I'm in love with Kelly (American Idols fans, come on in!)

Cafe Society
41

This is complete b*llshit. Are you JUST kidding me?? How the hell could anyone think that Nikki has a better voice than Tamyra? All right, all right, I know some people like Nikki. I just find it so hard to believe. Oh, and if anyone had questions about the speed dialing…CNN said that 12.something million watched the show on Tuesday. Um, but the hosts said that they got 15 million votes.

Nikki sings horribly flat and it just makes me nuts. And Justin! Him, I just want to kick in the nuts. But Kelly? Wowwwza. I wanna make her coffee in the morning. :slight_smile:

I’m with Tristan: Kelly makes me think dirty things.

Tibs.

42

I also thought that it’d come down to Kelly and Tamyra too. How utterly shocking! You can see it in Nikki’s eyes every time she survives the cut that she knows she doesn’t really belong up there. RJ knew it when he survived the week Christina was cut. He even said so much.

43

What do you guys see in Kelly?! I am not being mean or anything, I am serious! I think she has an unbelievable voice but physically?? Don’t get me wrong, she is cute, but I don’t see a knock out in her!
Let me know!

44

Well, you’re right, Carine. It isn’t that she is conventionally beautiful. She doesn’t have the perfect slim shape of Tamyra, for instance. She sometimes looks downright dorky and all of that. It isn’t that she is BEAUTIFUL as much as it is that she is CHARMING.

Part of her allure/charm is that she seems…like an ordinary person and doesn’t seem to suffer affectations. She appears kind and sincere and that is very attractive. And she certainly isn’t ugly - that personality of her makes me want to take her out and go dancing. She just seems like she’s FUN and nice and sincere and sweet - that makes her a hottie and it increases her physical beauty (to me, anyway).

She’s the kind of girl that people fall in love with and she has no clue why. That’s the best.

Tibs.

45

What???WHAT???WHAT???

This is what I get for going to be early last night. I was going along, thinking happy thoughts, until I jumped in here to find out that TAMYRA is gone and NIKKI is still in. How in the wide world does something like that happen?

I sing better than Nikki for shit’s sake, and I’m really not all that good. (Of course I don’t have Nikki’s eyes or bod…)

Ugh. If Nikki wins, it will be because a bunch of people with bad ears bought speed dialers. I am a bitter, bitter woman.

46

Oh Tibs, so glad to hear that! I understand!!

47

How so? I think he’s holding up pretty good… He’s had screaming teenage hysteria (not to mention Paula melting all over him) since day one. How exactly is one supposed to deal with that without being in danger of coming off phony? He’s thrilled and excited, his dreams are coming true, and what would you have him do? I think people are projecting on to the poor kid, and he has very little control over it.

Now, as to everyone moaning and groaning over who can ** SING ** better, since when has that mattered? It only matters if you want to be Celine or Mariah, and really, who cares?

Musical stardom is about a whole bunch of things, and only sometimes is it about being the best singer. And even then, it is usually mixed with something else (the ultimate exception being Celine, who has zero charm, looks, charisma, taste, style, etc. The only thing she can do is belt out a song). Looks, charm, charisma, style, and that completely indefinable something that people just respond to.

All three of the remaining contestants could be said to have appeal on many levels apart from singing. They must, or they would not be there. It is the fans who do the dialing, and they are responding to something. It isn’t Nikki’s friends and family calling in 14 million times.

Some of you may be shocked to hear this, but a huge number of singing stars are cleaned up in the studio. The most glaring example of recent vintage that I know for sure about is Nelly Furtado. She sang live on some award show and I sat with my mouth hanging open wondering how in god’s name anyone ever gave the girl a record contract, because she couldn’t seem to hit a single note. Not to mention the fact that her voice quality even on record is weirdly nasal and unpleasant… in a way that is still strangely compelling!

Think of other singers that couldn’t really sing, but became huge stars, like Dylan and Rod Stewart. Dylan had something more than just the writing, because if it was JUST the writing, he wouldn’t have been successful performing it, he could have just sold the songs to someone else. Rod Stewart? Sex appeal, charisma…

David Bowie can’t really sing for shit, but he’s pure star material, that’s for sure.

Face it, this contest wasnt’ about who could sing the best, and it shouldn’t have been! That is rarely what sells records.

stoid

48

Stoid, you’ve got some good points there, especially concerning the aspect of musical stardom as a total package. The show is, after all, “American Idol” and not “The Best Pipes in America.” Don’t we remember that big girl from Chicago (I think) who sang the shit out of her audition piece and got to the second round realizing the whole time that she wasn’t physically what AI was looking for? I do think, though, that the finalists should all be able to carry a tune. And Nikki just hasn’t impressed me as someone who can do that on a consistent and regular basis. I see her as an edgy country-ish-rock-singer, like Pink meets Shania Twain or something, but not a pop star. Justin’s totally a pop star. Kelly can be one, too. And that’s what I thought AI was supposed to be about: pop music.

I miss the “sigh-uh-lent night/I said uh-sigh-uh-lent night” guy a lot.

49

Well, yes, I agree that this is about a big picture here and not solely upon who can sing the best.

