Tut tut.
Australia, dear foolish, misguided stupid Australia. You suck. No, really. You suck. I mean, I get it, I do – Lana is cute, she is in fact unbelievably pretty and don’t get me wrong, she can sing. This isn’t a Laura Gissara situation where a rather mediocre and at times painful singer has been put through to the Top 12 on a pity vote and we’ll be punished week after week as she caterwauls her way through the back catalogue of My Favourite Songs Which I Can Never Ever Listen To Again, Thanks. No. Lana has a good, if slightly unremarkable voice and if she can shake the whole Musical Theatre thing that she’s currently got going, then she might do well, but putting her through over Cheray? Or Sally? You suck, you totally and utterly suck and I’m not talking to you at the moment. Put Ben through tonight and we might be able to try and work this out. Maybe.
Softly spoken pocket rocket Tarasai is put through first and thanks everyone for voting for her - someone may have spoken to her about alienating the Idol watching portion of the audience who don’t want her own personal Jesus shoved down their own personal throats because she wisely leaves Him right out of it. G goes to read out the next name and Mathieson already looks ticked off about what’s coming and even Lana is surprised she got through. She is lovely and gracious to the other girls because she obviously legitimately thought one of them would go through and I can’t dislike her for this, I don’t blame her, I blame YOU. (Well, maybe not YOU you, but the You out there who voted for her . . . oh, you know what I mean.) Let’s just get to the boys, quickly please so I don’t have to look at poor Cheray and Sally anymore – see you at Wildcard girls.
Husky voiced Mark da Costa is tackling Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’. He’s left the ubiquitous leather jacket in the car but wisely has neglected to shave for two straight days, giving him that stubbly rocker look that I am a stupid sucker for – if he was wearing a little eye makeup and nail polish, I would be on the floor lying in my own puddle of drool. Fosse calls him “fucking hot” except for the Baby Mullet which has disappointed us both and taken a little of the shine off him – seriously, let's reintroduce conscription so Youths of Today can get decent haircuts and YES, I am also looking at YOU Matt Corby, Marty Simpson and Jack Byrnes. He sings really well and he has a stupendous voice and he growls the FUCK out of this number, but this performance really needs a massive lighter waving, head banging, stoned out of their gourds crowd of deadheads to really make it work. It’s still pretty damn awesome and as rock as I’ve ever seen this show – Chris Murphy’s ‘Evie’ aside.
Marcia reminds us that the Led are her vintage and she can see he enjoyed it and she hopes Australia did. Marcia, Australia just voted Lana in, Australia is currently in a time out and can NOT come out until it apologises and votes in Kevin Rudd, okay? Kyle calls him the real deal but feels like he saw some reserve and caution, inviting everyone on the panel and sitting at home on their couches to immediately jump down his throat and label him a cretinous moron. Mark lauds his brilliant phrasing, his tones and timing but then backhands him by calling it a classic reproduction. Dicko who probably went to high school with Robert Plant and carried his books for him, tells us how The Plant did that song in one take (impressive) and that quite frankly, you don’t fuck with the classics. He then makes love to John Foreman and the band and quite correctly too, because they ROCKED that song, muchly. He also points out to the other contestants that THAT is how you play a gig without a guitar. Mark is chuffed by the judge’s lapdance of ecstacy they’re giving him and Mathieson calls it a cracking start. Can’t get any better, you'd think? You'd be wrong. I was . . .
Before he comes out and sings, I lament once more to Fosse how very very young and wrong for this competition I think adorable little moppet Ben McKenzie is. Awwww, he’s wearing epaulets and wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of Sgt Peppers – he actually reminds Fosse and I of our old housemate PGiddy. I’m guessing that one of his favourite films is Donnie Darko because he’s doing the Gary Jewel version of ‘Mad World’ and I don’t know about that Benny boy, that’s kind of a one note song and if you don’t hit the emotion right it isn’t going to work and see, this is just not the competition for you. Ben doesn’t give a flying fuck about my condescending opinion and deposits a big ol’ heaping of Humble Pie for TallulahBelle to eat by transfixing me. His performance is just about flawless, the rearrangement has given him the opportunity to soar, he gets the emotion just right and I adore him. I throw the words haunting and evocative at Fosse and realise I haven’t blinked since he started singing. Ben? I bow down before you and crown you King
Kyle tells him it’s the first time he’s really cared about him during this whole thing, song choice was perfect and he really believed it. Mark, never one to give when he also has the chance to take away, opens by telling the brilliant young performer we just saw, that he’s a pimply faced little nerd and I seethe. He follows up with deadset star and calls his tones and low end sublime, with his high ends so very clean and pure and compliments a voice as good as Ben’s as being gold for recording and I slightly forgive the nerd comment. Dicko is intrigued by Ben and loved how he took such a different attitude to the song then any other version. Marcia makes it all about her by saying that “us singers, we’re storytellers” but goes on to compliment his light and shade, calling his voice outstanding. Holy fuck. Little dude is awesome and he has leapt the tall building that is my opinion in single bound and landed smack dab in first place on my favourites list.
Jack Byrnes does nothing for me and - urgh - he’s singing a horribly earnest bloody song by a painfully earnest bloody band, U2’s ‘Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ and I haven’t learnt from the previous Lesson of Ben because I groan and only just resist the urge to fast forward through his performance and if I had, I would have missed the absolute brilliance that was Jack dancing like a cross between Elaine Benes and David Byrne from Talking Heads and the fantastic singing that he lays on us. He gospels the beginning and then SLAPS a gorgeous soul vibe on it and prances around the damn stage like he owns it, cheekily kicking his feet up and scrunching his coat and good GOD but he is singing this extremely well – I can not fault his vocals at all. And I’m confused because this is three GREAT performances in a row and I thought the first group of boys were meant to be the good ones? Every single one so far tonight has knocked it out of the motherfucking park. Mark, Ben and Jack should all be put through now, we shouldn’t even bother with the voting, just put them through now.
Mark loves his great big clean and soulful voice but thought the performance was too mannered, he sees it as a song about frustration and aggro, but Jack replies to him, it’s a song about joy and frankly yes, Jack is right and Mark is an idiot. Dicko chimes in with the Australia wide chorus of “Shut up, Mark” and calls it a classic case of right artist and right song. Marcia tells Jack that whatever boat it is that Mark missed, she was sitting right there paddling with Jack up the river. It was joyous and she loved the version. Kyle expects everyone to do their damndest at this point to get themselves through and Jack did absolutely that, it was great.
That is three TOUGH acts to follow. Poor Dave Andrews . . . who by the way has perfect Clara Bow lips and I just want to slap Rebel Red by Maybelline on them. He frustrates the hell out of me by picking John Farnham’s “Freedom” but bugger me if he doesn’t actually do a pretty good job. Although the arrangement is a little slow for my taste, it highlights the strengths of his voice and he only really falters at the falsetto.
The judges have been so spoilt for choice that they don’t recognise he actually did a good job. Dicko tells him it was tidy but tentative and when he’s following three powerhouse perfs he has to be better then that. Marcia tells him it was very safe, but that’s okay and she hopes he gets another chance to show Australia what he can do – Marcia, Australia has been banished to its room and may NOT leave until it is ready to accept that what it did was wrong. Kyle says it was a good performance but also somehow a dud? I don’t know, he makes no sense and I’ve stopped listening to him now. Mark agrees that it was a hard thing to follow the first three perfs and that it wasn’t enough. You know - if he’d done this Sunday night with the other guys group? He’d have been hoisted upon their shoulders and carried out of Fox Studio’s on pillows to the sounds of a cheering throng, because it was way better then anything we saw that night. He should be proud and the judges should not make him look like he wants to cry.
