Apparently, the song the Amish man sang comes from a comedy radio show. How can an Amish person listen to the radio? Battery-powered?
And when they get to California some of them will not practice or learn the words and screw up their partners. Just a hunch.
Long curly-haired girl is the only one who will make it past the 1st Hollywood round. What a suckfest.
It was captioned as “great fun,” which sounds right. She sounds exactly like Shakira!
Were those the worst auditions yet? There wasn’t a single Paris Bennett, Lisa Whatshername moment in the whole two hours.
I did love the zit kid though, in a mom kind of way.
Can I just tell you guys? I’ve never watched this show – I’m as usual *so[i/] on the cutting edge of cool – Not. So, season, what? Five? I thought I’d give it a look.
I just can’t handle the people embarrassing themselves! I get embarrassed for them. It literally makes me squirm. I had to change the channel. Maybe I’ll turn back in when they’ve done a little winnowing of the wheat from the chaff and people aren’t making complete fools of themselves out of the totally unjustifiable delusion that they can sing.
I know what you mean, that pimple on the tip of his nose. The boy has a strong spirit. I hope he goes far.
Yeah, around here we often end up skipping the first few weeks of the show. If you’ve seen one delusional meltdown, you’ve seen 'em all. Watch the threads here - when it gets time for the “Hollywood Round,” tune back in. It actually gets a little more interesting then.
— I liked the Navy guy’s singing. I did not think he was hot, and I don’t have a men-in-uniform fetish, so my opinion is objective. Liked his voice. And I knew the Navy would not have let the camera crew on his ship if he’d been dismissed at the auditions.
— Similarly, I knew they wouldn’t tug at our heartstrings with Crack Baby and My Parents Won’t Take Me To the Audition or to a Dermatologist if they were not going to get through.
— In fact, I’ve gotten fairly good at gauging who’ll get through and who won’t, based on their pre-interviews. Usually, the ones who get a golden ticket are the ones who are sure of themselves, but not too cocky. The ones who don’t are either cocky, or have an air of desperation. There are exceptions, of course, like Clay, the originator of “'Cause I’m the American Idol!” and the sobbing woman from season 4: “If I can’t express myself through music…I will just DIE! [boo hoo hoo]” But generally, stoicism is what the good prospects all have in common.
— I felt bad for the first girl, the makeover artist. But not terribly bad, because she had a sweet and sunny personality, and I’m sure she’ll bounce back. The ones who make me sad are the ones who explode in the confessional booth, claiming Simon is full of it, and they’re going to sell a million albums and yadda yadda. They’re probably going to keep hitting brick walls, even if they do have talent.
— Unless I missed it, the “urban Amish” guy never said he was Amish. I think he was just…odd. I got a strong early-'70s vibe from him, like he really thought he could be completely cut off from society and still function.
— Speaking of which, I’m wondering why some of these people don’t appear to have done their research before auditioning. It’s been on five years, and you can either buy, or borrow from others, DVDs/videos of past auditions, so you know what to expect and what they’re looking for. I don’t see an excuse for not knowing that costumes, schtick, attitude and famewhoring don’t fly. The only excuse for using those is simply wanting to get on TV. So perhaps some of the auditioners have done their research, and know how schticky you have to be to get highlighted as a bad auditioner.
— And some people may be approaching it as if it was an acting audition. When you’re an actor, you want to present yourself as having many skills: I can also sing, I can ice-skate, I can juggle, I can hang a spoon from my nose. But at AI, they don’t want to know that you’ve spent time learning to do anything other than sing. Maybe play an instrument so you can accompany yourself, but even then, they don’t want you to bring your guitar or electronic keyboard to the auditions. If you’ve spent time learning to ice skate or juggle or hang a spoon from your nose, then you haven’t been devoting yourself entirely to singing. And that’s important to them, seeing as you’ll be devoting yourself entirely to singing when/if you get past the audition.
— Apollo Creed was okay, but one mistake, besides the costume, was choosing a song most people are not familiar with. How can you know if someone’s good or not, if can’t gauge them by how the song is usually performed?
— Juggling Guy did not get it nearly as bad as Aerosmith-singing Vocal Coach. And yet the jugger was the one who went off the rails. Guess it’s a matter of temperament.
— Also noted Simon’s comment about Vocal Coach having performed at Disneyland. IIRC, he was down on Jennifer for having been a cruise ship singer, on the same grounds: captive audience, not a true measure of talent.
— I’ve got to remember Crack Baby’s name, because I feel terrible calling her that.
— There was one guy, I can’t remember, but I was thinking that he would be good if he had any vocal training. There was a voice there; he just didn’t have a clue how to control it.
— I thought the girl whose boss brought her was okay, until she hit that super-high note. That was surreal, and not in a good way.
— Jewel seemed a bit snippy. Then again, she didn’t talk much at all, so perhaps not.
— I’ve defended Simon many times in the past, but man was he out of line tonight. Glad Vocal Coach didn’t rise to his bait. That was rough, though.
