American Idol (04/01): Disco (Ugh!!)

Cafe Society
1

What was that crap?

In order of my personal preference:

  1. Kim L: I don’t like her and what the hell was she wearing but she did great after the first few seconds. The only one who did well.

  2. Rueben: He did okay, I guess.

  3. Trenyce: Some parts sounded “pitchy” (thanks, Paula) but overall it was decent.

  4. Carmen: She had a lot of energy and actually looked to be having fun which I would think would be the purpose of the show.

  5. Caldwell: Nothing new. Over her

  6. Tie - Clay: What the hell? He turned a disco song into a ballad? He sucks and he is ugly and freaky and turns everything into “Cats” throwaways.

Josh: He looks like he doesn’t even want to be there any more. I don’t know if it’s the war or his family or boredom or what but he had the same look a couple weeks ago. And he was boring.

  1. Ricky: Dear God that was awful. Beyond awful. Blech.

Guest judge was freaky.

2

WOOO! HOOO!! Disco Night! Bye Corey! I’m glad to be spared of you ripping a disco song into pieces!

Rickey Smith–Much better than last wek. Perfect song for him, but some pitch problems at the higher register. Otherwise strong performance despite Simon’s misgivings.

Carmen–It figures she’d pick a more recent song(not that she was the only one that did that). Anyway, UGH! Made me cringe the whole way through. She sounded like a baby sheep getting electrocuted. Repugant this week. Yes, commercial indeed. Food commercial. Blugh.

Kimberly C–Generally I liked it. Strong, as usual.

Clay–Gosh! Impressive as always. It’s true that disco isn’t for him though. Simon had a point, but I agree with Randy.

Trenyce–My god! She outdid Clay! Amazing! Figures she’d pick a Whitney Houston song though. I was hoping for “I will survive” or something like that, but I’m not complaining! Can’t compare her to Whitney or Chaka, eh Simon? Who can you compare Carmen to that’s worthwhile? There’s no getting around that Trenyce is the best of the women.

Reuben–He’s no Barry White, but he doesn’t have to be. Yup, he should certainly win it all, but the competition will be strong.

Kimberly Locke–Singing low was not a good idea. She recovered well though, but actually sounded like Kimberly Caldwell. Oi! Loved the hair, HATED the outfit. Anyway, pretty good, but that’s it.

Joshua Gracin–Hmm…not too bad, but not very good either.

Top three: As usual, Reuben, Clay and Trenyce.

Bottom Three–Carmen, Joshua and unfortunatly, Kimberly Caldwell. Who will be eliminated? Of course I’m hoping Carmen is, but it’s hard to say this time.

3

Disco Night. God help us.

In order of how they appeared (I write while I watch):

Rickey Smith-(stunned silence) Well, he showed more life in this one performance than he has in all of his other performances combined. It reminded me of drunken karaoke. Good drunken karaoke, but drunken karaoke nonetheless.

Note: Paula’s earrings make me think of playing the triangle during music time in kindergarten. Somebody get me a little strikey thing so I can play Paula’s earrings.

Carmen-No you are not. I know you are not singing Gloria Estefan. (Reverts back to bad high school show choir memories) But you are. Noooooo! Okay, so the verses weren’t that bad. In fact they were pretty good. But Carmen should not be allowed to sing, I mean baaaa, anything longer than a quarter note. The pants can stay, the vibrato has got to go.

Note: Randy is being mean tonight. I don’t like mean Randy. Go back to being “yo dog” Randy.

Kimberly C.-Oh, she absolutely butchered that song.

Clay-Clay, I like you, so I will forgive you for also singing Gloria Estefan. Maybe.

Note: Apparently, “disco night” is also “dress like Ryan Seacrest” night.

Trenyce-I have a confession to make: I just don’t like Trenyce. I know a lot of you do and that’s fine, but I just needed to get that off my chest. I guess I’d like her more if I didn’t feel like she screamed the lyrics every week.

Ruben-Ruben rocked. He was right in his element.

Kimberley L.-Kimberley, pick a song in your range! Okay, so it got better as it went on. The ballerina outfit; however, did not.

Note: Ryan Seacrest, I take back every bad thing I ever said about you for flicking Simon off.

Also, tonight on FOX news: “Why Corey got kicked to the curb!” Wow, FOX. You’re so alliterative! Next try being a real news organization, okay?

