Author Archives: Rob MacD

I was pretty much bored by this week’s show. Here’s why:

Ramiele sang Heart’s “Alone”. I didn’t like it. I have yet to like a performance by her, although this one, admittedly, crept closer to likability. Not close enough, though. She’ll be bottom three.

Jason Castro sang Sting’s “Fragile”. Simon was right on when he said is was like a street busker performance. And right again when he said Jason needs to take it to a serious level. He’s pretty much just floating by, week after week. He needs to land one. He’ll be bottom three.

Syesha Mercado sang Stephanie Mills’ “If I Were Your Woman”. Didn’t like the song, but liked the performance of the song I didn’t like. Some nice big vocals, performed well-enough.

Chikezie sang Luther Vandross’ “If Only For One Night”. Some nice moments on a Vandross ballad, but overall, kinda flat. But I’m still liking Chikezie more and more each week.

Brooke White sang The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”. You’re losing me, Brooke. I didnt’ care for this arrangement. You sang the notes okay, but you seemed like you kind of lost any momentum you had when the orchestra came in to make the song bigger. I agree with whichever judge said it would have been better if it remained just you and your piano. Didn’t like the arrangement. At least you weren’t so much a chatterbox this week when getting judge’s criticism.

Michael Johns sang Queen’s “We Will Rock You / We Are The Champions”. No doubt about it, you nailed it, vocally. And you looked totally comfortable on stage. That’s good. What’s bad, though, is that you brought nothing new to the performance. In fact, you have yet to bring anything original (that’s good) to any performance you’ve done. So, in the end, this performance tells me you’d be great as a singer in the Queen musical, or in a Queen cover band. But there doesn’t seem to be much of interest that you’d bring to your own recordings.

Carly Smithson sang Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. Parts of it were really good, vocally, other parts (especially that last note) not so much. My problem with the performance was that it seemed to be too fast. Perhaps that was a problem with the amount of time you have to perform and to get enough of the song in you have to up the tempo, I don’t know. Still, a pretty good vocal, but still I find you a bit of a bland gal. I wish I didn’t.

David Archuleta sang John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice”. Don’t know the song. Didn’t care for your performance of it. You sang well enough, technically, but there seems to be something missing. Is it that you’re trying too hard? Maybe. Bad song choice and you just didn’t do anything special with it. Good vocally, but so what? We want you to wow us. You didn’t.

Kristy Lee Cook sang Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”. She sang it well, but really, it’s just an anthem. Who can’t sing an anthem? The patriotic flavour of the song should help her get some good ole country boy votes, so she should be safe. I’ll guess she’s bottom three though.

David Cook sang Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone goes on with how fantastic it was, the way you sang it and arranged it. How wonderfully inventive and original you are. That all may be true, but honestly, I cannot get past your raspy-rocker-voice vocals and how tired I am of that sound. I realize that’s more a problem of mine and not yours. But I find it really hard to appreciate your musicality when I cannot tolerate the sound of your voice.

Bottom three: Ramiele, Jason & Kristy Lee. Reserve bottom three is Chikezie.

To leave: Probably Ramiele, unless there’s some sort of Ramiele Voter League that I don’t know about.

Technorati Tags: American Idol, Top Ten

http://www.youtube.com/v/q3e9jvLO8pE&hl=en

A second week of Beatles songs and more performers under-achieved, I thought. Personalities are starting to become more pronounced, and I’m not really liking some of them.

Here’s the scoop:

Amanda Overmeyer, Back In The USSR: My appreciation of her is in a severe free fall. Simon nailed it exactly right when he said her style was becoming boring. She’s terrifically boring, I think. Every song sounds the same, like a poor-man’s Tina Turner. Her emerging attitude is bugging me, too, as she obviously thinks she’s the bee’s knees. But she’s not. She’s the bee’s arsehole. Yeah, ballads may be boring, Amanda, but so is you singing exactly the same style and tempo and feel every single week, doing the same basic struts around stage. That’s boring, too. Since you fail to see that, I no longer have any interest in you. You’ll have to surprise me to win me back. (Amanda goes crying into her room after reading this review)

Kristy Lee Cook, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away: God, this was awful. Every word of every sentence that I write about it feels like a waste of time, because she was just so blandly boring. A terrible arrangement of the song, and a very desperate single power note at the end. Surely to non-existent god she’ll be going this week.

