The Attorney General and American Idol

If you've been keeping up with the firing of the 8 U.S. attorneys, then you know it has recently centered on Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General of the U.S. (i.e. secretary of the Justice Department). I've found the whole affair to be rather disappointing due to the recently acknowledged increasing politicization of the U.S. attorneys' positions. A blog on the Washington Post has decided to lay out the case against Alberto Gonzales in a rather damning (though not criminal) fashion. It's a rather interesting, if not depressing, read.


On a completely separate note, American Idol was on tonight, for the first time with just the 12 finalists for this season. Everyone had to sing a song from Diana Ross's songbook. In terms of guests and guest songs, Diana Ross was a great choice. She's been around forever, singing songs the whole time, and her early work with the Supremes should be required musical knowledge for any modern pop musician. That said, why the heck did so many of the people choose such crappy songs from her past???!!!?? I mean, seriously, why in the world did they choose BORING songs? She's got so many great songs, and yet so many of them chose poor songs. In general, her songs from her time with the Supremes are better because they have more energy than her songs from her solo career, but she still had some good ones from when she was solo.

A better question might be: Why the heck did they give the guys all the good songs? Anyone who watches American Idol this season knows the guys suck. True to form tonight, they butchered Diana Ross's songs. The first singer of the night sang "Can't Hurry Love", a great song from the Supremes, and he turns it into one of the most boring renditions I've ever heard. Simon called him a backup singer, which is an insult to the backup singers who actually did a better job than him when they helped out with the song. Lakisha, who definitely has one of the best voices in the group, covered Diana covering Billie Holiday. While I think Lakisha is great, she should NEVER try covering a Billie Holiday song again. Her voice is more Whitney Houston (which she covered last week with "I Have Nothing" very well) than Billie.

I don't know remember his name, but one of the loser guys sang "Keep Me Hanging On", which should have been covered by the rocker chick. Why? Because the rocker chick would have sung it in a far better way. The guy completely changed the song into some sort of weird modern, slightly discotheque sounding version. It sucked. As the judges said, it's a classic and you should just sing it the way Diana sang it. Or, if you're going to change it, give it a rock edge. It's a bit of a hard-edged (for the Supremes) song and can be given a nice up-tempo but harder sound.

Anyway, I'm a Motown fan and I just couldn't stand listening to these loser guys butcher the great Supremes' classics. All the guys should be kicked off for screwing up all her songs, especially that guy Sanjaya who sounds like Michael Jackson with no energy (you know, high-pitched and boring).