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Feb. 24th, 2010 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brokenrecordAmerican Idol time again; this time the guys!
Todrick - ...whoa. Well that's at least not a boring choice. Definitely not what I expected from him. That was also DEFINITELY changed up, which is something I tend to really like. At the same time, while I appreciate the originality, I think he could have sung it better, I think he could have shown off his voice better (not much range there), and it's not really my style. Still, more originality in that performance than in 95% of the girls' performances. I have to give him massive credit for that, and that performance definitely made me interested in what he's got left to offer. Ellen was right on in her critique, I thought. And did Simon call him Tondrick? I enjoyed when Ryan said that it was a strong statement to say murder and Simon said torture instead and Ryan was like "...that's equally as strong." heh.
Aaron - I'm annoyed with him already for calling the song "Angels" when it's "Angel." And he's singing Rascal Flatts? ugh. You're really not trying to get me to like you, are you? I really don't need to listen to anyone else to know he's going to be in my bottom 2. He maybe wasn't as terrible as the worst of the girls, but that's not saying anything, and, I mean, I can tell that I would never, ever buy anything of his or want to see him in concert or anything. And he's not original and he didn't sing well and I'm just bored with him already. And, WHAT SIMON? How come you didn't give some of the girls last night the credit for it being their first performances, huh? I hate when they do that; you can't give credit to one performer for it being their first performance and not to the others, unless one of the others is like semi-pro and has been performing in front of audiences of 20 million people for years, which none of them have. He's not likable, he's not very cute, and he didn't sing that well. I don't understand the judges so much of the time. Well, I understand Simon half the time, and the rest pretty much never.
Jermaine - I wish the other Jermaine had made it through. I remember nothing specific about him other than I liked him loads from his audition, and definitely more than this guy. The high notes were kind of painful. Not in-tune. I'm kind of apathetic about him, even though I thought he was pretty awful. I kind of just expect him to make Top 12 no matter what. Maybe if I hadn't heard the girls last night and this was the first performance of the season, I'd be more... outraged. I'm glad the judges didn't praise him, though, and Simon was spot-on. And everything I see from his personality, he seems like a MAJOR douche. So I definitely don't want him to win or even go on much further, but I pretty much expect him to last awhile yet.
Tim - I don't know about the song. On the one hand, the only place I've heard him before is covering Hallelujah and Apologize on acoustic guitar on Youtube, and both of those performances actually made me like him. But for the show? No. Bad choice. I think it would have worked if he had gone the acoustic guitar route, but with the whole band and background singers and all... it didn't work. His vocals weren't as bad as Jermaine or many of the girls, but I think this was just... poor choices all around. And it's just such an obvious choice. Fine for a Youtube cover, but not for the first performance. It really wasn't original. Simon was harsher than I think he should have been (at least compared to how nice he was to a lot of the girls who didn't deserve it), but not that wrong. I agreed completely with Kara (shocking!) about the band swallowing him up. I still want him to be here next week, though, because I think if he does go the acoustic route and make a much better song choice, I would like him. I mean, he does the kind of music I like, so I am going to give him more... credit, or benefit of the doubt, I guess, than someone like Aaron, whose music I'm never going to be into, you know? Which probably isn't fair, but... music taste is obviously subjective, and I can't make myself like other styles of music. I can try to keep an open mind, and I do try to, but... I'm still going to favor this type of music more. But, I mean, I haven't even mentioned Kris doing this song, and that's because that's really one of his worst performances. I never listen to his version of it, and I adore Kris. I like nearly everything he does. It's really just too popular of a song to do, and also way more difficult than it appears. And I'll stop talking about this now. (I'm like... watching Idol and writing my reactions up as I watch them and writing an essay in German all at the same time, and I'm getting like one sentence of my German essay done every 10 minutes or so, and I need to stop going on so long.)
