Throughout the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, as well as throughout many of the currently laughable CD collections compiling those decades' hits, Michael Bolton conquered the music charts with his wavy hair and his golden vocal cords. And though Bolton is no longer at the height of his successes, he has remained a pop culture figure thanks to self-aware appearances on TV shows such as Two and a Half Men, and hilariously inserting himself into Office Space scenes. Now, he's heading to Lip Sync Battle to tackle Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," apparently with minimal lip syncing involved. Check out the clip below!
It's not just me, right? Usually, when Lip Sync Battle performances are in mid-flow, we see entertainers clearly using their vocal muscles for the intended purposes. And in the first seconds of the above clip, Michael Bolton is rocking that gold chain with a bit of a Dangerous Minds-esque edge to him. But it all quickly falls apart when he appears to lose his place in the song, which comes right as he's pretending to bat away eager fans. For a few moments, it looked like rioters attacking Frankeinstein's monster.
When he then stepped away to take a knee for the chorus, Michael Bolton almost looked as if he'd just escaped an assisted living facility, and was super disappointed by how easy it was. I gotta say, it was probably as entertaining as it would have been if he was textbook-perfect during every second.
To be fair, that was only a quick clip, and there are any number of reasons why Michael Bolton wouldn't have been lip syncing on a show that has lip sync in its title. I mean, reasons that go beyond Occam's razor choices like "he doesn't know what any of the words are," and "he also doesn't know where he is or what medications he mixed earlier that day." Seriously, though, we're hoping Bolton destroys the rest of that song, not only to justify LL Cool J and others flipping out in hysterics like that, but because it's a brilliant pairing of musician and song choice. For now, though, we'll just re-listen to his Lonely Island track.
Also, I'm kinda mad that this Lip Sync Battle episode won't also feature Coolio taking the stage for a rousing rendition of "Time, Love and Tenderness." But I guess I can make do with Saturday Night Live's Pete Davidson dressing up in pirate garb instead. In fact, most things should include "Pirate Pete Davidson" as a backup option.
Lip Sync Battle airs Thursday nights on Paramount Network at 10:00 p.m. ET. To see when you can find lots of shows that don't feature a bewildered Michael Bolton, head to our midseason premiere schedule.
