Tuesday, March 20, 2007

American Idol: Shirley Bassey is coming! Shirley Bassey is coming!

British Invasion Night comments are up at NJ.com, but you can do your commenting right here.

13 comments:

velvetcannibal said...

I loved the Ryan/Blake moment. I will steal it from YouTube forever, I'm sure. I remember your interview with Ricky Gervais, where he talked about how Simon refused to do karaoke for Extras. Ryan is less wise or no longer cares. Very good. Also hilarious: Chris Sligh blatantly shouting out to Vote for the Worst with his "Hi Dave" after his performance.

Sanjaya is a nightmare. I laughed so hard at Crying Ashley, and for all I know she's a Make-A-Wish kid or something. Oh! And at the end when she got to go up to the stage, they cut to another little girl in the audience who looked totally pissed that Crying Ashley got to meet everyone. HA!

I'm officially won over by Blake. I still think he lacks the vocals, but with a performance like that he's really setting himself up to go far. Hated Gina's performance. Like you, I want to like her but enough is enough. She should go.

Stephanie and LaKisha are totally unmemorable for me. I missed Haley completely. Phil was okay, didn't like Chris R., and I will forever have goodwill toward Sligh because of that "making Hasselhoff cry" comment back at auditions.

Melinda and Jordin are still my picks, but with the way Jordin's been improving each week I think she's really got a shot at the win. She's just so LIKEABLE. I'm excited to see her each week.

Unknown said...

That crying kid is genius. They should cut to her every week, after every song, the way the Pythons cut to the stock footage of the old ladies clapping.

Anonymous said...

I'll sit through Sanjaya all season long if it means more shots like that of his sister. Yowza!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but I am just NOT into LaKisha tonight. That song... I don't think I've actually heard (or, at least, actively listened) to that song before. What a hideous song! Is it just me? What kind of crazy-ass lyrics are those?? I was too busy listening to how stupid the words were to even bother paying attention to LaKisha. Sorry, Kisha. I didn't feel ya tonight, dawg.

And I think it was funny how she backhanded Lulu by not singing the song that Lulu went crazy about. The producers even set it up as a done deal, since Lulu was so passionate about it and broke the typical interview to tell Kisha about. Although I must say Lulu was pretty cool. I've never heard of her before either. Man, I'd like to think I know my pop culture, but I missed the boat on Kisha and Lulu.

I can't wait for the internet to find out more information about this Ashley girl. She totally stole the show. (Although I have to admit it was a bit jarring to go from Melinda to this crying pre-teen out of nowhere.)

Keep up the great work, Alan! I check in several times a day.

Undercover Black Man said...

You're spot-on, Alan...

Jordin gets Best of the Night. For the first time, I saw a star up there. She gave me my only goosebumps of the show. Plus bonus points for degree of difficulty.

Haley. Uh, yeah... At this rate, she'll be performing in a G-string and pasties by the Round of 8. In the meantime, some red beans and rice wouldn't hurt. Feel me?

Stephanie... baby doll... I'm about to give up on Steph (if America doesn't beat me to it). I keep wishin' and hopin' for her to deliver some magic, and she never quite does.

Not feeling Blake; kinda liked Phil; non-committal about Chris Sligh.

Poor Sanjaya. If he had 1/10th of Michael Jackson's talent, he'd be friggin' lethal in this competition. Unfortunately, he has about 1/100th of MJ's talent.

Lakisha sure does know how to finish, don't she? But I wasn't moved by her overall.

Melinda... I'm trying to figure out what's missing there. Technically exquisite, emotionally connected to the lyric, nice stagecraft... why don't I give a shit?

I think about past contestants who caught my fancy -- Kelly Clarkson, Kimberley Locke, Fantasia, Kat McPhee, even Elliott Yamin -- and there was something beyond any so-called "wow factor" or "yo factor" that made me want more of them. With Melinda, it's a mystery, I just don't know...

And as for sweet little Ashley, they should've left the poor girl alone. Isn't it bad enough that her favorite dog died of bone cancer before the show began? The kid was obviously distraught... why did the producers have to capitalize on it?

Oh, and Lulu... MILF of the Year.

Undercover Black Man said...

