AMERICAN IDOL 4/6 - Elton John Night

Ya know, I am really getting tired of seeing this referred to as an insult. The way Simon said it I don’t think he meant it as an insult, it was a “oh, I just realized who you remind me of.” Jay is not ugly, so treating that comment as an insult is rather insulting to Jay Leno. He has a big chin, Amy has a similar chin. He didn’t say it was ugly, he didn’t say she looks like Jay in drag, he just said she looked like she could be related to him. Besides that comment got her acknowledged by Jay Leno and got her a brief skit on his show and she got to sing with his band. I highly doubt that the 3rd contestant voted off the show would have gotten that much notice otherwise. Granted Simon can be very snotty and unnecessarily cruel but I don’t think that’s what he was intending with that comment.
I don’t think it’s necessary to have spoiler boxes anymore so I wanted to make a couple comments about Camille. I noticed she changed the words to the song and I think it indicates that she knew she would go, then again she’s probably known that for the past few shows. What bugged me is that she could prepare that but she couldn’t come up with an original comment about her feelings and just echoed what Jasmine said.

I think Jasmine’s big mistake was singing the song Clay owned last year. I searched out an MP3 of Clay singing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me” and I just wanted to slap Jasmine again. I would have been annoyed if Camile got another reprieve but I lost all sympathy for Jasmine for singing that song and would not have been overly sad to see her go.

I guess we all have our own opinions. I thought it wasn’t even close to crossing the line and what Elton says in public may not be what he’s thinking in private. You think he’d say “so-so really sucks, I hope they don’t sing my song”?!! Of course not! I don’t care that Camille idolizes Elton John, she sucked.

All Hail Simon, the only one on AI with any balls!

I think Simon is the only one of those judges who consistently tells it like it is. These kids are trying to break into a very unkind business where only a very small percent will be successful. So AMERICAN IDOL is a microcosm of that universe. Randy Jackson is usually unintelligible. (What exactly is “a’ight” anyway? Meh? Good? Icky? I don’t know.) Paula is so perky and positive (which is why her negative comments this week were so remarkable!) that her critiques are useless. That leaves Simon to inject a dose of reality. He doesn’t cushion it. He doesn’t make nice. He speaks in simple clipped British English and everybody boos! What d’ya want? Only one of these kids can win! The rest have to go.

I agree it’s a tough business and they need to hear it like it is. The main problems I have with Simon’s comments is that when he actually gives good contructive criticism it’s overlooked or booed because people are so used the the extraneous snotty, cruel stuff. Also I think it gets some untalented people a lot of sympathy votes and subjects us to them a lot longer than necessary, i.e Camille and Carmen.

If he could just do the constructive criticism without the “Elton’s throwing his TV out the window” stuff, it would be better, but then that’s not interesting enough to “sell” and people watch because they love to hate Simon and they love to boo him while secretly agreeing with him. Right, I get that.

And Randy … shakes head heres a guy with the knowledge of the industry to be able to provide some constructive criticism that might help these kids, yet he can barely make an intelligible remark.

I disagree. I can’t imagine any girl would be pleased to hear that she reminded someone of Jay Leno. And I don’t know why you think that Simon’s demeanor suggests he didn’t intend it as an insult. He said it in the same snarky way he always does. Amy’s subsequent appearance on The Tonight Show has nothing to do with why Simon said it.

I don’t know if you mean literally or not, but my guess would be it’s a contraction of “all right.” I think he was saying the performance was okay but not great.

I know what it means literally. I don’t know what it means in Randy-speak.

I think in Randy-speak, it means that “your peformance was flawed but I don’t want to make the effort to form a few sentences explaining the flaws and I don’t want to say “pitchy” because Paula will just parrot me again and that really annoys me and I might have to slap her.”

That isn’t what I meant. I was talking about her onstage personality. She puts on a good show, she’s a good performer. I’m not bored when she’s on stage. I’m pretty much making a comparison between Fantasia’s stage presence and that of someone like John Stevens. She looks like a natural, like someone who is excited to be there and knows how to make the most of the opportunity. He usually looks like he’s about to fall asleep. I don’t care to watch him.

Personally, I don’t care what the attitudes are like outside of the performance. I’m not trying to be friends with these people, I’m trying to be entertained. You can’t tell me that Britney or Christina or any of the other big pop stars don’t have an uncontrolled ego. That’s part of the recipe for success for some stars, an attitude of “If I don’t think I’m the best, then no one else will.” I’m not saying it’s a great way to act, just that it doesn’t really color my opinion of the music.

…which is an acceptable comment (albeit uninspired), but when he says, as he did on Tuesday, “very a’ight”, it becomes an unintelligible comment. It’s like he doesn’t care anymore. He had much more to say the last two seasons. Now, everything is either a’ight or great. There’s no constructive criticism, unless you count “pitchy”, which is the only thing he can say that would be considered helpful. :rolleyes:

Simon may have been mean with the “throwing the TV out the window” comment, but it was funny as hell!

Well, in that case I sort of agree with you. I’d take Fantasia’s stage presence over John’s, or Diana’s pep rally come ons, or Jennifer’s eyeball hystrionics. But to some extent I have to like a person to vote for them, and I like Fantasia less and less. I wince everytime she speaks.

George has a good personality and stage presence… I think he’s becoming everybody’s favorite. You could see J Hud going nuts when she learned George was in her group, because she knew that meant she was in the top group. Funny since only that one kid’s DWI even let George into the semifinals.

Correction to Simon: Ed Wood didn’t say “This is the one I’ll be remembered for” about Plan 9- that was said by Johnny Depp as Ed Wood in the movie ED WOOD. Agreed though that red Johnny sucked.

Do you think they should raise the age limits for AI to 18? I think a major problem of Stevens and of Diana’s is being 16 years old and not mature enough to handle competition or criticism that’s this high pressure and the extra 2 years might help.

I think they should raise the age limit all right – on both sides of the spectrum. I get the point that they are trying to get some young, hip people up there, but I think the age cutoff is too young. It should be at least 30 in my opinion, and I wouldn’t mind if they raised it to 40. If they are really looking for some untapped talent, opening the field wouldn’t hurt.

But youngest should definitely by 18. 16 is too young.

Your Mileage May Vary.

The most shocking tidbit from this week is that Julia D’Mato has a record deal. How is THAT possible?

It doesn’t cost a lot to produce a record if you do it on the cheap, and you can probably sell 50,000 copies just by putting “American Idol” on the cover.

$10 says William Hung’s CD sells better. I know I’d buy it first.

What evidence do you have that John and Diana can’t take criticism? They take it better than some of the older contestants.

They seem to, but what don’t we see? It has to be more stressful for these kids that are still in high school because I am sure they are required to keep up with their school work on top of all the preparation that goes into the shows and all the publicity junkets they have to attend. The older contestants have commented that there’s a lot of work and stress involved in the competition so there has to be more for the younger kids.