Four Takes On "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word"

by Jay Caspian Kang

I’m thinking today about Hedwig and “The Origin of Love” and the time when the earth was still flat and clouds were made of fire and mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher. When folks roamed the earth, like big rolling kegs, with two sets of arms and two sets of legs and two faces peering out of one giant head, who sang the songs?

Last night on “Idol,” Mary J. Blige came and visited Jacob Lusk in the studio and when they embraced, I had a vision of the two-headed, four-legged singing genius, who, by the cruelty of Zeus, was split into two separate pieces, each one spectacular on his/her own accord, but also not complete until one found its other half.

It’s been noted in the past that while Mary J. takes the listener on an emotional journey like none other, the logistics of that journey can sometimes be mucked up by her lack of range. That’s not evident in the clip above, which is pure genius, but in Mary’s career, there have been several notable moments when her voice couldn’t quite match up with her heart and her tears.

Enter Lusk, who has an exploding problem, a theatrics problem, but one of the rangiest, most powerful voices we’ve heard in, like forever. Temper him with Mary’s pain, her beautiful phrasing, the motherfucking stank she puts on every word, and you would create the perfect singing monster, one that could reclaim the earth for the Righteous Army of Teddy P and the Holy Sisterhood of Etta James.

In Lusk’s performance last night, you can see how much he needs Mary J. Instead of making the song cry, he just up and cries. Part of this inability to properly emote a sad song probably comes from Lusk’s roots as a church singer, where everything he sang was about the Glory of Jesus. To be fair to God, that’s why he’s so good with “I Believe I can Fly” and “You’re All I Need to Get By.” Both are about uplift and believing in both yourself and the presence of a better, steadier hand.

When asked to sing about something truly sad and personal, he faltered and flubbed and looked horrifically constipated. Blessed with all the tools to sing the blues — the high notes, the low lows, the spine-shivering minor notes, Lusk lacks Mary’s pain, her life experience, her ability to know exactly when one note should end and the next should begin.

Perhaps, then, the vision of the two coexisting on one body is not the ideal vision for the Lusk/Blige hybrid. Maybe, instead, we should look towards Iron Man or “True Blood” and think of Lusk as the weird whirly power plant thing or the vampire blood that would enable Mary J to live another century and devour the world.

Moving on…

“Idol’”s insistence on making everyone have a sob story is their attempt to cover up the fact that most of their contestants are soulless singing machines. With the exception of Jacob, not one of the contestants can properly emote a song. For example, if Tricky wrote a song whose lyrics were, “Here I am standing/sorta whispering the intro/and there is dry ice at my feet/and that awful spotlight that they used on Bo Bice/and here the song is building too quickly/and here are ten backup singers in robes who are singing with me/as I stand frigidly and screech/and where is my stage mom?/ who am I?” Pia Toscano would somehow make it seem like she was singing about Puppy Chow. To an auditorium of bored cats.

Which is all my way of saying that there will never be another Fantasia. “Idol” is now a showcase for guys whose voice sorta sounds like whoever has a hit on the radio, annoying girls whose moms have been training them for “this moment,” and screechy fake rockers. Nobody cares about taking the listener on an emotional journey anymore.

I mean, just listen to her! When she asks, “Why can’t we talk it over?” your heart just rips open and you want to sit down, pick up the phone and give Fantasia a call. Over the past two decades, only Mary J. has had that ability. Lusk, for all his pyrotechnics, doesn’t have it. At least not until we turn him into an Iron Man suit. Then he’ll be part of something greater.

And then there’s this…

Jay Caspian Kang’s debut novel, The Dead Do Not Improve, will be published by Grove in 2012. His previous work on divas can be read here and here.