In Case You Missed It...
Thursday, May 03, 2007
I thought this performance of "Up To The Mountain" by Kelly Clarkson during Idol Gives Back was just STELLAR. The legendary Jeff Beck wasn't bad, either. ;-)
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 2:51 PM,
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Sorry - NO RECAP Post Tonight
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
I'll be watching Taylor Hicks in concert in Baltimore during the show. I'll try to get to it tomorrow before the results, but no promises. Cheers - enjoy!! PLEASE feel free to recap yourself in the comments. I'll post it to the main post if ya do!
Labels: American Idol, Finals, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 3:43 PM,
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More Sanjaya on YouTube
Thursday, April 12, 2007
I can't resist. Don't get me wrong - I think Sanjaya is going to be the death of American Idol. But it's funny what the YouTubers come up with. For your enjoyment:
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 8:22 PM,
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Going to be a wee bit late with tonight's recap
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sorry folks - I will get to it tonight, but about an hour late. See you then!
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 6:42 PM,
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Sanjaya Anthem - aka, The World Has Gone Insane
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
I saw this on a teaser for the evening news and found it on YouTube - comedian Eric Schwartz' ode to Sanjaya.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 8:59 PM,
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Oh Antonella.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Ever wonder what fallen Idols have to look forward to? Well, it appears that Antonella's offers have nothing to do with her singing ability.
From The Post Chronicle:
"Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis invited Barba to join his company, offering her $250,000 to host an upcoming video release from the franchise.Girls Gone Wild and adult DVDs. Quite the prospect for Antonella who, while her personal choices (evidenced by the pictures) may be questionable, appears to be a smart girl. From MSNBC:
Also, adult film purveyor SugarDVD offered Barba $500,000 to become the company's celebrity person. "We have set aside money for the right opportunity and we feel like this is it," SugarDVD said in a statement.
The photos capped a stressful week for Barba, who until recently had been studying architecture at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Her first performance on which viewers could vote, a rendition of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing,” was roundly panned by the judges.My emphasis. Antonella, go back to college. Be an architect.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 11:18 AM,
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Random Stuff
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Well. I hear that the din of the noise to get rid of Antonella Barba is getting louder and louder:
Antonella Barba Photos: Rosie O'Donnell Calls American Idol Racist
Frenchie Davis: "Idol" Double Standard?
Protesters want Frenchie reinstated
FWIW, I do think this is a ridiculous double-standard. Do you want your 13-year old daughter seeing the pictures of Antonella Barba? Idol puts itself out there as a "family" show. There's nothing family-oriented about Barba's display. Personally, if Idol weren't so sanctimonious in it's family-friendliness, I would care less. But booting Frenchie to bolster family-friendliness while keeping Barba is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Simon Cowell is on again about Taylor Hicks:
He says, "They (Abdul and Jackson) loved him. I couldn't stand him. I didn't get it. "At the end of the day you have to find a bona fide recording artist. Just because you win the show doesn't mean you will sell a lot of records. Chris is the one who sold the albums, not Taylor."I wish he'd just sleep with Taylor and get over it already, because I can't see any other reason for him to be dissing Taylor every time he turns around. Hey Cowell - could it be because your bubble-gum pop-makeover "experts" write pure dreck that no one can stand? We'll see how Taylor does when he's out from under the 19e thumb. Like Kelly Clarkson, I suspect it will be MUCH better than he's doing now.
I'll be back later with a live show recap...
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 7:24 PM,
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Stop What You're Doing and Go Watch This.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Seriously. I don't know how I missed this on the Grammy Awards a few weeks back - I must have clicked away at precisely the wrong moment. But Christina Aguilera's performance of James Brown's "Man's World" goes down absolutely as one of the top performances I have seen EVER. Go watch it - do it now.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 1:21 PM,
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Worth Watching
Monday, February 26, 2007
The inimitable Gray Charles highlighted and continues to highlight great music. Some of it's new, some of it's old. I'd like to steal that tradition (when appropriate). When I saw Corinne Bailey Rae, John Legend, and John Mayer perform together at the 2007 Grammy Awards, I had hope for our musical future. It's worth a watch.
Labels: Miscellaneous, Music
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 4:34 PM,
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Antonella Barba - Naked Pictures?
Well. It appears Antonella Barba, the 20-year old New Jersey native whom we first met during audition week as she walked the beach in a bikini with best friend Amanda has pulled a Frenchie. According to EW Online:
The naughty photos of the 20-year-old contestant began circulating around
the Internet earlier this week. Despite less-than-stellar reviews from the
judges for her off-key rendition of ''I Don't Want to Miss a Thing'' this week,
Barbara somehow squeaked through to next round of the competition on Thursday's show.
