Arts & Entertainment

Final 7: James Durbin Stays; Paul McDonald Goes

Santa Cruz's Durbin continues his strong roll, but will disease sympathy replace charisma and talent in the final votes?

After last week's shocking dismissal of Pia Toscano, American Idol was more predictable this week, with the release of Rod Stewart wannabe Paul McDonald, whose talents were wearing thin and who was the top choice for removal on many websites.

As if the contest were a horse race, blogs worldwide are speculating on the run to the top for the final seven in this seventh week.

The Los Angeles Times has an audacious analysis looking at the medical difficulties suffered by two singers and whether the compulsiveness of Asberger's sufferers, which Durbin is afflicted with, will outweigh those who have sympathy for colitis, which has sent Casey Abrams to the hospital twice during the competition.

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The matter is being debated on websites such as the Tourettes Association's and the digestion blog, showing just how important it is to have a moving back story and devoted fans who will make even your worst virus go viral.

It's hard to worry much about Paul, who not only will be on the summer Idol tour but has a marketing blitz going already on his website. You can even buy those shirts, which some thought were moving to the point of seasickness but judge Steven Tyler says he wants to wear when he returns to Aerosmith.

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Paul's band, the Grand Magnolias, has a sense of humor about the contest, selling shirts that say "Who the $%^&* are the Grand Magnolias?" His Facebook page, with 20,000 "likes," has more than double that of the band's.

In press releases, Jewelry for a Cause, which sells the Blue Buddha necklace that Durbin has sported every week, likes to say that the necklace, which helps charity, is also. Oh, to have an Idol pick your product that isn't Ed Hardy.

The Backstage Beat makes a fine observation that even this critic missed. Despite the song and movie's name, Heavy Metal, what Durbin sang was more rock. Anyone who's been to Ozzfest could tell you that Sammy Hagar has as much to do with metal as Bambi does to a crush video.

If an Idol performed actual modern metal, with what its fans proudly call "cookie monster" tuneless vocals, the coiffed crowd would go running from the room as if Godzilla had just trampled his way in.

A critic could get by with only one adjective in describing most everything about the show—mainstream. Mainstream country, mainstream pop, mainstream rock. Except, that is, if they were talking about most of Steven Tyler's days of drugs and debauchery with Aerosmith, as described in the biography, Walk this Way.

There's nothing mainstream about a life that rivals Keith Richards' for excess.

Then there is Durbin, whose signature caterwaul is as unusual as the debut of Mariah Carey's earliest unshaky trips up the high end of the octave ladder. So far, America is embracing his pyrotechnics as well as the seemingly unscripted passion behind them.

The competition is so tight now and the talent so refined, the smallest subtleties can make a big difference. That's what keeps this show compelling, despite the constant Vegas-like stimulation of lights and banter and endless commercials.


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