Am. Idol 2008 recap

David Cook won. Slightly surprising considering the judges had all but crowned Archuleta the night before. During the contest night, Cook sang "I Still Haven't Found (What I'm Looking For)" by U2, chosen by Clive Davis (who will own the winner). He was great. I love U2 and Cook changed it just enough to make it his own, but stayed true to the original. He then had to sing a song from some songwriting contest (who wrote the song? - who knows - for a songwriting contest, you'd think they would tell the audience who wrote the song). Finally, he chose to sing, "The World I Know" by Collective Soul. Another song I love and again Cook did it justice. Archuleta sang three ballads including his version of "Imagine." I love this song and hate the fact that Archie sang it and everyone loved it. Ug.

I'm glad Cook won and hope his career takes off after his stupid obligatory Idol tour.

I know a lot of people think Am. Idol is lame and the singers suck (Burger?), but I have become fans of a few of the contestants of this show, and am glad to have been exposed to them through this show: Daughtry, Bo Bice and Kelly Clarkson. In fact, I am listening to Bice right now and really like the album. I have owned this CD (yes, I still buy CDs) for a couple years now and just noticed that Chad Kroeger (Nickelback) wrote one of the songs. Kroeger is awesome as a singer and songwriter and has worked with some of the best (Santana). Bice also performed on one of the Idol shows this year with a new song, which I am looking forward to being released.

Now, let's go Sox and Celtics!!

Am. Idol final 3

So the two Davids and Seyesha are the final three contestants on American Idol this year. They are all good singers, although after watching last night's performances, I have to agree with the comment made on my last Am. Idol post that I will shoot my TV (or something to that effect) if David A. wins. He totally killed (not in a good way) "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel. David Cook was not in top shape last night though. The Switchfoot song he sang, was flat and not very exciting and he did not come close to doing Steven Tyler justice on "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing." Seyesha did a fine job on all her songs, but no one hit anything out of the park. I think, in part, it was because of the format. They all sang three songs, one picked by one of the judges, one they picked themselves and one picked by the producers. It was pretty obvious that the producers either a) know nothing about pop music and who actually watches this shoe or b) want one of the contestants to fail miserably, but all of the producers songs choices were so terrible, it was hard to figure out which one. I can't for the life of me predict the winner.

American Idol '08

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know I am a fan of the show American Idol. This year has been quite disappointing as shown by the lack of posts about it. None of the contestants stand out or have had that "knock your socks off" performance. I really don't care about any of them and am not sure if any of them will survive the record business. Terrible singers lasted a long time on the show this year for inexplicable reasons. They are down to the final 3, and luckily the show will be over soon. I know I can just stop watching it, but it's totally addictive and now I need to know which one of the saps left will win.

Soul Patrol!

Well everyone, Taylor Hicks is your new Americal Idol. I must say I am surprised, but think that he deserved it more than Katherine. In the last show he showed he had more chops that she did and is just a better performer. Katherine was also good although, I thought her "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" performance was inexcusable. She was trying to cover all the covers that had ever been done on it and didn't act like herself. She will be great in musical theater if that is the way she decides to go. She will do well if someone tells her how to look, how to sing and what to do. Plus, she chose Meatloaf as her duo when she got to sing with someone famous. Maybe he'll choose her to be in his next video. I don't remember who Taylor sang with, but his voice was definitely giving way. It must be a vocally challenging 12 weeks to say the least, it is a wonder any of them can talk afterwards. I was pleased with Mary J. Blige's performance on "One" with Elliot Yamin. I must say when I first heard the recording of that song with Bono, I didn't like it. It is one of my favorite U2 songs and I didn't want it changed, but she does have an amazing voice and it is growing on me.

On another note, sorry it has been a while. I was recording data on red crab for the past 10 days. This weekend is ripe with graduations and weddings so I will post again sometime next week. I want to say congratulations to my cousin, Brian, who graduated from Endicott College, Sean's cousin, Emily, graduating from Holy Cross tomorrow, our friends Emily and John getting married on Sunday and to SEAN FOR GRADUATING FROM LAW SCHOOL MAGNA CUM LAUDE (even though he doesn't read this blog).

Pickler gets kicked (finally)

Finally, the voters for Americal Idol have come to their senses and gotten rid of Pickler. Her lack of confidence reared its ugly head again this week and she delivered a dreadful performance of "Unchained Melody" (apparently it was Leann Rimes version of the Righteous Bros classic). So, with the fact that voters may actually be smarter that I was giving them credit for, I am revising my final two to Katherine and Chris. The rest have the chops or charisma to be good but not both. Not that Katherine and Chris have both either, but they appeal to the widest population of voters, even Chris, as a rocker, is cute so all those 12-15 year old girls who have posters of Nickelback and Bon Jovi in their rooms will vote for him. I am still leaving Paris in there as the wild card.

Ads and Americal Idol

I was just reminded of this horrible commercial I saw yesterday. I usually don't watch commercials anymore because we have TiVO, but I was just flipping through and there was this commercial where these people were driving in a car talking and all of a sudden they were blindsided on the drivers side by a suburban, and the next shot is of the girl in the passengers side saying something like, "holy sh*t", but it's obviously not that since you can't swear in commercials, and then it shows you the car is a Jetta. It definitely has shock factor - I'll give it that. But seriously, are they trying to beat Volvo or somthing? There are so many other selling points they could choose from. Maybe it's just our society isn't wowed by anything except shock factor anymore, which is a sad commentary on society that we are so numb to everything that we have to see an horrible car accident on a commercial to movitate us to think about safety in our vehicles. I'm glad I don't have to watch too many commercials anymore.

On a completely different note, does anyone watch Americal Idol? I am totally hooked on it, and the remaining singers are actually pretty good, although, I cannot
for the life of me understand why country girl Pickler is still on there, except that she is blond and has big boobs (they're not even that big). And I am not on the Katherine McPhee bandwagon. Sure, she can sing, but she's kind-of a boring performer and just doesn't seem genuine, however, I skip right through the interviews and personal interest stories and just listen to the performances so I could be missing something. For those of you who know me, I am a sucker for a rock star and so I love Chris. He has a good rock voice, and although I don't think he will win Americal Idol, I think Clive Davis is already assembling a band for him when he gets kicked off. I am glad Ace finally got kicked off, I don't know if I could stand any more falsetto from him. My best guess for the final 2 is Katherine and Kellie. Elliot has the voice but not the looks, Taylor is too crazy, Chris is too much of a rocker and Paris is too young, although she could be the wild card.