alright i'm back!
i've avoided this thread because I had been behind on amer idol and, in thinking about it overall, I think I'd deliberately fallen short on watching taped episodes because no one has truly, truly, truly thrilled me. everyone is flawed in some way, even Taylor, he's just the best of the bunch (of the bunch left, not the whole bunch we started with).
anyway, i didn't want to come in here without getting up to snuff. it's already tues as it is so i'm assuming the winner's episode already happened, but i just got home and have only watched up to seeing the last cut to Taylor and Katharine and after hearing Elliot is gone am SO fine with that.
TOPICS ...
Elliot, I've always agreed he's intensely boring. I think he just hasn't had enough sex and broken hearts. He's a sap. Thus, he performs like one. He lacks confidence and the devil may care attitude required for the voice he has and the songs he sings. He needs to raise an eyebrow and smirk and have us believe it. Instead he sings earnestly in the same tone, hits all his fabulous notes, wears the same clothes, and does pretty much the same thing every time.
He's like Chris Daughtry, who began to disappoint me after about the 6th performance. You CANNOT keep singing the same types of songs in the same style you have to show true diversity and complexity, an intuitive understanding of MUSIC as a whole, so that you can sing anything no matter what your way but in the style with respect to the music as it was designed. Turning a jazz song into a rock song does not equal ingenuity, it means you are a one trick pony.
Which, my friends, Katharine also is. When she first began, she wasn't trying too hard, and was there for the music. As time passed, she began to annoy me intensely, and I realized it was because she got cocky. She thinks because she's young, pretty, has training, and a flexible voice that she's in the bag. She isn't. It's not that she's cold and arrogant, it's that she thought she could mess with every song her way, deliver histrionics, and think people would be impressed. And I suppose they would have been if she were as good as Aretha Franklin, but she isn't, and she didn't deliver.
As time passed I realized Katharine is inconsistent and unreliable for a clean, fabulously delivered song with no mistakes and entertainment appeal. Or rather, she's consistent and reliable for mishaping a song, disrespecting its vision, and making perpetual googoo eyes at the camera. Everyone applauds her confidence with the camera but she began to make a huge failing that is causing her performance as a whole to suffer - she's singing to the camera, not the audience. That is a BIG mistake. The audience in front of you is ALWAYS more important than anything else. You please them first, then you worry about the camera.
Do you realize that her best performance of ALL TIME was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and she spent about 90% of it NOT looking at the camera? That was exactly why she hit those notes cleanly, smoothly, with depth, just the right amount of bravado, etc. She relaxed utterly and gave herself over to the music and the performance, instead of making it all about her and looking cute.
I liked the sound of her singing KT Tunstall's Black Horse/Cherry Tree but I couldn't stand watching her perform it. She was humping the stage, which was totally inappropriate. Hop around, sit on the edge, sit on a stool get up and dance, but don't half kneed and bounce like that, sheezus.
Between her and Taylor, Taylor is reliable. I adore him, he's talented, but I don't think he's shown that huge of a range on the show. But he is reliable, and good at what he does, and i'd take him over Katharine any day.
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Uncle Rico's statement re: men having more diverse voices ...
If you mean you are used to hearing more diverse voices in men than women, ok, that's a matter of the music you're exposing yourself to (ie, that's your environment and your choice, not a reflection on women). So if you go online and listen to certain samples of artists, or see certain stuff on MTV or hear it on the radio, I see what you mean.
If you literally mean men have richer, more complex voices than women you are nuts. There are women with voices as deep as a man's and men with voices as high and clear as a woman's. There is no way to quantify which is better or more this or that, based on gender.
For those who prefer to listen to men sing rock, bust out Janis Joplin, or one of my favorites and more recent - Joan Osborne. NO, throw out "What if God was One of Us" and throw on "Right Hand Man." That sucker will sear your pants it's so hot and raw. Then of course there's Melissa Etheridge. Throw out Sheryl Crowe and the nasally counterparts. There are whiskeyvoiced houndoghungry singer females.
For diversity think Ella Fitzgerald who was clear as a bell, Aretha who can shriek and give a blues howl raw as a man's, Nina Simone who very often sounded like a man with her guttural, soulful moaning.
Then come talk to me about "diversity in the female voice" sucka!!
Oh, and in voiceover, women are most often employed to do far more characters than males because their voice is capable of more flexibility and camouflage. Ie, it is easy to recognize a male playing multiple characters as being the same person, but harder to recognize a female playing multiple characters as being the same person.
Women are often hired to play multiple parts in one script, and more specifically will play ALL of the following in the SAME tv show or cartoon, etc: old woman, young boy, young girl, middle-aged woman/mother. Ithey are specifically asked to do young male roles because adult males cannot do these as easily as adult females can).
so ... HAH!
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