The Second, and let's be honest better, half of the Top 12's destruction of The Rolling Stones.
Firstly, I want to apologise for some of my spelling/grammar errors in the last part and this one. Normally my dyslexia means that I treble check stuff before posting but I’m just really rather tired this weekend (which may or may not be caused by a new and at times stressful job and a Friday and Saturday night of drinking with friends) and can’t bring myself to do that. So while I hope things aren’t too bad and I have put an effort in while writing and will clear up any mistakes that I see as I post, this doesn’t have the finer checking that I would normally do. But moving on.
While I wasn’t originally sure that I was going to get around to writing about the final 5 contestants and their Rolling Stones performances this week my plans for the day have fallen through so it seems like as good a way as any (and I’m not sure if that’s a sad fact about my life) to take up some of my now free time.
So yesterday we left off with my comments getting shorter and shorter as the post went on. We passed briefly into my dislike of Andrew, we touched on my horror that ‘singing in tune’ now deserves some praise on the fricking singing show, and we realised that I actually have very little care or time for any of the contestants so far. So let’s pick up where we left off with the most interesting of the performances this week.
Siobhan Magnus:
Ever since Siobhan sang ‘that note’ during her rendition of ‘Think’ she’s one of the people everyone has been talking about. Strangely enough I think that that is an indication that AI isn’t as different from the show it used to be as we all think. Big, high, loud, long notes will get you noticed regardless of the rest of the performance. Now, I’m not saying that Siobhan doesn’t have more in her than simply big long loud notes; I’m just saying that this one note is still what people are talking about. And in her performance of ‘Paint It Black’ (aka The Song We All Knew She’d Pick Even Before The Spoilers Got Released) it is once again the big long loud notes that are getting the attention when the rest of her notes are just as good. She has a really strong lower register that she likes using. But it's the high ones that draw most people's attention, tell, that and the drama of the performance. How you’d expect someone to sing ‘Paint It Black’ and not fill it with drama is a mystery to me but never mind. Actually, no, let’s mind. It’s a dramatic song, it’s a melodramatic song! Sure, if you were to take out that drumbeat and guitar riff and slow it down you could probably come up with something that sounds like Jeff Buckly could have sung it but most people are going to want to keep the drama in there.
I personally really liked the music box touch at the beginning of the song. Sure it wasn’t Siobhan’s finest vocal moment but none of the song was. ‘Wicked Game’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ were both sung better but this was interesting and different. And where yesterday I complained that the competitors were changing songs up simply for the sake of it today I am going to take that back a little and place Siobhan, and one bedreaded songstress, in the category who change the songs in a way that feels natural. In her froofy dress, her curls and her combat boots Siobhan looked like the little girl lost that the music box belonged to. She looked like every semi-goth oddball student at 6th Form College I ever knew (was) in that she looked nothing like any of them but had the same presence.
Siobhan is a drama filled presence on that stage, and yes, she takes after the Adam Lambert school of making every single performance a mini musical. The lighting, the stairs, the movement (take note how someone can have an obviously staged move without making it seem overly cheesy Michael), the looks into the camera, the decision that she’d scream that note rather than sing it - absolutely everything in this performance was designed to be exactly as it was. And we know from both common sense andyoutube that she has experience in musical theatre even if it is only school productions as her age would dictate. So why wouldn’t she bring that to the stage? She is going to use everything at her disposal and if an instrument isn’t there than sure and shit she should use what is. The question is whether or not she’s a little too odd for the viewing/voting public?