Joe - Oh Jason Mraz? This might also be too popular of a song to take on. =/ Holy crap, he's actually decent! I hadn't heard him sing anything at all and I was kind of just expecting him to be Jorge 2.0, but wow, I think this is my favorite performance of the night so far. It wasn't the song I expected him to choose, either, so I kind of like that. Before this performance I expected him to definitely get voted off, and I thought he would be in my bottom 2, but I actually want him to stick around. And Simon's critique was kind of ridiculous considering how many way more horrible performances there have been. I won't forget the performance because it's one of the few that have actually been good. But Simon also said Kris was forgettable and didn't have star power or whatever, and he won and is my favorite, so who cares. I don't see him winning or anything, but he deserves to make it to next week at least.
Tyler - He was one of my favorites from auditions just because he was kind of interesting, but I don't know. It sounded kind of karaoke to me. The beginning was decent, but I feel like it got worse from there. And it was a pretty obvious song choice. I do agree with Simon's critique here. I think my biggest problem was that it didn't feel genuine. Ellen was right that he had no stage presence, which I actually felt he had in the past, so I'm hoping he shapes up.
Lee - He was one of the ones I didn't really like from auditions. Snow Patrol is a little obvious, but not as bad as his choice could have been, I guess. Some of the vocals were good, and some were definitely off. He reminded me too much of David Cook in a bad way. Like... a lesser version. And I'm not a huge fan of David Cook in the first place. Actually, he kind of reminded me of Gokey, and not just in appearance. And being reminded of Gokey is never a good thing. Really just a horribly boring choice. Oh man I had such higher hopes for the guys, and so far, just... no. HOW DID SIMON LIKE IT? HE DID NOT SING WELL. HE DIDN'T EVEN SING BEST OUT OF THEM ALL. Simon's advice was good for him, though, and I don't even think he should definitely leave this week, but ugh. Simon has been just such hit or miss for me in his judgments.
John - Ok, he was maybe my favorite going in (idk, it was him, Andrew, and Tyler that I was most excited for). I kind of wanted him to... not do a ballad. idk. I feel like he's going to be this season's Anoop, and they're just going to want him to do ballads all the time, and that's boring. So I agree with the judges' complaints about song choice, but wtf he was NOT that bad, I don't know what the judges are smoking. How Simon could like Lee more than John, I don't understand. John's vocals were shaky at the beginning but got much better as it went on. Whatever, maybe I'm in the minority in this. I hope he comes back next week, anyways.
Michael - Oh wrong song choice. I just don't feel like it's a song that you can really show off your vocals with. I... don't really have an opinion on this, and I actually agree with Simon here. (Seriously, I'm agreeing like 50% of the time with him, and when I do agree, he says like everything he's thinking, and when I don't, I want to punch him in the face with how much I disagree.) But yeah, it was just average and uninteresting and the wrong song.
Alex - His name is too similar to Adam. (I realize this is not his fault and is out of his control, I'm just saying.) ...weird performance? idk, he needs to work on stage presence. Then again, Adam was pretty much the only one from the Top 36 performance night that actually knew how to work the stage (although Kris was super energetic and bouncy and stuff, which I have to say was much more enjoyable than this). I like the song, and it maybe even suits him, but... kind of too well? It's too close to the original, I think. Decent vocals. At least compared to most of the rest. I pretty much agree with Simon, actually. I did like him crediting the band, though. I kind of like him as a person, so I hope he sticks around.
Casey - Acoustic guitar! I wish more had gone this route tonight. I wasn't expecting much from him, but I actually really liked that! I kind of want him to be voted off, though, if only so they can stop the stupid Kara/Casey crap. So annoying. Let's maybe focus on the singing, ok? He seemed to take it well, though, and I enjoyed him saying that he was prepared to get torn apart.
Andrew - Normally I'm annoyed by them overpimping contestants (like Gokey last year and like Katie so far this year), but I really, really liked what I heard from him in auditions, and he was pretty much my greatest hope for tonight (pretty much how I felt about Crystal last night). But, OH GOD FALL OUT BOY? I love Fall Out Boy, seriously, but SUCH A BAD CHOICE. Especially that song. That's like my least favorite of their songs. And it's just not a song you can sound really great on vocally. And while I love acoustic guitar, I don't think this song actually works to acoustic guitar. Oh Andrew, I had such high hopes for you. Considering 99% of the contestants have been total fails at song choices so far, though, I'm not going to give up hope.
