American Idol - Season 6 (1 Viewer)

[Neil White]

I'm no Elvis fan (sorry) but I also thought that was cool.

 

[ScottR]

I was feeling pretty down tonight because of my problems, but I realized watching this that I have absolutely nothing to complain about. This was a classy presentation and I hope they make a ton of money.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

It's nights like this where the DVR's buffer comes in handy, I appreciate what they were doing and I hope they clean up but to be honest there's only so much of that I can stand before I start looking for the nearest tall building.

I voted for the very first time last night, it took me several tries but I finally got through, I voted for Melinda of course.

When the Celine Dion bit started I thought my HD feed went out on me because it got all blurry, it was a cool looking number though.

 

[Dave Ringkor]

I think they turned down the quality meter on the HD feed during the Elvis number to match the footage from 1968. At first I thought Celine was on stage singing the duet with Elvis on the Jumbotron, but then they had shots where he appeared to be onstage too, with the Idols walking up behind him. Obviously Elvis was blue-screened in somehow, but to overlay him in 3D with a live audience and other performers? It was pretty cool.

 

[Malcolm R]

I think the guy on stage was just an impersonator. Everytime they switched to close-ups of Elvis' face, the Idols did not seem to be behind him. There was also a pretty obvious jump cut at the end as if from video back to live.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Haven't watched the results yet (time differences), but my views on the performances:-

Chris -- ugh. He made Clapton sound like a vocal virtuoso, rather than a guitar god. And the way his head moved was just soooo distracting and annoying: why do boy-band Timberlake-like moves on a "quiet" song that doesn't need anything? He should go, not just for last night, but overall -- he's been doing the same thing at the same level, whilst Phil, possibly a weaker singer, has at least been getting better.

Melinda -- good vocal as always, but what a boring song. Totally forgettable song choice.

Phil -- good, by his standards, but that isn't good enough considering the competition he's up against.

Blake -- oh dear. Whilst Imagine isn't a hard song to sing, it's so iconic any cover is going to be viewed unfavourably. He didn't do a bad job, but he may rue his song choice when the dust settles.

LaKisha -- started really off-key. Got better, but as usual got a bit shouty as well.

Jordin -- best vocal of the night? But what caused the disconnect for me is that "You'll Never Walk Alone" is a football anthem for Liverpool FC, and I usually hear it roared by 40,000 fans at their stadium, barely in tune but seriously loud, even via TV coverage (and I have heard it live once at Anfield, and it made my hair stand). So hearing one girl sing it brilliantly seemed odd, at least to me, even though I'm not a Liverpool fan. (As an aside, do American sports fans sing songs in support of their teams at games? Besides the national anthem before kick-off, I mean. The English certainly do, and one of the oddities is the adaptation of Deano's Volare.)

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

Are we counting Gary Glitter's Rock & Roll, Part 2? Hey!

 

[Hanson]

No, I wasn’t in mourning for Sanjaya’s ouster or anything like that – I missed the show last night due to terrible hi-def reception and it was too late to go to a friend’s house to catch the show. Oddly enough, the one night I missed writing the blog was the week that no one got voted off, so as I write this, everyone is still in play. I feel like American Idol this year has been déjà vu all over again, what with the same terrible performances, the same criticisms of the judges and performers, and the same feeling that the show has lost something. I blame the lackluster performances on two factors – first, the auditions have been overrun by purposefully terrible singers trying to catch their 30 seconds of fame, meaning that talented people are either unheard in the crush of contestants or unwilling to go through the nonsense of waiting for days to sing for a few seconds. The second problem is that when they raised the age limit to 29, the show has started to get old – instead of contestants who aspire to be recording artists, we have a bunch of recording artists who are looking for exposure. The professionalism and experience of someone like Melinda just goes against what Idol is all about, which is discovering a diamond in the rough. Melinda is more like a brilliant cut diamond in an antique setting. In any case, I don’t have all the time in the world this week due to work related constraints, and instead of reinventing the wheel, this week’s blog is sort of a Zagat’s Guide to Idol, culled from quotes from previous blogs. Well, except for the very end. I couldn’t find the quotes to express what I wanted to say.