But I don’t think Nikki can sing at all. And they held singing auditions initially so I would assume that singing is important. I don’t think she can sing well at all and shouldn’t be in the top 3.

I agree with what someone said earlier about Kelly being very suited for Broadway. I kept thinking of Ethel Merman. Kelly, Get your gun.

Tibs.

50

I wonder if there was some backlash in the voting simply b/c everyone assumed Tamyra was better, so Nikki needed more votes?

Doesn’t matter anyway - Justin has the teen girl vote - he can’t be stopped.

The only thing I look forward to now is the VH1 special in five years. :slight_smile:

51

Okay. It seems like so many people are amazed that Nikki got to the final three. I won’t deny that I was taken aback… but then I thought of other contests that are determined by the votes of the American public. The People’s Choices awards are always a joke. I caught a second of the Teen Choice awards the other night and 7th HEAVEN won an award for the best TV drama… over Buffy, 24 and a gaggle of better shows. Has anyone every SEEN 7th Heaven? I would have Nikki sing offtune background music to my life if I never had to watch that show again. My guess, is that a lot of the people who voted for 7th Heaven… are voting for American Idol.

52

Man, so much Nikki vitrol. :frowning: I voted for her each time I watched the show. To me the question is: would I buy this person’s album? If it were anyone’s, I’d buy Nikki’s. I love girl rock. Sleater Kinney… mmm. Kittie… mmm. Velocity Girl… mmm. Madonna… mmmmoops. Did I say that one out loud? :wink:

Kelly is pretty sweet, too, no doubt about it. But I liked Tamyra better between those two.

GO NIKKI hell yeah. :slight_smile:

53

Yeah, but if you bought the album you’d have to listen to her voice, without getting to look at her. Her voice is just not that good. (She’d better have a pretty hot album cover!)

54

Stoid, I would agree with your point if Nikki had an amazing presence. Justin has a good voice, but he’s come this far mostly on sex appeal and charisma, and while he doesn’t ring my bell I don’t have a problem with that. I think Tamyra was as proficient a singer or better as Kelly, but Kelly’s got the edge in my heart because of her personality. Thing is, Nikki DOESN’T have kick ass stage presence. She is way out of her league and looks like she knows it. She looked devastated when Tamyra was voted off. I don’t think her fans are doing her any favors by voting her through. Putting her next to really great vocalists only highlights her weaknesses as a performer. And now she’s going to be courting some Tamyra backlash.

Eris, so you really think if Nikki puts out a CD it’s gonna be in that vein.? ‘Cause I doubt it.

55

erislover, I’m a big fan of girl rock, too. Veruca Salt, The Breeders, Belly, Liz Phair… so I wanted to like Nikki.

But, I just don’t see Nikki as in the same league. She doesn’t have that sweet/smart/hard thing going for her, as far as I can tell. There’s something that strikes me as phony about her. And, she just yells. I actually liked the first song she did on Tuesday - it was the first time that I thought she sounded well and delivered a song with sincerity. But then she tried to sing the Melissa Etheridge song and just about made my ears bleed.

I find the girl annoying.

56

There was a radio interview with Kelly over her cell phone on a station here this morning. I don’t know if it is true, but the radio hosts were acting like the interview was a big deal, that the contestants are not supposed to be talking to anyone outside of the show. Anyway, Kelly seemed to be really nice. She said a couple of things that I thought were kind of interesting. One of the radio hosts surprised me by asking her if when Kelly saw herself during those ridiculous Ford Focus skits, she ever thought that she should have worn makeup. Kelly said that her skin is very sensitive, and that unless she absolutely has to, she never wears makeup because she’d rather be comfortable. She also said that she was shocked when Tamyra was eliminated, but that she had spoken to her since then and she seemed to be doing fine. For next week’s show, she said they are singing two songs, one that they pick, and one the judges assign to them. She is also recording another single for the show. She said she doesn’t know any of the three songs she has to do, so she has a lot of work this week.

57

Do I think she would put an album out like that? Well, that is the impression I have. I don’t know what any of these kids would put out all on their own when I come down to it. Does she have a great voice? Eh. Most of what I listen to doesn’t have good vocalists in the sense that they could pass the buck on this show, so I am not overly concerned about that.

I sort of idolize female vocalists by sheer virtue of them being female. It is a strange bias, because I can’t say, for example, that I am this way because of some underlying attraction or something (well, except for Corin from S-K… but then I’m a little out of her league! :p), I just recognize that I feel this way and move on.

Nikki is cute. Stage presence… I wish I knew what these people would sing in their garage, so to speak. I wish the requirement was that they were already in some band, and that we got to hear that. Because I am very sensative to the whole song experience, not just the vocalist, except in some rare cases where a vocalist like Danzig simply strikes me as very moving, in which case I can forgive other things.

I get the impression from Kelly that she wouldn’t release music I like, and so how could I vote for her? Stage presence, level of voice perfection… very impossible things for me to vote on alone. I’ve used more gut-feeling in this than anything else. When I see Nikki sing I can picture her in an element that I identify with. When I judge the others, I do so by having to imagine that I can identify with what I think is their element… a much more strange way to look at them, and it sort of destroys any hope of me voting for them because of that.