Damien & The Derry Queen

So on Monday night Australian Idol Version 4.0 drew to a close, but not before foisting upon us the televisual equivalent of full fingernail removal.

The finale was, by all accounts, a monstrous hybrid of excruciating filler and craptastic pop cultural fodder.

Our newest and least Australian winner is Damien Leith, who pulled out the win despite boasting a fanbase largely populated by humans responsible for such slogans as "We Be-Leith You Are A Star". (Admittedly, this was not nearly as reprehensible as coked-to-the-eyeballs-and-barely-upright Tim Bailey, who during his live crosses from NT invited us to rename the city of Darwin "Jesswin". New depths, my friends - not even Daryl Somers would go there.)

I have now digested the win and heard the winner's single several times on the radio. It is a just outcome - in Bobbyless, Reiganless, Lavinaless circumstances.



It's probably a blessing for Jess, who might, a la Casey, otherwise have spectacularly crashed and burned spending her most formative and impressionable years in the media spotlight, riding an alcohol-laden descent from cutesy schoolgirl to cocksucking Mauboy.


McDonald's sponsorship taken too far

But what is absolutely NOT just is the relegation of Reigan Derry to 11th place finisher. Of course, girlfriend brought it on herself with wretched song selection early on in the competition. But she rocked up looking like a million bucks on Monday, outperforming everyone and even wearing a set of Rachel Stevens gloves!



Having nixed the Jex Pad hair in favour of a Mariah-like mane, Reigan was easily the best thing about the show, from an objective quality perspective.

From every other brilliantly trashy perspective, the following memorable moments "went down".

1. Jessica Mauboy arrived looking like a massive present, complete with a bow bigger than Damien's head!



2. Kate De Rouge performed choreographed dance moves with the fluidity of a robot!

3. Paulini has obviously spent the month of November vomiting her own body weight!



4. But she is looking more like an orangutan every day! A hungry, carniverous orangutan, about to devour her meaty bandmates!


Ricki upstages her hoop-obsessed girlfriends by showing off her matching protruding clavicle

4. Klancie (Klanie) arrived on horseback, managing to stay atop the animal despite depriving most of her upper body of blood circulation!



3. It looked like Lavina Williams was auditioning for Young Divas every time she took to the stage!

4. Is there a new fashion craze involving vests that I'm unaware of? Guy Sebastian, Ricky Muskrat, Jessica Mauboy and serial vest fiend Lisa Mitchell all bizarrely sported waistcoasts!



5. Marcia introduced her adopted adult Malawian daughter Deni to the world in duet! Poor bitch, obviously fresh from either chemo or a World Vision photo shoot, couldn't even do her pants up!



So that's it for another year. It's a refreshing end - exceptional ratings, older male winner, palatable lead single.

Of course, Damien's broader musical output will remain a mystery until his album surfaces. Given his dorky appearance and operatic tendencies, it is possible that the album's style could be a cross between that of Il Divo and that geeky 80s band Devo.



Hopefully his mature years will assist him to better manage his burgeoning career - but if it flops, perhaps he can start a band called the Young Devos.

Dressage

Cops are such neigh-sayers, aren't they?

It's difficult to surmise without further detail exactly how indecent that woman was being.

It's probably fair to say, though, that she was more than a little hoarse afterwards.

Don't tell me you didn't see that coming a mile off. (Apparently that's exactly what the police saw.)

Slim Pickings

In 2003, Guy Sebastian beat Shannon Noll.
In 2004, Casey Donovan beat Anthony Callea.
In 2005, Kate Farnham-DeRouge beat Emily Williams.



Things aren't looking good for Damien, who seems destined to become the fourth consecutive skinny man to lose the Australian Idol final.

To add to his statistical woes, no man has ever beaten a woman in the final. Presumably the case would be different if Peter Brock had been allowed to compete.

This year's final pits the 30yo dentally challenged Dubliner against Jessica "Rhinestone" Mauboy, a 17yo conversationally challenged Darwinian. Statistics aside, it's really anyone's game.

Mainly because neither candidate is terribly inspiring.

Part of me wants Jess to win so we can all have a rest from Damien's overwrought falsetto.

Part of me wants Damien to win so we can all laugh as Amanda Vanstone charges the stage to deport him.

But then I think back to that pathetic, dreadful, horrendous self-penned "I'm happy with who I am" lyric from that piece of shit he unleashed during the Up Close & Personal show and realise that for all our sakes he should be discouraged at all costs from making music for a living.

So I'm trying to kickstart my Jessmania in preparation for tomorrow's show. But I just can't summon it.

There's just nothing to get excited about. Of the 49 Idol finalists over the last 4 years, Damien and Jess rank somewhere in the low teens.

