This show.

My dad watches American Idol, he kind of loves it, which is a little unexpected. Last season I caught my father watching, made me want to puke all the sentiment that ever existed out my eyeballs. BUT. I've been spending a lot of time at my father's lately (him living in town+having awesome cable tv and my awesome little dog+my room turning into a swamp from all the leaks and mold=my dad's house being the place to be) and he's been watching this season. Last week he put it on, and I must say, I didn't want to throw up nearly as often. In fact, some of these people were kinda.. actually interesting? One guy did a Nirvana song, and it was a little strange, but the fact that he just let it all out there, no restrictions, I thought was pretty cool. Then I heard this other guy sing. He seemed like any other contestant, maybe with more blindingly white teeth than most, but then he started to sing. I mean it made me kinda feel warm inside, that is pretty much a first for this show. I try to gain as little amount of joy as possible from this show. Another first: this morning I found myself looking up the other songs he did, the ones from this season that I've missed. And I found that I was completely okay with whatever song he covered. Even the Beatles, which I am not normally okay with unless it's Harry Nilsson (I refused to even watch a trailer for Across the Universe, and have seen one scene from Sergeant Pepper and the annoyance boiling in my brain veins.) I'm okay with this one though. I kind of really like it.

He sounds a lot like Rod Stewart, yet he doesn't sound like he's ripping Rod off. He's got a completely different vibe. Here he is doing Maggie May:

Alright, when he sings, my heart kinda melts. And here's good ol' Rod doing it in '71:

It's definitely an influence but it's not very distracting for me. He's working with something good.

In some weird way, he reminds me of a less pronounced version this singer in a band I was really into in high school:

They both have that roughness, yet guided by sweetness and genuinity.

Also, I think American Idol finally quit taking themselves so seriously, and are just going with the bizarreness of a televised singing competition, as it should be.