the way of ‘whoop-there-it-is!’ exhortation this night is “When the show’s over, vote for your favourite!” plus a recap of the dial-tone dilemma. As if his entire target demographic didn’t know more about dial tones at this point than most Bell engineers.
At that it really is kinda funny, how far back Benedict’s dialling the whole you-didn’t-vote-and-look-what-happened-to [contestant] schtick this year. It’s like even he knows how silly he’d look trying to convince people that Canada’s the poorer for the loss of, say, Daryl Brunt.

Time to meet ‘the architects of the Canadian Idol house of dreams’. Mm. Awhile back, Shoemom got hold of the remote and I had to sit through one of those shows where they fix up the house to sell faster. There was this one modest little suburban split-level where the owners had jazzed it up with burnt-orange carpet, wrought-iron bannisters, mirror wall in the hall, faux-brick finish in the kitchen and Bali tribal masks in the family room. I’d mercifully blocked it all out, right up until this-here moment.

So, Zack in his once-a-year classic black and white, because he really does love me after all…in your own words, why is it so important to WIN THIS THING!? Pause while Zack – and, natch, Jake the Tool - obligingly appreciate the decent imitation, although just personally I’d’ve picked a night I wasn’t wearing a pink satin pocket square.
To no-one’s surprise, Zack responds that ‘It’s BETTER THAN LOSING, Ben!’ Uh, sure, guys. And it’s just a total coincidence that this little commercial is happening the night before Jacob’s performance, right? It wouldn’t be TPTB’s idea of proactive damage control, or anything. Nooooo.

Sass in basic black to match – yo, group hug! Group hug! - confidence level of the contestants? Would there be a reason why we keep asking the drunk judge to offer the support and encouragement? Just curious. 'It really shows how this show helps performers grow, and I think Canada’s noticing that.'….Yeah, that’s what she says. Adopts the Serious Mentor expression and everything. Sassy, I think he’s talking about what happens onstage, not in the hotel room in your fantasy life.

Farley in the shadow-striped upholstery from the den in the Idol House of Dreams, how do three very different kids with different fanbases play to win this thing? Cut each other’s phone lines, basically. Farley, however, is under contract to say something about how they need to step it up, give it everything they’ve got, really lay their hearts on the line. The controlled frustration in his voice and body language speaks volumes about what exactly they’ve been doing so far.

Jake in the cream suit and orange-sunburst tie worn by the Dad in the sitcom in which the Idol House of Dreams is set, why are we gathered here to honour a bunch of dorky guys with a silly band name? Because they work so hard. So suck it up about the musical quality, you Idol-winning ingrates! You sing [I]Star of all Planets[/I] often enough and people will be looking up to you, too. ‘Course, they’ll be trying to decide if they want fries or rings, but hey.

The really funny part is that the ensuing vid-bio is pretty much a lovingly-detailed and glowingly proud class film on How to Succeed Without Selling Out. They started ‘just making music’, sold 85, 000 copies of their homemade CD at concerts, then toured their [bleep]s off for the next ten years until making it big commercially, ie in the US. But of course they’re still all Canadian and stuff. (As evidenced by the fact that Ben references, and – thank you very much, Idol song choices – will keep referencing their CD, Rock ‘Spectack’ Yeah, I know, that’s how it’s really pronounced, but I also know that Ben has been severely deprived of chances to show off his Montreal-ness this season and trust me, he’s way making up for lost time.)

All the while tactfully glossing over out the one part that might actually give Idols past and present some real hope – the years the band spent under blackball as too goofy and frothy for the uber-cool Canuck music elite, reduced to plaintive wails of “But, but, it’s OK to hate us, really…” Now, I'm not sure how inspirational this is gonna be artistically but the clips being shown right at the moment should definitely give heart re: dorky glasses and funny hair. Also possibly overwrought videos. Looking at that clip of Enid it's hard not to conclude the elite sorta had a point.

