"Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in..."
-Michael Corleone, "The Godfather, Part III"

CBS reality series "Rock Star" will return for another go around this summer, and this season's winner will get to front a brand new supergroup featuring former members of Mötley Crüe, Metallica, and Guns N' Roses. Drummer Tommy Lee (Crüe), bassist Jason Newsted (Metallica), and guitarist Gilby Clarke (Guns) will use the Mark Burnett-produced show as a forum for selecting a lead singer for their new band, Supernova.

Last year's series, of course, featured surviving members of INXS and their search for a replacement for the late Michael Hutchence. And I became hopelessly addicted to the show, to the point where this blog featured practically nothing except posts about the competition.

And I'm looking forward to more of the same this year (though it just won't be the same without sweet Suzie McNeil). [Zap2it] Metal Mavens Back CBS' 'Rock Star' (via TV Squad)

The long overdue finale of "Rock Star: INXS" airs tonight on CBS, which means that by this time tomorrow the band will finally have a "permanent" replacement for it's late front man, Michael Hutchence. Since I've been making predictions for most of the show's run, it's only appropriate that I make public my prediction of who will win tonight.

The only way MiG Ayesa wins is if the show is rigged (i.e., the band selected him before the contest even began). If that's the case, then all parties involved did a horrible job of promoting this guy to anyone other than Australians. MiG would be a horrible fit for INXS. His two strongest areas of comfort appear to be vocal theatrics and sappy love songs, two things not normally associated with INXS (thank God). Hopefully the fix isn't in. Assuming it's not, MiG should be going home a loser.

If MiG is too soft, then Marty Casey is just a bit too hard. He never quite seems to have full control of his voice, and when he falters, he alternately resorts to screaming and whining. Throughout the competition, Marty has made a big deal about meeting INXS "half-way" stylistically, but after 25 years of playing together, I find it hard to believe that these guys have any desire to meet halfway with anyone. In addition, I sincerely hope that INXS has paid attention to the way Marty has treated his current bandmates, The Lovehammers, during this competition. For one thing, he seems to have no problem dropping them like a stone in order to get the INXS gig. Yet, he claims in interviews that if he loses, he'll just go back to playing with them. (Why they're waiting around for him, I don't know.) For another thing, he used one of the Lovehammers' own original songs, "Trees," as a major part of his quest to leave them behind. This ensures that the song will forever be associated with Marty Casey alone rather than with The Lovehammers as a band. Loyalty is not this guy's forte. Surely the members of INXS will recognize all this and send Marty home a loser.

That leaves J.D. Fortune. I've consistently pointed out that this guy doesn't have a very strong singing voice. But when a song falls within his comfort zone, he usually nails it. Fortunately for him, that comfort zone overlaps quite a bit with INXS's. Sure, he sounded awful singing "We Are the Champions" several weeks ago, but that wasn't exactly INXS territory anyway. Of the remaining contestants, J.D. is the only one who really knows how to work a crowd, both during songs and between them. Simply put, he's the only real "rock star" left. That's not to say he doesn't have serious issues. Apart from his limited vocal range, his personality is a bit abrasive, and he has a tendency to be manipulative and dishonest. But if this competition really is about finding the best fit for INXS, J.D. has to be the best guy for the job. Or at least the best guy left.

Predictions...

Winner:

Eliminated:

The "Rock Star" Graveyard...

Don't worry, folks. This will all be over soon...

With this week's performances on "Rock Star: INXS," the competition to become the new lead singer of INXS officially became a two-horse race.

The first competitor to take the stage last night was my long-time favorite, Suzie McNeil. Week after week, she's never failed to wow me. Until now. Instead of sticking with the effortless performance style that brought her this far, she tried to kick things up a notch. Unfortunately, she added a bit too much energy, and her performances of Stone Temple Pilot's "Interstate Love Song" and 4 Non Blondes’ "What's Up" were manic and off-key. The self-styled "Queen of the Bottom Three" is headed for yet another Wednesday night performance and may finally be headed home.

In the last couple of weeks, J.D. Fortune has staged quite a little comeback. Following a mid-competition slump, he is once again turning in consistently strong performances, and appears to be peaking at just the right time. Last night's performances of his own original song "Pretty Vegas" and Pink Floyd's "Money" were two of his best. The fact that he aced "Money," a song with a tricky 7/4 time signature, should serve him particularly well with the band. All in all, J.D. is making a strong case for victory.

So is Marty Casey, and his renditions of the original "Trees" and Radiohead's "Creep" were strong statements in their own right. With the exception of a couple of notes on "Creep," Marty actually stuck with the more melodic part of his voice for once, and he sounded better than usual as a result. The only downside: his acoustic treatment of "Trees" paled in comparison to last week's full band arrangement.

The night limped to the finish with another in a long line of sappy performances by MiG Ayesa. While preparing to sing The Rolling Stones’ "Paint It Black," MiG claimed he was going to show his dark side -- and then performed an arrangement of the song that sounded like something out of a neon piano bar on Fremont Street. He followed that up with a version of "Kiss from a Rose" that would even put Seal to sleep. If voters would only cooperate, I suspect that the members of INXS would love nothing more than to send this guy packing.