I think tonight was actually somehow more disappointing than last night. Maybe because I was only really interested in 1 or 2 girls who did well anyways, so I didn't really care as much that the rest sucked. But I had higher hopes for the guys, and they disappointed just as much as the girls. I don't even really want to pick out my favorites and least favorites, because no one really stuck out. Let's see. I guess I want Jermaine and Aaron to go. I don't know if I can pick a favorite. Maybe Casey? I think there's a good chance of Joe going home just because no one knows who he is and I don't think anyone's really taking him seriously, but he was actually one of the better ones, so that's kind of lame (not that I see him really doing well in the music industry if he did win, but still). It's kind of sad that I think tomorrow's going to be the best of the week, what with both Kris and Allison performing (;jkasfk I'm so excited! Especially since Kris is doing a cover he hasn't done before (as much as I kind of think he should do his own stuff because he does have a lot of great songs, and I feel like he gets criticized for doing covers too often, but he's doing a song he's never covered before! And I already have heard him sing Live Like We're Dying a million times already, so whatever) and Allison is doing Scars, which is one of my favorites from her CD).
Anyways, I'm hoping that this week was such a fail because everyone was nervous about performing live for millions for the first time, and because they maybe don't really understand what songs to choose (really famous songs whose singers are unforgettable and you kind of sound like anyways and that you don't change up at all are not the right songs. Also, DON'T CHOOSE SONGS JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKE THEM. Yes you should like what you sing, but that should not be the main reason. Choose something because it'll make you stand out, you sound amazing on it, and has not been done to death). Hopefully this is a wake-up call and they actually listen to the good advice the judges gave and do better next week. Because I can't see any of these people being like... established artists in the music industry at all.
Ugh I thought it was bad last semester when I was going out for coffee every day, but now I'm starting to get into a habit of twice a day. Maybe this is why I'm having trouble falling asleep before 2 AM (and consequently why I feel so exhausted every morning and then feel the need to drink 2 cups of coffee to stay awake). I'm wasting too much money on coffee. I really need to stop that.
I normally go grocery shopping Tuesdays after my early afternoon class because it's the day I have the most time, but yesterday I decided to put it off until today to study for my Social Psych exam (and then found out later that the exam was pushed back a day, ugh). So I went today, but I was in a super rush, which led to poor decisions on my part. For one, I forgot a bunch of stuff I meant to get. Worse, though, was that I stupidly decided that I'd rather not wait 10-15 minutes for the bus in 15 degree weather and would instead walk back to my apartment. It's only 3 blocks, but those blocks are long when you're carrying really heavy bags. And I would have survived it all right, except a block from my apartment, one of the bags ripped open and all the stuff in it fell out. l;jksdf ugh. At least it was only one block away, and everything was in containers so it didn't get ruined. I managed to fit it all into the other back and my purse (and it was actually easier to carry the stuff in my purse than those bags because the handles on the bags are so thin and the bags are awkward and difficult to carry for more than a block), so everything turned out fine, but I really didn't need that much difficulty and stress in getting groceries. On the plus side, I beat the bus back to my apartment, so it wasn't a total waste. But I was emotionally and physically tired after that, so I didn't end up starting schoolwork until later than I probably should have.
...I should probably be working on stuff now, actually. I have to present a song in my German lab tomorrow. I don't even know. There are zero guidelines for this, he just sent us a humongous file of songs (I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago; it was 700 MB which is just... unreasonable) and I'm supposed to choose one and that's all I know. The guy who presented last week just chose a different song because he couldn't download the file, and he actually had, like... reasons, I guess, for choosing the song. So he had stuff to talk about. I don't know any German music. ugh, I guess I'll just choose one at random and hopefully find something to talk about. And I also have an annotated bibliography for Friday and my social psych exam Friday. Why couldn't the exam have stayed today? Or the annotated bibliography? At least then I'd be done with one of them. I can't wait until Friday afternoon. Of course, soon enough it'll be next week, and then I'll be just as busy again. sigh.