Lyall Adams and his dimples have made a dreadful mistake. They’re singing ‘Desperado’ by the Eagles. He loses me with his first tremulous line because this is too church-y. Really, only the Eagles and my friend Boonie can get away with doing this song outside of last call at the local karaoke bar and even then ‘Khe Sanh’ usually gets more votes. Lyall’s vocals let him down and I suspect, arrest, charge and imprison his nerves on some fairly damning evidence, he is breathy and blinking madly. That’s a shame, I thought he was going to rocket through this round . . .
Marcia also saw the nerves and comments she could hear his breathing and then – get this! – she ACTUALLY gives some critical advice! She tells him he needs to put his audience at ease and that he actually made her tense watching him and he needs to relax more. Kyle then gets gross about pants and soiling and I’m still not listening to him. Mark calls the Eagles songs deceptively simple but actually quite difficult to get right and that Lyall didn’t hit any of the emotion of the song and didn’t tell The Story. Dicko tells him to work within his limitations and use his personality to get the job done and that he can make it as a singer if he knows what those limitations are. Mathieson visibly resists the urge to wrap his arms around the poor lad.
Final singer for the boys is Marty Simpson who loves him some Dave Matthews – I totally see him sitting on the beach, stoned and eating cheezels, with his iPod on, listening to some Dave Matthews Band and singing about some ants. Tonight he’s doing The Fray's ‘Over My Head’ and I wish he’d chosen ‘How To Save A Life’ but I still like this song, it’s a good choice for him especially. I notice while he’s singing that he doesn’t know what to do with his spare hand and he has a classic I Usually Hold A Guitar When I Sing pose going on, he doesn’t look as uncomfortable as Lisa Mitchell used to but still, it looks neither natural or fun. He also sings kind of flatly and races ahead of the band a couple of times and I can’t tell if its deliberate or not. It seems to not be which does not bode well for him. Frankly, its not great.
Like me, Kyle initially thought this would be the perfect song choice for him but unlike me, Kyle thinks that he did a great job. Whatever Sandilands, you and I? We’re done. Mark tells him he has a high likeability factor and excellent tones when he sings but it all just felt too end of day, surfy, huddled ‘round a campfire – see he should have done some DMB. Marty has Dicko’s favourite voice in the whole competition – meh – and he actually listens to Marty’s audition CD’s – aww, cute – and jokes that he sits outside his house watching him come and go – heeeeeee. Dicko sternly tells His Favourite that he should have made more of the song. Mathieson and G are also heartily OVER Marcia and try to just move on to the closing credits, but Dicko foils their dastardly plan and she opines that they’re all making her feel like she isn’t there . . . we wish, Marcia. She tells him it was great song choice but you know you can do better and blah blah blah aren’t you glad she got to tell him that? I would have been bereft without her sage words of ‘advice’.
As the boys wrap things up, two things hit me; 1) I must watch Ben’s performance several more times and 2) Jack Byrnes TOTALLY reminds me of Bill Oddie from the Goodies. If he doesn’t kick it through tonight and has to be Wildcarded I am BEGGING him to do Funky Gibbon. But really the two tonight should be Ben McKenzie and either Jack Byrnes or Mark da Costa because honestly they all deserve to go through. Dave is the alternate and Lyall and Marty should only be allowed Wildcards. Seriously Australia, if you put Lyall or Marty through based on their performances I will END you. Take me seriously, I am short but I am FEISTY.
Final group of girls consist of two of my faves, Holly and Breanna, the spunky Sarah, rosycheeked Rosie, angelvoiced Morgan and Mystery Girl Madison.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Girls! Girls! Girls!
Oh yes, it’s Ladies night which is Marcia’s favourite night because she gets to let loose with music industry pearls of wisdom, such as ‘sister girlfriend’ and ‘you go girl’. It’s a little known fact but Mother Marcia is allowed to mentor and dress one Idol Girl and one Idol Boy each year and this year the girl she’s chosen is Tarasai. This explains the only slightly dead looking ‘thing’ Tarasai had looped over her shoulders and I must admit when I saw her wearing that at the start of the show, I got a whole Thunderdome vibe and was CONVINCED she was going to come out singing ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’. And we all know Marcia is dressing Matt Corby as well, which is why he’s wearing another bloody silly tablecloth around his neck.
But let’s get on with it. Our hosts go straight to the Sensible Judge and ask Dicko what he thought of last night and he rightly tells the boys to collectively pull their vocal socks up. G doesn’t bother asking any of the other judges – because really, Daddy’s back and we don’t need to bother the others anymore – and leaps straight into telling Matt Corby that he’s through. Matt is the only person in Australia remotely surprised by this, and he is roundly applauded and hugged by all. He is joined by – huzzah! – Jacob Butler, who is suitably chuffed, although slightly lost for words. He rallies and offers to compensate those who voted for him and I just quietly may need to send him a bill.
First girly cab off the rank is Sally My Surname Is Too Ludicrously Long And TallulahBelle Just Made It Even Longer For The Sake Of A Not That Terribly Funny Joke van der Zwart and she’s – oooooh – she’s singing Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Never Again’. Tough, tough song. She does this really quite well, hitting all those big KC notes, whilst managing to inject a suitable amount of bitchiness into it, because it is a very catty hell hath no fury song. (Interesting song choice with Ms Jesse Curran also singing tonight . . . but we’ll get to that.) Sally’s stagecraft is a little unpolished but quite frankly, she’s already blown the boys from last night OUT of the water and on to the beach and they're lying there gasping for air and flapping their fins frantically. I may have taken that analogy too far, although Daniel Misfud's hair is 'wavy' - get it?! - and oooh, maybe the scarf is hiding gills . . . NOW, I've taken that analogy too far. So. Judges? Thoughts?
Kyle thinks she has star potential but just needs to work on her nerves and get a little polish. Marcia said she was just so calm and centred back stage, with her own invisible Kotex shield and well done girlfriend (you need to imagine that every time she says “girlfriend” I sigh so hard that it causes a tornado in Kansas). Dicko has an attitude about contestants covering Idol songs and makes a lovely remark about how they’re creating some weird mutant pop monster that’s beginning to devour its young and BY GOD we have missed you, sir. Never leave us again Dicko, never! Mark calls Dicko narrowminded and uses Missy Higgins as an example of how snobby the ‘real’ industry is about Idol (reportedly there are signs up at the auditions reminding contestants that Missy has forbidden Idol to use her music because she has conveniently forgotten that she won a music contest on JJJ). He asks Dicko to just tell her she sang a crap song (which, true, it ain’t a great song) but that she did it really well (also true).
The fabulous Natalie Gauci is up next and my heart will break if she isn’t ace – we’ve seen how well this chick arranges so please god, let her not do a carbon copy of Xtina’s song ‘Hurt’, make it yours Natalie . . . oh. Sigh. That tinkling noise you hear is the remnants of my shattered heart falling to the floor because she is . . . not . . . great, it’s actually kind of shrieky and paradoxically also not powerful enough. I wish she’d arranged it differently, I feel like this really could have worked for her but it didn’t.
