[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
I actually liked the group sing quite a lot last night. The harmonies were beautiful, and the arrangement wasn’t bad. Along with Brooke White’s ‘Let it Be’, I think that was the only other time they did justice to the Beatles.
[/QUOTE]
Missed the group sing. What song did they do?
On the whole, I’ve enjoyed the last two weeks. I’m 19, these songs aren’t sacred to me, I can’t think of anything that really would bother me as much as these guys changing things up seems to do to you all. I like the Beatles and everything, know a bunch of stuff by them, but not their whole catalog.
I liked the singers taking the songs and making them their own. The harmonica and talkbox solos were fun, but I did think the country last week was a bit over the top.
Did Pickler get implants?
[QUOTE=Darth Sensitive]
Did Pickler get implants?
[/QUOTE]
Lol. Yes, yes she did. Hence Ryan’s joke about how she’s grown in so many way since she was on the show. The last time she dropped by Ryan asked if she’d changed at all since become a “star” and she said of course she hadn’t, as she nearly knocked him over with her new rocket breasts as she turned toward him. 
[QUOTE=DKW]
I dunno. We talk all the time about what we don’t like, what we don’t want to see, we judge the contestants’ weaknesses, flaws, and limitations, we point out mistakes…the fact remains that at the end of the day, nobody has the slightest idea what actually gets someone eliminated.
[/QUOTE]
I think the problem is that in this show, people vote for whom they want to stay, and not for whom they want to leave.
The way the show is now, the top 5 or so contestants get all the votes, while the bottom 7 or so get all the scraps. People didn’t vote for Amanda to leave; it’s just that not enough people bothered to vote for her to stay.
Since all the bottom singers get the left-over votes, each one’s total is “in the noise”, so it’s a bit random who happens to get the least that week.
I think that they should change the show so that, until the top 5, say, people vote for whom they want to leave. Then, once there are 5 contestants left, they vote for whom they want to stay.
This would take away a lot of the unpredictability of the show in the early stages (and would also prevent groups like VFTW in keeping the bad singers around)
It’s possible that the final winner would be the same with either method of voting, but at least we would be able to quickly get rid of horrible singers like Kristy so we wouldn’t have to be subject to their “singing” week after week.
I think everyone’s agreed that they need to change the voting method since the first season…alas, they do not listen.
I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t find David A’s voice particularly pleasant. He’s incredibly talented, is always on-key, and has excellent phrasing, but I find his voice a little thin and reedy. I also don’t think he has a clue what he’s singing. It’s like a great technical performance with nothing behind it. I do think he’ll probably win, which would at least protect him from his father until he’s 18.
OTOH, Ramiele has a gorgeous tone to her voice but has no clue how to use it.
Just watched both nights on TiVo and am reading this thread, making comments at random, not in the order that anything was sung.
Amanda: One Trick Pony. I wanted to like her, but everything she does sounds the same. I had the same criticism of Melinda last season. You listen to her do about 2 or 3 songs and then you don’t ever have to listen to her again because you know exactly what it is going to sound like. Also, I don’t understand her hair. It’s different lengths every week… wigs? extensions? What is it? It’s like MAGIC!
[QUOTE=LilyoftheValley]
David A. Is this the worst Beatles song ever, or did you just make it that with your arrangement? “Hotness”, Randy? Dude, I don’t usually fall asleep to “hotness”.
ETA: OK, everyone thought he was amazing; Simon thought he was memorable; it’s one of Queen Tonya’s favorite Beatles songs…it must be me.
[/QUOTE]
No, it’s not you. I hated it, too, because it bored me stiff. It was like “here’s the lyrics, in my pretty voice” and nothing more. Contrast that with Syesha, who annoyed me by changing the gender of the song (I hate that) and by screwing around a bit with the melody on one of my favorite songs, but she was so emotionally connected that I loved her performance anyway. She had everything that David didn’t. She was actually in her song, she had her soul behind her voice. David was just going “la la la” except with words. Syesha didn’t blow me away with her song, but I appreciated what she put into it. David has a lovely voice, yes, but he’s painfully boring to listen to. And the lip licking thing is irritating.