--snip--
Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe says he has not seen any of the Internet
pictures, and only learned of the sexually explicit shots from EW. ''We have
really good background checks on everybody, and we deal with that every
season,'' he says. ''It's sad, isn't it, that your best friends are the ones
that come forward with information that will go to Smoking Gun or put your
photographs on the web?''
Sad or not, Idol established the precedent with Frenchie that naked pictures of contestants is a no-no. Added to that negative is the fact that her first live performance was simply frightful - off-key, weak, and bad. Yet her appearance (imo) is what saved her from elimination. Could it be that the appearance is more than what Idol bargained for, and will they boot her? I hope so if all of this proves to be true. Fair is fair.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 9:31 AM,
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AIEE!! I"ll Miss AI Tonight Entriely.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
All right folks. I have another work commitment tonight from 6-?? and I will miss the FIRST of the rounds that matter.
I'll DVR it and will (hopefully) catch up tomorrow night and I WILL be there tomorrow to do a live blogging recap. If you're checking by here, I appreciate it and just wanted to let you know I"m committed to this but work got in the way. :-)
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 4:15 PM,
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Hey, All You Visitors!!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Hello visitors! I was pretty thrilled when I opened my traffic stats to see that I had 108 visits yesterday, 46 from unique visitors!! Yet the comment silence is... Weird! Should I take it as total agreement? I just don't know!
At any rate, in an effort to keep the page updated, I bring you some Idol Rumors hot of the BlogPresses.
- Interesting if somewhat irrelevant: of the 24 semi-finalists, 6 are from California. California feels primed to break the hold the South has seemed to have on American Idol.
- The average age of the 24 semi-finalists is 24.04 years old. Hat-tip to Reality Blurred for giving all the ages so I could calculate an average.
- NBC St. Paul, MN affiliate KTTC laments the lack of Minnesotans in the semi-finals.
- Rumors continue to fly that Michael Jackson will make a guest appearance on American Idol this season. I heard it first over at MJs Big Blog, and now legitimate news articles are picking up the same rumor. I have to say - WHY? The guy is, at best, ethically creepy and, at worst, a pedophile. MJ has flatly stated that she will boycott the show if Jackson is included IN the show. I don't know what I'll do if so - I'm hoping they just don't go there so that I don't have to draw my own line in the sand.
- Paula Abdul has "never been drunk".
- What's this? Former Go-Go's front woman Belinda Carlisle was offered a chance to replace Abdul on Idol? Reading further into the article you learn that this happened several years ago. Yawn. I find Paula weird at times, but I really don't see a need to replace her.
- Also included on the "my state doesn't have a contestant" rollcall is Alabama. That's notable only in that Alabama HAS produced a plethora of finalists in seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous, Rumors
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 11:00 AM,
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Idol Rumors
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
I'm excited about Hollywood week! I'll be blogging it, hopefully live unless an ice storm gets our power, later tonight. In the meantime, I've Googled blogs for some information about American Idol and have come up with the following information. Probably not new, but might as well make a record of it.
- American Idol might raise it's age limit from 28 to 30. Still excludes me, but hey - maybe it will catch up with me one day when I'm retired!
- Did you watch the Grammys on Sunday night? They had this big deal where three "hopefuls" (all girls) were in the running for doing a solo with Justin Timberlake on the show. They kept cutting to the three girls, smiling and huddled together. And people heard vague snippets of what they sang and were encouraged to text in a vote (I didn't). Robyn Troup won the right to get on that stage with Justin - and she sounded good. It has come to my attention that Robyn auditioned for Season 6. She wont' say how she did, and I can't find any mention of her in the Hollywood round spoiler thread.
- Simon Cowell accused of fixing American Idol? According to this very brief article, some unknown person or persons is accusing Cowell of "planting a British pop star who was once signed to his record company in the second round of American Idol". I'm skeptical. One, why fix it when it works so well? Wouldn't he have fixed it all the way through? And if so, how do you explain Taylor Hicks as last season's winner, when Simon was clearly pimping Chris Daughtry?
- From the "duh" files. Producers won't let American Idol finalists blog. I'm not surprised. When you follow the spoiler link, you find a lot of links to contestant MySpace pages. NOWHERE can you find a mention of their disposition with respect to AI. And I agree generally about not letting them blog or post during the competition. It should be about the singing, and not about who has a great blog.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous, Rumors
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 10:20 AM,
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About Tonight & Some Housekeeping
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Allrighty. Well, I know from my traffic statistics that people are coming to this blog and some are even staying long enough to read some of it! So thank you.
I have rehearsal tonight so I won't be live-blogging (which is what I usually do). The rehearsal is in my home, however, and I should (unlike last week) be able to post my recap before I call it a night. And there you have it. Thanks for reading!
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 7:32 AM,
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Why Simon Hates Taylor
Monday, February 05, 2007
Let's take a little journey to a place called Speculationville.
