It is one of my Idol pet peeves that we go through the rather big business of selecting a top 12....and then only the Top 10 go on the lucrative national summer tour....really....is it that much more time, trouble and $$ to have numbers 11 and 12 go along?! I'm sure they don't eat much :) I've read that the Top 10 each earn around 100K for the tour, so maybe it's a big deal. For many of this year's crop, this means a lot.I KNOW Alexis Grace has fans, for example, that would be buying tickets this summer just to see her....I really did like her, and am sorry to see her knocked out so early. Darn it, dialidol.com for being right this time! I would have never predicted it.
My peeve isn't with her, tho, it's with Idol. We first saw Alexis as a fresh-faced, single mom from Memphis auditioning in KY. A beautiful and big voice out of this little package made a big impact. No professional experience (read, "No plant") who sang in her college choir, for pete's sake. The judges? "You're too clean cut," they said. "Dirty it up." To which beautiful and young Alexis Grace started wearing insane amounts of make-up, black lace, short skirts and pink streaks in her hair, and started singing songs that might be construed as less-than-wholesome, all in an effort to be "dirty" to please the judges. And then last night for country week, she sings a beautiful and classic country song about a woman being spurned for a younger more youthful (and perhaps more beautiful and/or more dirty) woman, and it was lovely, and the judges critiqued saying, she wasn't dirty enough...she should have done Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats," for example.
Rubbish.
I'm disgusted with the Idol franchise right now. Alexis should be in the Top 10, in place of either Micheal Sarver 9forgettable) or Scott McIntyre (boring) for sure, but she is not, all for the small crime of trying to please them. Reminds me of a blip I saw today on Idol Tonight, the TV Guide program hosted by Justin Guarini and Kimberly (dumped by David Cook) Caldwell. They had Brooke White on today, and she told the contestants that when they try and please the judges, they will lose. In other words, you have to know who you are as an artist first, and go out and give that week after week....and if you are still searching and try and do what you think they want, you will always come up empty. This is what felled Alexis Grace. I wish you the best.
Carrie and Randy Travis were dope. Even though they hadn't rehearsed and it was a lil' rough. I wanted him to do the duet part with her as she sang, the one that I do in the minivan when I'm alone on my way to work, but he didn't/couldn't.....but she went on without him and showed her star power.....WOW.
I told the kids, look...after 4 years, I don't know if we'll go to the Idols Live Tour this summer....I'm just not feeling any one of them. And they were cool with that....I love Danny the most but even then I don't know if I'll spring $54 a ticket, plus service fees, plus parking, plus refreshments, plus t-shirts......for 3, maybe 4 tickets.....loosing the love this year, peeps.
How bout you?
1 comment:
Take some deep breaths, Idol Mama!! While the Idol franchise itself may be wearing thin (I think it is because, at least in part, we are more sophisticated as an audience and can now see when the judges, Ryan and the producers manipulate us and the contestants), this is the best crop of contestants in years. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny Adam's talent as a singer and for creativity. Lil has pipes galore. Danny is a pro already. And yet these three are not shoe-ins for the top three because we are seeing some real, raw talent develop in front of our eyes. It is not hard to imagine Kris, Matt or Allison cracking the top three. Megan and Anoop will probably not make the top three, but could certainly play spoiler over the next few weeks. And I bet we see Scott and Michael step it up next week big time. These are talented and motivated folks. I think we are in for some good entertainment the next 10 weeks.
Now, as for Alexis, I am not sure the judges are always wrong. Look, Anoop was a disaster a week ago and they berated him into doing what he needed to do. And it worked! As for Alexis, I thought her performance was really flat on Tuesday. Last night, she sang the same song with a lot of edge to it, and it was awesome. The judges did not sabotage her. When you are singing a song about being spurned, you need to emote. She didn't emote on Tuesday. Yet she took the judge's comments about dirtying it up and delivered an emotional performance last night that would have kept her in this thing had she sung it that way the night before. As it turns out, Alexis picked the right song after all. She just needed to wear the emotion of the song on her sleeve. She needed to look and sound like the spurned lover. She figured that out, too late, after the judges' comments on Tuesday.
And with all due respect to Brooke White (who I like), I seem to recall her taking to heart some of the judge's comments last year and therefore surviving a few more weeks. I mean, come on, Brooke, you are deluding yourself if you think you had a chance to win last year!
All I am saying, Idol Mama, is that while there is a lot to gripe about the franchise (as I often do on your Blog!), there is a lot of talent to keep us coming back. Don't throw in the towel now just as this season is really starting to get good!!
Now, with that, can you please go back to being the Miss Positive Paula of this Blog, so I can return to being Surly Simon?! I really prefer to be the Idol Curmudge. :)
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