But before I get onto that I just want to address the voice for a second. There are those videos of her in Pirates of Penzance floating around youtube but singing the notes Mabel sings in that show isn’t an amazing feat of vocal talent. Any soprano worth her salt should be able to get them, hell, I’m as much of an alto as you could find and even I can hit all except for the two highest. And as a massive Pirates of Penzance fan and someone who’s been in the show I know that for a fact and not a theoretical idea. But what that’s an entirely different style of singing to what she’s going to be doing on the Idol stage unless one week (a downloads hits week or something) she chooses to really shake things up and sing ‘Time To Say Goodbye’. She needs to learn how to take her classically trained voice and use it on the rock/pop songs. 'Wicked Game' was the perfect song to try that out on and everything else she’s done since then has also been a good choice vocal wise. Just as Adam made knew how to make the most of the his classical training and use it to hide the slip between his falsetto and his chest voice better than anyone I’ve ever heard so my Siobhan learn how to make her voice fit the songs she chooses. She is a little nasally in her lower register which could end up being annoying at the volume she sings if she’s not careful. And the gap between the tone of her voice in her lower and upper registers could do with being worked on a bit. And can you tell I’m being far more picky with her than the others as far as vocal acrobatics goes? Well if she’s going to use them she needs to use them well. She is not the kind of singer who can get away with massive jumps in her register sounding like massive jumps. Her whole style of singing dictates that it needs to sound effortless. But I think this is something that a few more vocal lessons from people who are there to help her sing pop/rock could and will help with this.
But, now back to the public perception of her because that is what’s going to be her downfall, not her voice. Siobhan is almost definitely not going to have a complete flame out because she’s already set herself up as someone who’s performances are love ‘em or hate ‘em and therefore a performance someone might see as a total mess could be seen as someone else as performance art or something. That is, of course, unless she just forgets the words one time or falls over or something. But Idol is, as I have said many times before, a popularity contest as much as, if not more than, anything else. I spent the entire season last year saying that Adam would not, could not, win and that while his sexuality would have something to do with it his entire dress sense and performance style would probably hold a bigger sway. But at least with Adam you got video packages that showed him to be completely normal and down to earth and polite which counter acted against some of his more overtly exhibitionist tendencies. Siobhan is possibly not going to be helped by her video packages as she can at times comes across as odd even in those. I personally like her brand of oddness but the main voting block for American Idol is teenage girls who spend their lives trying to fit in and ignore girls like Siobhan at school. The arty and odd woman is not as appealing as the arty and odd man. I could go into a whole lecture about how that’s because as a society we still see in our deepest subconscious women as being there to produce children and support the men and all the chauvinistic but highly engrained crap. Earth women are fine because women are one with the planet and the rejuvenation of life and all that but women whose heads are in the air perhaps need to be brought back down to earth a little. Throughout literature and mythology women are earth goddesses and rulers of all that is natural but men rule the sky and the sea and the ‘other’. Men can have their heads in the air because a) the artistic dude is attractive and b) men ‘create’ in other ways as they can’t literally produce a child. Men are inventors, women are muses. So Siobhan and her genuine oddness will probably be off putting for a lot of the key voters. She’s exotic but if people find her too weird and not just kinda weird it will really hurt her chances which will be such a shame.
So I’ve sidetracked myself and can’t really remember what point I was trying to make but I’m pretty sure it came down to my lack of belief that Siobhan can win. I like her, I want her to go far and I think there's a good chance she'll make Top 5 maybe Top 3 but I am, however, worried that she’ll be this year’s shocking elimination and that's something only time will tell.
Lee Dewyze:
Okay, yes, I have a problem with Lee and I’m going to admit it straight up. I am not a fan. I don’t dislike him much either but all the love that’s floating around for his distinctly average vocals is confusing me to say the least. Yes, I’ll agree with Simon in that he has a voice that will probably sound really good on the radio but that ignores the fact that it’ll sound like so many other people already out there. People have been comparing him to David Cook but seeing Cook perform at the results show really showed up how much charisma Cook has and how little Lee has. Cook has been pushed to the middle ground on his album (look at the performance from the other week to see the Midwest Kings and a far happier looking Cook) but Lee chooses to reside there.