And that's just the internal competition.

It's depressing to think savvy countries like Canada are choosing gorgeous, sexy, brilliant singers as their Idol winners:



Oh well, eh.

Judging A Band By Its Covers

It has already been irrefutably established that Girls Aloud are the best band in the known universe.

However, it has not yet been sufficiently acknowledged the extent to which they are the worst album cover designers EVER.

Consider it henceforth acknowledged by virtue of Exhibit A: The Greatest Hits Cover.



Yes: the girls themselves are responsible for this fucked up piece of work.

It is inconceivable that in devising and approving it they:

1. concluded their back catalogue is most suitably represented by a tambourine
2. would let the 5th, furthest-to-the-right silhouette remain unspotlit (although to be fair, she is clearly mid-way through a dump).

My keen art connoisseur's eye tells me there is also some severe lack of proportion going on.

But enough of that - let's now turn to Exhibit B: the Latest Single.



Now isn't that better?

Yes - it's the Tiffany single, re-done with lots of dancy blips and such! i.e., Also A Cover!

Obviously there is something kinda wrong with the picture and it's the fact that Cheryl (centre) is wearing a tutu but not jumping on it.

This, however, is the only qualm I have - the picture is otherwise UNBELIEVABLY GOOD.

It is hoped that with this cover they announce their retirement from Creative Control.

The girls should, in fact, fully realise that they are employed to do two things only.

1. Sing prettily over subversive dance-pop beats.
2. Rank in FHM lists.

They should NEVER be aloud to design anything ever again.

Except maybe some haphazard little drawings on a glasstop coffee table, using a credit card perhaps. That might be nice.

Memory Cul-De-Sac

Memory Lane curves into a quaint cul-de-sac as our Idol '04 Reminscence Extravaganza draws to a close.

Relive the Top 3 performance show here.

Join the Caseyfest at the Top 2 results show here.

Revisit the Final 2 head-to-head here.

And, finally, one of the most satisfying nights in the show's history here.

More to come on Jessmania '06 shortly.

Mauboy Junkies

You've gotta love pointless, unwarranted, unprompted and biased speculative journalism on pop culture from a regional newspaper.

The NT News, thirsting for its first babe since Azaria and having embraced Jessica Mauboy to the fullest extent, is now making ludicrous non-sequiturs about past series:

"Mauboy, 17, is a part-Aboriginal year 11 student from Darwin who has blossomed from the shy teen we saw at auditions.

"And Leith, 30, has recently come from Ireland to raise his family with his Australian wife.

"The two would have both won last year's competition."


"Bullshit"

Perhaps they're working from the De Rouge/Logan Twin Honorary Manual On Undeserved Victories.

Anyway, whatever. 19 10 10 Jess.

No, wait.

19 10 10 Vesna.

Omnipresence

So it looks like my time on the Dean train was short lived.

As I watched the final 3 await their classily delivered, not-at-all commercially milked verdict on Monday night, my latent Jessmania kicked into overdrive.


"We are experiencing some difficulty relating to that"

Now I mean no offence to Dean - he sports a very fine caboose - but I think I may have fallen victim to a whalloping bout of God earlier this week.

You can hardly blame me - God is everywhere at the moment, it seems.



No, He really is. I went to McCrae down on the peninsula this past weekend and discovered Him "in da house" we rented.


Also skilled in parquetry

However, watching Damien inch closer to recording Grandma's Birthday Present made me realise that Jess needs to be beside him at the finish.


Differently aged but united by a common fetish

I'm giving her one last chance to deliver a vocal smash and truly earn the title. At this point she stands a long way behind Cosima, Paulini, Ricki-Lee, Casey, Emily and Lavina as a vocalist and performer.

But on the basis of "Beautiful" and especially "Walk Away", I'm prepared to do it.

Hopefully, then, she'll delve whole-heartedly into R'n'B, drench herself in bling and release an album entitled "Rhinestone Mauboy".

Cooking With Marcia & Dean

It's time for a Monday morning brain teaser to get the juices flowing.

WHO AM I?



A. God
B. Belinda Emmett's best sister-girlfriend
C. The best sister-girlfriend of every other known musician
D. A singer with a well-developed point of view
E. A casserole
F. The most consistently entertaining thing on Idol
G. Marcia Hines
H. All of the above

Yes! The correct answer is, of course, H - but that was easy since we've broached this issue before.

From a blogger's point of view, Marcia is pure gold. She won extra points last night for leaping halfway out of her chair when Kyle labelled Mark a "black devil", nearly failing to suppress her own knee-jerk response to that term.

It's appropriate that Damien was also on stage at the time.



Speaking of Damien, last night delivered another two lame, undeserved touchdowns that served to underscore the extent to which this show is no longer about the singers.

