Friday, January 24, 2014

AI Season 13- Catch Up Recap: January 22, Detroit Auditions

We're in Detroit. #44584, a pretty girl in black pencil pants and long brown hair, is nervous. Other auditioners are also nervous, including some fairly odd looking kids. Ryan makes a selfie home movie in the Motor City. Things in Detroit are not uniformly wonderful at the moment, it seems.

JLo is wearing a red plaid flannel shirt. Or at least I assume it's a shirt until later in the show, when she stands up to reveal that it's a very short dress. Or maybe, it's still a shirt, just a longish one, with no pants underneath. She has tousled hair, and is chewing gum.

Keri Lynn Roche has tattoos. Lots of them. She also has a nose ring, a long black dress, a necklace made of dangly chains, and messy, side-swept hair. She sings hunched over, and I want to tell her to stand up straight. But she sounds good. When she sings without the guitar, I'm not as pleased, but she moves on.

Julian Miller, 18, wears a lot of clothes: a knit cap, a denim jacket over a long sleeved shirt and a bow tie, and red pants. He sings in a bluesy voice which I enjoy. He gets the nod.

Paris Primeau has aggressively pink hair and a black leather jacket. She sings an overwrought version of House of the Rising Sun... I mean even more overwrought than the original. She's going to Hollywood.

Blonde Samantha Furtwegler is kind of screechy. She's going home.

Olivia Diamond sings in a way that makes my ears hurt, but she's moving on.

Malayan Watson is 15. She plays tuba in her school marching band. She's wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and she is kind of hyperly confident. She also has a powerful, clear and lovely voice. She's earned that confidence. She also has a very cool dad. She's going to Hollywood.

Ryan Watt is 29 and dressed all in blue. He has a mature voice, what a novelty. Unlike many of the others this year, he looks 10 years younger. He's going on too.

Khristian d'Avis, whose name annoys on spelling alone, is wearing a pink jacket, a short black swirly skirt, and polka dot booties with pink flowers. Oh my, this is really awful- she sings loud and then soft and then on key and then off key, all in the sacred name of Whitney Houston. It's a bad performance and as soon as she realizes that the judges aren't thrilled, she begins to beg. For some reason, the begging works. Keith says no, but the others pass her through.

In the next segment, JLo is fooling with her necklace, which is nestled down inside her shirt. An absolute asshole of a contestant comes in and makes a bleeped comment about whatever she's doing in there. JLo is insulted, the guys are insulted, the asshole digs himself even deeper, and we don't hear him sing. Good.

Gena Ascuitto is 17. She has black hair softly falling to her shoulders, and she's tastefully dressed in a gray jacket and black pants. She sings an adequate Adele imitation. I have no idea how she might sound if she decides to sing like Gena Ascuitto, but I guess we'll get the chance to find out.

We see short clips of some really creepy auditions. Luckily, they're very short.

Melanie Forrest has big curly hair, lots of makeup and red lipstick. Her dad gave up his dream of singing professionally to raise Melanie by himself, so she wants to do this for him (and, presumably, for herself as well). Melanie is wearing an oddly constructed yellow strapless short dress with a long lace overskirt. Her raspy voice suits Fever, and then Dead or Alive. She gets 3 yesses.

JLo leaves for a moment, and HCJ and Keith fool around, with HCJ auditioning. It's actually pretty funny.

Liam Newberry is 18. Unfortunately Liam Newberry is wearing turquoise pants, a white shirt, and a matching turquoise plaid tie. He loves HCJ and he sings a credible karaoke version of The Way You Look Tonight. But it's not interesting or original enough to please the judges, who tell him to go home and loosen up a bit. I hope he listens.

My lordy, what is it with flowered headbands this year? 20 year old Jade Lathan is wearing one too. She's also wearing a black leather jacket over a purple flowered dress. And thigh high stockings. Her button earrings say *open*. She sings Amy Winehouse and I think it sounds horrible, but the judges love her.

Some guy sings while Keith plays his (the guy's) guitar. He already has a ticket, but no name, I guess.