Chris – “He also kept turning his head from side to side like he was on the lookout for someone who wanted to steal his estrogen pills”… “Again with the odd, twitchy, “I have ants on my skin” crystal meth induced head spasms. Again with the thin, insubstantial voice. But this time, it was off-key and amateurish”… “The performance was eminently forgettable”… “I think I can walk into any karaoke night in any bar around the country and hear what Chris did”… “I’m quite puzzled at the judges reactions”… “I just can’t wrap my brain around why the judges have a hard-on for this pudgy-faced, charisma-free wannabe.”

Melinda – “An oddly unengaging performance – I mean, she's obviously ridiculously talented, and she sang the hell out of that song, but the song itself was so formless and uninteresting that it just sounded like a series of big notes and runs.”… “Melinda sounds like a fifty year-old woman when she sings, and the show seems to age thirty years when she’s on”… “ I was wondering if Melinda did something to piss off her stylist, because that (outfit) was just hideous”… “I don’t care what the judges say – I was bored by the song.”

Blake – “He tends to sing every song like he’s the androgynous lead singer of an English New Wave band”… “His voice is thin and I doubt he’s got the chops to really impress anyone with vocals alone”… “Blake is one of the least talented singers in the competition.”

LaKisha – “I really do like Kiki, but she has yet to really bust out like she did in weeks one and two”… “she shouted (part of the song) from the back of her throat, where it almost sounded like she gargled the song”… but… “LaKisha can flat out sing her ass off”. “No excessive cleavage!”

Phil – “He sounded like a braying jackass”… “a shouty, cut-rate Michael Bolton”… “just boring and plodding”… “When he attempts that lower register, it’s just strangled and throaty and at times comically off key”… “Who the hell is voting for Phil? I’m baffled.”

Jordin – Okay – this performance was a split decision between my wife and me. My wife thought she was good, but I was actually shocked at how awful it was. First off, I didn’t think she was on key the entire song – it wasn’t the kind of egregiousness of Antonella Barba, but it just was a hair off the entire time. As a result, it sounded screechy to me, and I winced a lot during her performance. The beginning was especially all over the place pitch-wise. I even listened to it again just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. Obviously, she had the performance and emotion down (which particularly impressed my wife), but I was sort of horrified at the pitch issues that have always been there but not this extensively. I will say Jordin did have the best sign of the night – is the 420 crowd pulling for Jordin? And didja notice that the girl holding the sign sort of Sanjaya sign underneath? Or maybe it said “Ganjaya”? Don’t do drugs, kids.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Was anyone else flipping out over the fact that at the beginning of the show, Ryan said that the big surprise was the most shocking voting result ever? "HOW DID HE KNOW ABOUT IT BEFORE THE VOTING?!?!?!"

Weird.

 

[MikeM]

Was Gwen Stefani even part of Wednesday's show like they promised?
If she was, I must have fast forwarded during the 2 seconds she was on-screen.

Also, it was really odd that they billed Bono as a mentor and then he's not even in it until the end, and only to talk about one.org. That's fine, but I thought he was going to perform or at least have some AI-ish metor duties to take care of....weak.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Okay....

It's early morning and I usually don't have time to watch
the elimination show so please excuse the questions....

Nobody gets voted off this week and two get voted off next?

Also, what was the big shocker Ryan talked about. It almost
sounds as if they faked an elimination round by putting Jordan
in the bottom three.

 

[Greg_S_H]

The "big shocker" was that no one was eliminated. I think he worded it that way to make it seem to the viewers that one of the favorites was going to be knocked out. In fact, the "bottom two" were Chris and Jordin. When he told Chris he was safe, he had a pause long enough to make Jordin and the audience think she was going home. Then, he made it clear that no one was going home. Jordin was about to break down, and did sob pretty strongly when she discovered she was safe. It was actually kind of a cruel way to do it.

