I think Carrie’s in serious danger of going home tonight. That said, I don’t think it matters for her at this point. She’ll be a big country star anyway.
Other observations: It’s a Great Day to Be Alive is a fantastic song, and Bo screwed it up royally. The lyrics were wrong, and he lacked any feeling whatsoever. If he’d given half the emotion he gave to the first song as he did the second, it would have been a huge improvement. He’s definitely no Travis Tritt. (And I’ve heard Travis Tritt live. For some songs, it’s just a man and his guitar, and he’s incredible.) His second performance rocked the house, and it’s a good thing because he could have been in Carrie’s shoes if it hadn’t been.
I’d like to know what happened to poor Vonzell. I wanted to hug her and say, “Well, sweetheart, it wasn’t that bad!” In fact, it wasn’t bad at all. Something must have happened to her. I’ll have to watch Entertainment Tonight to find out, I guess.
A-Fed: Wow! It’s been a slow, slow process, but he’s finally gained my respect. Between him and Vonzell, it’s hard to say which has grown the most during the course of this show. Both have improved significantly, unlike Bo and Carrie, who have stayed at exactly the same level they were at when they came into it.
That said, at this point, I really like them all. A very solid top-four, I think, which will be cut down to a very solid top-three. The best since Ruben/Clay/Kimberley.
Boy, do I ever disagree. Her melodic moan after the first line in Alone would have melted an iceberg. To me, her entire range is tonally beautiful. Even on her worst night, she did better than everyone else — including the Love Boat guy.
I also think she has trouble with the lower notes. Although Alone was great, she was much better when she was hitting the high notes and I’ve noticed the same thing in every other song she’s sung since.
That said, I still like her voice and when she was being criticized by the judges for the second song, my husband and I looked at each other in disbelief. I think this might be one of those times when they’ll have a different opinion when they watch the playback. They’ve admitted it before, it sounds different when they hear it live.
And probably the best singer, too. I thought her second performance was incredible. If she goes home tonight there is no justice in this hard, cold world.
In my earlier post where I said Bo would melt his fans with “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” I had actually preceded that with how I thought he would rock the house with “For The Love of Money,” and deleted it, thinking people would all say it was too associated with “The Apprentice” now, and either forget or not realize that it was an O’Jays song. Seems I was kindof right in that assumption, which is too bad, because The O’Jays are icons! And they totally rock! “Back Stabbers,” “Love Train,” “I Love Music,” “Now That We Found Love,” all excellent, excellent songs.
As for the performances last night, I pretty much agree with everyone that Carrie was not in her best form and Anthony surprised by being pretty damn good (though he does that same bouncy/head thrusty thing every single time, and it’s dorky and annoying to watch). I tried to call every so often for Carrie during “Amazing Race” commercials and consistently got busy signals or the “all circuits are busy” message for the whole 2 hours, only actually connecting twice. Should be an interesting results show.
I won’t go that far, but I will say that she has been looking less and less like a crossdresser as the weeks have gone on (except for those sideburns…Vonzell, high-def TV is not your friend).
Really! How can it be that more people aren’t familiar with this Bulletboys classic!
The morning drive time guys I listen to (Mark and Brian) said that Vonzell’s emotional leakage was associated with her frustration at not being able to learn How Can I Live to her satisfaction; she had felt she was tanking it during the rehearsal, and she wasn’t any more impressed with herself during the live show with 30 million pairs of eyes.
Wasn’t there some rumor about Vonzell and Scott? (I don’t keep up, so if it has been disproven, sorry.) Anyway, with that in mind, my first thought was that she was crying because Scott wasn’t there.
I very much respect the opinions of people who really like Vonzell, and I agree that she is beautiful and has a good voice. But it is always the same voice, which would be okay if it were unusual, in the manner of Aretha Franklin or something, but Vonzell impresses me as a backup singer, or one of the Supremes. Something like that. But definitely not Diana Ross.
I’ve heard so many. Here they are, in order of complexity:
She was homesick. Well, maybe, but in that case, she’s in the wrong business. Anyway, I don’t think that was it.
She’d been struggling with the song, and knew it wasn’t right when she performed it. The judges also knew this, prompting Paula’s question. Maybe, but why would they give her a pass because of that? If she’s hit a wall, then she just has, and I can’t see the judges giving her a freebie, no matter how sweet she is.
She was just plain stressed out. See above.
Her dog, that she’d had for many years, died. Now, I know peoples’ pets can be very dear to him, but, and especially since she wouldn’t have seen it happen, she should have been able to compartmentalize and concentrate on the thing she’s been putting so much energy and effort into. Sounds like someone conjectured, “Maybe her dog died,” and someone else ran with it.
She just found out that her dad has cancer. Again, sounds like a speculation that other people took as fact. Furthermore, who in her family would hit her with a revelation like that on performance day? They’d wait until after the results show.
Ever notice how close she seems to be with her dad, and her mom is never mentioned? It could be that her mom has been dead for anywhere from a year or two, to most of V’s life, and having to sing “How Do I Live Without You?” so soon after Mother’s Day was a trigger. That sounds plausible, but doesn’t fit with Paula’s mention of “a difficult day”, because Sunday was the difficult day.
Her biggest fan died. The story goes that a little girl with cancer was a big fan of hers, and one of her last-days requests was “I wanna meet Vonzell.” She did, and charmed everyone, and then she died yesterday or the day before. This is the one I’m most inclined to believe, mostly because it doesn’t have any holes in it. I can see someone blurting out the news, not knowing how she’d react, as opposed to news about her dad, which everyone would realize would be a bombshell.
