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Sailor impresses again on ‘Idol’

Phil Stacey’s assignment on “American Idol” Tuesday was to inspire viewers, and whether he did or not, he inspired strong praise from the judges, making for a second strong week and confirming that country music is the key to more success on the show.

Stacey, a musician third class with the Navy Band in Jacksonville, Fla., sang Garth Brooks’ slow-paced ballad “The Change,” about rescuer heroism after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and got a genial “yo, dawg,” from judge Randy Jackson before the audience applause had even subsided.

“Yo, I’m really happy about this, you really came back, last week you showed you were back again, it was another strong performance, a nice vocal. Two in a row, baby, two in a row!”

Paula Abdul pronounced it Stacey’s best “Idol” performance — high praise indeed after his universally lauded April 17 song — and regular meanie Simon Cowell conceded that the sailor “could do really well in this show, because I think people like you,” if Stacey learns to master the country-music tone that helped this newest bounce back from oblivion.

Multimedia:

Video snippets of Stacey’s April 24 performance.

Playtime is over now on “American Idol,” its performers and judges agreed Tuesday night. Gone was the pop-culture frippery that characterized the show during its Sanjaya Malakar phase, and in its place was a new, cold sobriety in keeping with the week’s “Idol Gives Back” charity theme.

Much as the French monarchs of old — and, more recently, Spider-Man — espoused the doctrine of “noblesse oblige,” in which the highly privileged help the less fortunate, so too has America’s most-watched television show deemed it worthwhile to share some of its largesse. “American Idol” is a moneymaking monster: The industry magazine Advertising Age reports that Fox commands around $620,000 for a 30-second spot during “American Idol.” By comparison, “Idol’s” nearest ratings competitors, ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” could charge between $340,000 and $350,000 for the same commercial.

Fox wants to use this airwave dominance to bring in even more sponsors, whose 10 cent donations for every “Idol” vote cast this week will go to the Charity Projects Entertainment Fund, which will make contributions to benefit child poverty and disease in Africa. Some of the continent’s children have been featured for weeks in promos for “Idol Gives Back,” playing host to Cowell and Ryan Seacrest, straining their “Idol” shtick in a Kenyan slum.

“You’re going to change thousands of lives,” Seacrest promised viewers. “Vote as much as you possibly can.

“Vote, like, a hundred times,” he urged.

Producers shoehorned Tuesday’s “performance show” full of teases for Wednesday’s two-hour pop-culture explosion, which will take place in LA’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and will be when viewers will find out which contestant goes home this week.

But for all this extra material, or “filler,” as a blogger called Kaonashi described it, the attempt at generating viewer goodwill was not expected to affect the way viewers voted for or against “Idol” candidates.

Odds-makers maintained their stance this week that Stacey couldn’t survive another round. The betting Web site Gambling911 reported he and Chris Richardson, the show’s pocket-edition Justin Timberlake, were favorites for elimination.

Wednesday’s special two-hour results show starts at 8 p.m. EST — although voting results probably won’t be announced until around 9:57 p.m.— and will reveal whether Stacey’s “Idol” tour will continue.

No frippery:

Video snippets of Stacey’s April 24 performance.

Discuss:

Does Phil Stacey have what it takes to be the next American Idol?