Is this a professional critique, or are you saying the pitch is unstable simply because it contains some vibrato?
It was nice and all but it’s kind of a sad commentary on how people can judge someone’s worth as a person based on something like ability to sing.
“Ha-ha look at the country bumpkin frumpish woman who’s never been kissed. What a pathetic person. She should just go back home. Let’s point and laugh.
Wait! What’s that? She can sing? Well now we loooooove her, she’s fantastic! What a beautiful inspiring story! Everyone can eat crow cause she just proved her worth!”
So what, if she was an awful singer we could continue laughing and tell her to go back home?
“Go back to whence you came frumpish lady and hide your face. You’re not worthy of our love. You can’t sing, no wonder you’ve never been kissed. Ha-ha.”
Not professional. I was a voice student in college but that was a long time ago. It sounded to me (from the other room, now, remember) that she wasn’t absolutely sure of her pitch…it wasn’t really warbling around, but I didn’t think it was spot-on.
Again, remember that I’m coming at it out of context, too. I’ve still not seen the actual video, only heard her singing on TV while doing other things. I just wasn’t terribly impressed with it…it was nice, but not mind-blowing.
That’s part of the show. These people are manipulative bastards with no concern other than making as many people watch as possible and make beaucoup money.
Millions upon millions tune in every week though and also vote in the later phase. Thousands queue for hours for this treatment.
Better than putting them to the lions but we really haven’t changed that much. Individually we can be very nice indeed but en mass we’re a nasty judgemental bunch of bastards.
I saw the clip yesterday and linked to it in the current AI thread.
I’ll admit that I cried like a baby. The way everyone reacted after the first few notes was a hoot and I’ve rarely seen Simon smile like a kid with a crush.
It was great t.v.
Another Paul Potts…yes, it was a set-up, and the woman is in dire need of a brow wax, but damn, she has a set of pipes on her. I hope she goes far.
A thousand times yes! I must be showing my sentimentality in my old age, but I wept for her. It was clearly her 15 minutes, and she fucking nailed it, despite the naysayers. I don’t even care if it was staged, it sounded real enough to me.
Man that was great.
I cried too. & although I think the backstage comperes (spelling) were in on the secret, I don’t think Piers & Simon were.
& its a nice story in depressing times. 
The thing is, it’s a story. It’s a human and real story, but it is not reality. And there are few things that irk me in life more than storytellers who give the impression that somehow their story surprises even them, and that they’re not in control of it.
The woman has a nice voice, and I’m glad she had this chance. It was an emotional bit of TV. But, the story they sold in the program was done in a crude and ungraceful way.
Why would the judges treat her with such scorn to begin with? Because they obviously knew what the outcome would be. To me, that’s just lying, and I can’t stand to watch it.
Is there any evidence that supports that take? What I mean is that is it true that the “judges” knew ahead of time what they were getting?
Not that it rally matters to me…the audience didn’t know, and she impressed them, if even for a moment. It was pretty cool.
With all due respect, this is bullshit. The judges treated her the way the fat, old, and unattractive get treated every day. You are probably none of the above, and so do not see it. Even if they did know in advance (and I don’t think they’re actually that good actors), the “story” that the show presented was true in its essence, the way good fiction is “true” even though the events never happened.
No, no evidence I suppose. But, if the judges weren’t playing, then they were being played by the show’s producers.
And ENugent, I am a firm believer in the truth of stories, but I don’t feel like this was a true story. And the reason is because it claims truth. The minute a story pretends to not be a story is the minute it loses me.
And, I feel like they played a “gotcha ya” on the audience (both live and TV viewers). I imagine the show thrives on extreme audience reactions, both positive and negative. Scorn for those who suck or we don’t like, and so forth. Then, the very people who have encouraged this sort of public ridicule (indeed, who make a living off of it) pull a fast one and trick the audience, which has been conditioned and encouraged to behave in the way that they did, and then we’re supposed to feel good about it? It’s cheap and manipulative.
I’m thinking Now, Voyager. Time will tell whether Susan Boyle cleans up as well as Bette Davis did.
I didn’t understand her joke- maybe it’s a British thing. When Simon asked her age and she said “47”. Simon rolls his eyes and she gives a little bump & grind and says “And that’s just one side of me.” (About 1:08 in this one.) I may be daft for asking this, but what’s the joke there?
I do not believe that Simon’s eyebrow arch (2:01 in that clip) or his incredible smile (does he have dentures incidentally?) were faked. I don’t think he’s that good of an actor.
I really hope there’s a big fat happy ending to this story. It’s weird but I think there’s almost a societal need right now for her to be. (Of course it could end up with a “Behind the Music” documentary chronicling her rise, her going Roseanne with the plastic surgeries, infuriating Brits by giving E2 a noogie while being dubbed Dame Susan, kid shopping in Burkina Faso and Uraguay with her first husband Kevin Federline, second husband Macauley Culkin, and third husband [the Burkina Faso boy she adopted with Federline], moving into and then losing the former MC Hammer estate, and ending up playing 3 shows a day at a fundamentalist dinner theater production of Sound of Music in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, but even so it’s better than living in a dead parent’s council house with a cat.)
I know little about singing, songs from musicals, or TV talent shows but hearing/watching that lady sing was inspiring and a joy to watch.
What most suprised me was her age and the fact that she hasn’t actively been involved with music or performance. If it turned out that she was a voice coach or that she used to be in regional theatre up till five years ago I would have thought she was good, but not awe inspiring. If she was 20, I wouldn’t have had that “she came from out of nowhere, hidden for so many years, diamond in the rough” feeling.
Since most of us are used to seeing attractive and sophisticated looking people sing those sweeping dramatic Broadway type songs, the fact that she is an unattractive spinster cat lady adds some spice to the story. However, ugly or not, even the most cynical of you have to be impressed for her first time performance, in front of famous judges, on a big stage, in front of a large potentially hostile audience, and all recorded on tv for eternity for everyone to see.
Especially if you weave the characters of LV and Sadie (can’t find a pic of Sadie but the actress was Annette Badland). I was actually just thinking before watching Susan Boyce the first time that I want to watch Little Voice again.
I’m sappy enough to have been moved by it, and I don’t think the judge’s reactions were faked. Simon’s no actor, and I thought the blonde hottie judge (I guess she’s the Paula of the show?) seemed almost ashamed of herself.
I think your kind of missing the point.
That’s what I thought too.
An article linked earlier in the thread says She has also featured in a “madrigal” show at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival with local children performing a collection of poetry and plays.
Assuming they mean before her audition, and assuming they mean she was involved with it over a period of time, that would indicate some experience about on the level of what you suggested. But they don’t tell us that, of course. They also don’t tell us that she attended an acting school a little over ten years ago. They tell us she lives with her cat and has never been kissed.
As far as the flaws in her singing others have mentioned, is it reasonable to think she could be coached to a professional level? If she has this much to start with?
Alternative explanation: The judges are shallow, cynical, jerks who really did assume that some frumpy, middle-aged lady couldn’t possibly be a decent singer. Having seen Simon, at least, on American Idol, I find that more plausible than the claim that he’s that good an actor.
That’s what makes the moment so great – she proves them all wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best rendition of the song you’ve ever heard. The point is she was a thousand times better than they thought she would be.