David Archuleta, The Long And Winding Road: As everyone probably expected, young David would come out with a ballad and touchy-feely it to a rousing conclusion. That’s what happened, anyway. A pretty safe, safely-pretty version of the song. The kid can sing, no doubt. But now all his performances are going to, for me, be smudged by the news that he has a prick of a back-stage father. I guess it’s what it takes to nurture a talent like David’s into what it is now, but I don’t like thinking about all those yelling-sessions that his father likely has with everyone, trying to selfishly and arrogantly get the best out of and for his boy. Ugh.

Michael Johns, A Day In The Life: It was a big, big mistake to try and fit that song into a minute and thirty or so seconds. Huge error. That said, you also performed it terribly. You goofed on a bunch of the lyrics, hit some really stinky notes. Michael *looks* like he should be better than he is. The judges are fooled by his Michael Hutchense-ness, I think, and have been setting him up as one of the contenders, when in fact, his performances thus far in the “real” competition haven’t shown anything other than him being a low-to-middle-of-the-pack type talent. And Paula’s “you screwed up because it can be difficult to sing when wearing ear-monitors, I understand” “but he’s not wearing ear-monitors” gaffe was awesome.

Brooke White, Here Comes The Sun: Brooke, you showed an ugly side to your personality with this performance. First off, your performance of the song was awful. On that there is no doubt. Absolutely lack-lustre arrangment and performance. But what really had me yelling at the television is your inability to just shut up and take your lumps from the judges. JUST SHUT UP, don’t try and talk yourself out of the whipping you’re getting. It was an awful performance, it was a worse performance after the song. Next time you sing poorly, just nod and say thank you when the judges tell you it sucked.

David Cook, Day Tripper: A good performance, but man I can’t stand that sound. I agree with Simon about it beginning to be a bit predictable and he’s no longer a surprise. He needs to do more, or else he’ll end up in the Overmeyer situation of sounding the same each and every time. And that vocoder gimmick totally failed to impress me. Dig deeper, David Cook. Dig deeper.

Carly Smithson, Blackbird: I don’t understand Simon’s “self-indulgent” comment at all. I thought this performance was pretty good, but I do think the arrangement was a bit too full of stuff. I would have liked to have heard a bit more simple version of the song. Still, she performed this version very well. She has a powerful voice, for sure.

Jason Castro, Michelle: I’ve reached that point. The point beyond where I’m forgiving Jason his lack of vocal talent in place of his charm and personality. This was another charming but flawed performance. Next week Jason really needs to nail a song. We need to see he’s more than just a cute David Cassidy (am I the only one who’s made that look-alike connection?) personality. Kind of a weak, carefully-tread vocal performance that didn’t quite work.

Syesha Mercado, Yesterday: The last two weeks, Syesha has been trying to re-invent her look, fearing, I guess, that the Broadway girl with curly hair wasn’t doing it for the voters. I thought she looked stunning with that cleavage-filled green dress. Beautiful. Her singing, I thought, was missing a bit in the first quarter of the song, but found itself when she started tossing out those big notes. Paula is right, though, she needs to be better at making eye-contact with the audience (ie., the camera) and making me fall in love with her all over again.

Chikezie, I’ve Just Seen A Face: Taken separately, each end of the song worked wonderfully. The ballad-y kind of opening verse was really good, I thought, and had he continued in that vein, I think he would have had the performance of the night. Then that horrible, ill-conceived harmonica bit that was supposed to transition to the last half of the song. It totally didn’t work. However, once the ugliness of that bit got shaken away, I thought Chikezie kicked the ass out of the song for the remainder of the performance. Chikezie has become my favourite contestant, currently. I’m as surprised as anyone at the vocal chops he shows, and more surprised that I am saying I think, of all the contestants, he may be the one I’d most like to hang out with. I hope he stays around for a few more weeks, because if he does, his charms will likely continue to grow on the audience. As it stands now, though, I think he’s still one bad performance from being in the bottom three. This week, however, it was a really good performance (forgetting the harmonica, of course).

Ramiele Malubay, I Should Have Known Better: I’ve never seen the show or movie or TV Show or whatever it is, called “High School Musical”, but this performance is what I’d expect to see and hear in a high school musical, or talent show. Whatever. Better than last week, but still so very very bland. She just doesn’t belong.

