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Liked (as in, wouldn’t mind hearing these performances again)
Chikezie
Brooke White
Carly Smithson -
Middle
David Cook
Michael Johns
Amanda Overmyer
Jason Castro
Ramiele Mulabey
Syesha Mercado -
Disliked (as in, I hope I never have to listen to these performances ever again)
David Hernandez
David Archuleta
Kristy Lee Cook
I have a couple of questions about the behind-the-scenes details of this show, and about “teachability” of musical ability
1) When they decide to do an alternate arrangement of a song, who does it? The singer, AI’s band, or some third party that the singer hires?
It seems to me that most of these kids wouldn’t know enough about music to create their own arrangement of a song, so it’s either the AI band/staff, or some outside party.
If that horrid country version (or any other bad alternate arrangement) was done by the AI band, then you can’t really blame the singer as much as if they had done it themselves.
Of course, you can blame them for not having the taste to recognize how bad the new arrangement is, but shame on the “professionals” who were able to come up with such a terrible rendition.
2) Does anyone from AI advise these kids on their song choice and/or performance, before the show airs?
It seems like no one does, otherwise we would not get such horrendous choices and performances.
Most of the contestants are young kids and would benefit from a little guidance as to what song matches their voice/style the best.
3) Music ability and what can and cannot be taught to a person.
Michael Johns has a great voice, but does not have great musical ability. His voice doesn’t flow with how the melody is supposed to be flowing. He comes pretty close, but could be better.
I think he nailed Bohemian Rhapsody in the preliminaries, but ever since, he doesn’t seem to be able to do that good a job.
I am not trained in music, so I’m not sure what can and cannot be taught to someone, so my question is: can someone get better at going along with the flow of the melody (at hitting the right notes at the right time), or is this something that is innate?
Some of them do. Some are semi-pros who’ve been working for years (though AI likes to bill them as amateurs bursting onto the scene).
After 8 Days A Week, I’m convinced there is no God.
I think I understand. She was trying to do one of those mash-ups that are so popular these days. Thank God I’m a Country Boy 8 Days a Week.
8 Days a week would have been a lot better if she slowed it down. And getting “a lot better” would have brought it up to “totally sucks”.
Agree mostly with Liberal.
We’re going to start separating the “men from the boys” right now. There are a few people who really looked like they didn’t belong last night. . .Hernandez, Country Girl, Ramiele (who has a nice voice, but doesn’t know how to perform).
Archuleta might have been the worst of the night.
And, how widely publicized has it been that his version of “Imagine” was a total rip from someone else’s arrangement, like when Daughtry did Live’s version of “I Walk The Line” and everyone said he made it his own?
I saw a band called Rocko and the Devils perform a kick ass rock version of Eleanor Rigby–I wish I could find a bootleg of it.
(Hijack: They opened for U2 in Hawaii at the last show of the last U2 tour. Rocko is U2’s stage manager and the other guys are roadies for the band. They totally rocked it out.).
Top down:
- Chikezie
- Brooke
- David C.
- Michael
- Carly
- Jason
- Kristy
- Syesha
- Ramiele
- David A.
- David H.
- Amanda
Archuletdown?
Do you know who I think will get voted off. Not who deserves it but who’ll get the axe? Sheysha. Nobody remembers her. Her performance was not good enough to knock anyone’s sox off but not bad enough to raise bile.
No one will remember she even performed last night so no one will call her number. Kristy will get a lot of calls. VFTW will see to that.
There’s something deeply irritating to me about the way Michael Johns moves on stage. I think it might be the pseudo-Messianic arm raises. I don’t know.
It was one night I felt really bad for my husband. He’s an absolutely rabid Beatles fan, and can’t stand Idol in general, so it was a pure act of love that he sat in the living room with me while I watched. (Disclaimer: He was on the internet the entire time but nonetheless.)
Chikieze was the highlight of the evening for me. It was fun, different and he seemed to really be having a good time. And he made Ryan totally embarrass himself, so that’s good. Kristy was a real low point – I still can’t believe she’s in this over Asia’h. I really want her to go but that means we have to hear that horrific version again.
There was a woman in a really skimpy black dress sitting behind Simon and her boobs were very distracting whenever they cut over to him. And not in a good way, either.
Others have mentioned it here, although I see it as a disvantage that he didn’t know the catalog, I can’t help but think it left a gaping hole in his chances of winning this year. Liberal said it best above. And I really can’t put the blame on anyone but him. I don’t appreciate that he’s not a student of music, and was shocked to learn it. I was really looking forward to see him perform a Lennon/McCartney tune, and his admission of ignorance floored me.