Anyway, time to meet our future Employees of the Month. I think somebody finally figured out that they don’t really need silly psuedo-clever babble, they can just give the kids a simple, heartfelt intro based on their real personalities and accomplishments to date. Then they realised what they’d done, freaked out totally, and started grabbing at whatever the hell they could remember about Whatstheirnames…

She’s your Concrete Angel, Melissa! Would this be the first time an Idol host has come right out and announced that the female contestant’s a hooker? Right, I figured, it’s just that with Seacrest it’s hard to tell. I guess somebody’s decided that Melissa needs some backstory in a big hurry. Not to worry, though, Dad and fans; very few ladies of the night out there with this level of knit-shrug fetish, I’m guessing. Although for once it actually looks pretty natural and 17-ish over an olive-print tee and matching skirt.

He’s your Teddy Bear, Aaron! And it’s a shame he went to all the trouble to rig himself out so snazzily in navy sport-coat and shirt – really, best he’s looked yet - because I firmly believe the memories invoked by that intro alone were enough to drop him the Idol race. I don’t want Aaron as my teddy bear, anyway. Because I just know he’d turn out to be like my nephew’s Elmo, with the little micro-chip in that makes him say ‘You don’t wanna play with Aaron Bear?’ all pitiful-like every time I walked past, and eventually I’d freak and start removing his stuffing with my teeth.

Ahem. Meanwhile, Rex here is from Newfoundland, did you know? I think it’s so charming, how he’s all shy and sensitive about potential sterotyping. Wanting it to be all about the singing. Really…Oh, and he’s also Born to be Wild, which from the look of the plaid flannel button-down, jeans and ballcap, means he apparently does a killer Rex Murphy impression whenever the diesel mechanics get together after work.

Hey! There are vid-bios with the band in what looks like the ballroom of the Idol Mansion…but there’s no piano. There’s a natural order of Idol things, here, and there is supposed to be a piano. What else are the guest artists gonna rest their egos on?

Rex enters the Ballroom ‘o Fun. Mock-SCREEMs from the BNL. Oh, right, actual self-aware, relevant guest artists…gonna take some getting used to, sorry. Anyhoo, Rexy vid-bios that the BNL are ‘a great band’, in a tone of voice that strongly suggests ‘for a band I wouldn’t listen to if you offered me a brand-new truck with NASCAR seatcovers’.
But hey, he’s Canadian, they’re Canadian, it’s all good. They praise him for being relaxed. He says they ‘made it all smoother’. Steven Page notes that a big part of being a singer is ‘amplifying’ who you are, getting it across to the audience, and Rex does that really well. They don’t get into actual technical market size for an amiable semitalented Newfie bar-bander, or anything, but Rex seems happy anyway.

Brian Wilson. Sure, why not? Up until right about here I hadn’t, in re: wondering how these kids were going to pull this off, realised that the BNL’s rock songs at least contain an escape clause – all the complicated stuff is one level below the surface. Up top, all you’ve got is some genial, laid-back – ie. Canadian – rock music, and that Rex can connect to effortlessly. Honestly, I think the kid might actually be some kind of hoser savant; if the song hasn’t been written whilst drinking cold Molson’s, he’s sunk.

Which is how he comes to be genially rasping and bobbing away at a song about the fine line between artistic pretense and paranoia…and I find myself enjoying it quite a bit. Or at least I would be, if the song hadn't been chopped into teeny little momentum-killing bits. This in turn throws Rex slightly off the tempo, because in true laid-back rock fashion this song is designed to build gradually to a satisfyingly crashing climax, not serve as the promo for Much Really Irritating or whatever the hell those new channels are called. So that, while for once he’s more than holding his end up vocally and physically, at the big Rocker Moments the arrangement does the inevitable sputter-and-die for him. The best I can say about this one is that I would seriously consider paying to hear the uncut version.

BNL – Love it. Whoop, holler, standing O.

