American Woman
American Idol has returned. The audition shows have begun. I've heard tell that they're planning to focus less on the freak show elements and more on the talent this year, as the audition shows aren't as popular as they used to be. Last night's début does seem to haver in that direction.
In recent years the auditions have tended to be wall-to-wall freaks, and when we get to the show proper, we don't recognise any of the contestants. Last night's show did show a few decent candidates, and a lot of borderline ones, and some bad ones, but it didn't linger so much on the dangerously self-delusional ones. The only true idiot of the night was Ryan Seacrest, who tried to high five a blind guy.
There was also the amusing sight of the girl in the bikini threatening to make out with Ryan Seacrest, to Seacrest's obvious alarm and discomfort. He tries to pretend like he finds pretty girls in skimpy outfits in some way interesting, but he clearly doesn't understand why he might. In a stroke of cruel genius, the producers play out this scene to Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It'. Irony has been found in America, ladies and gentlemen.
The real question of the day, though, is what do we make of the new girl, songwriter Kara Disomethingorother. First impressions are promising. She's saner than Paula 'but you look beautiful' Abdul, and she shows more musical aptitude than Randy 'it sounded pitchy to me, dawg' Jackson, and she seems smart enough to keep up with Simon 'it's a no, sweetheart' Cowell. She also seems to have a little of Simon's mean streak in her, which may be why he chose her. It's rather refreshing to have a second judge on the show with intelligent opinions that she's willing to deploy. That said, I suspect a lot of people won't like her because, well, she's a pretty young woman who says what she thinks. What a bitch!
The only thing I didn't like about Kara was her insistence that Simon pronounce her name correctly. He says 'kaa-rah', with a long 'a' sound. She says it's 'kyer-uh', with a short punchy 'a' and that horrible twangy 'y'. Now, she should know, sure; but Simon is from the same part of the world as me, and we men of East Sussex, we Oriental SouSaxons, we have certain standards. Even if he were to do the short 'a' - I'm sure he would if he were saying 'Farrah Fawcett' - it still wouldn't have that vulgar 'y'. Even Northerners don't do the 'y' sound. If you're not going to debase yourself by saying it exactly right, why make the effort to go halfway? So 'kaa-rah' is it.
Kaa-rah also seems a little insecure, but that's to be expected of the new girl on a panel that's been doing this for so long that any drinking game based on their utterances would be too dangerous and expensive to play. Watching Kara's obvious disgust with bikini-girl was a pleasure, but she should never have risen to the bait when bikini-girl said she couldn't do any better.
It will surprise no-one who saw the show that my early favourite contestant is the 'roughneck' (that's 'worker on an oil rig', to you and me). He is a big scary fella, with a body made entirely of pies and hard graft (which will all turn to fat very quickly if quits his day job and become a singer), yet he has a lovely sweet blue-eyed-soul voice. And his name is Jeremy! Jeremy the singing roughneck. How adorable is that?
In recent years the auditions have tended to be wall-to-wall freaks, and when we get to the show proper, we don't recognise any of the contestants. Last night's show did show a few decent candidates, and a lot of borderline ones, and some bad ones, but it didn't linger so much on the dangerously self-delusional ones. The only true idiot of the night was Ryan Seacrest, who tried to high five a blind guy.
There was also the amusing sight of the girl in the bikini threatening to make out with Ryan Seacrest, to Seacrest's obvious alarm and discomfort. He tries to pretend like he finds pretty girls in skimpy outfits in some way interesting, but he clearly doesn't understand why he might. In a stroke of cruel genius, the producers play out this scene to Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It'. Irony has been found in America, ladies and gentlemen.
The real question of the day, though, is what do we make of the new girl, songwriter Kara Disomethingorother. First impressions are promising. She's saner than Paula 'but you look beautiful' Abdul, and she shows more musical aptitude than Randy 'it sounded pitchy to me, dawg' Jackson, and she seems smart enough to keep up with Simon 'it's a no, sweetheart' Cowell. She also seems to have a little of Simon's mean streak in her, which may be why he chose her. It's rather refreshing to have a second judge on the show with intelligent opinions that she's willing to deploy. That said, I suspect a lot of people won't like her because, well, she's a pretty young woman who says what she thinks. What a bitch!
The only thing I didn't like about Kara was her insistence that Simon pronounce her name correctly. He says 'kaa-rah', with a long 'a' sound. She says it's 'kyer-uh', with a short punchy 'a' and that horrible twangy 'y'. Now, she should know, sure; but Simon is from the same part of the world as me, and we men of East Sussex, we Oriental SouSaxons, we have certain standards. Even if he were to do the short 'a' - I'm sure he would if he were saying 'Farrah Fawcett' - it still wouldn't have that vulgar 'y'. Even Northerners don't do the 'y' sound. If you're not going to debase yourself by saying it exactly right, why make the effort to go halfway? So 'kaa-rah' is it.
Kaa-rah also seems a little insecure, but that's to be expected of the new girl on a panel that's been doing this for so long that any drinking game based on their utterances would be too dangerous and expensive to play. Watching Kara's obvious disgust with bikini-girl was a pleasure, but she should never have risen to the bait when bikini-girl said she couldn't do any better.
It will surprise no-one who saw the show that my early favourite contestant is the 'roughneck' (that's 'worker on an oil rig', to you and me). He is a big scary fella, with a body made entirely of pies and hard graft (which will all turn to fat very quickly if quits his day job and become a singer), yet he has a lovely sweet blue-eyed-soul voice. And his name is Jeremy! Jeremy the singing roughneck. How adorable is that?