Todrick - ...whoa. Well that's at least not a boring choice. Definitely not what I expected from him. That was also DEFINITELY changed up, which is something I tend to really like. At the same time, while I appreciate the originality, I think he could have sung it better, I think he could have shown off his voice better (not much range there), and it's not really my style. Still, more originality in that performance than in 95% of the girls' performances. I have to give him massive credit for that, and that performance definitely made me interested in what he's got left to offer. Ellen was right on in her critique, I thought. And did Simon call him Tondrick? I enjoyed when Ryan said that it was a strong statement to say murder and Simon said torture instead and Ryan was like "...that's equally as strong." heh.
Aaron - I'm annoyed with him already for calling the song "Angels" when it's "Angel." And he's singing Rascal Flatts? ugh. You're really not trying to get me to like you, are you? I really don't need to listen to anyone else to know he's going to be in my bottom 2. He maybe wasn't as terrible as the worst of the girls, but that's not saying anything, and, I mean, I can tell that I would never, ever buy anything of his or want to see him in concert or anything. And he's not original and he didn't sing well and I'm just bored with him already. And, WHAT SIMON? How come you didn't give some of the girls last night the credit for it being their first performances, huh? I hate when they do that; you can't give credit to one performer for it being their first performance and not to the others, unless one of the others is like semi-pro and has been performing in front of audiences of 20 million people for years, which none of them have. He's not likable, he's not very cute, and he didn't sing that well. I don't understand the judges so much of the time. Well, I understand Simon half the time, and the rest pretty much never.
Jermaine - I wish the other Jermaine had made it through. I remember nothing specific about him other than I liked him loads from his audition, and definitely more than this guy. The high notes were kind of painful. Not in-tune. I'm kind of apathetic about him, even though I thought he was pretty awful. I kind of just expect him to make Top 12 no matter what. Maybe if I hadn't heard the girls last night and this was the first performance of the season, I'd be more... outraged. I'm glad the judges didn't praise him, though, and Simon was spot-on. And everything I see from his personality, he seems like a MAJOR douche. So I definitely don't want him to win or even go on much further, but I pretty much expect him to last awhile yet.
Tim - I don't know about the song. On the one hand, the only place I've heard him before is covering Hallelujah and Apologize on acoustic guitar on Youtube, and both of those performances actually made me like him. But for the show? No. Bad choice. I think it would have worked if he had gone the acoustic guitar route, but with the whole band and background singers and all... it didn't work. His vocals weren't as bad as Jermaine or many of the girls, but I think this was just... poor choices all around. And it's just such an obvious choice. Fine for a Youtube cover, but not for the first performance. It really wasn't original. Simon was harsher than I think he should have been (at least compared to how nice he was to a lot of the girls who didn't deserve it), but not that wrong. I agreed completely with Kara (shocking!) about the band swallowing him up. I still want him to be here next week, though, because I think if he does go the acoustic route and make a much better song choice, I would like him. I mean, he does the kind of music I like, so I am going to give him more... credit, or benefit of the doubt, I guess, than someone like Aaron, whose music I'm never going to be into, you know? Which probably isn't fair, but... music taste is obviously subjective, and I can't make myself like other styles of music. I can try to keep an open mind, and I do try to, but... I'm still going to favor this type of music more. But, I mean, I haven't even mentioned Kris doing this song, and that's because that's really one of his worst performances. I never listen to his version of it, and I adore Kris. I like nearly everything he does. It's really just too popular of a song to do, and also way more difficult than it appears. And I'll stop talking about this now. (I'm like... watching Idol and writing my reactions up as I watch them and writing an essay in German all at the same time, and I'm getting like one sentence of my German essay done every 10 minutes or so, and I need to stop going on so long.)
