Requiem for a Rhino
Spoilers for last night's episode of The Masked Singer inside, though if you're here, you probably already know the spoiler
For a lot of weeks now, the American people have been watching Barry Zito dress up in a rhino costume and sing on The Masked Singer.
Now, people haven’t officially known that it was Zito. The whole concept of the show is that you don’t know who’s under the mask, and you try to figure it out from the singer’s voice and from various clues the show gives you. But the clues the show gave us, and the fact that the Rhino sounded exactly like Barry Zito, meant that for weeks we’ve all had a pretty good idea that he was under the mask.
Zito sang one song per week, and since Barry Zito singing in a rhino costume definitely counts as Sports, I treated it like sports and ranked his performances, from best to worst.
Nice To Meet Ya
Look, it’s not like this is a hard song to sing, especially since it sits right in the middle of Zito’s range. But he brings a ton of energy to it, both in his delivery and the way he’s jumping around like someone who’s having the time of his life. That’s exactly what you want to see on this show: a fun performance by someone who’s enjoying himself. This probably wasn’t Zito’s best song from a technical perspective, but who cares about a technical perspective? This is a show where Barry Zito dressed up as a rhino and sang a bunch of songs on national TV. This is exactly what he should be doing.
Die A Happy Man
I’m sure there’s a better way to sing this song. I’m sure that someone with the range could throw some gorgeous high notes in there or something that would wow anyone hearing it. I’m sure that if you wanted to be showy, and had the talent to be showy, you could be showy and it would absolutely work.
But there’s no way it would sound as sincere. Zito’s sincerity was the thing that the judges — Nicole Sherzinger in particular — would harp on as his appeal, and they were right. He sounds like he means every word. He sounds like he cares about the song, and you, and hey, you’re worth never seeing the Eiffel Tower at night. That’s worth an awful lot.
Also, Gordon Ramsay called Barry Zito’s voice deep and husky. I’ve been waiting my whole life to write that sentence.
What A Man Gotta Do
Like Nice To Meet Ya, this is another really fun, upbeat one. He does get some help from his backup singers, especially at the end, and while there certainly aren’t any demerits for that, you do have to wonder how much of the effect of this song was Zito and how much was outside factors.
On the other hand: this is delightful. The energy, the enthusiasm, the crowd being hella into it — yes, that’s right, I busted out the hella — they all combine to make this an outstanding performance.
Have A Little Faith In Me
Oh, Zeets. You’ve always wanted people to have faith in you, and Giants fans not having that faith for years really did hurt you. And then you did your playoff heroics and whatnot! So that was a nice ending, except for you, because you were hurt by the many hurtful things said about you.
Anyway, gets a little pitchy, dawg, at the end, but otherwise, it’s a moving, honest performance. Zito did two things on The Masked Singer: heartfelt and up tempo pop. The up tempo stuff was more fun, but the heartfelt songs were the ones I think I’ll remember.
I have no idea if I’m using “pitchy” right.
Humble and Kind
This is a very nice performance, but it came last night, when he was only up against three other singers, and he needed more than very nice, so he ended up going home. It did make Nicole cry, but Nicole always had a soft spot for the Rhino since he came on the show. Overall, this song was solid, but it didn’t quite live up to Die A Happy Man, which is the level he needed to be at to make it to the finale.
10,000 Hours
It starts off a little weak, but he picks it up later on, and then he goes out to the crowd, like a man of the people. Still, this one never really gels like, well, all the performances above it on the list.
Tracks of My Tears
You have to admire the cojones to do Tracks of My Tears, a song with a legendary version that a huge number of people know. And while this isn’t bad — it’s fine, mostly — it’s also very much the kind of thing where you say, “Oh, that was nice,” and then vote for someone else to stay on the show. It was a little too muted and a little too stilted to hit the highs that Zito hit elsewhere.
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling
The voice is tired. Maybe that’s reading too much into it and he’s trying something that he hasn’t done before or that he isn’t quite used to, but to me, it sounds like his voice is tired. If we’re being honest, he should have gone home for this performance instead of his perfectly fine Tim McGraw song the next week. It’s almost there, but it’s also not there.
I could also be wrong about this ranking. Zito thinks this was his best performance, and he’s glad that the producers of the show talked him into it:
They were pushing on the Righteous Brothers song. I was like, "Whoa, this is definitely out of my comfort zone," but I'm really glad I did that because I think that was my probably my best number.
In the end, what did we learn? We learned that it’s fun to watch Barry Zito dress up in a rhino costume and sing on national television. And they say that’s the greatest lesson of all.