I take him as being musically gifted, but that’s only half the battle. Maybe in time he’ll be something special. But I think it’s clear that he’s not ready. It seems that he blew off practicing the song, knowing he’d get a free pass this week, while others probably worked their asses off. Not only did he expose weaknesses in his music skill, but he made us realize that he’s a immature (barely) 17 year old kid who’s likely in over his head.
Incidentally, I was just thinking… I really wish Kyle Ensley made it over Colton. HE would have been entertaining as hell.
How?
QUick note about the god-awful 8 Days a Week performance by Kristy. That wasn’t country. That was hoe-down. There is a rather large difference. It didn;t represent all that is wrong with modern country (which sucks, but is much different than the bag of crap we heard last night), but it did represent all that was wrong with square dancing 60 years ago.
Amanda is in over her head & hanging on by a thread. One-dimensional shit that isn’t even original being performed by someone who still thinks the tongue-out, pinky-fore finger stance is anything other than ridiculous.
So Simon recommends that Kristy sing country, and then Ryan blames Simon for giving her bad advice after her performance of Eight Days a Week went down in flames.
:rolleyes:
Just stop it. Stop it now. Do they really think the audience tunes in to watch this little catfight each week?
god, I just wish Simon had thought to reply: I suggested she use country arrangements. I didn’t suggest she use *horrible *country arrangements. (but that would’ve been a slap at their own personnel).
Maybe I’m a purist, or a snob, or just an old fart: (actually, all 3)…but it bugs me when they do covers of covers. If it’s L & M night, at least give the original Beatles arrangement a shot. I didn’t tune in to hear bad covers of Earth Wind & Fire or Stevie Wonder.
Oh, but didn’t you hear? Everything Stevie Wonder does is the best evah!
If the process is similar to that on Rock Star Supernova, which we saw in some detail, it basically depends on the singer. Some are musically knowledgeable enough to walk in and tell each instrumentalist exactly what to play. Others have a vague idea of what they want (“I want to do 8 days a week, but I want to do it up-tempo country”) and the band fills in the ideas. Others have no clue, and either sing the song straight or take some advice from the band. Each contestant gets a couple of hours of practice with the band to work it out.
On RSN, they actually interviewed the band members who gave their thoughts on the arrangements, and they didn’t hold back. I remember the band leader more than once basically saying, “That arrangement blows, and the judges are going to crucify her for it.”
And don’t forget that our boy in the car tried to get the band to follow his horrible arrangement and couldn’t manage it, and wound up singing without the band. So certainly the idols have a chance to tell the band how to do it.
That said, I’ve noticed that a lot of the ‘new arrangements’ are essentially verbatim copies of other unique arrangements of the song by cover artists.
I haven’t seen any outside parties involved. I suspect every contestant gets asked, “How do you want to perform this?”, and gets to answer to whatever level of detail their skill and training will allow.
‘Professionals’ produce a lot of horrid covers. I’ll bet there are some big country fans out there who actually liked that.
If you want to get all conspiratorial about the show being ‘rigged’, this would be one way to do it - you can’t manipulate the votes, but you can make sure the singer gets a crap arrangement… I don’t think that’s happening, but if I were looking for evidence of rigging, that’s where I’d look.
But hey, it’s no surprise that some of the more ambitious song chances go awry - these guys have to arrange 12 songs in one week, and get at most a few hours of practice on each one. You’ve got to be really talented to pull that off at all (I’m speaking of the band members, not the singers). So occasionally a turkey is bound to sneak through. Add in the fact that the singer may be forcing the issue or firing out nonsensical ideas and refusing to take advice/direction, and it’s probably surprising that we don’t see more trainwrecks.
I disagree. I think they get far too much guidance. If you’re good enough to be on a stage in front of 20 million people, I hope you’re bringing something more to the stage than just a good voice. To me, the worst aspect of this show is that it promotes the packaged/massaged/manipulated aspect of the modern music industry.
Allowing the contestants to play their own instruments is a step in the right direction. Next, they should allow them to perform their own songs. I want to watch a show that uncovers the next Springsteen or Dylan or Cash or Krause, not one that uncovers the next in a long chain of Mariah Carey clones to be packaged by the ‘hit machine’.
You’re talking about the ability to interpret a song - to find what makes the song special and transmit it to the audience. That’s a gift in its own right. There are a lot of singers with great pipes who nonetheless are completely boring to listen to. And there are others who technically suck, but who can rip your heart out when they sing to you. I think this is what Paula incoherently babbles about when she talks about ‘feeling your heart’.
Some of my favorite singers fall into this category - Bob Dylan, John Prine, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Leonard Cohen, Frank Sinatra. None of them are great singers by the standards set by American Idol (except Sinatra), but any of them can tell you a story in a way that will just choke you up.