Joe - Oh Jason Mraz? This might also be too popular of a song to take on. =/ Holy crap, he's actually decent! I hadn't heard him sing anything at all and I was kind of just expecting him to be Jorge 2.0, but wow, I think this is my favorite performance of the night so far. It wasn't the song I expected him to choose, either, so I kind of like that. Before this performance I expected him to definitely get voted off, and I thought he would be in my bottom 2, but I actually want him to stick around. And Simon's critique was kind of ridiculous considering how many way more horrible performances there have been. I won't forget the performance because it's one of the few that have actually been good. But Simon also said Kris was forgettable and didn't have star power or whatever, and he won and is my favorite, so who cares. I don't see him winning or anything, but he deserves to make it to next week at least.
Tyler - He was one of my favorites from auditions just because he was kind of interesting, but I don't know. It sounded kind of karaoke to me. The beginning was decent, but I feel like it got worse from there. And it was a pretty obvious song choice. I do agree with Simon's critique here. I think my biggest problem was that it didn't feel genuine. Ellen was right that he had no stage presence, which I actually felt he had in the past, so I'm hoping he shapes up.
Lee - He was one of the ones I didn't really like from auditions. Snow Patrol is a little obvious, but not as bad as his choice could have been, I guess. Some of the vocals were good, and some were definitely off. He reminded me too much of David Cook in a bad way. Like... a lesser version. And I'm not a huge fan of David Cook in the first place. Actually, he kind of reminded me of Gokey, and not just in appearance. And being reminded of Gokey is never a good thing. Really just a horribly boring choice. Oh man I had such higher hopes for the guys, and so far, just... no. HOW DID SIMON LIKE IT? HE DID NOT SING WELL. HE DIDN'T EVEN SING BEST OUT OF THEM ALL. Simon's advice was good for him, though, and I don't even think he should definitely leave this week, but ugh. Simon has been just such hit or miss for me in his judgments.
John - Ok, he was maybe my favorite going in (idk, it was him, Andrew, and Tyler that I was most excited for). I kind of wanted him to... not do a ballad. idk. I feel like he's going to be this season's Anoop, and they're just going to want him to do ballads all the time, and that's boring. So I agree with the judges' complaints about song choice, but wtf he was NOT that bad, I don't know what the judges are smoking. How Simon could like Lee more than John, I don't understand. John's vocals were shaky at the beginning but got much better as it went on. Whatever, maybe I'm in the minority in this. I hope he comes back next week, anyways.
Michael - Oh wrong song choice. I just don't feel like it's a song that you can really show off your vocals with. I... don't really have an opinion on this, and I actually agree with Simon here. (Seriously, I'm agreeing like 50% of the time with him, and when I do agree, he says like everything he's thinking, and when I don't, I want to punch him in the face with how much I disagree.) But yeah, it was just average and uninteresting and the wrong song.
Alex - His name is too similar to Adam. (I realize this is not his fault and is out of his control, I'm just saying.) ...weird performance? idk, he needs to work on stage presence. Then again, Adam was pretty much the only one from the Top 36 performance night that actually knew how to work the stage (although Kris was super energetic and bouncy and stuff, which I have to say was much more enjoyable than this). I like the song, and it maybe even suits him, but... kind of too well? It's too close to the original, I think. Decent vocals. At least compared to most of the rest. I pretty much agree with Simon, actually. I did like him crediting the band, though. I kind of like him as a person, so I hope he sticks around.
Casey - Acoustic guitar! I wish more had gone this route tonight. I wasn't expecting much from him, but I actually really liked that! I kind of want him to be voted off, though, if only so they can stop the stupid Kara/Casey crap. So annoying. Let's maybe focus on the singing, ok? He seemed to take it well, though, and I enjoyed him saying that he was prepared to get torn apart.
Andrew - Normally I'm annoyed by them overpimping contestants (like Gokey last year and like Katie so far this year), but I really, really liked what I heard from him in auditions, and he was pretty much my greatest hope for tonight (pretty much how I felt about Crystal last night). But, OH GOD FALL OUT BOY? I love Fall Out Boy, seriously, but SUCH A BAD CHOICE. Especially that song. That's like my least favorite of their songs. And it's just not a song you can sound really great on vocally. And while I love acoustic guitar, I don't think this song actually works to acoustic guitar. Oh Andrew, I had such high hopes for you. Considering 99% of the contestants have been total fails at song choices so far, though, I'm not going to give up hope.
