Kris Allen Deserves Credit For "Falling Slowly"
Kris Allen Deserves Credit For "Falling Slowly"
Posted 26 minutes ago by Lyndsey Parker in Reality Rocks
On Tuesday, Movies Night on "American Idol, Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox stole the show with their lovely duet version of the Swell Season's Once movie theme, "Falling Slowly"--a song first heard on "Idol" last year, when Kris Allen memorably performed it on Movies Night. Despite the fact that the beautiful ballad had won a Best Song Oscar, much of mainstream America (including judge Kara DioGuardi herself) had never heard it before Kris covered it. His version garnered such attention that the Swell Season's own Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova not only sent Kris a thank-you gift, but later covered Kris's "Falling Slowly"/"With Or Without You" mashup in their own live shows as a way of paying back the favor.
That's why it was so odd to me that, when the judges glowingly critiqued Lee and Crystal's performance, they made absolutely no mention of Kris's Season 8 version.
This was not the first time that the judges failed to note that a Season 9 hopeful's song had been covered by a previous contestant--Katie Stevens' "Feeling Good" didn't inspire comparisons to Adam Lambert, Aaron Kelly's "Ain't No Sunshine" didn't lead to mentions of Kris Allen, and even Tim Urban's "Hallelujah" was critiqued without a single reference to Jason Castro. But I sort of let those omissions slide, because all of those songs are standards that have been performed by various Idols dating all the way back to Season 1. However, "Falling Slowly" is a song that is extremely associated with Kris Allen, so this oversight was akin to a contestant singing "Summertime" and the judges then completely failing to bring up Fantasia's name. It was a big risk for Kris to cover "Falling Slowly" on Season 8's Movies Night--when all of the other contenders chose more popular, obvious box-office ballads like "Endless Love" and "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing"--and it was one of Kris's biggest, most game-changing moments on the show. It seems to me that if the Swell Season themselves have credited Kris for popularizing the song, then the judges on "Idol" would and should have done the same.
To me, this seemed like an even bigger diss than when Andrew Garcia--wearing a very Allen-esque plaid shirt, yet--did an acoustic guitar cover of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" and was compared not to Kris Allen, who'd performed sonically similar renditions of Kanye West and Donna Summer songs last year, but to Adam Lambert. Why not give Kris his due--especially since it can be argued that he helped pave the way for this heavily singer-songwriter-skewed season, when all top four finalists are guitar players?
Sure, this could just been an oversight. We all know the judges are prone to such gaffes--like in this season's audition rounds, when a beatboxer tried out and Randy Jackson bizarrely couldn't remember runner-up Blake Lewis's name. So maybe this wasn't a Kris diss.
But...maybe it was.
Source
Posted 26 minutes ago by Lyndsey Parker in Reality Rocks
Click to viewOn Tuesday, Movies Night on "American Idol, Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox stole the show with their lovely duet version of the Swell Season's Once movie theme, "Falling Slowly"--a song first heard on "Idol" last year, when Kris Allen memorably performed it on Movies Night. Despite the fact that the beautiful ballad had won a Best Song Oscar, much of mainstream America (including judge Kara DioGuardi herself) had never heard it before Kris covered it. His version garnered such attention that the Swell Season's own Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova not only sent Kris a thank-you gift, but later covered Kris's "Falling Slowly"/"With Or Without You" mashup in their own live shows as a way of paying back the favor.
That's why it was so odd to me that, when the judges glowingly critiqued Lee and Crystal's performance, they made absolutely no mention of Kris's Season 8 version.
This was not the first time that the judges failed to note that a Season 9 hopeful's song had been covered by a previous contestant--Katie Stevens' "Feeling Good" didn't inspire comparisons to Adam Lambert, Aaron Kelly's "Ain't No Sunshine" didn't lead to mentions of Kris Allen, and even Tim Urban's "Hallelujah" was critiqued without a single reference to Jason Castro. But I sort of let those omissions slide, because all of those songs are standards that have been performed by various Idols dating all the way back to Season 1. However, "Falling Slowly" is a song that is extremely associated with Kris Allen, so this oversight was akin to a contestant singing "Summertime" and the judges then completely failing to bring up Fantasia's name. It was a big risk for Kris to cover "Falling Slowly" on Season 8's Movies Night--when all of the other contenders chose more popular, obvious box-office ballads like "Endless Love" and "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing"--and it was one of Kris's biggest, most game-changing moments on the show. It seems to me that if the Swell Season themselves have credited Kris for popularizing the song, then the judges on "Idol" would and should have done the same.
To me, this seemed like an even bigger diss than when Andrew Garcia--wearing a very Allen-esque plaid shirt, yet--did an acoustic guitar cover of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" and was compared not to Kris Allen, who'd performed sonically similar renditions of Kanye West and Donna Summer songs last year, but to Adam Lambert. Why not give Kris his due--especially since it can be argued that he helped pave the way for this heavily singer-songwriter-skewed season, when all top four finalists are guitar players?
Sure, this could just been an oversight. We all know the judges are prone to such gaffes--like in this season's audition rounds, when a beatboxer tried out and Randy Jackson bizarrely couldn't remember runner-up Blake Lewis's name. So maybe this wasn't a Kris diss.
But...maybe it was.
Source