Sure, she has some huh-annoying huh-singing quirks. But man, that girl can sing.
Has there ever been a better exit performance? That performance was AMAZING, and she’s LEAVING??!?!
I didn’t realize how big a fan I was of her. Loved her first performance in the Top 36. Of the top 3, I don’t feel like I have a favorite among them. Little did I know, Allison was my fav. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.
Am I a little dramatic? Yes. I just hope she ends up being the next Daughtry, and not the next Taylor Hicks.
Confession: I’m a big fan of Kris Allen because his singing style is so reminiscent of Jason Mraz, who is also one of my favorite performers.
It’s not only his funk-influenced guitar strumming that I dig. But it’s also the clarity of his tone. His voice sounds as smooth as water. Jason Mraz has that same quality; they share such a pure tone.
I’d love to see them perform together in the future. What a combination of guitar awesomeness that would be.
After reading various blogs and blog comments on this week’s performances, I felt very disappointed with my fellow Idol viewers. Overall, their comments felt very snarky, and sometimes bordering on rude.
I know snarkiness has become the norm in this internet (because after all, isn’t that the only way to get noticed?), but are the negative comments really necessary.
I have to echo what Randy repeated on Tuesday: this Top 7 is a really freakin’ talented group of singers. I enjoy listening to ALL of them sing. I can’t say the same about previous seasons! To me, this is the best season since the Chris Daughtry/Elliott Yamin/Katherine McPhee/Taylor Hicks season.
With the exception of Lil Rounds (who sadly does sound pretty karaoke), every contestant put their own spin on very, very, very formulaic disco songs. I enjoyed their interpretations of well-known classics, and I think they all deserve much kudos.
I don’t understand why people care about Kris’s facial ticks, Danny’s goofy dancing, or Anoop’s 5 o’clock shadow. This is a show about MUSIC. Don’t you wanna listen to good, well-sung music? That’s all I want from my American Idol: good songs performed by good singers. And on Tuesday, that’s exactly what I got, and I loved it.
Maybe I’m annoyed because I happen to like disco music (even if it predates my birth). Am I the only one out there that actually likes this genre???
Here are a couple exit interviews given by Scott Macintyre:
Scott said a couple things in these interviews that bothered me:
“You never know what the judges are going to say, but I think if people watch the performance back, especially in the context of everything else that went on that night, it was a good, solid performance.”
I did re-watch the performance, and my opinion stands: it wasn’t very good. In fact, it was awful.
I watch American Idol to see undiscovered talent blossom into superstars. I DON’T watch American Idol to listen to amateur-sounding songs. Listening to Scott’s performance, it sounded off-key, formulaic, and disjointed. Using another word, amateur.
I hated the guitar playing, because a) the arrangement was so basic that a 15-year old could have played it and b) his voice did not match the emotional tone of the song. If you’re going to “shock” people with a guitar power ballad, then you better sing it with more power, too. Unfortunately, he basically sang it like Billy Joel would behind a piano with no accompanyment (i.e., like last week), and it ended up sounding really weird.
In the end, this is the main reason why Scott is not the American Idol. It’s not because he can’t sing (though he is off-key a lot). It’s not because he’s not talented. It’s not because he’s visually impaired.
It’s because he didn’t connect emotionally with the songs.
I believe he’s so involved in the musical technicalities of the song that he can’t quite convey the feelings of the song. If it’s a harder-edged song, sing it that way. He seemed to sing everything the same way, all within the same adult contemporary realm. He’s only 23… perhaps he hasn’t discovered that part of his musical repertoire yet. And again, this has NOTHING to do with his visual challenges. I remember watching the similarly visually-impaired Raul Midon in concert a couple years ago, and feeling every ounce of emotion in every one of his songs.
I think Scott is a talented musician who happens to be visually impaired, and who happens to be relatively young. To become a superstar, perhaps all he needs is a little more time.
Two growing trends that I did NOT like:
I personally like this season. There are some clear favorites, but there are some dark horses that SHOULD get much more attention than they’re currently getting (Matt Giraud and Kris Allen).
I was impressed by Michael Sarver tonight. But looking at the bigger picture, I believe Michael proved something: that the wild-card round sucks. The general consenses prior to tonight was that Michael had no business in the Top 13, especially over Anoop Desai (see this post at idolblog).
Based on tonight’s performances, you could argue that America, and also the wild-card round, got it right. They chose the better singer (Michael) and didn’t choose the weaker one (Anoop). While this is all true, my problem with this is we only got to see each contestant perform one full-length song. In the statistical world, each contestant had a sample size of exactly 1. It’s pretty ridiculous to judge someone based on one performance.
And this is where editors’ choice enters the picture. If everyone is given one song, then those who have been shown on air more than others (Danny Gokey, Lil Rounds) have an advantage over those who didn’t get much at all (Felicia Barton, Ricky Braddy, Ju’Not Joyner).
I feel last season’s format was MUCH better. For all but 4 of the semi-finalists, we saw each perform more than 1 song, giving each person a chance to redeem themselves after a poor performance or song choice. This year, over half of the semi-finalists were cut after 1 song. As Michael (and also Matt Giraud) proved, maybe you just need a second song to show how good you really are.