There is nothing wrong with the middle ground, it gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure, but for it to be good it needs to at least be sung in tune! Less has real problems with his pitch, something the judges are either deaf to or doesn’t come across in the live setting. But over the television his pitch problems are blaring loud and clear. This week should have been the week he truly rocked out, again look at Cook, but instead we got yet another insipid performance with some dodgy notes, some half hearted strumming and not a lot else. Lee’s voice has a decent tone to it, I like the husky thing, but you can’t just rely on that. We have yet to see, and I know it’s early days, but we have yet to see him actually put any emotion into anything he sings. It’s like a blank slate up there.
“You need to connect with the song and blah blah blah” you’ve all read/heard it so many times this year but there’s a truth there. If all you’re doing is singing the lyrics why should I care what you’re singing? Why should the song move me because it clear as hell ain’t moving you! Lee has about as much charisma as Andrew Garcia. Come on boys, put some fucking effort into it. Look like you’re trying, look like you’re connecting with the audience or better yet, actually connect with the audience! I want to put Lee’s vocal troubles and uncomfortable stage presence down to nerves but this is week 4 of the live performances so he needs to have gotten past them by now. I know I know I’m being too hard but seriously, we’re supposed to accept Lee Dewyze as the best male vocalist this year! Pitchy McPitcherson here is the best we can hope for! That’s just, I’m not sure I even have words to describe how frustrating that is.
Paige Miles:
You know what, I actually quite liked this. There’s always been something about Paige that even when she was singing half decently just didn’t work during the semi-finals, I couldn’t work out what it was. But here on this big stage I finally got it. She had no idea whatsoever how she was supposed to behave in the round! She tried moving about but it never looked comfortable because where the hell did she look. On this big stage, with the audience in front of her, she knew exactly how to interact with them. There was an actual presence on that stage. Maybe it was only because of all the lack of it that had come before her but Paige felt right up there.
I will agree that her performance was a little old fashioned. It would have fit in on Idol about 3 years ago but I’m not sure it will now. Paige is going to have a hard time this season even if she gets better and better because what style is she going to fit in to? And I hate that they have to choose but the judges mention it so frequently that I can’t help but think that a lot of the audience believes it as well. You’ve got to find your box and stay in it (even if that box is the box-breaking kind).
There’s not a huge amount to say about Paige because while it was one of the better performances it was probably too little too late.
Aaron Kelly:
I’m going to be honest and admit that I have ended up fast-forwarding through every performance he’s given so far. I stuck around for Angie a bit more than the others but I just don’t get the appeal of these little boys with big voices. And please, comparing him to Archuleta is not only easy but it’s also wrong. Archuleta has a lot of music training in his background and he understands the way the songs work even if at the time of the show he was being pulled side to side by other people’s decisions. All Aaron seems to know is that if he sings loudly with songs are he thinks are emotional but are usually saccharine people will applaud him for it. So for Angie I give him credit because less was more this time. He didn’t stretch his voice and he didn’t make me go “what they hell, why would you ever choose that song!”
So yes, he’s going to get some form of praise from me for that but I’m not comfortable laying into a child for something that’s probably not even their fault. Allison Iraheta was young but had some idea of where she wanted to be and she had Adam, Kris, Lil and Megan all looking out for her. Aaron...well, let’s just hope some of the contestants this year have taken a liking to him otherwise he’s going to get eaten alive when Cowell turns on him which he is going to unless Aaron has a complete transformation somewhere along the line.
Crystal Bowersox:
Okay, so saying that Crystal is considerably more talented than most of them up there seems a little like stating the obvious but don’t for one second think that she’s got the thing nailed. Yes, she knows her own style and, like those that have come before her, almost instinctively changes the song to make it her own. In Crystal’s case this is a bluesy folk rock thing. She is definitely of a different era. And yes, as far as actual vocal talent goes she’s right up there. He knows her voice, knows how to use it, knows how to make it work for her. Her range is far bigger than it first seems because she only rarely goes out of her comfort zone but she can and she will. She has presence on that stage like no one else in the competition and she brings an authentic vibe to everything she does. But this is all obvious, we know all this already. What we don’t know is if she can do anything else.