Jake: That was the most fluid and the most musical you’ve ever been on this show. Translation: Thank god. We’d about given up hope.

Farley: BNL is a uniquely Canadian rock band, I think you’re gonna follow. Mm. Yes, the forked path lies open before you, Grasshopper. There is Blue Rodeo…and then there is Loverboy. Choose wisely. Oh, and shave the goatee, willya? Startin’ to bug.

Sass: [incoherence]….Counting Crowes…[incoherence]…really endearing part was when you cracked your knuckles at the end. Yeah, saw that on an SCTV skit once, a million yuks. [sigh] Somehow it’s entirely fitting, that Idol finally finds a homegrown rockstar and he’s the third Mackenzie brother.

Zack: That song was so far out of your life experience, but, y’know, like Farley said. I think you could make some good records with that sound. Yeah, hey, he learns how to crack his knuckles and sing at the same time, international superstardom here we come.

Completely gratuitous Shoebox mention! Hee. Yes, I'm delusional, but it's more fun in here than it is out there recapping, OK?

Aaron vid-bios that meeting the BNL is just the absolute highlight of his entire life. “Us too, man,” Ed murmurs sweetly. Shift-FI the rest of the session, Aaron sitting ‘these guys’ on a pedestal and the guys looking slightly bemused. Probably because they don’t want to find out what’ll happen if they don’t give Aaron the support he needs any more than the rest of the viewership does.
At any rate, everyone's uncritically awed once Aaron opens his mouth. “He, like, fills the room!’ Yeah. They don’t exactly say what with, which worries me a bit, because I’ve seen some of the guy’s deeper performances and as I understand it industrial-grade…uh…Velveeta is really hard to scrape off your shoes.

As it turns out - to my real surprise - he’s picked Break Your Heart, one of what the BNL like to refer to as ‘our jolly little songs about total despair’. As they also note, Aaron has a huge, huge advantage this night because he’s the only one of the three who could possibly sing the underside of the two levels - and despite the fact that this is Aaron, and this is Idol, and the one has to be aware that there's a distinct possibility he could wind up and hurl the subtext straight through the other's pink Bristol board-toting audience and somebody still might not be impressed, he's gonna go for it.
And damn, it all just explodes from there. The stage presence is smoothly confident, the vocal is, rich, soulful, sophisticated...really. Let's put it this way: I now know where Urkel’s morphing machine went after Family Matters, folded, kids. I mean, he opens up a couple notes in the middle there like somebody told him they were reviving Les Miz and he merely figured what the hey, I can’t beat the ballcap anyway. It’s totally faithful to the original, but wholly his own…and if on second listen ‘his own’ still has some naggingly fuzzy Tom Jones-esque edges…those notes. Sheez. That quite simply would (again) easily rank with the best CI performances of all-time.

BNL – Love is all around.

Farley: Best singer left in this competition. No argument here. Now if we could only figure out a way to squish Rex’s raw rock passion together with Aaron’s voice and work ethic, we’d have…well, come to think of it, we’d have Kalan Porter. Only of course severely overweight, with greasy curls and pierced ears. Following us around all the time, eager to show us his new knuckle-cracking trick. So, um, never mind.

Sass: Took the Star Search moments and made a marathon of it. Going by the odd look on her face I’d guess somebody’s trying to encourage the homely guy without actually encouraging the homely guy, if the drift is clear. To put it another way, if this had been Rex, there would have been blatant lassos involved.

Zack: Best singer…and hey, you think you’re too unusual to be an Idol? Check out the Ladies, man, they sold ten million records. Cut to the BNL, convulsed in mirth. Because this is in fact a dead-bang takeoff of their earlier cracks to eTalk, that they wouldn’t mind singing for the judges just so they could point to their twelve million records sold.

