(no subject)
My Faith In Humanity Is Restored
Those of you who are familiar with the show "America's Got Talent" will be able to relate with my shame upon watching "Britain's Got Talent" during this past week; a talent show with the same format, seeking an act to perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Show. So many ridiculous, superficial acts gained support and votes from the British public. Worst of all was a girl called Connie Talbot who from the offset seemed set to win the competition by a landslide. A sickly sweet 6 year old girl, always decked out in a frou frou princess dress, with long sandy-coloured hair, and to top it off, a beaming smile lacking two front teeth; all together now: "Awwwwwww!"
For her debut performance she sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". To her credit, she sang better than most 6 year olds are able to. Still though, her syrupy voice was weak and trembled; not with nerves, she was very confident and seemed comfortable on stage. It's just that she is 6 years old, and there is a limit to how good any child that age can sing. Her second performance was "You've Got a Friend In Me" (the ballad, not the Disney song). It was really awful. Her voice was shaking, she couldn't hit a lot of notes, and unlike her first performance she was often out of tune. Yet she still got rave reviews even from my beloved Simon Cowell, who declared that he loved it.
It annoyed me so much that this girl was raking in the votes purely for her supposed cuteness, despite giving subpar performances. There were some very entertaining acts that showed a lot more skill; the 6 finalists were:
1. Connie Talbot, of course
2. A group of break dancers with a backstory about getting out of drugs to do something productive blah blah, very good though
3. A duo of bartenders spinning and juggling bottles, very exciting and interesting to watch
4. A young girl who delivered extremely convincing performances of songs from musicals, who could go straight to work on stage in the West End or Broadway
5. An opera singer with no training, who wasn't perfect but for an amateur very impressive
6. A man with a monkey puppet who would act out a song - I didn't love this guy but the judges thought he could win
There was definitely a lot of talent there, but Connie was really looking like a threat to everyone. Her performance of Over The Rainbow was being watched by millions on YouTube and besides all the "Aww she's adorable" comments, a lot of people actually thought her singing was good.
The final was tonight, and I was ready to be all angry and annoyed after she won. But then they announced the winner, and I was extremely happy and pleased. The saccharin brat didn't win. Nor did the boring monkey puppet guy. The act that gained the most votes from the British public had no gimmick, no cute factor. The British public voted for a man who simply sung Nessun Dorma. The opera singer won, proving that despite the abundance of chavs, public spitting, the BNP, page 3 girls and all that other unpleasantness, Britain does have some class after all.
Those of you who are familiar with the show "America's Got Talent" will be able to relate with my shame upon watching "Britain's Got Talent" during this past week; a talent show with the same format, seeking an act to perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Show. So many ridiculous, superficial acts gained support and votes from the British public. Worst of all was a girl called Connie Talbot who from the offset seemed set to win the competition by a landslide. A sickly sweet 6 year old girl, always decked out in a frou frou princess dress, with long sandy-coloured hair, and to top it off, a beaming smile lacking two front teeth; all together now: "Awwwwwww!"
For her debut performance she sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". To her credit, she sang better than most 6 year olds are able to. Still though, her syrupy voice was weak and trembled; not with nerves, she was very confident and seemed comfortable on stage. It's just that she is 6 years old, and there is a limit to how good any child that age can sing. Her second performance was "You've Got a Friend In Me" (the ballad, not the Disney song). It was really awful. Her voice was shaking, she couldn't hit a lot of notes, and unlike her first performance she was often out of tune. Yet she still got rave reviews even from my beloved Simon Cowell, who declared that he loved it.
It annoyed me so much that this girl was raking in the votes purely for her supposed cuteness, despite giving subpar performances. There were some very entertaining acts that showed a lot more skill; the 6 finalists were:
1. Connie Talbot, of course
2. A group of break dancers with a backstory about getting out of drugs to do something productive blah blah, very good though
3. A duo of bartenders spinning and juggling bottles, very exciting and interesting to watch
4. A young girl who delivered extremely convincing performances of songs from musicals, who could go straight to work on stage in the West End or Broadway
5. An opera singer with no training, who wasn't perfect but for an amateur very impressive
6. A man with a monkey puppet who would act out a song - I didn't love this guy but the judges thought he could win
There was definitely a lot of talent there, but Connie was really looking like a threat to everyone. Her performance of Over The Rainbow was being watched by millions on YouTube and besides all the "Aww she's adorable" comments, a lot of people actually thought her singing was good.
The final was tonight, and I was ready to be all angry and annoyed after she won. But then they announced the winner, and I was extremely happy and pleased. The saccharin brat didn't win. Nor did the boring monkey puppet guy. The act that gained the most votes from the British public had no gimmick, no cute factor. The British public voted for a man who simply sung Nessun Dorma. The opera singer won, proving that despite the abundance of chavs, public spitting, the BNP, page 3 girls and all that other unpleasantness, Britain does have some class after all.