Josh-not naming any names, but someone was doing a really bad job of switching back and forth between Buffy and I missed him. Was it really that bad? It looked bad in the recap.

And the guest judge was freaky.

4

Top three: Ruben, Kim Locke, and Clay, in that order.

Bottom three: Carmen, Josh and Kim Caldwell.

I love the song “I’m Every Woman” and I generally like Trenyce, but she just didn’t do it for me this time. I don’t know what it was.

I was surprised and impressed at the way they handled Corey’s dismissal.

5

My bottom three this week is Josh, Kim C, and Ricky. Hopefully, Josh will be the one to go. He was terrible for the past couple of weeks so it’s time for him to go.

Trenyce keeps doing Whitney Houston. That’s all good, but if I want to hear Whitney, I’ll play a Whitney Houston cd.

I enjoyed Carmen’s performance. I think it was her best one yet.

When did Simon go sour on Clay? I thought Clay sounded great. Maybe something crawled up Simon’s butt. Either that or his bad mood was because freaky Corey was disqualified.

I actually liked the guest judge this week. He wasn’t overly critical, but he didn’t praise every single one of them either. At least he tried to give his opinion.

6

I may have to swear off American Idol. Why bother to watch? Every week is the same.

Ickey–Uninspiring falsetto performance.

Carmen–Off-pitch bleating and pretty pageant smiles.

Skankerly–Flat singing, cheesy stage moves, and hideous outfits.

Trenyce–Great singing, but no charisma.

Ruben–205 jersey and smooth good singing.

Clay–The exact same performance we’ve seen a dozen times before.

Josh–Funny looking doughboy sings badly.

Klocke–The only one we’ve seen any variation from. But unfortunately, most of the variation is in which figure flaw is being emphasized each week.

I’m just not enjoying it any more.

7

I liked Clay at first. But he always sounds the same. And it’s always Broadway. I’m getting sick of him.

Ruben was OK, but he’s no Barry White, and that song just invites comparisons.

OTOH, everyone else sucks.

Except I like Carmen. She’s cute and her voice is nothing if not distinctive. And goat-like at times.

8

Broadway Clay really is . . . Broadway Clay. I thought they all sucked tonight, with the exception of Ruben, who was just OK. Trenyce needs to expand her repertoire beyond Whitney. Carmen drives me insane with that damned vibrato. Kimberly Locke forgot to put a shirt on over her camisole. Rickey is icky. Kimberly Caldwell hasn’t yet learned that yelling = bad, singing = good and checking yourself in a full-length mirror before you go on stage = really good idea. Josh was just terrible.

9

What’s wrong with Broadway? I can’t understand why that’s a pejorative! I don’t mind that Clay sounds the same every week; so did Kelly Clarkson, for Pete’s sake! I do mind that he’s very weird looking and seems to be channeling Justin Guarini. . . only his hair won’t curl.
Josh sucked big time. I think he’ll be voted out of Idol-land tomorrow.
Trenyce still scares me. (But I did think she sounded a bit better tonight.)
Kimberly Locke had a heck of a time getting into that song. . . but once she did, look out! She raised the roof.
I still don’t get Ricky.
Hate Kimberly Caldwell. Carmen? Meh! She doesn’t belong on that stage.
And that leaves Ruben. He’s gonna win by default. And if he doesn’t win, he’ll sit on everybody and squish them!
And, I agree, the guest judge was bizarre. But, then again, that’s Disco for you!
Can we please get on to something less annoying?

10

Because Broadway singers take songs and overemote and overenunciate. He can clearly sing but can you imagine a full CD of that crap? Kelly changed it up. Clay made a disco song sound like when he sang Somewhere Out There which sounded like when he sang Open Arms.

How may Sam Harris CDs do you own? Barbra Streisand can sing; would she do well in this competition (and she is equally as freaky looking)?

Plus, Clay wore a friggin’ blouse!! A woman’s blouse!!

11

The worst show so far. Easy. It was worse than any of the quarterfinal shows.

In the order I liked them:

  1. Kim Locke. The best of the night by a huge margin; she’s beginning to REALLY impress me. Now that she’s finally doing songs that aren’t from “The Wizard of Oz” she’s showing the potential I thought she had.

  2. Ruben Studdard. Not his best performance, but still smoothly done. That song wasn’t in the right register for him. Still the favorite to win all the marbles. He’s the only one I really think would make a genuine pop star.