Marcia goes straight to song choice, how Xtina is one of the finest singers in pop today (I would argue, finest pop sing ever) and tells her she “cut that” – now initially, I thought this was Marcia’s GhettoTalk for 'bad' but it turns out, she thought it was great and I would recommend upping the dosage, Marcia. Dicko tells Natalie that just because you think you can, doesn’t always mean you should, and that she went suburban – agreed, she shouldn’t be trying to be That Girl, we have enough That Girl’s, we want That Other Girl, thanks. Mark calls it a monster song and says he didn’t know she had that kind of control and that her tones, shades and falsetto were all superb – is my tv broken, is that why I thought she tanked and they loved it? Kyle backs me up by telling her that it was a pretty good job but that everytime she went around the corner, she clipped the gutter, that it wasn’t very smooth and then gives sartorial advice about not wearing satin pants on high def. Good point, that.
Cheray Doughty needs to pick me up from the disappointment of Natalie and Joss Stone’s ‘Tell Me About It’ is a DAMN fine start. Okay her dancing is slightly daggy but her vocals are GREAT. She bops around the stage, completely involving the audience there as well as at home and she sings the hell out of this number – yay!
Dicko asks wide eyed where she pulled that rabbit from, calling the performance cheeky and noting that she played with it but it didn’t become cheesy (and nobly resists the urge to firmly say “Husny” here). Mark has been worried that Cheray might be too Olivia Newton-John but says that, in actual fact, she’s a hot tomato. Cheray is wonderfully not in any way offended about the Olivia remark and even busts out a little ‘Let’s Get Physical’ – hah! Love her! Marcia smiles and says she’s liked Cheray from the beginning – so apparently, she wins that contest – and that she whispered to Kyle that she likes this chick because she doesn’t sound how she looks . . . and I’m pretty sure Cheray should be offended by that, but she laughs gamely and doesn’t sneer at Marcia’s wig, like I would. Kyle agrees that she’s great, she knows what she can do and she does it.
Tarasai Don’t Hate Me Because I’m A Jesus Loving Belter Vushe is next and please by all that is holy, don’t let her be singing Whitney . . . ooh, she’s doing ‘River Deep, Mountain High’, formerly known as the Song Owned By RickiLee and which is now, the Song Jointly Owned By RickiLee and Tarasai, because this is kind of awesome. She gospels the start and when she cr-ACKS into the big voice rock bit, she is seven different kinds of cool. Yes, she’s got the yell-y singing going on that I hate but she isn’t slapping me around the face with it, it’s not permeating every single note that she’s singing, she’s respecting the song and she’s just freaking nailing it. THIS is the kind of performance that GUARANTEE’S you a Top 12 slot.
Mark calls her the miniMarcia, a force of nature, loves her control and power but he keeps thinking Cosima and can she keep that level of performance without hurting her vocal cords? To be fair, didn’t Cosima herself say she sang with a sore throat which exacerbated the whole problem? Tarasai sagely nods that yes she can. She’s strangely confident whilst also this meek little thing at the same time – weird. Kyle tells her mum that she should be very proud of her powerhouse beautiful child, and tells her she’s great and she should continue to soar. Marcia is chuffed that Tarasai started at one and moved her up to eleven – so of course, Mark has to interrupt and disagree that she in fact started at eleven and went up to thirty three and shut up, Mark, god. Marcia advises Tarasai to just always ignore Holden – ahhhh, if only we could ALL do that, Marcia, if only. Dicko confesses that she fascinates him, the competition needs her and big notes win votes. He also says he likes her because she’s barking mad and once more, awesome call sir.
Okay. Jesse Curran. Yes, she is dating James Blundell. Yes, reportedly he left his wife and kids for her, but you know whose business this is? NO ONE BUT THEIRS. Let’s leave the muck racking and slander slinging outside of the Reality Tv Show about SINGING, shall we? Let’s concentrate on her bad BAD choice of song, U2’s ‘One’ which works only when Bono sings it with Mary J Blige and even then, I’m kind of over it. She sings this well, but like Junior the night before, it’s waaaaay too pretty, too soprano-high-standing-in-front-of-the-boys-choir-on-the-stage-live-on-KerriAnne. It’s midday music. She gives it more of a country feel towards the end and I wish she’d arranged the whole song this way.
Kyle wanted to be blown away by Jesse (oh, I wish, here’s a shotgun with which to make that happen) but it was a little too Julie (Andrews, as in the hills are aliiiiiiiive) for him. Marcia calls it a polite performance and alludes to what’s going on in her personal life and shut it Marcia. Mark and Dicko point out that her foot is currently protruding from her mouth and Marcia calls them the Kings of Innuendo. Actually Marcia, they weren’t hinting, they were flat out telling you you’re an idiot for bringing it up. Kyle tells Mark to shut the fuck up and let Marcia talk her turn and stop stealing other people’s time and sometime Kyle, you are the Voice of Reason. Hear hear. Dicko says he knows she’s had a tough week and refers back to the history of the song and this is why I love him, he loves the background details, the minutiae of music and where it comes from – hence his horror Season Two when no one but Chanel and Courtney knew the Beatles. He didn’t like the rewriting of the song – Jesse says it’s the Johnny Cash version and now the country bit makes sense. Mark loved the fresh feel of the arrangement but is disappointed to hear it isn’t hers and he felt the lament and pain of the song suited her. But he comments that she never really hit the pitch, she slid up to the notes and kind of missed them, never really hitting the bullseye. She takes it all well and is lovely and bubbly – don’t hold the bullshit gossip mongering against her, just the lacklustre performance . . .
Lana Musical Theatre Krost loves Jewel and has over imitated the trademark Jewel quaver and fuck me, she’s singing Fergie’s ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’. Sweet baby jeebus – oy. I can’t listen to this song on the radio because of the line ‘I’m going to miss you like a child misses its blanket’ because – the fuck? What the fuck kind of lyrics are those? What eight year old wrote those? Those are some seriously AWFUL lyrics and that line ruins the ENTIRE song for me, I have to sing la la la la everytime she gets to that bit and I often just change the station instead of bothering. This is NOT the right kind of song for someone Lana’s age to be singing either, its about a really fucked up chick who needs to be on her own because she has some issue pertaining to her childhood or something. You don’t GET that at 17, hell you’ve barely given UP your blankie at 17. Stupid choice, stooooopid. And she doesn’t get it at all, she meanders across the stage with stiff Musical Theatre arm and hand waving in a hideous white puffy dress thing, she puts zero passion in the song and it is pure elevator music. She sings every note correctly, but like Daniel Misfud the night before, it is b-l-a-n-d.
Marcia tells her she looks like a picture – a picture of what exactly Marcia? One of those dolls you put over your toilet paper? – and then says she picked a perfect song for her age group – WHAT? I believe this is the earliest in any season of Idol where Marcia has officially lost the right to speak to contestants anymore. Dicko loves me more than Marcia and tells her it was a bad choice and whilst he is desperate for the other contestants to learn, he wants her to Unlearn as her default position is too mannered. Ad nauseam repeat, but I FUCKING love him. She is too High School Musical. Mark tells her that she is a very pretty little girl with a very pretty little voice. That is ALL that he says. He is patronisingly dismissive. Ass. Kyle has seen her sing better than that and that song needs to be sung sexier (and by an older woman.) Marcia asks her to rough herself up and Dicko tells her to smack Kyle in the face. Australians countrywide stand up and applaud.
James and G – who have not been NEARLY as witty as they were the previous night, sigh – once again ignore all the other judges to ask Dicko’s Final Thoughts. He tells them it’s a world of difference making it to the Top 12 then it is making it to Top 24 and then drops the bombshell that SonyBMG have insisted that only one contestant – the winner, obviously – will be getting a contract this year. I scoff loudly and doubt that very much, but just in case, I give dibs to my current favourites; Jacob, Sarah, Sally, Breanna, Mark, little Ben or Cheray.