And this is where Idol’s advice, and life in general, get’s confusing to the contestants. You need to be able to find your box and place yourself in it happily but you also have to be able to show that you are versatile. The contestants who manage this soar but it’s a hard balance to achieve. Stay too much in your box and you’ll be boring. Move too far out and, unless that’s what’s expected from you, people won’t know what to do with you. Or at least that’s what Idol believes. I personally think people are far more accepting of being surprised than the producers give them credit for. But what this really comes down to is that we need to see Crystal stretch herself a little. Everything she does feels just a tiny bit safe because she does what she knows she can. There’s no risk in that. Last year the best performances were the ones where there was the risk of them failing miserably. Kris and Adam put themselves on that stage and through down stuff they hoped you’d like but didn’t know for sure. Crystal has yet to do that. She’s got her thing and is sticking to it but an audience needs more. We don’t want to tune in each week knowing what we’re getting. Idol takes up one hell of a lot of time and you need to know that there’s going to be something that makes you wanna talk about it for it to be worth it.
The other thing that may go against Crystal is her personality. I think that it’s simply a laid back way of looking at the world but it could quite easily come across as someone who doesn’t care that she’s there. And it doesn’t matter if that’s what she’s thinking or not, it doesn’t matter what the truth behind her barely smiling, always slightly distant look is. What matters is what others perceive it as. Yes she connects to every single song she sings but she needs to connect during her interviews and videos as well. The audience have to like her as a person not just her music and for that to happen she needs to appear as if she really wants this. The audience expect the contestants to prove how much they want this. This is not the normal forum for musicians to make their name and the aloof cooler than thou persona that a lot of musicians have is not wanted here. Whether it’s right or wrong I have no idea but it’s a fact and therefore must be taken into account. You’ve got to play the Idol game otherwise you don’t stand a chance.
So yeah, while Crystal might well be the front runner at this point in time never underestimate a lukewarm public reception...no matter how much they like the music.
Okay, once again I got a little rambley on some of the contestants and a little short on some of the others. But for this week that’s it. Next week I promise to try and remember not to accidentally delete the performances without writing about them first and we might have a little more detail to go on. But until then, I shall leave you with a comment to go watch In The Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009) because it is a thing of brilliance and a remebered laugh at some of the lines.
While I wasn’t originally sure that I was going to get around to writing about the final 5 contestants and their Rolling Stones performances this week my plans for the day have fallen through so it seems like as good a way as any (and I’m not sure if that’s a sad fact about my life) to take up some of my now free time.
So yesterday we left off with my comments getting shorter and shorter as the post went on. We passed briefly into my dislike of Andrew, we touched on my horror that ‘singing in tune’ now deserves some praise on the fricking singing show, and we realised that I actually have very little care or time for any of the contestants so far. So let’s pick up where we left off with the most interesting of the performances this week.
Siobhan Magnus:
Ever since Siobhan sang ‘that note’ during her rendition of ‘Think’ she’s one of the people everyone has been talking about. Strangely enough I think that that is an indication that AI isn’t as different from the show it used to be as we all think. Big, high, loud, long notes will get you noticed regardless of the rest of the performance. Now, I’m not saying that Siobhan doesn’t have more in her than simply big long loud notes; I’m just saying that this one note is still what people are talking about. And in her performance of ‘Paint It Black’ (aka The Song We All Knew She’d Pick Even Before The Spoilers Got Released) it is once again the big long loud notes that are getting the attention when the rest of her notes are just as good. She has a really strong lower register that she likes using. But it's the high ones that draw most people's attention, tell, that and the drama of the performance. How you’d expect someone to sing ‘Paint It Black’ and not fill it with drama is a mystery to me but never mind. Actually, no, let’s mind. It’s a dramatic song, it’s a melodramatic song! Sure, if you were to take out that drumbeat and guitar riff and slow it down you could probably come up with something that sounds like Jeff Buckly could have sung it but most people are going to want to keep the drama in there.
