American Idol Women's Top 10
Crystal: I thought that was a really great vocal, and a great recovery from last week's terrible song choice. Two issues: she was distracted from giving the best possible performance by the guitar. She seems to have played it competently enough, but she was watching her fingering instead of connecting with the audience or the cameras. Second, I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to think of her as an artist from that song. Is there a place for Americana or 60s'/70s' folk music in modern pop music? And, if there is such a place, is it a place where I have to listen to it? If Bowersox is going to place herself in that place, I fear it's going to be like country music where I only like it when it's amazingly good, and she's maybe only really good.
Haeley: oh, that didn't work, and it really should have. Let me tell you just how greatly it didn't work. I didn't realize that I'd heard Miley Cyrus' The Climb approximately twelve million times. I thought I'd never heard that song before. I think that (a) the judges are terrible people for sending her through this year and (b) she should probably go home tonight.
Lacey: Okay, she was in the neighborhood of the melody this time. Sadly, she still wasn't at the right address. Sixpence None the Richer should have been a perfect match for her, but she still sang it poorly.
Katie: Baby, I know it's terribly unfair, but because you are sixteen, you are not old enough to be a smooth jazz/urban adult contemporary artist. You can't be Norah Jones or Blu Cantrell or Corinne Bailey Rae. (And the vocal had pitch problems, but nothing as bad as the previous two contestants.)
Didi: You seem to lack that quality we like to call soul. It is also sometimes called an urban sensibility. It is that thing you need to sing serious R&B music, serious soul music, real hip hop, and even certain kinds of jazz. You don't have it; stick to the smooth jazz. It was an otherwise decent vocal and a half way okay performance, it was just completely unsoulful.
"With Eyes Wide Open" is a big, joyful song, full of energy and dripping with sincerity. Or, you know, it should be. I think there is absolutely room in the world for a sweeter, less guitar driven version of the song. Michelle's was not it.
Lily: I feel like the judges responded so strongly to Lily because all of the performances since Crystal's had featured terrible vocals or severe mismatch between contestant and song. With this one, I believe the chief problem was one of interpretation. I don't think Lily's idiosyncratic, chirpy vocal style brought anything to "A Change is Gonna Come" and I didn't think that Lily had any feeling for what the song was originally about or had her own personal vision of what it might be about. I felt like this could have been the right song, but she sang it the wrong way.
Also, I don't think the vocal coaches got her to keep her eyes open very much, and she seemed really distracted by her guitar. People, put the instruments down, unless you know how to perform while carrying.
Katelyn, did you sing The Scientist even more slowly than the original? It certainly felt like your performance went on for 99 years. A large part of this was her completely incoherent phrasing. She took a song whose lyric already teeters on the edge of nonsense and pushed it right over. It's a pity, because she has a nice voice, but this was all wrong.
Paige: I see what Simon meant last week when he said she has the best voice in the competition. Sadly, in tonight's continuing theme, she completely failed at interpretation. And her terrible interpretation turned what is a fun, furious, fast song into something ordinary and forgettable.
Siobhan: Oh, in our other theme of the night, Siobhan doesn't have nearly the soul to pull off a credible performance of Think. Also, the note that was supposed to be a glory note? Not so much for the viewers at home, where it sounded screechy and harsh. Gah, I hated that.
In summary, this season is pretty much Zombie Idol. These people don't have the soul to carry off soul music, and most of them don't appear to appreciate that popular song is a storytelling medium with lyrics which carry meaning, which they should try to express through their singing. I didn't feel moved to vote for anyone, and I'm considering giving up on season 9, if the top 18 performances aren't a radical improvement.
Kara is on fire. Seriously, it helped her game about 500% when she stopped smoking up with Paula before shows. She seems very present for all of the performances, 90% of her critiques are coherent and insightful, and she's not afraid to tell people when things aren't working. I think…I think I like having her on the show. Last year, I could not have imagined a circumstance in which that might be true. Randy and Ellen both had hits and misses when it came to judging, but they were trying. I wish that Ellen would back off judging the vocals, which she's pretty bad at, and be even more specific and advisory when it came to performance critique. That's when she's funniest and most helpful.
