The Annekenstein Monster

This week, I’m gonna do my recap a bit differently. I’m going to review them, as the title implies, from best to worst, rather than in the order they performed. I am only doing this so that my “Dolly Parton has big tits” quasi-joke in the title makes sense.

The theme was Dolly Parton songs.

Best: Michael Johns singing It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right: Yeah, I know. I’m surprised by this too. I’ve not really been a fan of Michael and kept waiting for him to do something other than perform poorly or perform well singing Queen. He’d been riding the coat-tails of his good looks and lead-singer posturing. Last night was the first time I saw him as being Michael Johns. His vocal was really, really strong, and he commanded the performance. Well done. Best of the night.

2nd Best: David Archuleta singing Smoky Mountain Memories: Like Randy said, David is back with this performance. Really good, but still a bit of careful measuredness to it. While the performance was very good, I’m finding that David is starting to bore me, and I think what it is is he’s a very safe performer. Yes, he nails the notes, and even takes risks in striving for trickier notes, but there’s something a bit boring about his whole package (that’s what she said). He always does seem to find the emotional connections to whatever he’s singing. That’s important. So, good performance, but watch out for becoming too safe and boring.

3rd Best: David Cook singing Little Sparrow: This is the first time I *liked* his performance. I’ve acknowledged some of them as being great performances, but I haven’t particularly enjoyed them. This one I dug. I liked him going for those falsetto notes. I liked him more for hitting them.

4th Best: Carly Smithson singing Here You Come Again: A really strong performance of this ballad. I disagree with Simon’s criticism. Actually, I found I disagreed a lot with Simon’s criticisms last night (he says he likes country, but he doesn’t). My only criticism of Carly’s performance was with the smiling (which she jokingly pointed out she made sure she did) through the song. The lyrics of the song don’t encourage smiling. Honestly, I only noticed a bit of smiling through the song, and it only slightly bugged me, but I mention it because she made a point of pointing it out.

5th Best: Syesha Mercado singing I Will Always Love You: Syesha came so close to having a capital G great performance. It started out really nice, soft and tender, and I had hopes. But she lost it when she went into the Whitney big notes. I’d have loved it if she kept it smaller and looked for other ways to convey the big emotion without the big notes. Because, you can’t beat Whitney on that song. You just can’t.

None of the rest of the performances I can consider “best” so I’ll countdown from least worst to worst.

4th Worst: Brooke White singing Jolene: It was okay, but mostly it was just boring. You need to bring more to the song, Brooke. And I’m still not digging your little interjections during judge’s comments.

3rd Worst: Kristy Lee Cook singing Coat of Many Colors: An okay country performance, but just too boring. You added nothing special to your performance. Just boring.

2nd Worst: Jason Castro singing Travelin’ Thru: I’ve fallen off the Castro Wagon. He really needs to dig deep and challenge himself to find the emotion within a song. He’s simply too casual in and cruising through his performances. There was one moment, near the end of his performance, where he actually looked like he was feeling it. We need much more of that, Jason. I’d like to like you again, but you gotta bring it brutha.

Worst: Ramiele Malubay singing Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?: No. No you don’t. Only when I use my mind to think who was the worst performer. Just a bland, boring, uninteresting, uninspired performance. Which is a bit of an improvement over many of your other performances.

Bottom Three should be Kristy Lee, Jason and Ramiele. Is it true Ramiele has never been bottom two? She deserves to go this week, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Jason.

Actually, I have no idea what the fan base is for these people, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone who doesn’t deserve to go (like Chikezie last week) does go, so watch out Michael Johns and Syesha.

Leaving: Ramiele

Technorati Tags: American Idol, Top 9, Recap

I watched the most of Tracey Ullman’s new HBO (??) show The State Of The Union. I always respected Ullman’s talent, but never really enjoyed her comedy. The same holds true for this show. She’s obviously very talented, but I just didn’t find the show that entertaining.

Basically, the premise of the show is we take a tour of a day in America. We travel to many various parts of America and get a glimpse of what’s happening. Many short scenes, and a full gamut of topics. Wherever we go, whomever we see, it’s Tracey playing the main character (sometimes all characters). We go from a news desk in middle America to a motel room in Texas to an apartment in Washington to an office in New York to a home in Beverly Hills.

As I say, Tracey plays all the main characters. Some are “nobodies”, like an any-woman hanging out clothes on a line, to “somebodies”, like Ariana Huffington. All the characters are very distinct, and very meticulously-crafted (this is the “respect her talent” part). It’s just that they’re not that funny (the “don’t enjoy her comedy” part) to me.

Maybe it’d be better if it wasn’t so “all Tracey all the time”?

Technorati Tags: Tracey Ullman, State of the Unrion, HBO

Yesterday, I returned to work from lunch, and I sensed “something was up”. I saw a gaggle of women kind of lurking in the main area of the first floor of the ATC, looking rather anticipatory. It was as if they were waiting for something, without trying to look like they were waiting for something.

As I passed them, I felt them looking at me; felt like they were trying to guess if I was part of whatever it was they were waiting for. An odd feeling. I thought I overheard one of them say to another, about me “…he’s going to the radio station”. She sounded as if this was an exciting proposition. It was then that I clued in to the possibility that maybe there was something happening at the radio station. Maybe someone famous was here.

The annual seal hunt always brings a number of celebrities (2 years ago it was Paul McCartney and Heather Mills-McCartney, back when they were civil to one another) to protest the cruel and inhuman slaughtering of cute baby seals. Earlier in the morning yesterday, there were unconfirmed reports (later confirmed as false) that Paris Hilton was on the Island, so it was possible somebody famous was in our midst.

I went up to the third floor offices of our radio stations (where I work) and when I came in the door, I saw two hip looking strangers with huge cameras, plus one of our news department people, and I think someone from our promotions department. As I walked past the production studio, where the hip people were converged, I glanced in and saw Corey Tremere interviewing someone. Didn’t get a good look at him, but heard him speaking with a British accent.

Rod, who I share an office with, didn’t know what was going on, so it remained a mystery. After the interview was over, and the group was making its way out of the offices, I took the opportunity to “have to go to the bathroom” and walked past them. A tall, pretty good-looking guy seemed to be the centre of attention, but I didn’t recognize him at all.

When I came back from the bathroom, they were all gone, and I heard the gaggle of women making excited noise on the first floor, so I assumed the group must have just emerged from the elevator down there.

Anyway, turns out it was this guy, here to protest the seal hunt:

Nigel Barker. Apparently he’s America’s Next Top Model’s Hottest judge.

Oh, and I came across a Facebook pic of the gaggle (if ever there was one) of women, who finally got to meet Mr. Barker:

Technorati Tags: America’s Next Top Model, Nigel Barker, Seal Hunt, PEI

Testing 1-2-3, Testing 1-2-3…

I’ve been using Google Docs quite a bit, lately. In fact, I do all of my personal writing within it. I’ve just noticed that there is an option to post to one’s blog from Google Docs. So that is what this post is about: seeing how it works. (usually, I use ScribeFire to compose my posts) (yes, I’m too lazy to hyperlink to to these things)

Here’s a picture of someone who is NOT too lazy, though. Moe Gorman.

I post that, only to see how inserting an image into a post looks on the blog page. And, now that I’m full of the “seeing how this works”, I am going to un-lazify myself and put in some hyperlinks: Here’s the link to Moe Gorman’s Myspace page. Here’s the link to the afore-mentions ScribeFire.

What else can I do?

There. Now to put this up on the ole blog.

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