I personally really liked the music box touch at the beginning of the song. Sure it wasn’t Siobhan’s finest vocal moment but none of the song was. ‘Wicked Game’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ were both sung better but this was interesting and different. And where yesterday I complained that the competitors were changing songs up simply for the sake of it today I am going to take that back a little and place Siobhan, and one bedreaded songstress, in the category who change the songs in a way that feels natural. In her froofy dress, her curls and her combat boots Siobhan looked like the little girl lost that the music box belonged to. She looked like every semi-goth oddball student at 6th Form College I ever knew (was) in that she looked nothing like any of them but had the same presence.
Siobhan is a drama filled presence on that stage, and yes, she takes after the Adam Lambert school of making every single performance a mini musical. The lighting, the stairs, the movement (take note how someone can have an obviously staged move without making it seem overly cheesy Michael), the looks into the camera, the decision that she’d scream that note rather than sing it - absolutely everything in this performance was designed to be exactly as it was. And we know from both common sense andyoutube that she has experience in musical theatre even if it is only school productions as her age would dictate. So why wouldn’t she bring that to the stage? She is going to use everything at her disposal and if an instrument isn’t there than sure and shit she should use what is. The question is whether or not she’s a little too odd for the viewing/voting public?
But before I get onto that I just want to address the voice for a second. There are those videos of her in Pirates of Penzance floating around youtube but singing the notes Mabel sings in that show isn’t an amazing feat of vocal talent. Any soprano worth her salt should be able to get them, hell, I’m as much of an alto as you could find and even I can hit all except for the two highest. And as a massive Pirates of Penzance fan and someone who’s been in the show I know that for a fact and not a theoretical idea. But what that’s an entirely different style of singing to what she’s going to be doing on the Idol stage unless one week (a downloads hits week or something) she chooses to really shake things up and sing ‘Time To Say Goodbye’. She needs to learn how to take her classically trained voice and use it on the rock/pop songs. 'Wicked Game' was the perfect song to try that out on and everything else she’s done since then has also been a good choice vocal wise. Just as Adam made knew how to make the most of the his classical training and use it to hide the slip between his falsetto and his chest voice better than anyone I’ve ever heard so my Siobhan learn how to make her voice fit the songs she chooses. She is a little nasally in her lower register which could end up being annoying at the volume she sings if she’s not careful. And the gap between the tone of her voice in her lower and upper registers could do with being worked on a bit. And can you tell I’m being far more picky with her than the others as far as vocal acrobatics goes? Well if she’s going to use them she needs to use them well. She is not the kind of singer who can get away with massive jumps in her register sounding like massive jumps. Her whole style of singing dictates that it needs to sound effortless. But I think this is something that a few more vocal lessons from people who are there to help her sing pop/rock could and will help with this.
But, now back to the public perception of her because that is what’s going to be her downfall, not her voice. Siobhan is almost definitely not going to have a complete flame out because she’s already set herself up as someone who’s performances are love ‘em or hate ‘em and therefore a performance someone might see as a total mess could be seen as someone else as performance art or something. That is, of course, unless she just forgets the words one time or falls over or something. But Idol is, as I have said many times before, a popularity contest as much as, if not more than, anything else. I spent the entire season last year saying that Adam would not, could not, win and that while his sexuality would have something to do with it his entire dress sense and performance style would probably hold a bigger sway. But at least with Adam you got video packages that showed him to be completely normal and down to earth and polite which counter acted against some of his more overtly exhibitionist tendencies. Siobhan is possibly not going to be helped by her video packages as she can at times comes across as odd even in those. I personally like her brand of oddness but the main voting block for American Idol is teenage girls who spend their lives trying to fit in and ignore girls like Siobhan at school. The arty and odd woman is not as appealing as the arty and odd man. I could go into a whole lecture about how that’s because as a society we still see in our deepest subconscious women as being there to produce children and support the men and all the chauvinistic but highly engrained crap. Earth women are fine because women are one with the planet and the rejuvenation of life and all that but women whose heads are in the air perhaps need to be brought back down to earth a little. Throughout literature and mythology women are earth goddesses and rulers of all that is natural but men rule the sky and the sea and the ‘other’. Men can have their heads in the air because a) the artistic dude is attractive and b) men ‘create’ in other ways as they can’t literally produce a child. Men are inventors, women are muses. So Siobhan and her genuine oddness will probably be off putting for a lot of the key voters. She’s exotic but if people find her too weird and not just kinda weird it will really hurt her chances which will be such a shame.
