American Idol is 'AI: 'Absolutely Irrelevant' Making 'Brat Pack' Sing Sinatra

American Idol or "AI" again tonight showed it is fast-becoming even more "Absolutely Irrelevant" to today's music scene - by forcing its final five contestants to sing Frank Sinatra standards that the young singers could neither relate to or sing.

Lee DeWyze fared the best of the five, turning in a vocally growlly and stylistically somewhat relevant version of the Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon classic "That's Life."  Meanwhile, young Aaron Kelly opened the show with a solid "Fly Me to the Moon," but was criticized by judges Kara Dio Guardi and Simon Cowell for not having the Sinatra "swagger" in his vocal tone and stage presence.  Right!  Expect a 17-year-old kid to emulate the voice, attitude and presence of one of the world's most-legendary, chain-smoking and scotch-swilling saloon singers.

 Big Mike Lynche had the third-best performance of the evening with the Jerome Kern-Dorothy Fields standard "The Way You Look Tonight," but once again over-used his vibrato - which was totally in keeping with the misguided evening:  Lynche's performance and tonight's songs were both about 50 years out of style.

Come on, now.  Many of Sinatra's songs were written in the 1920s, '30s, '40s and '50s.  So, how in the hell can Idol's producers and judges expect kids younger than 30 years of age to relate to them.  Idol, get real!  Most people under the age of 60 can't relate to "Big Band" music.  So why, in the late rounds of what is supposed to be a singing competition of CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS AND MUSIC,  is Idol making its young contestants sing songs that are older than most of their parents?

For the second week, Crystal Bowersox made a terrible song selection with "Summer Wind," and as judge Ellen DeGeneres correctly called it:  "swallowed the words on half of the first verse."  Which illustrates another issue that no one is addressing.  Sinatra really wasn't so much a great singer as a great stylist - almost a "reader" of lyrics.  He had a limited vocal range of about an octave and a third.  And his pitch wasn't really all that accurate.  But with great vocal diction, his trademark lit cigarette in one hand and a microphone in the other, he was the epitome of '40s and '50s cool.   But like having Idol's contestants sing Elvis songs, having them try to interpret Sinatra is just as problematic. And pointless.   Sound too much like Frank or Elvis and you're a second-class impersonator.  Sound nothing like them and you're "not interpreting or representing" those legendary performers or their songs well, according to the judges.

It's about time someone had the guts to tell the show's producers and judges:  "Stop criticizing kids for looking and sounding awkward singing songs that, quite frankly, have nothing to do with today's music.  And, butchering songs that were forced upon them and should have nothing to do with them being judged as competent or relevant singers.

Casey James also looked and sounded completely lost on Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies."  And, having Harry Connick, Jr. serve as the contestants' mentor, music scorer and piano accompanist, only made things feel even more dated and irrelevant.  Connick is a great piano player and decent vocal stylist.  But, his musical strengths and tastes are steeped in Big Band, jazz and New Orleans Dixieland music.  True to his heritage and roots, Connick and some of his sidemen turned in solid jazz arrangements and performances.  But this only made the music sound older.  And, it made it virtually impossible for the kids to turn one of Sinatra's classics "sideways" with an alt-rock or hip-hop treatment - or some other musically current adaptation.

By trying to pay homage to Sinatra tonight, both American Idol and Connick made a mockery of Ole Blue Eyes' work.  And they put five young singers in a nearly impossible situation:  trying to make the Brat Pack interpret songs from the catalog of the "King of the Rat Pack."

Based on tonight's showing, Casey, Crystal and Big Mike should be in the bottom three.  But with the voting as screwy as Idol's continuing insistence to make kids sing songs from eras that are a long-time dead and gone, who knows who will be sent home this week?

And that's our view from The A&R Room.