This is why Brooke White and Jason Castro are two of the best talents on the show. Brooke doesn’t have anywhere near the vocal talent of Carly Smithson or even Syesha or Ramiele, but she has the (much rarer) gift of being able to find the soul of a song and bring it out. Same with Jason Castro. What I hate the most are those singers who will come out on stage and sing a song about loss and pain while prancing around with a goofy grin and winking at the audience. People who you look at and go, “yep. That person doesn’t have a clue what they’re really singing. It’s just notes to them.” Syesha falls into this category. Watching her sing, it all looks very mannered, and you can tell her brain is all tied up worrying about the next big note or run she’s about to attempt. What the song is actually about is the furthest thing from her mind. At least, that’s what her performances to date have suggested.
Brooke White, on the other hand, was crying when she finished her song. While she was singing it, she was thinking about it, about what it meant to her, maybe how it related to her life, maybe about the message in the song. And she told the audience what she was feeling.
Here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about - Storm large singing ‘Wish You Were Here’ on RSN: Youtube Link.
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Chikeze - Best of the night. Best of the season. I have liked him from day 1. Love the tone to his voice, love his energy. I hope he goes really, really far.
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David Cook - I’ve also always liked him. He doesn’t seem to be very popular on this board, but I think if he and Daughtry had been on in the same season, he’d’ve blown Daughtry and his goat warble right off the stage.
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Carly - I don’t want to like her because she’s already had her shot and didn’t make it. But dammit, sometimes great singers/performers don’t make it because they weren’t marketed at all or weren’t marketed properly. I have a CD I picked up from the discount bin in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico by a singer from Florida named Schascle that I absolutely love. I bet she never sold more than 100 CDs in her career, and not because she isn’t good. So I have to give Carly her props. I think she’s great. And I don’t mind the tat. I actually think it’s kindof cool.
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Brooke - She has a lovely, lovely voice, but I wasn’t as wowed by this performance as the judges were. I do like her, though. She reminded me a lot of Carly Simon sitting at that piano.
<BIG GAP IMO>
I just don’t know how to rank any of the rest of these because they were all equally MEH to me, so there’s a big tie right here in the middle.
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Jason Castro - I thought he sucked tonight. He wasn’t singing the notes so much as he was pushing them out with his breath. He couldn’t even hit half of them and he makes some of the most hideous faces. Bleh.
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Amanda Overmyer - It was just ok to me. She’s starting to sound exactly the same on every song, which bugs me. But she’s got great potential. She actually reminded me more of Grace Slick tonight than Janis Joplin. I’d love to see her tackle some Jefferson Airplane.
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Syesha - Going first on that big stage for the first time would be nerve-wracking for anyone, so I don’t fault her for starting off very shaky. But she did find her voice somewhere in the middle and I think she’s actually a really good singer. It’s going to come down to song choice and whether she can make herself memorable in coming weeks.
By himself because he wasn’t just Meh, he was downright bad this week. . .
- Daved Hernandez - I actually do like his voice, but this performance was so freaking terrible it belonged on a High School talent show stage. And there should’ve been a guy in the wings with a hook. Horrid.
I simply cannot stand any of the rest of these, several for no reason whatsoever, so they all get tied for next-to-worst.
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Ramiele - It’s not that she doesn’t have a pretty voice – she does. But she just bugs for some inexplicable reason I simply can’t put my finger on.
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Michael Johns - He actually creeps me out, and has from the beginning. Can’t stand anything about him.
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David Archuleta - Can’t stand this kid either. My nickname for him is snake-tongue. Drives me nuts. And if one of the judges doesn’t say something to him about it and make it stop, I may have to put a shoe through the television or something.
And last and certainly least.
- Kristy Lee Cook - There’s really nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. She sucked. I say she’s going home tonight.
Chik was fun to watch but I don’t imagine myself buying his records.
Had a phone call during Syesha’s peformance and also missed David H’s, so no comment.
I like David Cook more and more. He should sing a Foo Fighters song some time.
David A. really made a mess of things, but I suppose it was bound to happen some time.
Amanda was slurring a lot; didn’t care for her.
Michael Johns was quite good.
Carly was all right.
Kristy…GAAAAAAAH!!! Someone take her out and shoot her. What a horrible arrangement.
Jason sounded like he didn’t have enough air in his lungs to get all the words out.
Brooke was pretty good.
Ramielle is the cutest little thing, but her voice isn’t that inspiring.
So…I ended up casting votes mostly for David C. and Michael.
VFTW makes one pick (well, a boy and a girl at first, but narrowed down to one for the finals) and sticks with that pick until they’re gone. The VFTW pick is currently Amanda, so they won’t be helping Kristy out.