I should've read the other commenters before commenting, because velvetcannibal put her finger on the what's-missing with Melinda. I'm just not excited to see her each week. And I don't know if that's something she can correct. It's just who she is.

Troy, you may not have known the name Lulu, but I expect you've heard "To Sir With Love" before. If not, you're in for a hell of a treat listening to it for the first time. She wails that song to death... one of the best pop records of the '60s.

And I'll tell you what was really jarring... the end-of-show recaps, cutting from Jordin's sublime voice to Sanjaya's nightmare.

Anonymous said...

Alan --

The reason Jordin put her hair behind her ear is related to the lyrics. She revealed she was wearing diamond earrings at the same time the lyrics were --
"You, you buy her diamonds,
bright, sparkling diamonds."
Her performance was clearly the best, and definitely put her into the top 3 for now with Melinda and Lakisha. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a Giants fan and her Dad was #22.

K J Gillenwater said...

I have this feeling that in the near future, Melinda is going to end up in the bottom 3 and everyone is going to be shocked. She is reading too old, to me. Like 40-year-old woman old. The haircut they gave her only aged her more, I think. She dresses too old and picks these songs that click only with the older parts of her audience. I don't think people under 20 get her.

I think Jordin may have a shot at winning this thing, because she is young, getting better every week, and she was SO good last night. I mean, blow me away good.

Poor LaKisha. "Diamonds are Forever"? Why, oh, why did she choose this? I thought it was an awful song choice.

Stephanie--what happened to her? It was like she couldn't sing anymore. Her notes were all over the place, she seemed to be holding her breath between notes, it was choppy. Not good.

The boys? Well, they were all 'meh' for me. Not all of them bad, not all of them good. Sort of blah.

Anonymous said...

The performance that creeped me out the most was Phil's. I know, he was doing the one-hit wonder Nashville Teens poppy version of the song, but *that* version sucked also. Has there ever been a bigger emotional disconnect between performance and lyric? The tune was covered by every Brit band with a yen toward the blues. A good cover version might have been the Animals, who slowed the tune down to its rightful speed, much like Hendrix slowed "Hey Joe" back down from the Leaves' pop hit version.

Even though, he still would have sucked. The only person capable of singing that song believably was Sundance. At first I was wishing Phil'd swapped songs with Gina, until I heard how badly she did. All rock songs need to be retired. None of them can sing 'em.

That said, I was actually somewhat taken with the spectacle of Sanjaya rocking out. I agree, he was a visual nightmare, but if you could turn off the picture and objectively listen to his delivery, he wasn't half bad. He was far better at up-tempo rock than either Phil or Gina, almost rising to the level of an average to middlin' 60s garage band playing their high school sock hop.

Little Ashley cracked me up. At first I thought she was sucked into the vortex of Sanjaya's charisma. Then it was shown that she wept for any and everybody!

spb

Anonymous said...

Kristen said "She is reading too old, to me. Like 40-year-old woman old. The haircut they gave her only aged her more" about Melinda.

I totally agree. I thought she picked to Broadway songs in a row (from the Wiz and Oliver), and why didn't the judges say anything about that. Her voice is great, but why didn't she get the same comments as LaKisha about being too old. I disagree with the comments since it is "a singing competition" and both Melinda and Lakisha sang great, but please be consistent judges!

velvetcannibal said...

Alan, I forgot to mention this because it's unrelated to the actual competition, but did you notice how bad the actual production was tonight? Terrible, distracting cutting between cameras, Steadicams stumbling all over the place... it looked really bad. I feel like someone must be getting fired behind the scenes.

spb said...

Did anyone catch taht Peter Noone comment? "This is *not* a singing competition, it's a voting competition." Camera cuts to Simon who looks grumpy.

Truer words ...

spb

dark tyler said...

velvetcannibal beat me to it! I just saw the thing and was rushing back here to comment on how the show tonight was ALL. OVER. THE PLACE. The sound was off every few minutes, cameras were falling down... What gives? And I mean, what the hell? Was that camera-man drunk or what?! We actually witnessed the camera falling down! It was like a cut scene from the Blair Witch Project.

With Sanjaya as the Witch.

Or would that be Simon? I though he was extra grouchy today.

Anyway. Every week I come here to write how much I love Jordin, but today I'm not even gonna try. :)