It feels like Simon's starting to detach from the show already. i can't tell if it's because he wants to get started working on X Factor, or, if (as I more strongly suspect) he too is finding this season's crop full of super weak performances, and just isn't engaged because what's happening is not that damn engaging.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.
Haeley: oh, that didn't work, and it really should have. Let me tell you just how greatly it didn't work. I didn't realize that I'd heard Miley Cyrus' The Climb approximately twelve million times. I thought I'd never heard that song before. I think that (a) the judges are terrible people for sending her through this year and (b) she should probably go home tonight.
Lacey: Okay, she was in the neighborhood of the melody this time. Sadly, she still wasn't at the right address. Sixpence None the Richer should have been a perfect match for her, but she still sang it poorly.
Katie: Baby, I know it's terribly unfair, but because you are sixteen, you are not old enough to be a smooth jazz/urban adult contemporary artist. You can't be Norah Jones or Blu Cantrell or Corinne Bailey Rae. (And the vocal had pitch problems, but nothing as bad as the previous two contestants.)
Didi: You seem to lack that quality we like to call soul. It is also sometimes called an urban sensibility. It is that thing you need to sing serious R&B music, serious soul music, real hip hop, and even certain kinds of jazz. You don't have it; stick to the smooth jazz. It was an otherwise decent vocal and a half way okay performance, it was just completely unsoulful.
"With Eyes Wide Open" is a big, joyful song, full of energy and dripping with sincerity. Or, you know, it should be. I think there is absolutely room in the world for a sweeter, less guitar driven version of the song. Michelle's was not it.
Lily: I feel like the judges responded so strongly to Lily because all of the performances since Crystal's had featured terrible vocals or severe mismatch between contestant and song. With this one, I believe the chief problem was one of interpretation. I don't think Lily's idiosyncratic, chirpy vocal style brought anything to "A Change is Gonna Come" and I didn't think that Lily had any feeling for what the song was originally about or had her own personal vision of what it might be about. I felt like this could have been the right song, but she sang it the wrong way.
Also, I don't think the vocal coaches got her to keep her eyes open very much, and she seemed really distracted by her guitar. People, put the instruments down, unless you know how to perform while carrying.
Katelyn, did you sing The Scientist even more slowly than the original? It certainly felt like your performance went on for 99 years. A large part of this was her completely incoherent phrasing. She took a song whose lyric already teeters on the edge of nonsense and pushed it right over. It's a pity, because she has a nice voice, but this was all wrong.
Paige: I see what Simon meant last week when he said she has the best voice in the competition. Sadly, in tonight's continuing theme, she completely failed at interpretation. And her terrible interpretation turned what is a fun, furious, fast song into something ordinary and forgettable.
Siobhan: Oh, in our other theme of the night, Siobhan doesn't have nearly the soul to pull off a credible performance of Think. Also, the note that was supposed to be a glory note? Not so much for the viewers at home, where it sounded screechy and harsh. Gah, I hated that.
In summary, this season is pretty much Zombie Idol. These people don't have the soul to carry off soul music, and most of them don't appear to appreciate that popular song is a storytelling medium with lyrics which carry meaning, which they should try to express through their singing. I didn't feel moved to vote for anyone, and I'm considering giving up on season 9, if the top 18 performances aren't a radical improvement.
Kara is on fire. Seriously, it helped her game about 500% when she stopped smoking up with Paula before shows. She seems very present for all of the performances, 90% of her critiques are coherent and insightful, and she's not afraid to tell people when things aren't working. I think…I think I like having her on the show. Last year, I could not have imagined a circumstance in which that might be true. Randy and Ellen both had hits and misses when it came to judging, but they were trying. I wish that Ellen would back off judging the vocals, which she's pretty bad at, and be even more specific and advisory when it came to performance critique. That's when she's funniest and most helpful.
It feels like Simon's starting to detach from the show already. i can't tell if it's because he wants to get started working on X Factor, or, if (as I more strongly suspect) he too is finding this season's crop full of super weak performances, and just isn't engaged because what's happening is not that damn engaging.
Original post at Dreamwidth. Read (
) comments or reply there using Open ID.