During the never-ending audition round shows this season, Simon has taken a few very visible verbal digs at Taylor Hicks. It started in Seattle when he told a gum-chewing contestant, who needed a place to spit out her gum, to "stick it on Taylor's face". It then followed with Sundance Head's audition (which I thought was great - he's one of my top two this season) where Simon commented that Head "blew Taylor out of the water".
Why the hostility? I have a theory. Click for the extended and find out what it is.
There is a smallish discussion going on over at MJs Big Blog about Chris Sligh, a contestant this season. It turns out Sligh has a band and a MySpace page and that he has smartly put a music video up on YouTube (see MJs entire post for greater details and links). Sligh is certainly not Idol-esque in the way that I believe Simon thinks contestants should be Idol-esque (e.g., the "beautiful people") - yet he's getting a LOT of buzz.
So let me swing back to why Simon hates Taylor. I believe that Taylor has fundamentally changed the dynamic of American Idol, with an assist from Season 4's Bo Bice. Bice was the first "gigging" musician that I had seen on AI. By "gigging", I mean that he fronts a band. Many, many of the contestants have singing experience - they've done theater - they've done solo things - they are featured at their church, etc. and so forth. But singing in a band, night after night, weekend after weekend, sets some contestants apart. Bice set the tone for that in Season 4.
And Taylor, smartly, picked up on that theme (as did Chris Daughtry) in Season 5. Let me see if I can explain this correctly in a way that makes sense.
I work in a band - I sing. The band has 11 people on stage - 5 horns, percussion, drums, bass, guitar and two singers. We play in nightclubs and festivals. We've been together for almost 7 years and we work pretty consistently, though none of us makes our living through this particular band. The talent on stage in our band is humbling. These guys all work in music and have done so for years. Their level of accomplishment, indivdually, is remarkable. As a result, we can play a lot more challenging things. We are a funk band - think Sly & the Family Stone - Think pre-disco Earth, Wind & Fire - think Tower of Power. We don't really embrace the idea of playing traditional horn band kinds of songs (ex: Soul Man; Midnight Hour; etc.). It's not that the songs are bad - they aren't - they just aren't particularly challenging. So we do some pretty challenging stuff, and it's stuff that non-funk-junkies wouldn't really know to hear it. The "purists" in the audience LOVE it. They sit and watch and listen. But the people who just want to have fun, dance, hang out - we lose them. So we have to pepper the challenging content with a bunch of recognizable stuff that we can stomach. Play That Funky Music is one that we do that simply packs the dance floor within the first few notes. We do it because we KNOW that the majority of average nightclub-goers will love it and love us as a result. Consider it a compromise.
There's a reason I went into that whole diatribe. Taylor Hicks has the same kind of gig savvy. Many "purists" scoffed when he did Play That Funkiy Music. The groans were almost audible. Yet the vast majority of Idol-watching America simply LOVED watching him perform something they knew and loved. If you look back at Taylor's choices throughout the season, the only risky choice was his excellent rendition of Ray Lamontagne's Trouble (for the record, I also think it was among the best performances he gave). Taylor's choices were, to me, unabashedly strategic. He had a plan in mind and that plan was to win American Idol as a launching point for future accomplishments. The win itself was not the ultimate goal - it was a step in the process. That's why I don't worry about the performance and the reviews of his first solo album. We all knew that The Powers That Be would insist that it be "poppy" and commercial. So I expect Taylor is doing what Taylor does - biding his time for when he can make an album that singularly reflects his experience, abilities and talent.
So to the point of why Simon hates Taylor: Simon recognizes that Taylor simply used American Idol. Taylor calculated every step to the best possible advantage and trusted his own judgment and experience to deliver something that would resonate with enough of the public to secure a win. He isn't particularly enamored of AI, I think, though I do believe he appreciates those people who have adamantly supported him from the beginning - THAT is genuine. But he's particularly UN-starry eyed over being the American Idol.
And in that, he set a precedent for the Sundance Head's and Chris Sligh's of Season 6 - Taylor showed that working musicians understand audiences best and understand how to cater to that audience rather than the judges. And with that, gone are the days of the giggling young star-struck kid who goes from never thinking about singing for a living to becoming the American Idol.
So there you go - My $.02 and a theory for contemplation.
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 12:41 PM,
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Delay posting show recap tonight.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Hello! I don't really know if anyone is reading this, but just in case someone is, I wanted to let you know that I will be delayed in posting tonight's show recap. I have a wonderful charity event to attend called Operation Jumpstart, which collects funds and other items (computers, business attire, gift cards to acquire business items etc.) for soldiers transitioning from combat wounded to the private sector.
I will definitely be recording AI tonight on DVR, and may get the recap posted if I get hom early enough - but if not, I'll post it by tomorrow. Thanks if you're checking in!
Labels: American Idol, Miscellaneous
What will I say next? Click and find out.
posted by RenaRF @ 11:28 AM,
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