Tuesday is Mark, Lyall, Dave, Ben, Jack and Marty. I can only see Mark and Lyall going through from that group – adorable though Ben may be . . . and my money’s on Tarasai and Cheray to go through from the girls. Maybe Sally. Let’s see, shall we?
But let’s get on with it. Our hosts go straight to the Sensible Judge and ask Dicko what he thought of last night and he rightly tells the boys to collectively pull their vocal socks up. G doesn’t bother asking any of the other judges – because really, Daddy’s back and we don’t need to bother the others anymore – and leaps straight into telling Matt Corby that he’s through. Matt is the only person in Australia remotely surprised by this, and he is roundly applauded and hugged by all. He is joined by – huzzah! – Jacob Butler, who is suitably chuffed, although slightly lost for words. He rallies and offers to compensate those who voted for him and I just quietly may need to send him a bill.
First girly cab off the rank is Sally My Surname Is Too Ludicrously Long And TallulahBelle Just Made It Even Longer For The Sake Of A Not That Terribly Funny Joke van der Zwart and she’s – oooooh – she’s singing Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Never Again’. Tough, tough song. She does this really quite well, hitting all those big KC notes, whilst managing to inject a suitable amount of bitchiness into it, because it is a very catty hell hath no fury song. (Interesting song choice with Ms Jesse Curran also singing tonight . . . but we’ll get to that.) Sally’s stagecraft is a little unpolished but quite frankly, she’s already blown the boys from last night OUT of the water and on to the beach and they're lying there gasping for air and flapping their fins frantically. I may have taken that analogy too far, although Daniel Misfud's hair is 'wavy' - get it?! - and oooh, maybe the scarf is hiding gills . . . NOW, I've taken that analogy too far. So. Judges? Thoughts?
Kyle thinks she has star potential but just needs to work on her nerves and get a little polish. Marcia said she was just so calm and centred back stage, with her own invisible Kotex shield and well done girlfriend (you need to imagine that every time she says “girlfriend” I sigh so hard that it causes a tornado in Kansas). Dicko has an attitude about contestants covering Idol songs and makes a lovely remark about how they’re creating some weird mutant pop monster that’s beginning to devour its young and BY GOD we have missed you, sir. Never leave us again Dicko, never! Mark calls Dicko narrowminded and uses Missy Higgins as an example of how snobby the ‘real’ industry is about Idol (reportedly there are signs up at the auditions reminding contestants that Missy has forbidden Idol to use her music because she has conveniently forgotten that she won a music contest on JJJ). He asks Dicko to just tell her she sang a crap song (which, true, it ain’t a great song) but that she did it really well (also true).
The fabulous Natalie Gauci is up next and my heart will break if she isn’t ace – we’ve seen how well this chick arranges so please god, let her not do a carbon copy of Xtina’s song ‘Hurt’, make it yours Natalie . . . oh. Sigh. That tinkling noise you hear is the remnants of my shattered heart falling to the floor because she is . . . not . . . great, it’s actually kind of shrieky and paradoxically also not powerful enough. I wish she’d arranged it differently, I feel like this really could have worked for her but it didn’t.
Marcia goes straight to song choice, how Xtina is one of the finest singers in pop today (I would argue, finest pop sing ever) and tells her she “cut that” – now initially, I thought this was Marcia’s GhettoTalk for 'bad' but it turns out, she thought it was great and I would recommend upping the dosage, Marcia. Dicko tells Natalie that just because you think you can, doesn’t always mean you should, and that she went suburban – agreed, she shouldn’t be trying to be That Girl, we have enough That Girl’s, we want That Other Girl, thanks. Mark calls it a monster song and says he didn’t know she had that kind of control and that her tones, shades and falsetto were all superb – is my tv broken, is that why I thought she tanked and they loved it? Kyle backs me up by telling her that it was a pretty good job but that everytime she went around the corner, she clipped the gutter, that it wasn’t very smooth and then gives sartorial advice about not wearing satin pants on high def. Good point, that.
Cheray Doughty needs to pick me up from the disappointment of Natalie and Joss Stone’s ‘Tell Me About It’ is a DAMN fine start. Okay her dancing is slightly daggy but her vocals are GREAT. She bops around the stage, completely involving the audience there as well as at home and she sings the hell out of this number – yay!
Dicko asks wide eyed where she pulled that rabbit from, calling the performance cheeky and noting that she played with it but it didn’t become cheesy (and nobly resists the urge to firmly say “Husny” here). Mark has been worried that Cheray might be too Olivia Newton-John but says that, in actual fact, she’s a hot tomato. Cheray is wonderfully not in any way offended about the Olivia remark and even busts out a little ‘Let’s Get Physical’ – hah! Love her! Marcia smiles and says she’s liked Cheray from the beginning – so apparently, she wins that contest – and that she whispered to Kyle that she likes this chick because she doesn’t sound how she looks . . . and I’m pretty sure Cheray should be offended by that, but she laughs gamely and doesn’t sneer at Marcia’s wig, like I would. Kyle agrees that she’s great, she knows what she can do and she does it.
Tarasai Don’t Hate Me Because I’m A Jesus Loving Belter Vushe is next and please by all that is holy, don’t let her be singing Whitney . . . ooh, she’s doing ‘River Deep, Mountain High’, formerly known as the Song Owned By RickiLee and which is now, the Song Jointly Owned By RickiLee and Tarasai, because this is kind of awesome. She gospels the start and when she cr-ACKS into the big voice rock bit, she is seven different kinds of cool. Yes, she’s got the yell-y singing going on that I hate but she isn’t slapping me around the face with it, it’s not permeating every single note that she’s singing, she’s respecting the song and she’s just freaking nailing it. THIS is the kind of performance that GUARANTEE’S you a Top 12 slot.
Mark calls her the miniMarcia, a force of nature, loves her control and power but he keeps thinking Cosima and can she keep that level of performance without hurting her vocal cords? To be fair, didn’t Cosima herself say she sang with a sore throat which exacerbated the whole problem? Tarasai sagely nods that yes she can. She’s strangely confident whilst also this meek little thing at the same time – weird. Kyle tells her mum that she should be very proud of her powerhouse beautiful child, and tells her she’s great and she should continue to soar. Marcia is chuffed that Tarasai started at one and moved her up to eleven – so of course, Mark has to interrupt and disagree that she in fact started at eleven and went up to thirty three and shut up, Mark, god. Marcia advises Tarasai to just always ignore Holden – ahhhh, if only we could ALL do that, Marcia, if only. Dicko confesses that she fascinates him, the competition needs her and big notes win votes. He also says he likes her because she’s barking mad and once more, awesome call sir.
Okay. Jesse Curran. Yes, she is dating James Blundell. Yes, reportedly he left his wife and kids for her, but you know whose business this is? NO ONE BUT THEIRS. Let’s leave the muck racking and slander slinging outside of the Reality Tv Show about SINGING, shall we? Let’s concentrate on her bad BAD choice of song, U2’s ‘One’ which works only when Bono sings it with Mary J Blige and even then, I’m kind of over it. She sings this well, but like Junior the night before, it’s waaaaay too pretty, too soprano-high-standing-in-front-of-the-boys-choir-on-the-stage-live-on-KerriAnne. It’s midday music. She gives it more of a country feel towards the end and I wish she’d arranged the whole song this way.