Jake: Yeah, you’d know all about unusual, wouldn’t you! Smirk! Walked into that one, buddy!…The chance to be there when somebody explains it to him, that would also be worth every moment spent recapping this crumby season. Anyway, yeah, Aaron, you opened up those notes and blew us back in our chairs. Translation: Thak god. We’d about given up hope.

Melissa…walks across the room, shakes everyone’s hand, and Shift-FI’s about how amazing the BNL are, what a great experience this is, how helpful – ahhhh! Byrd!!….Sorry, major cold wet slap across the face with Idol reality, there. Come to think of it, Byrd will show up in the vid-bios exactly twice tonight and both times it’ll be Melissa’s. Chaperone for the pop princess, maybe? That'd explain why we don't get any of what you'd have to think would be extensive footage of the band riffing off her precocious seriousness. “Don’t you boys go putting ideas into her head, now!”

At any rate, without a word of praise or blame they all start in to practice The Old Apartment. Another one of those trick tunes; it’s actually about a random nostalgic guy reminiscing about the good old days, but it’s performed as if he were an angry ex-lover. Meaning she’s on roughly the same ambition level as Rex, which leads me to believe the BNL have been significantly less gracious and more helpful than your average guest artists.
There’s lots of juicy angsty fun to be had either way…of course, it helps if you don’t have to have the joke explained to you. C’mon, Mel, high school, remember? I'm guessing there was at least one guy who started out with your CDs in his locker and ended up in there himself?

Uh…yeah. As it turns out, there may actually have been a couple. Takes her awhile to really get into it, but once she does, look out. Vocals are satin-smooth throughout, power, tone, nuance, it's all there. The camp counsellor pulled off the Angry Young Rocker Chick without breaking a sweat...albeit over the loss of a dishrack. OK, so there's still some work to be done. But the nifty thing about this little girl is that - unlike the Emilys of the world - the instincts are there to begin with. She doesn't fuss. There's this utterly engaging confidence in her ability to to simply understand what the song needs and communicate it, no more and no less, that would be impressive in a contestant of 25 let alone 17. (Elena, for one, never did figure it out. K. Clarkson, on the other hand...)

BNL – Happy, but not as happy as Melissa’s dad behind them, waving a foam #1 finger that you just know he's anxiously clocked them with at least three times already. I dunno, apparently he's a great guy, dude has his own fan thread on Idolforums and everything, but I'm still getting these vaguely unsettling Michael-Lohan-on-his-meds vibes.

Sass: You’re female, so you’ve got unique challenges tonight – right, just occurred to you this theme, did it, Ms. I-Hope-a-Girl-Wins-This-Year? – and as far as I’m concerned, you’re the best we’ve got left.

Either she really, seriously sees potential in this kid or Derek's decided he doesn't want to spend next year backing up an Idol whose greasy rocker hair is more convincing than his.

Zack – Mesmerizing presence, uniquely melancholy…when you sing thismuch better, you’re my favourite. Awwww, Zack in mentor mode is so cute. I think. Woulda been cuter if I hadn't spent last year with Alanis Morrisette's Hands Clean on permanent replay on the CD player. Man, I need a vacation from this gig.

Jake: Takes out his irritation at Zack making perfect sense on an endless disquisiton re: how being a girl actually helps her to make the BNL's music her own. Well, the whole one-quarter of it that doesn't have a specifically male narrator, sure. And…she did. Translation: Thank god, I've still got it. Who's da talent-finding man, huh? Tell me? Who?

Farley – You look great, you emoted, what more can we ask? Well, just personally I wanna hear the verse about ‘How is the neighbor downstairs/How is her temper this year/I tuned up your TV and stomped on the floor just for fun…’ before I crown her Kelly II, but then again I’m probably just being picky.

Ben: You do that week in, week out, don’t need my help, let’s get to the numbers! Heh. In case you were wondering who TPTB want to win this thing? You can stop now. Even being unsubtle, he’s unsubtle.