Ryan asks a stupid question for the Twitter followers to answer. It's so stupid that I'm not going to repeat it.

Sarah Scherb, our #44584 from the opener, sings. Her voice is nasal. Her dad works for Delta Airlines and HCJ asks if Sarah knows Delta Lena. In the safety video, Delta Lena shakes her finger seductively and says "no, no, no" to smoking on board. I have, in the last couple of years, become very familiar with Delta Lena. Oh, Sarah gets 3 yesses.

Cindy Arterbrider is 15 and looks 30. She's truly adorable in her office manager red knit dress with a black belt and a neck scarf. She sings Loving You and she hits the high note. When she gets the nod, she hits it again.

Maurice Townsend is 26. He has very long dreds and a fedora. He's wearing a blue blazer and jeans. He also has 4 of the most purely adorable kids I've ever seen. If this competition hinged on cute offspring, Maurice would take the crown right now. Luckily, Maurice can sing really really well.

Day 2- JLo is late, but she runs in wearing a lacy black schoolgirl dress with a little white collar. Her hair is pulled up into a ponytail and she's wearing pink lipstick.

David Oliver Willis was cut in Vegas last year. In the interim, he has opened a coffee shop with his wife. I like his voice. A lot. HCJ worries that David will rely on his guitar too much, but agrees that he should move on.

Rakita and Karlita Gulledge are 19 year old twins. They have identical horriffic Sharpie-drawn eyebrows, but only one has peek-a-boobs. They sing something by someone named Beyonce Knowles. Maybe you've heard of her. Or rather, they sort of sing and sort of screech. They get 3 no's.

You Guess whether a girl in a white lace dress, fake eyelashes, a stupid halo-style headband, and an unpleasant voice makes it through. Go ahead, guess.

Blake Soles is a singer/songwriter. He's told to go home and work on it a bit.

Brandi Neely is 18, and auditioning again. I don't know how well she sings because I cannot stop looking at her blotchy red neck and chest in contrast with her waxy white face. No one told her to blend her foundation in all the way down, I guess. She gets 2 yesses, which is all she needs.

Ethan Harris is 20, and he looks exactly like a young Robbie Benson in a white shirt, black vest and jeans. He sings in a very high voice (exactly like his speaking voice) and it's interesting. He gets a ticket.

Leah Guerro is 21. She's wearing a pair of really unfortunate print leggings. Her head is shaved on one side, and has very long hair on the other. She has a very good voice, which is nice because otherwise I'd never get past the hairdo.

Zach Day is 21, and he's not great but he's going through.

I really don't like Symphony Hawlett's voice but she's moving on too.

Alya Stackhouse is from Detroit, but she currently lives in Hollywood. She has long hair and a headband (not flowered this time), and is fairly adorable. She sings a terrible song well and gets 3 yesses.

Eric Gordon is 27, from Kansas. He has an impossibly high pompadour. Something About Mary high. It's distracting. He's wearing a Members Only windbreaker, which is also distracting. He sings John Mayer, which layers on the distraction even more. And he snaps his fingers. But for some reason, the judges like him.

Xavier Cavillio is 25, with a big bushy beard. He sings like a street musician and is sent back to the streets.

I'd say that Tony Delbarrio is a Weird Al clone, but that would be insulting to Weird Al.

Ryan Nisbett is 24. In the last year or so, he lost a couple hundred pounds and his thin new self appears to be the unholy love child of Salvador Dali and Johnny Depp, with maybe just a tinch of Eric Gordon's hair thrown in. He sings Sarah Maclachlan and gets 3 yesses. They're going to eat him alive in Hollywood.

17 Marielle Sellers looks exactly like an African American Miley Cyrus- same hair, same mouth, same tongue. I can't begin to imagine why she'd want to do that to herself, but there it is. She has a Dead Dad , about whom we will hear a lot, I imagine. She's wearing a teeny little dress and stilettos. And she's good, maybe a bit too much with the wide-eye emoting, but still, she's good.

So, 40 tickets were awarded in Detroit, and this gets me up to speed with Season 13. Woot!

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