Best of the night: Chikezie, David Archuleta and Syesha

Bottom Three: Kristy Lee, Ramiele and Michael Johns. I suspect Kristy Lee will be leaving this week. I further suspect she’ll be happy she’s gone as she doesn’t seem to be enjoying the experience, or even seem like she wants to be involved any more.

okay, so everyday, someone posts something that they say is “the best of the internet”. But this really is the best thing I’ve ever seen.

Seriously, it’s awesome. Super Deluxe’s Craig Bierko interviews John Malkovich in a bathtub, while bathing him. If you choose not to click on the video below after hearing that synopsis, well, then… I don’t know. Why did you get up today?

http://www.superdeluxe.com/static/swf/share_vidplayer.swf

So, the video is Eric Clapton in concert, playing a guitar solo.
And the sound is some guy named Santeri Ojala playing an intentionally bad guitar solo that matches Clapton’s movements. Maybe doesn’t read as funny as it is to watch. I think it’s pretty funny. I particularly like the drummer’s drumming, which is atrociously bad, but which somehow perfectly matches his facial expressions.

I seem to recall seeing more than one band around town that this reminded me of.

http://www.youtube.com/v/x_M9zWORBuA&hl=en

So many singers. Here’s a brief recap from the only recapper who matters.

Theme: The Beatles (or more to the fact: the Lennon/McCartney songbook, so no While Your Guitar Gently Weeps, or Don’t Pass Me By)

Syesha – Got To Get You Into My Life: I thought for sure that Chikezie would sing this all Earth, Wind and Firey. Syesha started the show with it and I thought it was a rather flat, pedestrian performance. Liked the pulled-back hair look. She’s safe for this week, easily.

Chikezie – She’s A Woman: Easily the performance of the night, for me. Other’s may have sung better, other’s may have connected more to the emotion of the lyrics, or whatever, but Chikezie came out of the bottom of the pack and showed us all that he’s got mad chops, dawg. Great energy, great arrangement, a little wild, almost out of control, but he made it all work. My favourite performance. I’m liking me the Chikezie.

Ramiele – In My Life: They said it, those judges – boring. That’s all. You are bottom three, guaranteed. (don’t think you’ll leave this week, though)

John Castro – If I Fell: I agree entirely with Simon about the college guy singing in his room at midnight vibe about the performance, but that’s what I liked about it. I like that John Castro doesn’t quite hit some of the notes perfectly because he misses them (in my opinion) due to the emotions he conveys. He seems to me to be more substance of song over style, and I really like that. So, I’m able to forgive those errant notes as being part of the charm. I really enjoyed this performance. But I do agree with Randy about taking too much liberty with the melody and easing off on the alternative notes.

Carly – Come Together: I didn’t love this performance, but thought it was very well done. I felt there was a bit of a disconnect between you and the song. You performed it very well, but it didn’t move me.

David Cook – Eleanor Rigby: I understand why people went gaga for this performance, but I didn’t care too much for it. It was too “contemporary rock sound”, a sound I’m really getting tired of. That Nickleback sound. Ugh. Still, you did it really well, and the “look at all the lonely people” choruses were really, really strong. Just not the kind of strong I care for.

Brooke – Let It Be: I thought it was a good performance, but not as good as the judges gushed it to be. I thought her piano playing was getting in the way of her vocals too much. I think she wasn’t as confident in her piano playing abilities and it was throwing her off just a bit. Still, a very good performance, and touching to see her get so emotional afterwards. I like her despite that patchouli potential about her. Seriously, barefeet? C’mon!

David Hernandez – I Saw Her Standing There: Absolutely dreadful. That’s all. Bottom three, for sure, and my odds-on favourite for being voted out. Won’t miss you a bit.

Amanda – You Can’t Do That: I liked the Tina Turner arrangement of it, but just like last week, I feel you are too disconnected from the song. I see your vocal range being rather limited and it’s starting to bore me.

Michael – Across The Universe: It was okay, but nothing special in any way. Kind of forgettable, but you shouldn’t be in danger because there were enough memorably bad performances to negate the forgettableness of your performance. Do you have a good voice? I think it’s okay. Are you bland? I think you are.