Michael Johns: I gotta say, I like the guy. He messes up with the singing, and it makes me cringe, because I want to like his singing more, because I like him*. I think he’s genuine, but he needs more…practice? training? polish? Something, anyway. He’s starting to be a little too much of a Michael Hutchence clone with his performance style… granted I like Michael Hutchence a lot, it’s just that sometimes I feel like I’m watching someone doing an impersonation of him, rather than doing his own performance.
Boring Blonde: she’s vapid and annoying and I hate her singing. It’s aggressively boring.
Brooke: oh honey, you can’t dance; please stop trying. She seemed really ill at ease without her instruments. She also looked like she had memorized a series of movements… like “when I get to this word, I’m going to do this hand gesture” and then was following it like a poorly rehearsed script. It looked about as natural as when you see someone’s lips move as they count while trying to do ballroom dancing or something. Ugly dress.
David Cook: I’m having flashbacks to the early '90s Pearl Jam et al sound. I don’t particularly mind, since I enjoyed that sound, but this one was a little dull for me, partially because I’m just not that into that song. And I find it disturbing that when I watch him perform, I can’t help but think about sex. I don’t find him even remotely attractive, but he makes me think of sex anyway. Not having sex with him or anything, just sex in general. Maybe it’s that he looks like that’s what he’s thinking about… But anyway, he still has me won over from the Lionel Ritchie song a few weeks ago (I don’t care if he got the arrangement from another band’s cover–hell they only have a week to come up with this stuff. He did what he did very well, IMO).
Carly: Is that a maternity blouse she is wearing, or is it some crepe paper decoration from a Mexican themed party? Wtf, it’s hideous. Gah. I think she sang her song decently, but she didn’t blow me away. I like that song and I think Simon had a grudge going into it because he doesn’t like that song. I don’t think any way she sang it would have made him happy. Also, what’s with the prison style knuckle tattoos?
Jason: I like him, as in I’d want to invite him over to hang out. He seems like such a nice guy. He knew he was over his head with the French lyrics but he shouldn’t have made it so obvious on stage where he was almost laughing at himself and shrugging while he sang them. He has a really pretty voice, though… it’s that sort of weak and vulnerable voice that’s suited well to certain types of songs (and not at all to others). He’s another one who needs more practice/training/polish, though.
Chickezie: wow I hated that. He was so fun last week, too. He seems very comfortable on stage and I like his performance, I just thought that song was lame as hell.
Ramiele: I don’t even remember what she sang. Mainly what I remember was that her lips looked slimy and gross. I hate lip gloss–it makes you look like you’re drooling on yourself or you’ve just eaten a plate of greasy fried food without utensils.
This Pickler chick, who I gather from past talk is a previous contestant, is irritating as crap. Isn’t she also the completely braindead ditz who didn’t know France was a country on “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” Anyway, I could only take about 20 seconds of her song and then I had to fast forward through the rest or I was going to start throwing things.
[QUOTE=KSO]
Well, Kristy Lee has found her inspiration, I think. She was totally into The Pickler.
[/QUOTE]
Well, *that * would have been more interesting than watching them sing…
Pickler thought Europe was a country. And of course she thought it was adorable that she managed to get into adulthood without knowing what “Europe” was. Sigh.
And let me say in advance of anyone arguing that Pickler is just managing a public persona of idiocy to achieve success, let me retort: no she isn’t, and a guest spot on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader,” in which the answer is a resounding, “Not even fucking close,” is not success. She’s a novelty act that wore thin ages ago and has absolutely nothing in front of her except $100 gigs at county fairs for another year or two.
[QUOTE=psychobunny]
I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t find David A’s voice particularly pleasant. He’s incredibly talented, is always on-key, and has excellent phrasing, but I find his voice a little thin and reedy.
[/QUOTE]
You’re not the only one. My wife and I agree with what you wrote: he has excellent singing ability, but not a pleasant voice.
On the other hand, some of my friends think he has an amazing voice.
I guess this goes to show you that even though the same sound waves hit our ears, our internal experience of those sound waves is vastly different from human to human.
When Pickler was on AI, I couldn’t stand her because she seemed so proud of her stupidity. “What’s calamari??”
Now she has a gig as a roving reporter on The Tonight Show and she can actually be entertaining at times. Men, even major league baseball players, will do just about anything when a pretty blonde with big boobs asks them to do it.