  3. Trenyce Pretty damned good, but I can’t get over the fact that she’s just Whitney Jr. I hate to say this, but there’s already fifteen young black divas in the music industry, plus about eight groups of them with names like “TLC” and “Destiny’s Child,” and as it is I can’t tell any of them apart without a program, so what would she add to things? To her credit, she is doing a FAR better job of using the stage and looking like she’s having fun.

  4. Clay Aiken Great voice, but he JUST. ISN’T. LISTENING.

You know what the mark of a professional entertainer is? The ability to react to criticism. Nobody is a born entertainer - it’s all learned skill. If you listen to criticism you can learn what you do badly and fix it. If you don’t listen to criticism you don’t learn, you don’t fix it, and you end up doing amateur community theatre for the rest of your life. You read the autobiography of any really successful actor or singer or whatever, and they’ll tell you they listened when people told them they sucked.

Clay Aiken has been told a dozen times that he makes every song sound the same, and he’s still doing it. It’s amazing; it’s as if he’s doing it out of spite now. He sings every song exactly the same, uses exactly the same moves on stage, everything, not an ounce of variation. He might well have the best voice in the entire competition - the dude can wail, folks - but he’s dead meat in about three weeks because he tried to make every song sound like the latest Elton John/Disney lamefest. He’s like the male Sarah McLachlan except he can’t play guitar.

  1. Kim Caldwell. I hope she doesn’t get booted because if they do a week or two with rock songs she’s going to be fantastic. This wasn’t her week or her genre, but she did a competent job and she’s a good entertainer.

  2. Carmen Rasmussen. Another dreadful performance; saved from last place this time only by the awful suckitude of those below her. I’m honestly, seriously beginning to suspect that her and Simon Cowell are having an affair; his blindness to her incompetence can’t be explained any other way. She’s just too young and unpolished.

  3. Josh Gracin. Not his element. Not his competition. He’s just out of his league. The thing is, he did a competent job, stayed on tune, breathed well, kept the beat, used the stage, engaged the audience - and it blew, because the underlying voice isn’t there. Seeya, Corporal.

  4. Rickey Smith.

I like Rickey, but I swear… if you said “Rick, pick any car ever built, and it’s yours,” he’d pick a Yugo. If you said “Rick, you can have any B-ball player who ever played the game as your partner and we’ll play some 2-on-2,” he’d pick Yinka Dare. If you asked him to select any woman from history for a blind date, he’d pick Typhoid Mary.

The dude can sing, but he can’t pick a friggin’ song to save his life. If he’d come out and done “Superstition” he would have rocked the house. If he’d done “Rock With You” he would have had them on their feet. Instead, for the fourth week in a row he picked a shit B-list song half the audience didn’t know and that didn’t fit his voice. IF you’re in that position, wouldn’t you try to sing the BEST SONG of the genre that fit your voice? His bad song choices are going to get him kicked off the show.

And it’s going to happen tomorrow; Rickey Smith is history tomorrow night, guaranteed.

12

Rickey: I tuned in late and I missed him. Guess I didn’t miss that much

Carmen: So cute it’s nauseating. So so performance.

Kim L: Good job tonight, not a homerun, but a solid double.

Broadway Clay: I rather enjoyed him tonight. He really does have a voice, he probably should be on Broadway, but he’s really not a pop singer.

Trenyce: meh…didn’t knock me out, didn’t suck.

Ruben: Another effortless, engaging performance. He is going to win this thing.

Kim C: Not a good performance for her. Probably her worst to date.

Josh: Josh was just awful tonight. He was really out of key. Maybe he has a cold or something but his performanc e tonight was dreadful. Simon was right. If he had sung that way in the audition he would have been shown the door.

It wasn’t really a great night for anybody, but my top 3 would be:Ruben, Clay and Kim L

Bottom 3: Josh, Kim C and Carmen (but I didn’t see Rickey)

13

Top 3: Reuben, Kim L., and Trenyce

Clay was a regular on my top 3, but as others have pointed out, he sings the SAME SONG every time! Jeez, it was disco night, but he went Broadway again.

Bottom 3: Josh, Carmen, and Rickey.

I think Rickey is G.O.N.E. I can’t believe that Paula thought he was good (Hell, she even said something badly about someone today).

Though there is a good chance that Josh leaves instead. He butchered that song, but some might simply say it was because he had a cold or something.