I think tonight was actually somehow more disappointing than last night. Maybe because I was only really interested in 1 or 2 girls who did well anyways, so I didn't really care as much that the rest sucked. But I had higher hopes for the guys, and they disappointed just as much as the girls. I don't even really want to pick out my favorites and least favorites, because no one really stuck out. Let's see. I guess I want Jermaine and Aaron to go. I don't know if I can pick a favorite. Maybe Casey? I think there's a good chance of Joe going home just because no one knows who he is and I don't think anyone's really taking him seriously, but he was actually one of the better ones, so that's kind of lame (not that I see him really doing well in the music industry if he did win, but still). It's kind of sad that I think tomorrow's going to be the best of the week, what with both Kris and Allison performing (;jkasfk I'm so excited! Especially since Kris is doing a cover he hasn't done before (as much as I kind of think he should do his own stuff because he does have a lot of great songs, and I feel like he gets criticized for doing covers too often, but he's doing a song he's never covered before! And I already have heard him sing Live Like We're Dying a million times already, so whatever) and Allison is doing Scars, which is one of my favorites from her CD).
Anyways, I'm hoping that this week was such a fail because everyone was nervous about performing live for millions for the first time, and because they maybe don't really understand what songs to choose (really famous songs whose singers are unforgettable and you kind of sound like anyways and that you don't change up at all are not the right songs. Also, DON'T CHOOSE SONGS JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKE THEM. Yes you should like what you sing, but that should not be the main reason. Choose something because it'll make you stand out, you sound amazing on it, and has not been done to death). Hopefully this is a wake-up call and they actually listen to the good advice the judges gave and do better next week. Because I can't see any of these people being like... established artists in the music industry at all.
Ugh I thought it was bad last semester when I was going out for coffee every day, but now I'm starting to get into a habit of twice a day. Maybe this is why I'm having trouble falling asleep before 2 AM (and consequently why I feel so exhausted every morning and then feel the need to drink 2 cups of coffee to stay awake). I'm wasting too much money on coffee. I really need to stop that.
I normally go grocery shopping Tuesdays after my early afternoon class because it's the day I have the most time, but yesterday I decided to put it off until today to study for my Social Psych exam (and then found out later that the exam was pushed back a day, ugh). So I went today, but I was in a super rush, which led to poor decisions on my part. For one, I forgot a bunch of stuff I meant to get. Worse, though, was that I stupidly decided that I'd rather not wait 10-15 minutes for the bus in 15 degree weather and would instead walk back to my apartment. It's only 3 blocks, but those blocks are long when you're carrying really heavy bags. And I would have survived it all right, except a block from my apartment, one of the bags ripped open and all the stuff in it fell out. l;jksdf ugh. At least it was only one block away, and everything was in containers so it didn't get ruined. I managed to fit it all into the other back and my purse (and it was actually easier to carry the stuff in my purse than those bags because the handles on the bags are so thin and the bags are awkward and difficult to carry for more than a block), so everything turned out fine, but I really didn't need that much difficulty and stress in getting groceries. On the plus side, I beat the bus back to my apartment, so it wasn't a total waste. But I was emotionally and physically tired after that, so I didn't end up starting schoolwork until later than I probably should have.
...I should probably be working on stuff now, actually. I have to present a song in my German lab tomorrow. I don't even know. There are zero guidelines for this, he just sent us a humongous file of songs (I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago; it was 700 MB which is just... unreasonable) and I'm supposed to choose one and that's all I know. The guy who presented last week just chose a different song because he couldn't download the file, and he actually had, like... reasons, I guess, for choosing the song. So he had stuff to talk about. I don't know any German music. ugh, I guess I'll just choose one at random and hopefully find something to talk about. And I also have an annotated bibliography for Friday and my social psych exam Friday. Why couldn't the exam have stayed today? Or the annotated bibliography? At least then I'd be done with one of them. I can't wait until Friday afternoon. Of course, soon enough it'll be next week, and then I'll be just as busy again. sigh.