 

[Dan Keefe]

umm for the record, yeah he is too good for American Idol and they should consider themselves lucky to even be in the room with Bono...honestly from start to finish this is the worst group of American Idols ever

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

The votes had already been tallied at that point.

All I know is I was uncomfortable during the whole thing, I knew there was going to be this huge unprecidented announcment and I saw Sanjaya sitting in the audience, "why was he there?" I asked myself and a feeling of utter dread began to fall over me as I began to entertain the possiblity that...nevermind, far too horrible to say.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Well, I'm *really* confused now! Was Sparks the lowest vote getter for the week or not? I mean, I understand that they didn't remove a contestant from the show this week, but were the last two contestants standing a true representation of the votes or not?

If It was, then obviously Chris and Jordin have got some "making up" to do next week.

Hanson Yoo said:

This was the response that my wife and I had to this performance as well. She was all over the place with the first part of her song, (perhaps she was too involved emotionally?); but the judges gave her a total pass on that. But I'm wondering if that's the reason she was the lowest vote getter this week - *If* she was ...

 

[chuck_b]

Probably not, as last nights eliminiation process only said whether they were safe or not. Using Jordan as the foil of the shocker proved she was the big vote getter, hence the potential shock value in her being left until last to learn the voting result (or lack of result).

This concept however now opens the opportunity for Idol to "save" a favored low vote getter singer some week inthe future by using an "Amazing Race" style non-elimination round like this when they need it. This "special night" let them open the door.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

So....

Jordan was not actually one of the lowest votes? Cause
that makes no sense whatsoever if she was.

 

[Scott-S]

Ryan mentioned that the order he mentioned the contestants was Random. He mentioned it very clearly before he called up the first person. That implies to me that Jordan was not necessarily the lowest vote getter.

I was really nervous the entire show. Dial Idol had Melinda as the second LOWEST vote getter. DialIdol Results
I had a horrible feeling that she was the one going home due to people thinking she was safe and not voting for her. This has happened more than once on this show.

After seeing the "twist", the conspiracy bone in my body started to twitch. I think Melinda was the one who would have been voted off, but the producers were not about to have that happen. Thus they used their executive privilege to change things up.... Just a theory.

 

[nickGreenwood]

At Red Sox games in the 7th we start singing along with "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond, its been done for years and even as a fan I'm still not sure why, other than its a fun song.

During the 2004 World Series run Sox fans sang "Tessie" by the Dropkick Murphys as the rally song. It continued in 2005, its sort of died out at this point thankfully it got kind of old. I'm sure it will be brought back up this year if they go to the Playoffs and such.

Then again Sox fans seem to be a bit of an odd bunch, throwing Pizza's and such.


As for last nights show it was a different approach to things, I liked it. Carrie's version of "I'll Stand By You" was good, not overly different vocally then Chrissy's vocals. Kelly was great (I love Kelly) and Jeff Beck is just an amazing guitarist (especially after seeing him last year in concert).

Jack Black can sing, really he can, why he doesn't try more often I don't understand. Tenacious D is annoying and he barely sings anything "normal", I still love his rendition of "Let's Get It On" from "High Fidelity". Having Seal there was quite funny and Simon's "Well you're better than Sanjaya" was one of my favorite lines in the whole thing and seeing Sanjaya himself take it really well was cool. I'm not a big fan of Ben Stiller and I missed most of his stuff and didn't understand what he was trying to do when he came on the screen.

As for the Celine/Elvis thing, I put it this way over on the Steve Hoffman forums: "Elvis is dead (depending on who you ask) and he still upstaged her."

 

[Scott-S]

Man, I know Elvis was before my time, but I don't get it. He was way to overly dramatic. It looked like he was constipated when he was singing that. I am guessing that was filmed in he later years? The one that people make fun of all the time?

I am still in love with Carrie...

Kelly, poor Kelly. I really feel bad for her. She sang ok but looked, well, um, never mind.