Carmen is saved by being cute, and singing so-so.

14

I am not a regular viewer of this program, but my wife is, so I’ve watched it the past couple of weeks. Some questions/observations, including last night’s performances.

First, was the format the same last year? The genre thing really doesn’t thrill me, but I guess they have to do something to keep it interesting. But the two shows I’ve seen were Country and Disco. Ugh.

Second, who picks the songs? I assume they are picked by the contestants, and approved by the show. How does Whitney Houston or a Barry White song classify as “Disco”? They should have been limited to the Bee Gees, and/or the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.

Finally, is this crop of singers better than last year’s? I can’t believe these 8 represent the best voices in America. Some of these folks have very good voices, but I thought I’d be floored by each one of these folks, and I’m not. Someone mentioned Karaoke… that’s exactly what I thought last night. I may be wrong, but my belief was that someone like Christina Aguilera would sound good no matter WHAT she sang…

Also, I thought part of American Idol was how the person looked… Personally, I could care less, but I thought that was part of the criteria for selection. So when I tuned into the show, I thought I’d see the beautiful people that seem to occupy this world today. The two that were finalists last year seemed to fit this criteria. I’m surprised that there is such a range of body types. Perhaps I was misinformed, so feel free to correct me.

With all of that said… my opinions of last night’s singers.

  1. I thought Clay and Ruben had the best voices.

  2. Josh was embarrassing.

15

Just a not from a 70s survivor: Your first sentence should read, “Carmen-No, you are not. I know you are not singing Vicki Sue Robinson.” Gloria Estefan did a cover of Robinson’s original version.

16

I’ve decided Simon should change his name to Mikey. He HATES everything. . . except Carmen. Something’s weird there!

Re: Song Selection. . . my guess is that the show producers have a list of songs in the genre that have been cleared for performance and the contestants choose from that list. Could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. . . .

17

I am not a regular viewer of this program, but my wife is, so I’ve watched it the past couple of weeks. Some questions/observations, including last night’s performances.

First, was the format the same last year? The genre thing really doesn’t thrill me, but I guess they have to do something to keep it interesting. But the two shows I’ve seen were Country and Disco. Ugh.

Second, who picks the songs? I assume they are picked by the contestants, and approved by the show. How does Whitney Houston or a Barry White song classify as “Disco”? They should have been limited to the Bee Gees, and/or the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.

Finally, is this crop of singers better than last year’s? I can’t believe these 8 represent the best voices in America. Some of these folks have very good voices, but I thought I’d be floored by each one of these people, and I’m not. Someone mentioned Karaoke… that’s exactly what I thought last night. I may be wrong, but my belief was that someone like Christina Aguilera would sound good no matter WHAT she sang…

Also, I thought part of American Idol was how the person looked… Personally, I could care less, but I thought that was part of the criteria for selection. So when I tuned into the show, I thought I’d see the beautiful people that seem to occupy this world today. The two that were finalists last year seemed to fit this criteria. I’m surprised that there is such a range of body types. Perhaps I was misinformed, so feel free to correct me.

With all of that said… my opinions of last night’s singers.

  1. I thought Clay and Ruben had the best voices.

  2. Josh was embarrassing.

  3. Trenyce - her voice sounded like a piece of chalk on a blackboard to me.

  4. Kim L. - Her vocals? I couldn’t get past the outfit. What the hell was that?

The others just didn’t stand out one way or the other to me.

There! An opinion of a two-time viewer. If they are going to cut someone tonight, it HAS to be Josh. He sounded worse than I did at a karaoke party singing Stayin’ Alive. (And THAT was BAD).

18

[sigh]

First there was the Country Rock show with no Eagles songs. Now we have this…

No Bee Gees!? No Donna Summer!? No Heart of Glass!?? No I Believe In Miracles!??

WTF!??

Carmen, Clay, and Ruben were outstanding!

Josh, Ricky, and Treynce were horrible!

Josh needs to go tonight.

19

But will America vote out the Marine?

I hope so. He did terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible(in my Roger Rabbit voice). It was odd to see a Marine, in a time of war when other Marines are fighting, to sing, “Celebrate good times, come on!”

20

I hope Carmen goes tonight. However, I’m only tuning in for the end of the show because an hour is waay too long for the dismissal show.

Ricky sucked. Josh sucked.