Randall doesn’t have much of a poker face, does he? When Trump said, “That’s a firing offense,” Randall’s eyes bugged out like a squeezy alien doll. But Randall’s so darn cute that MrValley and I just laughed and laughed.
And if that show was supposed to make me want to buy XM, it seriously failed. Ugh, a whole station of melodramatic piano boy music. Not that angsty whining-about-being-a-middle-child-when-I’m-a-grown-man pop rock was any better, of course. How did I know that Clay’s creative idea would be a whine of blaming your life issues on others?
I agree with this. George was the only one who called them on it, though. George won the boardroom. But George lost to Trumpy’s insane fondness for her.
Well, in fairness to XM, that’s one channel out of, what, 150 or so? So if angsty pop rock isn’t your thing, there’s probably another channel that fits your tastes better. I don’t know, I’ve never listened to it. But everyone I know who has satellite radio loves it.
That being said, I knew as soon as they lost that Clay would go home. Sure, Rebecca and Randal were going to get a bit of a scare, but ultimately Trump managed to lay their defeat at Clay’s presence causing the two stars to lose their luster. Which I’m not exactly sure I agree with, but hey, Trump is all about revisionism. Especially when dealing with his own massive lack of consistency.
I liked the Nigerian guy a lot; I thought his voice was great, and I never realized that “alternative rock” has to not have even a trace of an edge to it. Yeah, right. But the task ultimately wasn’t about the song so much as it was sucking up to what the executives thought they wanted. And a carefully edited selection of listeners said they wanted. I suspect they could have found as many negative callers for the first guy as the second, and vice versa on the positive callers; I never trust that kind of selective subjectivity. But then, I don’t trust Trump or anything associated with him, so there you go.
Oh, I agree. I have friends who love it, particularly up north where there are no stations. But my point was that XM’s laying out the big bucks to Apprenticize didn’t exactly reel me in. Does their choice of stations mean they think this is the type of music an Apprentice watcher likes?
I personally liked the losing song better–but I like that kind of music. They both did real well I thought. But Clay had no kind words for anyone, c 'ya.
A little surprised Rebecca cut into Randall there. Not sure why they’re doing 2 next week, I’ll miss them both. Last eek I said they wanna wrap it up in Sweeps week, maybe so. They must eliminate only 1. Maybe one is a recap show??
I didn’t like her much before, but now I hate her. Randal looked shocked, and rightly so. She hasn’t been paying attention if she doesn’t know that Randal’s a Trump favorite. It’s going to take more than getting the station number wrong for him to be fired.
But that was a pretty dumb goofup. He’s been picked for other teams twice, but his teams have been in the boardroom twice too.
All of a sudden, it’s more interesting, Randal not looking so much like a shoe-in.
Both times, though, it did look like she was going to say more but got cut off. ("Randal is less creative than Clay…but he’s a harder worker" or something like that.) He was still gallant enough to roll her Standard Apprentice Luggage ™ back to the suite rather than making her hop-n-roll it there.
And how come Clay got a special, first-name-included goodbye from Robin??
Sorry, just saw this now. I did miss one week this season, and apparently that was the week. Rysler was trying to describe this to me also. It sounds like this was the right week to miss.
Not quite, middleman, but somewhere on the NBC website, they had four promos for last week’s show with a “Apprentice/Star Wars” crossover. I’d give you a direct link, but I can’t get into that part of the site from here.
I work for a very large, private company (actually, I only have two days left after today – WOO HOO!), and I have been amazed over and over again at how often songs and singing have been wedged into the workplace. It fills me with rage and hatred every time, but there it is. Stupid executives singing modified versions of sappy pop songs, with the words changed to fit with whatever the Corporate Message Du Jour is. It’s appalling.
At our last all-company meeting (more than a thousand attendees), the CEO honest-to-God brought out some folk singer to perform what was essentially a Christian hymn, and repeatedly commanded the employee audience to sing along. As an employee, I can confidently state that I don’t get paid nearly enough to sing along with such tripe, so I can only imagine how the executives feel when forced to do it.
OK, so I was thinking about this last night when I couldn’t sleep.
I can kind of get what Rebecca was aiming for. A world-beatish Nigerian with a lovely voice could have been very on-target for the audience. There were several problems, though, as I see it. First, he came to the US when he was 3(!) and his demo didn’t really seem to have any obvious Nigerian influence that I could hear. She had an idea that he would be world pop, but he didn’t really show any signs of it. Second, the song was written by some generic American Trumpites and the music was (presumably) performed by generic studio musicians with generic instruments. She should have known it would be an uphill battle to convey Nigerian influence given all that. Third, the song was supposed to tell his story…and the most unique thing that Clay latched on to about him was his middle-child status? Write a song about some cultural experiences if that’s what they’re pitching.
Well, guess what – these guys don’t know music. Which brings us back to my question in the OP – what the hell does this task have to do with Apprenticiosity? Knowing music and knowing the music biz are two completely different things – with business-business being a third category altogether. George himself kind of hinted at this, when he was talking about running a rock station, which featured music he hated. Would he have been able to write a song that would do well on that station? And would his ability, or lack thereof, have had anything to do with the profitability – or lack thereof – of the station?
The more I think about this task, the more :mad: I get.
While I agree that Trump’s apprenti will never need to sit and write a song as part of their daily job, I do think that this task (in conjuction with several others) does help to identify what kind of employee a person will be. In this case, the task reveals how well these people act when they must create something artistic together. Transferring this to real estate development, a team might get together to design the appearance of the lobby of a building. In addition to the practical matters of functionality, they would need to consider the aesthetics of the space in order to come up with something unique and attactive.
The biggest thing we learned from this task was that Clay can come up with a concept, but then falls into a snit if everyone doesn’t totally embrace his idea. He can’t listen to feedback and then just move on.
But seriously – no “tycoon” (or tycoon wannabe) is actually going to design a lobby him/herself – he or she will hire a decorator. Needs enough taste to know good design from bad – yes. Needs to be able to create a good design – no.
I’m not sure if that was aimed at me, since I wrote the post just above yours, but I certainly don’t know music either. I know enough to know that I don’t know it. (Lost yet?) That’s why I would not pick a guy to sing world music when his demo was not worldy. I would pick a guy (or girl) whose demo would fit in as is, and also who was a good songwriter. Then he could do most of the heavy lifting in the songwriting task in his usual style. It wasn’t shown, but I’d like to know if any of the interviewers asked about these guys’ skills/experience in writing songs.
It seemed to me that Rebecca got caught up in “discovering” some talent, rather than realizing her limitations specific to what was asked for this particular task. And that’s an issue that’s relevent for Apprenti.
Kind of. But I think I misread your post, which is why I sounded so pissy.
All of your points are legitimate, and make sense for why they fucked up the task.
What I was saying was – well, of course they fucked up. They don’t know the music biz. Trying to apply any kind of “general” business principles to a songwriting task is completely apples and oranges and proves nothing. You can’t market test a song. (Actually you can, and do – but again, you hire a trained professional to actually write the freakin’ song.)
Sorry you got hit by my bad day here… I think I’ll go home and kick the cat.