Simon defended the vocal coach. It was Randy who was mean and told him he needed to give back his fees and sing in Disneyland.
I liked the Navy boy. Very smooth voice. I liked the girl who had the long curly black hair and Helen of Troy face. Best I recall, she sang well too. I liked the garage singer also. A very odd looks/voice combination, I thought.
Yeah, but that was an odd way to defend someone. “Are you going to take that?” is basically saying, “I won’t let you shrug that off; you have to own it.” Perhaps that’s Simon’s version of meaning well, though.
How come I knew the SDMB would nickname her “crack baby” 
I liked Paula. In fact, the only reason I watched it this week was because of her interview a few days ago in Seattle. heh heh. I think the judges were playing a drinking game and Paula was losing.
“Opps. Out of key. Paula. Drink.
Hey, an idiot in a funny hat. Paula. Drink.
Uh-oh. Someone with zero personality, can’t sing, can’t dance and is really goofy looking. Paula. DRINK!”
Jewel looked really good. I don’t remember her being so,. um,. hot.
All the contestants sucked IMO - but I liked crack baby.
I liked the crack baby, sure, but she’s one of those types that always makes me wonder what they’re hearing at the audition table that I’m not picking up on tv. The line between pushing/shouting/screaming and being loud and proud and blowing their socks off…sometimes that’s a thin blurry line. What sounds forced and shouty at home the judges sometimes rhapsodize over, granted this nearly always happens with gorgeous people so maybe it’s just a distraction factor.
Crack Baby fell into that for me, good voice but too in your face with it.
Oh yeah, speaking of her, one more thing. Well, two…
(1) It’s very hard (for me) to imagine a credible modern performance of Jennifer Holiday’s magnum opus after hearing the one delivered by Bianca Ryan. As far as I’m concerned, she has set the new standard.
(2) The snotty remarks Randy made about America’s Got Talent were particularly ironic given that American Idol has never produced anyone anywhere near Bianca’s talent. Simon was conspicuously annoyed by the remarks since he is on record as saying that Bianca has “potentially the best voice I’ve ever heard.” I thought it was an incredibly awkward moment for last night’s show.
Too bad the initials of this don’t form a word. I like it! He made me cry a little bit too.
The only singer from last night that I think is worth seeing again is the girl with long wavy hair who did Over The Rainbow. She “styled” too much, but as Simon said, she demonstrated total control of her voice. Crack Baby was okay, nothing we haven’t heard before.
Best moment of the night:
Simon–“You’ve ruined three songs!”
Delusional guy–“La…”
Simon–“Four.”
Denise Jackson. I liked her. She’s a cutie.
American Idol sucks (and it double sucks that I get glued to it evey year).
The auditions, though, are pure gold. I just can’t get over all this people who just seem to have never watched an episode of the show and show up just to make fools of themselves.
As for Paula, put yourselves in her shoes: Could you live through those auditions while sober?
Jewel has always been hot! And, FYI, she is the host this season of Nashville Star, the country music version of American Idol.
I think this is the case for MOST of the bad auditioners we see, ESPECIALLY the ones who throw tantrums when they are dismissed:
Juggling guy who cried and cursed after his audition? Totally acting.
Wizard of Oz girl? She knew she never had a chance with that Cowardly Lion bit.
Amish guy? Pure schtick.
Apollo Creed? Just looking for his 3 minutes of fame, like all these other over-the-top-awful William Hung wannabes (though I don’t think that particular type of lightning is going to strike a second time).
Folks, these people know EXACTLY what they are doing. Nobody should feel sorry for them. The ones to feel for are the ones who aren’t cartoonishly terrible, but aren’t quite good enough. They are the ones who are in earnest and who’ve been pre-sorted by the producers into the ‘possible’ file before being sent in front of Simon & Company.
I agree with whoever said that the curly-haired girl will be the only one of this bunch to advance past the 1st Hollywood round. Maybe Crack Baby, but I know she’s going to annoy me by belting out every song at the top of her lungs. Shakira-girl is cute, but I thought she was trying too hard to sound like Shakira and failing at it. I like Shakira’s voice, and this wasn’t that good an impression. I was surprised she made it through. Navy Guy won’t make it that far, unless the uniform carries him. Acne-Boy isn’t any better.
The montage of the auditioners singing Prince was pretty funny, though.
She didn’t always look so hot. During the montage of her videos when they were first introducing her, the clip they played from what must have been her first video looked like someone else completely. I had to rewind and look at it again, and compare it with the Jewel from the clip that followed. She definately had some work done, including a nose job. I think she’s been working on things over the years, and it ain’t all natural.
During the first girl’s meltdown- the makeover artist- I felt most badly for the boyfriend out in the hall when her parents were comforting her. He totally had a look on his face like “great. Now what the hell am I supposed to say to her?” Just kind of standing there, not knowing whether to comfort her or let her parents do it, kind of frozen. Ugh, what a terrible position to be in.