L’Oreal pimpmercial. Fashion shoot week! ‘I like to find the greatness in people’, the photographer intones over shots of Suzi with a pink beehive. Then he poses them on a scaffold, ‘cuz they’re ‘building their careers’, get it? Annie Leibowitz slumming this ain’t, kidlets. Decently interesting to look at though - this is evidently where 99% of the L'Oreal efforts went this season, which explains a whole lot (more) about this season. I especially like the part where Josh keeps showing up in-shot surrounded by an ethereal glow and I get to imagine it emanating from his stoked ego.

Rex. Call and Answer. Uh-oh. Still communicating loud and clear, and this time ‘round the message from both band and protégé is ‘This is gonna suck.’ I get the very strong impression overall, with Rex and ballads, that he and his buddies frequently sit around the den at home making Beavis-and-Butthead-style ‘huh-huh-huh’ noises whenever Celine or Toni show up on the screen.

Eugh. Just...eugh. Even if this wasn’t the obvious exception to the double-meaning rule, as a matter of fact one of the very few songs in the entire BNL catalogue that unflinchingly demands deep, complex layers of emotional nuance, the one that they performed on the 9/11 telethons fortheloveofPete. All that should’ve been enough to send him screaming from the room, sure enough, but it doesn’t excuse the sheer lack of musicianship on display here. Hell, this could've been something off the winner's CD at a telethon for Severely Untalented Musicians and he'd still...uh, oops. Dang. We're in trouble, music lovers.
Look, I’m not just talking to hear myself snark, here. This may be the single worst performance in any round, any season, I’ve ever heard. I’m pretty sure it’s the worst one Rex has ever heard, too. It’s for sure the most pathetic sight I’ve ever seen, him standing there in his neatly combed Ballad Hair and maroon Ballad Jacket, staring at his Ballad Shoes, his shoulders all hunched in the universal sign for Please, God, Just Let the Trapdoor Open Now. The wistful opening notes come out on one long nasal drone, the painful wisdom about having to pull it together or lose it all is whined miserably, the…oh, hell. The last time somebody this confident found himself this deep in over his head he was getting whomped by Sioux, and – although Rex pulls it together enough for one really nice note at the very end - there ain’t no cavalry coming over the Idol hill this night, either. The Ladies' Auxiliary can only hold out for so long.

BNL – -polite clappage-

Zack: What I said earlier? Only applies to your upper register. Hope the fangirlies are voting their little fingers off, kiddo, ‘cause your radical inability to sing is gonna do you in. Well, if they weren’t before...Rex's amiable grin freezes into place and stays there for the remainder of this session. It's a little bizarre to watch, honestly. Like he's been stripped right down to a hollow shell of Newfoundland-ness.

Jake: Hey, if you couldn’t sing you wouldn’t be here. Tough song to sing, you pulled it off at the end. Translation: Look, Jenny Gear left me, Jacob Hoggard turned me down, Downie keeps calling me up in the middle of the night just to horselaugh…here’s my card.

Farley: Yeah, lower register terrible, higher register, nice. He’s wearing that ‘Please don’t make me say it’ look again. I’m not at all sure he isn’t beginning to seriously think about retiring to his dressing room with a quart bottle of VO and a Do-Not-Disturb-Til-After-the-Finale sign.

Sass: Thanks, cut! I can only conclude she’s been stunned sober. At an rate, she's way out of euphemisms.

Ben: Uh….good job, Rex. At his comforting pat Rex unfreezes and...shrugs. Yeah, we know, a'ight. Sigh.