So I’ve sidetracked myself and can’t really remember what point I was trying to make but I’m pretty sure it came down to my lack of belief that Siobhan can win. I like her, I want her to go far and I think there's a good chance she'll make Top 5 maybe Top 3 but I am, however, worried that she’ll be this year’s shocking elimination and that's something only time will tell.
Lee Dewyze:
Okay, yes, I have a problem with Lee and I’m going to admit it straight up. I am not a fan. I don’t dislike him much either but all the love that’s floating around for his distinctly average vocals is confusing me to say the least. Yes, I’ll agree with Simon in that he has a voice that will probably sound really good on the radio but that ignores the fact that it’ll sound like so many other people already out there. People have been comparing him to David Cook but seeing Cook perform at the results show really showed up how much charisma Cook has and how little Lee has. Cook has been pushed to the middle ground on his album (look at the performance from the other week to see the Midwest Kings and a far happier looking Cook) but Lee chooses to reside there.
There is nothing wrong with the middle ground, it gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure, but for it to be good it needs to at least be sung in tune! Less has real problems with his pitch, something the judges are either deaf to or doesn’t come across in the live setting. But over the television his pitch problems are blaring loud and clear. This week should have been the week he truly rocked out, again look at Cook, but instead we got yet another insipid performance with some dodgy notes, some half hearted strumming and not a lot else. Lee’s voice has a decent tone to it, I like the husky thing, but you can’t just rely on that. We have yet to see, and I know it’s early days, but we have yet to see him actually put any emotion into anything he sings. It’s like a blank slate up there.
“You need to connect with the song and blah blah blah” you’ve all read/heard it so many times this year but there’s a truth there. If all you’re doing is singing the lyrics why should I care what you’re singing? Why should the song move me because it clear as hell ain’t moving you! Lee has about as much charisma as Andrew Garcia. Come on boys, put some fucking effort into it. Look like you’re trying, look like you’re connecting with the audience or better yet, actually connect with the audience! I want to put Lee’s vocal troubles and uncomfortable stage presence down to nerves but this is week 4 of the live performances so he needs to have gotten past them by now. I know I know I’m being too hard but seriously, we’re supposed to accept Lee Dewyze as the best male vocalist this year! Pitchy McPitcherson here is the best we can hope for! That’s just, I’m not sure I even have words to describe how frustrating that is.
Paige Miles:
You know what, I actually quite liked this. There’s always been something about Paige that even when she was singing half decently just didn’t work during the semi-finals, I couldn’t work out what it was. But here on this big stage I finally got it. She had no idea whatsoever how she was supposed to behave in the round! She tried moving about but it never looked comfortable because where the hell did she look. On this big stage, with the audience in front of her, she knew exactly how to interact with them. There was an actual presence on that stage. Maybe it was only because of all the lack of it that had come before her but Paige felt right up there.
I will agree that her performance was a little old fashioned. It would have fit in on Idol about 3 years ago but I’m not sure it will now. Paige is going to have a hard time this season even if she gets better and better because what style is she going to fit in to? And I hate that they have to choose but the judges mention it so frequently that I can’t help but think that a lot of the audience believes it as well. You’ve got to find your box and stay in it (even if that box is the box-breaking kind).
There’s not a huge amount to say about Paige because while it was one of the better performances it was probably too little too late.