I found the lip-licking observation intriguing, since it was something I hadn’t noticed before. So I replayed the gig, and sure enough, Archuleta did indeed lick his lips. Twice. But seeing as how lip licking is such a natural thing when one’s lips are dry, I went ahead and checked out Cook to compare. He licked his lips five times. Then, when he was finished, he actually licked his chin.
[…wince…]
I seem to recall some people being uncomfortable with Chris Richardson for his head turning. I’ve noticed lots of people turn their heads as well.
He may have done it less this performance than usual, but it’s more the lizard-like way that he licks them that is creepy. Somehow it’s more noticeable when he does it.
Polerius - Yes! Exactly! I mean, I can understand the problem with cut days (i.e. don’t get to chest-thump about incredible bazillions of votes every week), but if they must go the last man standing route, can’t they at least do it right? Remember Survivor, the show that started it all? When someone has to go, the tribe members decide who goes, not who they want to keep from going. AI should be the same. Sure, it’s “negative”, but since there has to be an elimination, that really doesn’t make a difference.
Imagine*. Annoying, obnoxious, or otherwise unappealing contestants take a hike; doesn’t matter how many homies give you unconditional love if the rest of the country wants you out on a rail. No more propping up hopeless cases for whatever silly reason. No more ridiculous “I’ll support the underdog I like who’s in trouble instead of the safe favorite, but wait, is the underdog really in trouble, and is the favorite really safe?” guessing games. No more screwing the system by obsessive dial-crazy fans (especially since they’re effectively negated by the other contestants’ obsessive dial-crazy fans). Such a simple step to do so much good, but AI refuses to make even the tiniest change. Geez.
[QUOTE=DKW]
Polerius - Yes! Exactly! I mean, I can understand the problem with cut days (i.e. don’t get to chest-thump about incredible bazillions of votes every week), but if they must go the last man standing route, can’t they at least do it right? Remember Survivor, the show that started it all? When someone has to go, the tribe members decide who goes, not who they want to keep from going. AI should be the same. Sure, it’s “negative”, but since there has to be an elimination, that really doesn’t make a difference.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve said it before in these threads - I think the “Vote for your favorite” method is part of what makes this show such a success. It’s something positive you can get into with the kids. If they went to the “vote off the worst” they would lose 2/3 of their audience.
Also, remember some of these performers are kids, only 16 or 17 years old. How would you like your kid standing up there hearing Ryan intone, “23 million people voted and they don’t like you!” After a few suicides the show would fold right up.
[QUOTE=Polerius]
I think the problem is that in this show, people vote for whom they want to stay, and not for whom they want to leave.
The way the show is now, the top 5 or so contestants get all the votes, while the bottom 7 or so get all the scraps. People didn’t vote for Amanda to leave; it’s just that not enough people bothered to vote for her to stay.
[/QUOTE]
That’s the beauty of the show. If you’re too apathetic to vote, you’re too apathetic to buy her record.
Not a good idea. The most popular entertainers also have the largest group of detractors. Celine, for instance. The producers of this show would be unable to ascertain the popularity of each individual singer if the vindictive fans were all clamoring to vote other people off. The result would be white noise.
I think they should keep the voting the way it is, but give each of the judges one veto to be used through the course of the voting portions of the show. So when the US American public does something stupid like voting Jennifer Hudson off the show, one of the judges can throw down his veto and say, “No way, man, she’s not going anywhere. Take the next lowest contestant.”
[QUOTE=Icarus]
I’ve said it before in these threads - I think the “Vote for your favorite” method is part of what makes this show such a success. It’s something positive you can get into with the kids. If they went to the “vote off the worst” they would lose 2/3 of their audience.
Also, remember some of these performers are kids, only 16 or 17 years old. How would you like your kid standing up there hearing Ryan intone, “23 million people voted and they don’t like you!” After a few suicides the show would fold right up.
[/QUOTE]
Someone here (sorry, can’t remember who) recently suggested that votes choose the bottom three, then the judges pick one of them to go. No need to say who the most hated was.
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
Someone here (sorry, can’t remember who) recently suggested that votes choose the bottom three, then the judges pick one of them to go. No need to say who the most hated was.
[/QUOTE]
Wouldn’t they figure it out when they were told to get out? 
They could always pretend the judges just had it in for them. They wouldn’t know how universally hated they were until they got home and started looking around on the Internet.