Aaron – Lots of fun just to sit there in the pocket groovin’ along with the Barenaked Ladies, man. Well, I’m glad he’s having fun, because on first sound of his vocal on Enid I’m having to severely truncate my initial jumping-up-and-down-squeeling-with-glee-ing. Because this song? If there ever that would reward the A. Walpole from the first half this would be it.
But this isn't that Aaron. Aaron, as this performance proved sadly - and, as it turned out, conclusively - for all his brave efforts to bust loose, is a hopeless cheeze junkie. He just can't go this long without a hit of pure audience WUV. Add a signal-flare-orange shirt, and you have...an apparent homage to the rubber ball on the Gordon CD cover. Which is an, ah, interesting idea, but frankly after ten seconds of trying to follow the the bouncy-bouncy Walpole around the audience this viewer at least is gettin' a trifle seasick. The half-chanted, curiously throttled-sounding vocal - as if he's choking back the giggles at his own sheer cleverness - doesn't help any, either. It's a measure of just how earnestly wrong the big guy's gone this entire competition that even if all this was actually brilliant self-mocking satire on the level of Jacob in a jumpsuit, nobody's prepared to believe him.
BNL (briefly) – Standing O. I dunno, maybe they know something about self-mocking satire we don't. From either perspective.

Jake: Hard song to really emote, you gotta have fun with it, and you did, good job. Translation: Here's the card I eased out of Rex's pocket on the break.

Farley: Yeah, the theatre training stood you in good stead. Really worked the stage. Well, yes. So did the BNL, in the video, please see Note #2 above.

Sass: I know you can take it from me…looked like you were leading an aerobics class. I actually woulda cast him as the medicine ball, myself, but yeah, pretty much. Even Aaron busts out laughing. So close to his goal of mass love, and yet so very, very far...but, y'know, I could possibly be persuaded to wait while he finds a decent therapist or something.

Zack: First song, I thought you wanted to win; second, you wanted to do a BNL impersonation. Aaron: No way, Zack; I am who I am because of these guys here. Uh, Aaron? Currently, you’re an Idol contestant in a faux-hawk and an orange shirt. I’m thinking it may be time to switch over to Abraham Lincoln or something at least temporarily.

(Anybody else notice Tyler Stewart, the BNL's irrepressible drummer, flipping the camera after this? After which the automatic cut-to-the-celebrity takes abruptly ceased?)

Ben: There’s a difference between doing an imitiation and doing justice, and that’s what you did. Yes. Yes, I have no trouble at all believing that in the Benedictverse, this is what passes for doing justice to that song. The rest of the whole entire voting public, however...

Melissa apparently escaped her Diva Doyenne long enough to learn that When I Fall, the gorgeous, soft, sweet ballad she's picked for performance # 2, is actually about a window washer who's afraid of heights. And damned if she - genuinely - doesn't seem to mind. In fact, she's actually glad to hear it. 'Now I can have some fun with it!' she vid-bios with a sly little gleam in her eye.

Heh. That gleam is worth far more than any Top Ten moment thus far, really. It's not exactly the CI3 equivalent of Kalan suddenly turning out to have 'the soul of Nat King Cole'...but it's close enough, this season. Vocally flawless, ran through an entire CD's worth of pensive mood and thoughful tone like a seasoned pro, and capable of subtle nuance to boot...Ladies and gentlemen, your Canadian Idol 2005 if there's any justice in this universe. Which give the amount of 'but she was so BORING!' on the various forums, there isn't.

Farley: I keep having to remind myself that you’re only seventeen! Mature professional performance for your age. Amazing. Translation: Thank god...

Sass: I’d catch you if you fell, but I don’t think you ever will. Yeah, besides, they've probably got Kalan all lined up for that job anyway. You think I kid? Hah. I give it two weeks before they're 'seen together' on some red carpet or another.

Zack: Wish we’d shown you bombing out in the top 100 (oh, they will, they will…) because that’s when we realised there are no rules. There’s you, and you’re it, and that’s all that matters. Well, it isn't exactly 'I'm voting for all three of 'em!', but...yeah.

Jake: Agreed with Farley – beautiful, professional, never boring. Translation: I was bored out of my mind. But it was OK to look at.

Ben: Beautiful, Melissa. And I wasn't bored at all, really.