Aaron Kelly:
I’m going to be honest and admit that I have ended up fast-forwarding through every performance he’s given so far. I stuck around for Angie a bit more than the others but I just don’t get the appeal of these little boys with big voices. And please, comparing him to Archuleta is not only easy but it’s also wrong. Archuleta has a lot of music training in his background and he understands the way the songs work even if at the time of the show he was being pulled side to side by other people’s decisions. All Aaron seems to know is that if he sings loudly with songs are he thinks are emotional but are usually saccharine people will applaud him for it. So for Angie I give him credit because less was more this time. He didn’t stretch his voice and he didn’t make me go “what they hell, why would you ever choose that song!”
So yes, he’s going to get some form of praise from me for that but I’m not comfortable laying into a child for something that’s probably not even their fault. Allison Iraheta was young but had some idea of where she wanted to be and she had Adam, Kris, Lil and Megan all looking out for her. Aaron...well, let’s just hope some of the contestants this year have taken a liking to him otherwise he’s going to get eaten alive when Cowell turns on him which he is going to unless Aaron has a complete transformation somewhere along the line.
Crystal Bowersox:
Okay, so saying that Crystal is considerably more talented than most of them up there seems a little like stating the obvious but don’t for one second think that she’s got the thing nailed. Yes, she knows her own style and, like those that have come before her, almost instinctively changes the song to make it her own. In Crystal’s case this is a bluesy folk rock thing. She is definitely of a different era. And yes, as far as actual vocal talent goes she’s right up there. He knows her voice, knows how to use it, knows how to make it work for her. Her range is far bigger than it first seems because she only rarely goes out of her comfort zone but she can and she will. She has presence on that stage like no one else in the competition and she brings an authentic vibe to everything she does. But this is all obvious, we know all this already. What we don’t know is if she can do anything else.
And this is where Idol’s advice, and life in general, get’s confusing to the contestants. You need to be able to find your box and place yourself in it happily but you also have to be able to show that you are versatile. The contestants who manage this soar but it’s a hard balance to achieve. Stay too much in your box and you’ll be boring. Move too far out and, unless that’s what’s expected from you, people won’t know what to do with you. Or at least that’s what Idol believes. I personally think people are far more accepting of being surprised than the producers give them credit for. But what this really comes down to is that we need to see Crystal stretch herself a little. Everything she does feels just a tiny bit safe because she does what she knows she can. There’s no risk in that. Last year the best performances were the ones where there was the risk of them failing miserably. Kris and Adam put themselves on that stage and through down stuff they hoped you’d like but didn’t know for sure. Crystal has yet to do that. She’s got her thing and is sticking to it but an audience needs more. We don’t want to tune in each week knowing what we’re getting. Idol takes up one hell of a lot of time and you need to know that there’s going to be something that makes you wanna talk about it for it to be worth it.
The other thing that may go against Crystal is her personality. I think that it’s simply a laid back way of looking at the world but it could quite easily come across as someone who doesn’t care that she’s there. And it doesn’t matter if that’s what she’s thinking or not, it doesn’t matter what the truth behind her barely smiling, always slightly distant look is. What matters is what others perceive it as. Yes she connects to every single song she sings but she needs to connect during her interviews and videos as well. The audience have to like her as a person not just her music and for that to happen she needs to appear as if she really wants this. The audience expect the contestants to prove how much they want this. This is not the normal forum for musicians to make their name and the aloof cooler than thou persona that a lot of musicians have is not wanted here. Whether it’s right or wrong I have no idea but it’s a fact and therefore must be taken into account. You’ve got to play the Idol game otherwise you don’t stand a chance.
So yeah, while Crystal might well be the front runner at this point in time never underestimate a lukewarm public reception...no matter how much they like the music.
Okay, once again I got a little rambley on some of the contestants and a little short on some of the others. But for this week that’s it. Next week I promise to try and remember not to accidentally delete the performances without writing about them first and we might have a little more detail to go on. But until then, I shall leave you with a comment to go watch In The Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009) because it is a thing of brilliance and a remebered laugh at some of the lines.