Kristy Lee – 8 Days A Week: I commend you on the brave choice of arrangement, but thought the performance was awful. I’d like to hear this song performed with that country arrangement but with a singer who’s more vocally talented. You didn’t do it for me in any way. But “Nice try, sir”. You will be bottom three, but your country fan-base will save you this week.

David Archuleta – We Can Work It Out: Was this a matter of one’s head getting too big and not preparing enough for the week? Simply stated, it was a performance that wasn’t ready to be performed. The only question is Why? Your past performances will carry you through, of course, but is this the first sign that the pressure of being the overwhelming favourite is too much for young David to handle?

Bottom Three: Ramiele, David Hernandez, Kristy Lee. Should go: any one of them really.

Will go: David Hernandez.

Technorati Tags: American Idol, Top 12, recap

Guess it’s been around for a while, but this is my first experience with Dr. Steve Brule, frequent guest expert for The Only Married News Team in the Tri-County Area, Jan and Wayne Skylar. John C. Reilly plays Dr. Brule. Don’t know how long it would take to grow tired of this, but this video is a pretty good length.

Check it out. I think it’s funny.

http://www.youtube.com/v/q0JPta0Z1_8&rel=1&border=0

Okay, so am I right? Did I read that this week’s American Idol theme is The Beatles? If so, I’m a bit trepidatious about it, as it’s pretty easy to screw up those songs, since so many are so iconic. Still, maybe there’ll be some nice moments.

I’ve decided to guess which Beatles song will be sung by each performer. I’m making two guesses for each performer.
Then we’ll come back and see if I got any right! Won’t that be fun! Honestly, I probably won’t come back and see if I got any right.

So, The Beatles

Amanda Overmeyer – She’s the rocker chick with the white streak in her hair. Obviously she’ll sing something rockin’ and raspy. My guesses are Helter Skelter or Don’t Let Me Down.

Brooke White – She’s the blonde hippy dippy kinda chick. Look for something kinda soft and/or acoustic-y. I’ll go with Because or Here Comes The Sun.

Carly Smithson – She’s the Irish kinda rocker girl. I’ll guess she’ll sing something cool, like Come Together, or something to show off the voice, like Oh! Darling.

Chikezie – He’s the, um, black guy. My sure-thing pick of the week is that Chikezie sings Got To Get You Into My Life. You know, the funky cover version by Earth, Wind and Fire. A more out-there pick is that he sings Lady Madonna.

David Archuleta – He’s the sensitive teen and odds-on-favourite to win it all. I bet he’ll sing either A Day In The Life or Hey Jude. I also suspect he’ll take Simon’s advice and sing something more upbeat. But these are my two choices for him.

David Cook – He’s the alternative Bad Hair guy. I guess he’ll go kind of out-there and sing She Said She Said. Or he’ll play the guitar and sing the slow version of Revolution.

David Hernandez – He’s the forgettable guy. He’ll sing either You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away (with just his guitar, no band) or While My Guitar Gently Weeps (with guitar and band)

John Castro – He’s the shy, awkwardly adorable hippy dippy guy. I picked boring song choices for him: Mother Nature’s Son, or Something. I hope he picks something more interesting and does something cool with it.

Kristy Lee Cook – She’s the country girl. She’s boring to me. I’ll say Blackbird or The Long and Winding Road, but it’ll be countrified.

Michael Johns – He’s the Aussie guy. He’ll sing Taxman. Or he’ll sing Twist and Shout. I really don’t think he’ll sing Twist and Shout or Taxman, but I’m getting tired of picking these songs.

Ramiele Malubay – She’s the little asian-y kind of shy girl. She’ll sing Good Day Sunshine, or she’ll sing Two Of Us (don’t think it’ll work, though, unless someone sings harmony with her all the way through). Okay, Two Of Us is not a good choice.

Syesha Mercado – She’s the pretty Broadway girl. She’ll sing In My Life, or Across The Universe. (I think if she doesn’t grab Across The Universe, then Michael Johns will gobble it up)

So, those are my guesses. Anyone else have any guesses of their own?

What starts as a typical on-the-field report turns kind of ugly after the throw-back to the studio.

It gets interesting after the 50 second mark. Wonder what the Christmas parties are like at the NY Good Day office?

http://www.glumbert.com/embed/anchorreporter