However, I do believe in this franchise. For this reason I am siding with Mark (who offered his pick on Nova this morning) in hoping for a Dean Geyer victory.



"S2BC in non-female selection shock!"Yes, I know I've traditionally backed the chicks on this show - Bek, Paulini, Chanel, Casey, Emily, Anne and Lavina were all at one stage or another my outright favourite.

But Dean must win because:

1. Damien is a boring nerd who sings Kerri-Anne Kennerley songs.
2. Jessica has failed to deliver anything truly arresting vocally like she should have by this point and, to boot, has Casey-like conversation skills.
3. Dean sings an accessible, saleable genre ("It's pronounced john-drah" - The Marcia God) and is a pop marketer's dream with a fanbase guaranteed to translate into album sales.

And that's all it really boils down to. So he doesn't sing well, from a singer's point of view or anyone else's. He looks a million bucks and this show is in desperate need of a hit album after Casey's and De Rouge's respective voting frenzies were not replicated in record stores.

19 10 10 Dean.

Memory Lane (Continued)

Idol Version 4.0 is mercifully drawing to a close - more on that shortly.

If, like me, you long for the Chanel and Casey era of 2004, check these links for quick fixes.

A treatise on Chanel's status as the best Idol contestant of her year. (18/10/04)

Casey rising to poll position. (25/10/04)

Mourning Chanel and anointing Casey. (26/10/04)

Porcine/Equine

While Cup weekend is traditionally about horses, their thunder was almost stolen this year by a pig.

Yes, Chris Murphy had his Idol swinesong on Monday, in a brilliant result for anti-cholesterol campaigners and record company marketeers alike.

Despite having only four competitors left, the show still doggedly stuck to its one-hour format, forcing the four to truly sweat it out. This obviously had the worst impact on Chris:


"He's always been larger-than-life," said his mum, "I'm sow proud of him"

I was away for the weekend, but in an amazing alignment of the planets still managed to watch the show!

For what it's worth, I thought Damian's rendition of "Crying" was perhaps this season's only true touchdown. The second one was nowhere near deserving.

However, Anthony Callea's impeccable voice during the results show callea-ly demonstrated the extent to which this season's finalists are inferior to past seasons'. Although I noted that he has apparently now trained his stumpy little dwarf's fingers to stop tapping the microphone, which will do wonders for his career.


Anthony singing his radical new small person's single, not at all similar to "The Prayer"

Anyway, more on Idol later in the week.

As for the Cup, it's such a shame that my tip for the win, Hilary's Wank, didn't race. It turns out the poor bitch was scratched due to injury.

And it's such a shame after all that training:



I wonder what she did with her time off?


Chris Murphy just out of shot

Sickly Muskrat

The departure of Icky Muskrat from our Idol screens elicited zero attention from S2BC but the Border Mail didn't miss a beat.

In addition to banging on about Sickly Icky's ill health - which marred his performance of Feel and nearly caused him to withdraw ("Fucking shame" - Robbie & Lavina Williams) - the article provides disturbing visual evidence that Icky IS ACTUALLY 50 YEARS OLD.



Given the competition's upper age limit of 38, I understand this to be FRAUD, by anyone's standard, including The Law's.

I am currently drafting a statement seeking "damages" (all votes refunded for a shithouse competiton unjustly badged as the best ever), "restitution" (better singers returned to the competition - not you Lisa, you can STAY IN BLOODY ALBURY) as well as "specific performances" from these people:



Oh my goodness, did I just try to incorporate legal jargon into this blog?

It's time to go home... Scott.

Enjoy Cup weekend - as always, my money's on Hilary Swank for Tuesday's race.

Got Milk?

I had tuna mornay for dinner last night and realised how much I miss this woman.



Once the world's pre-eminent breast-pump user, Rebecca De Mornay is now just someone's wife, which is a bit shit.

Her super-stardom was short-lived, and is pretty much summed up like this:



Apart from its Kate Langbroek-like impact on social perceptions of breastfeeding, the film is particularly memorable because:

- it was an excellent publicity vehicle for asthma awareness
- it featured one of the most chilling villainess performances ever
- it featured a before-she-was-famous pop-up from Julianne Moore (and her curiously oversized head)



Sure, Julianne Moore is one of the greatest living actresses, but if she can pump out dross like Evolution and current stinker Trust The Man without damaging her box office nous, Tuna De Mornay deserves a piece of the pie as well. Perhaps we can will her into a comeback, the same way The Bride wills her big toe out of paralysis in Kill Bill.

Oh, can you just imagine Tuna playing The Bride? That's a role she would have creamed, back in the day.

Poor Tuna. :-(