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Watercooler: Idol May Be Out of Lusk

Pack your bags, kid.Last night, the final five took the American Idol stage and it became clear about 10 minutes into the night that Jacob Lusk wasn't so much in it to win it as he was out to hurt our ears.Faced with handling two songs each—as Seacrest vaguely explained, one from ...

Damian Holbrook

Pack your bags, kid.
Last night, the final five took the American Idol stage and it became clear about 10 minutes into the night that Jacob Lusk wasn't so much in it to win it as he was out to hurt our ears.
Faced with handling two songs each—as Seacrest vaguely explained, one from the "last few years" and a another from "back in the day"—most of Jacob's fellow contestants killed it in the early round, especially Scotty, who showed a puckish, lively side previously unimaginable. But Lusk bungled his first effort, a cover of the Jordin Sparks-Chris Brown duet, "No Air." Honestly, if you're gonna take on a former Idol champ's hit, it really should leave us breathless, just not from laughing.
Pitchy to the "aggghh!" degree, packed with hip-grinds awkward enough to drive one into celibacy and horrifyingly stagey (another smoke machine? Really?), the performance was so tragic, even the preternaturally positive judges had a hard time finding a way to lavish Lusk with their usual abject praise. Jennifer Lopez 's sour face pretty much said it all, but if you missed that, there was Randy Jackson's simple yet so true condemnation of the music minister's attempt to step beyond his church-wailing self. "It doesn't wear well."
It didn't sound good, either. Like a cross between labor pains and a homicide.
On his second turn, Jacob did a bit better with "Love Hurts," although in this case, "better" simply means "not as awful." And by "not as awful," we simply mean "overwrought and clichéd." But that's always been his bag. He seems to think that every performance needs to be the closing number from the first act of an '80s Broadway musical. Or a eulogy set to mid-tempo R&B. And now, we suspect that the death knell will chime for Lusk after these two missteps.
Do you agree that he needs to go? Or does Jacob still have a shot of making it to the finale?
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