Kyle wanted to be blown away by Jesse (oh, I wish, here’s a shotgun with which to make that happen) but it was a little too Julie (Andrews, as in the hills are aliiiiiiiive) for him. Marcia calls it a polite performance and alludes to what’s going on in her personal life and shut it Marcia. Mark and Dicko point out that her foot is currently protruding from her mouth and Marcia calls them the Kings of Innuendo. Actually Marcia, they weren’t hinting, they were flat out telling you you’re an idiot for bringing it up. Kyle tells Mark to shut the fuck up and let Marcia talk her turn and stop stealing other people’s time and sometime Kyle, you are the Voice of Reason. Hear hear. Dicko says he knows she’s had a tough week and refers back to the history of the song and this is why I love him, he loves the background details, the minutiae of music and where it comes from – hence his horror Season Two when no one but Chanel and Courtney knew the Beatles. He didn’t like the rewriting of the song – Jesse says it’s the Johnny Cash version and now the country bit makes sense. Mark loved the fresh feel of the arrangement but is disappointed to hear it isn’t hers and he felt the lament and pain of the song suited her. But he comments that she never really hit the pitch, she slid up to the notes and kind of missed them, never really hitting the bullseye. She takes it all well and is lovely and bubbly – don’t hold the bullshit gossip mongering against her, just the lacklustre performance . . .
Lana Musical Theatre Krost loves Jewel and has over imitated the trademark Jewel quaver and fuck me, she’s singing Fergie’s ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’. Sweet baby jeebus – oy. I can’t listen to this song on the radio because of the line ‘I’m going to miss you like a child misses its blanket’ because – the fuck? What the fuck kind of lyrics are those? What eight year old wrote those? Those are some seriously AWFUL lyrics and that line ruins the ENTIRE song for me, I have to sing la la la la everytime she gets to that bit and I often just change the station instead of bothering. This is NOT the right kind of song for someone Lana’s age to be singing either, its about a really fucked up chick who needs to be on her own because she has some issue pertaining to her childhood or something. You don’t GET that at 17, hell you’ve barely given UP your blankie at 17. Stupid choice, stooooopid. And she doesn’t get it at all, she meanders across the stage with stiff Musical Theatre arm and hand waving in a hideous white puffy dress thing, she puts zero passion in the song and it is pure elevator music. She sings every note correctly, but like Daniel Misfud the night before, it is b-l-a-n-d.
Marcia tells her she looks like a picture – a picture of what exactly Marcia? One of those dolls you put over your toilet paper? – and then says she picked a perfect song for her age group – WHAT? I believe this is the earliest in any season of Idol where Marcia has officially lost the right to speak to contestants anymore. Dicko loves me more than Marcia and tells her it was a bad choice and whilst he is desperate for the other contestants to learn, he wants her to Unlearn as her default position is too mannered. Ad nauseam repeat, but I FUCKING love him. She is too High School Musical. Mark tells her that she is a very pretty little girl with a very pretty little voice. That is ALL that he says. He is patronisingly dismissive. Ass. Kyle has seen her sing better than that and that song needs to be sung sexier (and by an older woman.) Marcia asks her to rough herself up and Dicko tells her to smack Kyle in the face. Australians countrywide stand up and applaud.
James and G – who have not been NEARLY as witty as they were the previous night, sigh – once again ignore all the other judges to ask Dicko’s Final Thoughts. He tells them it’s a world of difference making it to the Top 12 then it is making it to Top 24 and then drops the bombshell that SonyBMG have insisted that only one contestant – the winner, obviously – will be getting a contract this year. I scoff loudly and doubt that very much, but just in case, I give dibs to my current favourites; Jacob, Sarah, Sally, Breanna, Mark, little Ben or Cheray.
Tuesday is Mark, Lyall, Dave, Ben, Jack and Marty. I can only see Mark and Lyall going through from that group – adorable though Ben may be . . . and my money’s on Tarasai and Cheray to go through from the girls. Maybe Sally. Let’s see, shall we?
Monday, August 27, 2007
It's like we're dating or something.
Brilliant! Top 24! Semi’s! Actual singing! Huzzah! It’s enough to make me giddy with anticipation and excitement because this is going to rock, right? They’ve overloaded the first male semi final with arguably the six most talented of the boys so this is going to be The Shit, yeah? Awesome!
That was me at the start of the night. Now, I am not a naïve or youthful idealist, no. I have a Bachelor of Arts, I am a woman used to disappointment, I'm single, I live with more than one cat, I know the pang of missed opportunites and hollow crushing failure. But I have never felt so betrayed – and by six guys all at the same time? It’s a new low Idol, a new low. And things, started out so very well because can I say, Andrew G in high definition is just so very pretty. And Mathieson’s trousers? Quite pleasantly tight around the crotch-el region – I am NOT a perv, Fosse noticed as well. Mark launches into the FANTASTIC news that Irish has made Idol history as the first one to have consecutive Number One albums on the Aria charts. I scream hysterically and immediately apologise to Abel who has taken to hiding in his bedroom when Idol is on. I also can’t find either of the cats. I’m not THAT loud, guys.
We quickly move on to our first SemiFinalist of the night, young Matt Corby who is keeping alive the tradition of someone singing Stevie Wonder in the SFs, by giving us ‘I Wish’, a pop tribute to being completely skint but okay with that. Frankly, I think Matt would have to stand on stage and vomit blood to the tune of Pop Goes The Weasel, to do any harm whatsoever to his actual chances of getting through. That being said as the first singer up, he ain’t exactly ringing my bell. Nor is he knocking on my door or tapping on my window, hell, he isn’t even walking down my driveway. He’s stopped at the end of my street staring at the sun, looking confused and eventually giving up and pulling a Joey from Friends and standing in the map so he can work out which way is North. Someone may have to give him a compass. That would explain why he’s stolen Yasser Arafat’s scarf, he thinks he’s in the desert – or has Marcia lent him a pashmina from the Mother Marcia Collection? He’s a little weak and flat in places and doesn’t have a great performing ‘vibe’ about him. Is it Singing First Up nerves? They can be killer. But there’s no blood or vomit and the crowd goes nuts, so he’s golden.
Mark liked his phrasing, pitch, falsetto (which I thought was lousy) but chides him on song choice and "knowing your lyric". Dicko stomps his feet and sulks about having to be seated next to Holden who will be stealing ideas from his brain all night, forcing him to look like he’s constantly agreeing with a man who can’t finish a Join The Dots drawing of a balloon. Marcia doesn’t know what either of them are talking about because she loves the young boys who sing Stevie whilst wearing tablecloths jauntily swung around their necks. Kyle takes up Mark and Dicko’s side, telling him he needs to live the lyrics more and that it looked like a dress rehearsal.
Unknown quantity Junior To’o is appealing to my massive hard on for anyone who slams George fucking Bush, by singing Pink’s ‘Dear Mr President’. But he immediately loses all points for song choice by RnBing the HELL out of it. He takes all the angry punch out of the song, singing it prettily. Prettily, Junior? Why must you hurt me so? This is a highly politicised pissed off song – have you seen Pink sing it? She has major jacked off face, furrowed angry brow and mean sneering lip going on and just because we aren’t American doesn’t mean we don’t get the anger – I personally have been pissed at Dubbya since he stole the election from President Gore, but don’t get me started – that’s a long angry rant I’ve done before. But Junior, where is the message? Where is the point of this song?
