American Idol 2005--Live Thread

3-15-05

[ken5050]

99.9% of the folks watching AI have no idea who Patsy Cline is..might as well have her sing a Schubert lieder..

[ken5050]

House was awesome..best episode by far..great writing..and it explained his leg thing and pain meds "issues"....

[ken5050]

It's real hard with a rotary phone, eh?

[ken5050]

They'e going to make a musical out of "Stepford Wives"..Carrie gets the lead..

[ken5050]

Two interesting articles for your perusal today/tonight..

1. MSNBC's review of last night's show. IMHO, a well written piece here and

2. An absolutely boffo rave review of Kelly Clarkson's concert tour here

[freedumb2003]

got TIVO?

;)

[kevkrom]

Three songs in 6 days, and two of them chosen for you. Can you deliver three solid performances and show the improvement necessary to be the next American Idol?

At this stage of the competition, it's pretty much all about the nit-picks, so before any of y'all say I'm nit-picking, I am. My scorecard:

1. Bo -- My biggest criticism about Bo all season is that while he's a great "performer", I didn't think he had the vocal chops. Well, at least for tonight, Bo put the lie to that. I thought the first song could be trouble on range... no problem for Bo. The second song, done a capella, was a nice risk, though I will note that without the band for reference, it's harder to tell if he stayed on pitch -- I think there were some pitch/key problems toward the end of the middle third -- he also ran out of steam on the very end. There were some minor technical problems on "Satisfaction" (muffed the opening note with the big entrance, lyrics issue at one point), but I thought he did very well... my only real problem with the performance is that it is impossible not to compare that to the original, and I don't care who you are, you're going to come off a little badly in the comparison.

2. Carrie -- I've had two consistent technical criticisms of Carrie: stage presence and the ability to sing strongly in the lower register without getting muddy or swallowed up by the band. She left some room for improvement on the former, but the latter was a big improvement this week. "Crying" was a little too reserved, but very nicely sung. The middle song had issues with being a little "over-sung", and Carrie fell back into her two-step shuffle in lieu of any real "performance". Finally, the transformation from "Sandra Dee" to "Sandy" was completed for "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" -- better movement, good work in the lower register, could maybe use just a tiny bit more energy. The fact that she did so much better on the songs chosen for her underscores the issues she's had with song selection recently.

3. Vonzelle -- Inconsistency has been her bane all season... when she keeps it in control, she sounds like the second coming of Whitney Houston, when she doesn't, it's more like Sam Houston after a night of binge drinking. Not surprisingly, she was a little inconsistent last night. She had the pitch surrounded, but not quite captured on the first song, and as is her habit, she tried to cover it by over-singing. "Chain Of Fools" was a much, much better performance... she looked good, sounded good, was in control... the Vonzelle I thought could win it all five or six weeks ago. "On The Radio" was an interesting judge's choice -- it let her go out and "perform", but it really didn't let her show off her voice to it's fullest.

[Netizen]

Bice clearly outshone his two rivals, and the judges could not have done more to plead for the voters to send him on. If the early returns are poor, it wouldn’t be surprising if they flew out to Hawaii and mustered up a quick phone bank to get him to the finals.

About sums it up.

[ken5050]

I know..I loved that line...it was a nice, catchy piece, wasn't it..?

[silent_jonny]

I wanted to tell you that I really love the Cowboy! Just perfect.. :)

Thanks!

[ken5050]

FYI..do join us tonight..

[silent_jonny]

That was a very shrewd move by Bo, singing unplugged without the band. Not only did we get to hear his voice clearly (maybe for the first time), but it also revealed that the band is incompetent. Simon nailed it when he said (paraphrase) "You may have put 34 musicians out of work." Cut to the band, I noticed none of them were smiling, LOL :)

[kevkrom]

"You may have put 34 musicians out of work." Cut to the band, I noticed none of them were smiling, LOL :)

Pshaw. They're almost certainly union, working for scale. They get paid the same whether they play or not.

[bigsigh]

I think Bo and Carrie will sell records. She's clearly suited for a career in Country and Western. Needs some dance and movement lessons, but don't need a lot for C&W

I agree with your comments on Bo. He also has soul in the vein of David Clayton Thomas and Michael MacDonald, even if he's not quite as distinctive as they.

Von needs some singing coaching. She's fine on the dance and upbeat songs, but sometimes flat on the ballads. Can't hang with Whitney (the old days)and Dionne Warwick, but who can.

[kevkrom]

Vonzelle will do fine in the studio, where she can take an extra crack or two at somethign she muffs up. She needs to remember to keep things in control, and will need to work on her live performing for a while to be consistent. I think the Idol tour, where she doesn't have to learn a new routine every week, will allow her to work on the consistency.

[silent_jonny]

Thanks for the links! Kelly looks like she's been working out :)

Pinging Wolfstar and Texasflower to your post

[ken5050]

Good morning..back at ya...really strong review..BTW.who was the person from our thread who just went to a Clarkson cocert?

[silent_jonny]

Bo was clearly the best. Carrie so-so. And Vonzell was a mess, IMO.

I don't think that one judge should pick one song for one performer--it leaves the door wide-open for sabotage. Instead, all three judges should unanimously choose one song for one performer. That seems fairest to me.

Great scorecard, btw :)

[silent_jonny]

Pshaw. They're almost certainly union, working for scale. They get paid the same whether they play or not.

Probably so, but they're still incompetent. They're almost always too loud or too fast.

[silent_jonny]

Howdy :)

I think it was Texasflower (or one of her daughters) that went to a Kelly concert.