Predictions...
No matter where they end up in the voting, bona fide co-frontrunners J.D. and Marty aren't going anywhere this week. History suggests that Australian and Asian voting will lift MiG out of the bottom three once again, which will leave INXS with no choice but to send Suzie home. I, however, think that MiG will finally get the punishment from voters he deserves. If he does, expect him to butcher an INXS song and get the ax. Besides, I suspect that the band (and CBS) would prefer to have a female contestant in the mix for next week's finale.

Encore:

Bottom Three:

Eliminated:

The "Rock Star" Graveyard...

Nary a mention was made last night of Ty Taylor's accusations of voter racism on last week's "Rock Star: INXS." Instead, the show kicked off with highlights of the contestants being forced to sell their artistic integrity by participating in a photo shoot for Levi's. This show has become so overrun with product placements recently that I keep expecting Simon Cowell to drive by in his Ford Thunderbird while drinking a Diet Coke.

With the field down to five (but the show still an hour long), each competitor got to sing two songs this week: one cover and one original. Fan voting determined the cover, but each contestant got to choose his or her own original.

J.D. Fortune kicked things off with a scaled-back interpretation of Nirvana's "Come As You Are" that, in true J.D. form, was slightly odd but oddly interesting. His original was a good number called "Pretty Vegas" that he wrote as part of a clinic on the show a few weeks back. Most notable about J.D.'s set, however, was the fact that he was the only performer to sustain any type of energy between songs by working the crowd. Everybody else fell into a dippy "I wrote this song about..." shtick that sucked the life out of the room. Has no one other than J.D. ever sung more than one song on-stage at a time?

Suzie McNeil took the stage next with a solid cover of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" and a strong original titled "Soul Life." Because both songs were ballads, her performances lacked their usual energy. But while she won't be getting an encore for a third consecutive week, the fact that she showed off a previously unheard side of her voice will probably score her points in the long run with INXS.

Next up was MiG Ayesa, who covered Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" (via The Black Crowes), then depressed the whole crowd with a piano ballad called "Home in Me." With "Hard to Handle" he showed once again that he is capable of mimicking just about anyone (in this case, Chris Robinson), but his original would have been better suited for an audition with another Australian band -- Air Supply. Once the front-runner, MiG is slipping fast.

Jordis Unga is going home this week. We know it. She knows it. Even Dave Navarro knows it. As a result, she didn't even make an effort last night on Queen's "We Are the Champions" or her original, "Try Not." She's lost so much of her confidence in the last few weeks that, at times, she's begun resorting to speaking lyrics rather than singing them anytime there's a danger of going off-key. While I've never been much of a Jordis fan, I certainly hope her ego can recover from the bruising its taken on this show. If she can dust herself off, she ought to have decent career in front of her. Just not one that involves her singing with INXS.

While I've really liked about half the performances Marty Casey has given in this competition, I finally figured out exactly why I've absolutely hated the other 50 percent so much. It's the fact that he uses a Robert Smith-esque whine whenever he wants to shield his inability to hit a difficult note. Seriously, it's so blatant that he even adds a faux British accent. Last night's dreadful acoustic cover of the Foo Fighters’ "Everlong," for example, was absolutely dripping with Cure-style pouting. Plus, the band slowed down the tempo soooooo much that it felt like somebody had kicked the 45 on the turntable back to 33 1/3. (As usual, INXS inexplicably loved it.) But Marty's worst offense last night was his original song, "Trees." I'll concede that it was truly fantastic (and worthy of being a monster radio hit), but while everyone else performed a song they'd written (and arranged) since the competition began, Marty opted for a song he's probably sung hundreds of times before with his band, The Lovehammers. Hell, they even recorded the song already. (You can download a 40 second clip of The Lovehammers' version here, which sounds exactly like the arrangement Marty performed last night.) This was just downright lazy on Marty's part. By using a pre-existing song and arrangement, he simply illustrated to INXS his eagerness to take short cuts. And to prove how unfair life is, that laziness will be rewarded with the weekly encore.

Predictions...
Unless I'm seriously underestimating MiG's Australian support, I'd say there's no doubt he and Jordis are bottom three bound. It's a toss-up as to whether it will be J.D. or Suzie joining them, but I'm going with J.D. because he's performed worse with the voters in recent weeks. Regardless, we may as well skip tonight's performances, because everybody already knows that Jordis is headed home.

Encore:

Bottom Three:

Eliminated:

The "Rock Star" Graveyard...

Well, I was so exhausted last night that I went to bed at about 9:30, which means I haven't watched this week's "Rock Star: INXS" performances yet. And I won't be able to watch them AND post a recap with predictions before tonight's results show airs.

I could just not make any predictions this week, but where's the fun in that. Instead, I'll make all of this week's predictions without any knowledge of what transpired last night.

BLIND Predictions...

Encore:

Bottom Three:

Eliminated:

The "Rock Star" Graveyard...