Dicko opens with a choice joke about young boys and bush that no one in the audience gets so he quickly moves on to pointing out the spite and defiance that Pink infuses this particular song with and seriously, the first few times I heard this song I couldn’t get through it without tearing up a little bit. (Shut up.) Marcia didn’t mind the lack of political stance and thought he put his own stamp on it and Kyle doesn’t give a flying fuck about political leanings in songs and I just hate that. Mark (who I remember SLAMMING DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee for not caring about the politics of Greenday’s ‘Holiday’) doesn’t care about the politics of this song and thinks he did make it his own. Bah. He also comments that it’s nice to have an RnB singer not oversinging and overlicking – which I heartily agree with and which gives Mathieson the opportunity to comment that “we’re glad you stayed away from overlicking”. Hah! Honestly, can we get James nominated for a Nobel prize or something? At the least, can we get him knighted? Get the boy an OBE, stat.
Sidebar : how much am I looking forward to Californication? Lots.
HotCarl Risely – huzzah! If they keep showing him playing the trumpet, he has my vote for life. Ohhhh, ouch. He has wisely chosen some more Michael Buble, but has sadly chosen his least jazzy song, ‘Home’. But happily, he suits it quite well, his tones are sweet. His nervousness shows in eyelash fluttering and a little microphone flute playing – but he quickly recovers his ground and grows more confident as the song goes on. He does have some weakness around some of the higher notes and this performance probably leans more toward vocal mimicry than pure singing but its my favourite so far. His voice has the same honeyed quality as Buble and Buble is VERY popular in this country, even if Carl could really use some more training – his voice is sweet, but I don’t know if its Idol. Also, in surprising news, he is hot (and I noticed last night, he has a bit of David Boreanaz from Buffy and Angel in him, especially around the eyes and eyebrows).
Marcia thinks he did it justice, fine singer, good intonation – even with the nerves. Kyle tells him he’s a beautiful looking man (amen) but that he was at about 70% and wants him to go hard. There is some mock flirting between the two and I like you Carl, but if you make me think about Kyle and sex ever again, we are through. I don’t like to think of Sandilands procreating one day, thanks very much. Mark thought the phrasing was a little bit imitative (get OUT of my head Holden, it freaks me out when you do that) but that he got a bit thin around the hook. Dicko says its not exactly man overboard, but neither is it a 21 gun salute, why set yourself up as the Swing Guy and then do the most RnB song that Buble does? (I am okay with Dicko being in my head). Song choice = Here’s where I stand as an artist. Dicko calls Idol viewers ‘musical tourists’ who need to know straight up who you are.
Daniel Misfud either has some horrific pox scarring on his neck that he’s covering up or he has a symbiotic relationship with the polycotton blend used by Australian scarfmakers. He is doing Diesel’s ‘Tip of my Tongue’ and I pre-emptively dislike it. His hair is coiffed. My first thought is that this would be better if he was playing the guitar himself. As it is, its kind of boring and a little . . .greasy. He just looks so damned pleased with himself. He sings it fine, but I’m finding him cheesy. Fosse thinks he may just be a really nice guy. I hate his song choice, I hate his stupid scarf and I am bored by him. B-l-a-n-d. Snore.
Mark calls him another strong contender who has underwhelmed by being too safe. Dicko grits his teeth and agrees again, saying Idol needs big moments (Casey singing ‘Here’s Where I Stand’, Chanel’s ‘Glory Box’, Callea’s ‘Prayer’ all nod and agree) but that this was pedestrian. Marcia thinks he did well and looked like he was enjoying himself and that he doesn’t have to give eleven every week, at which point Mark argues that he should give his all EVERY week (and is completely right, shut up Marcia). Kyle thinks Dicko and Mark may have confused him and Daniel attempts to defend his perf which leads to Kyle berating him for being dull. I wonder if maybe Daniel has been paying too much attention to the press who think he and Matt will get through and are on good odds to win the whole shebang and decided to just be safe this week.
Hold on to your makeup bags ladies, Husny Thalib is in the house and he’s wearing your best pantyhouse and stolen your eyeliner. He may just currently be my favourite Idol, I almost don’t care if he can sing or not, I just need his outlandish dress sense and the accoutrements that come with him. G says he’s wearing a cassingle of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch around his neck. Okay, we need a knighthood for G as well. Husny is singing Lenny Kravitz’s ‘If You Can’t Say No’. I don’t know this song at all but I suspect that doesn’t matter because I’m transfixed by his dancing and when he crotch thrusts in time with the music about halfway through, I lose my shit giggling gleefully. Dude is entertaining but he’s relying on too many tricks – the dancing is detracting from some weak vocals and really shit song choice. Oh, the judges are going to crucify him.
Kyle hated it and calls it lame, try hard, rubbish and camp. Mark loved most of it, loved the arrangement (which is apparently really different to the original and if so, then bravo – he’s the only one who arranged his song), calls him a trip and says he finds him strangely attractive. Dicko calls him an intriguing character but calls him out on poor song choice – yes! – because most viewers aren’t going to know that song and it’s not like he took a Portishead song and freaking rocked the performance giving the audience absolutely no choice but to put him through -right, Chanel? Marcia tells him not to underestimate the viewers and starts another argument with Mark about giving only drips and drabs to start with. Mark takes the opinion that that is no good if he’s not here next week and has wasted his only opportunity.
Jacob Hit Him Baby,One More Time Butler is singing Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’. His package shows him singing ‘Across The Universe’ again and I bark at the screen “no, bad Jacob, bad”. He overenunciates as he sings but this is a smart song choice – didn’t EVERYONE love this song? He’s got crazy nervous blinking going and I did not expect that from someone with such performance experience. He sings it quite well, he has the best voice of the night, I think, even if he does seem to be buckling under the pressure slightly.
Dicko talks about how Jacob’s background in reality shows relates to the song because of his dogged (get it? because dogs chase cars – HAH!) pursuit of The Career Through Reality Television, and then tells him his disbelief in his own ability to make it, is showing. He’s right, because if you’d tried as many times and as long as Jacob has tried, it becomes tougher to know you can do something the longer you try. You’re always starting over – my credit card payment scheme is EXACTLY the same. Marcia loves his song choice, Kyle tells him how much they already like him from the ‘other places’ they’ve seen him and by god, they are VERY careful not to say either ‘X’ or ‘Factor’, but that he needs to clear his mind, and Mark talks about the difficulty of doing that particular song due to the saturation by FM radio stations of anything vaguely connected with Grey’s Anatomy and the fact that it starts in a particular place and kind of stays there, there isn’t a real big build or dramatic moment. Still, I like the song, it evokes an emotion with me and I loved how he ended it so abruptly, it suited the song.
So. A mixed, rather disappointing bag, really. Only HotCarl and the antics of Husny made that episode memorable. There was no real standout, from a singing point of view, of course Husny stood out for everyone but that happens when you go to a Klu Klux Klan meeting dressed as the cast of the Cosby Show, or visit your local children’s centre wearing an evil clown costume dripping in blood (although technically you don't need the blood, as all clowns are evil). People remember you and not always for the right reasons. Probably just based on the fact that Matt and Daniel are very popular with the girly vote, it will probably be them through tonight, but based on performance, I would like to see HotCarl and Jacob make it through – however if they don’t, I have no concerns that they won’t both be Wildcarded.
Don’t underestimate the fey vote though, don’t be taken too far aback if Husny surprises the living hell out of all of us and crotch thrusts his way into the Top 12.
Girls tonight – Natalie, Sally, Tarasai, Cheray, Lana and Jesse - and I suspect they will quietly kick boy bottom . . .
