AMERICAN IDOL: Rock Week

Despite the fact that Jon Bon Jovi has sold 120,000,000 albums, Simon Cowell apparently was unfamiliar with him. So were a number of the contestants. And that’s all you have to know about ROCK N’ ROLL – AMERICAN IDOL style. It might as well have been Klezmer night.

I’m sure Simon longed for the days when REAL rock stars like Peter Noone and Barry Manilow served as the guest mentors.

For his part, I thought Jon Bon Jovi gave the best advice all season, even better than Diana Ross advising the kids to start getting face work done now.

So last week’s Cheeseathon brought in $70 million between donations and corporate sponsors. I’m thrilled that number was so high, but of the $70 mil only $5 was from News Corp. What a magnanimous gesture. Especially since News Corp. probably made another $40 million selling advertising for the two nights.

Great seeing Antonella Barba and George Bush on the same show.

The program Mr. Bush really should appear on is SO YOU THINK YOU’RE SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER?

Phil Stacey looks enough like Frankenstein without having that microphone cord wrap around the back of his head. Randy thought he gave his best performance. Paula was just excited she didn’t look like a seal in those white pants. And Simon didn’t like the song selection. Unfortunately Bon Jovi never did any cover versions from OLIVER.

Usually, they put the weakest performance number two and this week was no exception. Jordin Sparks was the happy, perky rocker chick. Her look and song felt a little “dress up”. Still, I think she’s safe because this week’s vote total will be combined with last week’s when she wowed America singing a selection from Simon’s favorite hard rock composers, Rogers & Hammerstein.

Don’t you wish Sanjaya were still around for Bon Jovi night??? Flitting about the stage singing “Bad Medicine”. “I got a dirty down addiction/It doesn't leave a track/I got a jone for your affection/Like a monkey on my back.” The tweeners would LOVE it!!

This week’s knife in the heart moments: Jordin telling Jon Bon Jovi that her mother grew up on him. That’s what every fading rock star wants to hear. And Ryan saying to offed-contestant Gina, “Rock week. This must be KILLING you.” Add another seven years onto that therapy, Gina.

LaKisha looked like she was wearing a Houston Astros rainbow road uniform from 1972. What was with that huge red stripe? However, she gave one of her best performances after several disappointing weeks. Was it the judges’ comments that turned her around? No. I like to think it’s because she saw Kimberley Locke on the CELEBRITY FIT CLUB.

Simon kissing LaKisha was a great moment. Ryan was so jealous.

I liked Blake with the dark hair. He looked like a young Charles Grodin. And finally he tossed away the argyle sweaters and went back to his strength – doing bizarre totally original versions of songs that today seem fresh and hip and in five years will look ridiculous. But this night he shined. And I’ll never be able to sing “You Give Love a Bad Name” again without lapsing into Daffy Duck.

Chris Richardson’s idea of taking a risk is singing through his mouth. He’s awful. He will need more than a charity to keep him on after this week.

And Melinda continues to prove she can sing anything. She got the pimp spot this week and delivered big time. The judges compared her to Tina Turner. I agree. She was so dead-on for Tina Turner that if I were Melinda I’d get a restraining order on Ike just to play it safe.

Two finalists get voted off tonight. After last week’s staged sacrifice of Jordin (nice of the producers to do that to the one 17 year old contestant… on their celebration of humanity night) I’m sure her fans will be out in full force. Chris is toast. Probably Phil. But maybe LaKisha. I sure hope not. I’d hate to see her on that big CELEBRITY FIT CLUB scale with Ant making bitchy jokes and Rosie O’Donnell yelling, “You go girl!”