That was me at the start of the night. Now, I am not a naïve or youthful idealist, no. I have a Bachelor of Arts, I am a woman used to disappointment, I'm single, I live with more than one cat, I know the pang of missed opportunites and hollow crushing failure. But I have never felt so betrayed – and by six guys all at the same time? It’s a new low Idol, a new low. And things, started out so very well because can I say, Andrew G in high definition is just so very pretty. And Mathieson’s trousers? Quite pleasantly tight around the crotch-el region – I am NOT a perv, Fosse noticed as well. Mark launches into the FANTASTIC news that Irish has made Idol history as the first one to have consecutive Number One albums on the Aria charts. I scream hysterically and immediately apologise to Abel who has taken to hiding in his bedroom when Idol is on. I also can’t find either of the cats. I’m not THAT loud, guys.
We quickly move on to our first SemiFinalist of the night, young Matt Corby who is keeping alive the tradition of someone singing Stevie Wonder in the SFs, by giving us ‘I Wish’, a pop tribute to being completely skint but okay with that. Frankly, I think Matt would have to stand on stage and vomit blood to the tune of Pop Goes The Weasel, to do any harm whatsoever to his actual chances of getting through. That being said as the first singer up, he ain’t exactly ringing my bell. Nor is he knocking on my door or tapping on my window, hell, he isn’t even walking down my driveway. He’s stopped at the end of my street staring at the sun, looking confused and eventually giving up and pulling a Joey from Friends and standing in the map so he can work out which way is North. Someone may have to give him a compass. That would explain why he’s stolen Yasser Arafat’s scarf, he thinks he’s in the desert – or has Marcia lent him a pashmina from the Mother Marcia Collection? He’s a little weak and flat in places and doesn’t have a great performing ‘vibe’ about him. Is it Singing First Up nerves? They can be killer. But there’s no blood or vomit and the crowd goes nuts, so he’s golden.
Mark liked his phrasing, pitch, falsetto (which I thought was lousy) but chides him on song choice and "knowing your lyric". Dicko stomps his feet and sulks about having to be seated next to Holden who will be stealing ideas from his brain all night, forcing him to look like he’s constantly agreeing with a man who can’t finish a Join The Dots drawing of a balloon. Marcia doesn’t know what either of them are talking about because she loves the young boys who sing Stevie whilst wearing tablecloths jauntily swung around their necks. Kyle takes up Mark and Dicko’s side, telling him he needs to live the lyrics more and that it looked like a dress rehearsal.
Unknown quantity Junior To’o is appealing to my massive hard on for anyone who slams George fucking Bush, by singing Pink’s ‘Dear Mr President’. But he immediately loses all points for song choice by RnBing the HELL out of it. He takes all the angry punch out of the song, singing it prettily. Prettily, Junior? Why must you hurt me so? This is a highly politicised pissed off song – have you seen Pink sing it? She has major jacked off face, furrowed angry brow and mean sneering lip going on and just because we aren’t American doesn’t mean we don’t get the anger – I personally have been pissed at Dubbya since he stole the election from President Gore, but don’t get me started – that’s a long angry rant I’ve done before. But Junior, where is the message? Where is the point of this song?
Dicko opens with a choice joke about young boys and bush that no one in the audience gets so he quickly moves on to pointing out the spite and defiance that Pink infuses this particular song with and seriously, the first few times I heard this song I couldn’t get through it without tearing up a little bit. (Shut up.) Marcia didn’t mind the lack of political stance and thought he put his own stamp on it and Kyle doesn’t give a flying fuck about political leanings in songs and I just hate that. Mark (who I remember SLAMMING DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee for not caring about the politics of Greenday’s ‘Holiday’) doesn’t care about the politics of this song and thinks he did make it his own. Bah. He also comments that it’s nice to have an RnB singer not oversinging and overlicking – which I heartily agree with and which gives Mathieson the opportunity to comment that “we’re glad you stayed away from overlicking”. Hah! Honestly, can we get James nominated for a Nobel prize or something? At the least, can we get him knighted? Get the boy an OBE, stat.
Sidebar : how much am I looking forward to Californication? Lots.
HotCarl Risely – huzzah! If they keep showing him playing the trumpet, he has my vote for life. Ohhhh, ouch. He has wisely chosen some more Michael Buble, but has sadly chosen his least jazzy song, ‘Home’. But happily, he suits it quite well, his tones are sweet. His nervousness shows in eyelash fluttering and a little microphone flute playing – but he quickly recovers his ground and grows more confident as the song goes on. He does have some weakness around some of the higher notes and this performance probably leans more toward vocal mimicry than pure singing but its my favourite so far. His voice has the same honeyed quality as Buble and Buble is VERY popular in this country, even if Carl could really use some more training – his voice is sweet, but I don’t know if its Idol. Also, in surprising news, he is hot (and I noticed last night, he has a bit of David Boreanaz from Buffy and Angel in him, especially around the eyes and eyebrows).
Marcia thinks he did it justice, fine singer, good intonation – even with the nerves. Kyle tells him he’s a beautiful looking man (amen) but that he was at about 70% and wants him to go hard. There is some mock flirting between the two and I like you Carl, but if you make me think about Kyle and sex ever again, we are through. I don’t like to think of Sandilands procreating one day, thanks very much. Mark thought the phrasing was a little bit imitative (get OUT of my head Holden, it freaks me out when you do that) but that he got a bit thin around the hook. Dicko says its not exactly man overboard, but neither is it a 21 gun salute, why set yourself up as the Swing Guy and then do the most RnB song that Buble does? (I am okay with Dicko being in my head). Song choice = Here’s where I stand as an artist. Dicko calls Idol viewers ‘musical tourists’ who need to know straight up who you are.
Daniel Misfud either has some horrific pox scarring on his neck that he’s covering up or he has a symbiotic relationship with the polycotton blend used by Australian scarfmakers. He is doing Diesel’s ‘Tip of my Tongue’ and I pre-emptively dislike it. His hair is coiffed. My first thought is that this would be better if he was playing the guitar himself. As it is, its kind of boring and a little . . .greasy. He just looks so damned pleased with himself. He sings it fine, but I’m finding him cheesy. Fosse thinks he may just be a really nice guy. I hate his song choice, I hate his stupid scarf and I am bored by him. B-l-a-n-d. Snore.
Mark calls him another strong contender who has underwhelmed by being too safe. Dicko grits his teeth and agrees again, saying Idol needs big moments (Casey singing ‘Here’s Where I Stand’, Chanel’s ‘Glory Box’, Callea’s ‘Prayer’ all nod and agree) but that this was pedestrian. Marcia thinks he did well and looked like he was enjoying himself and that he doesn’t have to give eleven every week, at which point Mark argues that he should give his all EVERY week (and is completely right, shut up Marcia). Kyle thinks Dicko and Mark may have confused him and Daniel attempts to defend his perf which leads to Kyle berating him for being dull. I wonder if maybe Daniel has been paying too much attention to the press who think he and Matt will get through and are on good odds to win the whole shebang and decided to just be safe this week.
Hold on to your makeup bags ladies, Husny Thalib is in the house and he’s wearing your best pantyhouse and stolen your eyeliner. He may just currently be my favourite Idol, I almost don’t care if he can sing or not, I just need his outlandish dress sense and the accoutrements that come with him. G says he’s wearing a cassingle of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch around his neck. Okay, we need a knighthood for G as well. Husny is singing Lenny Kravitz’s ‘If You Can’t Say No’. I don’t know this song at all but I suspect that doesn’t matter because I’m transfixed by his dancing and when he crotch thrusts in time with the music about halfway through, I lose my shit giggling gleefully. Dude is entertaining but he’s relying on too many tricks – the dancing is detracting from some weak vocals and really shit song choice. Oh, the judges are going to crucify him.
Kyle hated it and calls it lame, try hard, rubbish and camp. Mark loved most of it, loved the arrangement (which is apparently really different to the original and if so, then bravo – he’s the only one who arranged his song), calls him a trip and says he finds him strangely attractive. Dicko calls him an intriguing character but calls him out on poor song choice – yes! – because most viewers aren’t going to know that song and it’s not like he took a Portishead song and freaking rocked the performance giving the audience absolutely no choice but to put him through -right, Chanel? Marcia tells him not to underestimate the viewers and starts another argument with Mark about giving only drips and drabs to start with. Mark takes the opinion that that is no good if he’s not here next week and has wasted his only opportunity.
Jacob Hit Him Baby,One More Time Butler is singing Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’. His package shows him singing ‘Across The Universe’ again and I bark at the screen “no, bad Jacob, bad”. He overenunciates as he sings but this is a smart song choice – didn’t EVERYONE love this song? He’s got crazy nervous blinking going and I did not expect that from someone with such performance experience. He sings it quite well, he has the best voice of the night, I think, even if he does seem to be buckling under the pressure slightly.
Dicko talks about how Jacob’s background in reality shows relates to the song because of his dogged (get it? because dogs chase cars – HAH!) pursuit of The Career Through Reality Television, and then tells him his disbelief in his own ability to make it, is showing. He’s right, because if you’d tried as many times and as long as Jacob has tried, it becomes tougher to know you can do something the longer you try. You’re always starting over – my credit card payment scheme is EXACTLY the same. Marcia loves his song choice, Kyle tells him how much they already like him from the ‘other places’ they’ve seen him and by god, they are VERY careful not to say either ‘X’ or ‘Factor’, but that he needs to clear his mind, and Mark talks about the difficulty of doing that particular song due to the saturation by FM radio stations of anything vaguely connected with Grey’s Anatomy and the fact that it starts in a particular place and kind of stays there, there isn’t a real big build or dramatic moment. Still, I like the song, it evokes an emotion with me and I loved how he ended it so abruptly, it suited the song.
So. A mixed, rather disappointing bag, really. Only HotCarl and the antics of Husny made that episode memorable. There was no real standout, from a singing point of view, of course Husny stood out for everyone but that happens when you go to a Klu Klux Klan meeting dressed as the cast of the Cosby Show, or visit your local children’s centre wearing an evil clown costume dripping in blood (although technically you don't need the blood, as all clowns are evil). People remember you and not always for the right reasons. Probably just based on the fact that Matt and Daniel are very popular with the girly vote, it will probably be them through tonight, but based on performance, I would like to see HotCarl and Jacob make it through – however if they don’t, I have no concerns that they won’t both be Wildcarded.
Don’t underestimate the fey vote though, don’t be taken too far aback if Husny surprises the living hell out of all of us and crotch thrusts his way into the Top 12.
Girls tonight – Natalie, Sally, Tarasai, Cheray, Lana and Jesse - and I suspect they will quietly kick boy bottom . . .
Friday, August 24, 2007
Ask me why I'm angry and I will punch you.
Here we go. Finally! Cutting the dross down to the Semi Finalists. Let’s cut right to the chase, let's kick this puppy and how!
Sixty three are left to be put through the mean, nasty, psychosis inducing process of one on one yes/no drawn out interviews with the judges. They’re putting through 12 guys and 12 girls – sucks if you’re that 13th guy who is massively more talented then the 12th girl they put through. I call that guy Dewayne Everett-Smith. I also call the judges massive tools.
Tarasai Vushe and her big, booming Gift From God voice, is the first girl through. Her solo performance is waaaaaaay oversung but I do enjoy the vaguely gospel-ly aspects of it, and when she pauses after BELTING a note, to cheekily ask if the audience heard her, she gets a laugh from them and me. Keep the humour, love but slow down on the Praise Jesus and the bigger then Ben Hur notes and we’ll get along fine. (Also – never again match your eye shadow to your top. The Fug Girls will fug you like they fugged Amali.)
Daniel Misfud is up next and no-one really thinks this guy isn’t getting through, right? It’s not backwards day or anything. His solo perf is laid back and Irish has been kind enough to lend him the Idol Falsetto. That’s sweet. Now go and buy his CD. Now, bitches.
Both Mildura girls Jesse Curran and Holly Weinert go in together because omigod, they are like so totally the same person, can you even tell them apart because I know I can't, they are such total bookends!! I mean, they're like both TOTALLY blonde and both really good singers and both from Mildura!! Totally!! For real!! Maybe they’re related?!! Oh my god, are they twins??!! Stupid show. I personally prefer Jesse’s voice, she has a gorgeous natural quaver going on. Holly’s solo was ‘Blackbird’ (by way of the Sarah McLachlan version, I believe) and I have to say, I didn’t care for it at all but that’s more about the arrangement and less about her voice.
WA boy Mustard gets knocked back. He takes it gracefully. This will be a recurring theme until we hit Jasmine.
Cat eyed Brianna Carpenter is still my current fave (go check out her Myspace page, her original shit is AWESOME). She thinks she’s quirky and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s self aware or a little pretentious. Time will tell. Hope it’s the former. She wants the show to embrace left of centre and you can practically see Marcia’s hackles rise there because she can smell Eau De Chanel Cole – and that ain’t one of Mother Marcia’s favourite things, boys and girls. Through clenched and gritted teeth, Marcia tells her she’s in.
Dylan Yeandle's cheeky passion and actually quite awesome rendition of The Cure’s ‘Love Cats’ isn’t enough to get him through the SemiFinal door. He is heartbroken but I am glad to see that his often previewed hissy fit moment of shoving a glass off a table is done in light (broken)hearted jest. Bravo on taking it so well, young sir.
HotCarl Risely the trumpeter is up next and I have to pause the tape and clean up the mouthful of pasta that goes flying across the room when Mathieson says that his horn is his best friend. Dudes, seriously? The trumpet is SO very very hot. His solo includes both the playing of the trumpet and tilting his chiselled jaw at us. His biceps also do a lovely thing when he shakes the judges hands (pausing to kiss Kyle’s – eww, you do not know where that thing has been) after they put him through. You know, sometimes I just plain forget he’s here to sing . . .
Cheray Doughty is another of my favourites right from her first audition. Her solo is the usually career killing Four Non Blondes ‘What’s Going On’ but her version is gorgeous in its restraint and I loudly applaud her arranging skills. She is overjoyed to make it through and it’s at this point that I notice young Ben McKenzie is one of the first to hug whoever comes out from panel.
Jordan You Can Never Be Too Orange Paris, is wearing a white suit that is colour co-ordinated to his teeth. His flashbacks remind me that, crazy suits and overtanning aside, he doesn’t have a terrible voice but he cheesily overperforms ‘Right Here Waiting’ for his solo and as much as thinks he is in, he isn’t. His lip literally quivers and my cold bitchy heart breaks a little for him.
The silky voiced motherfucking awesomeness of Dewayne Everett-Smith doesn’t get through. I’m so FUCKING FURIOUS about that, that I can’t even LOOK at the judges without wanting to punch every single one of them in the middle of the throat. They ask him to come back next year and Marcia is crying and I scream at him to PUNCH THEM DEWAYNE, PUNCH THEM HARD.
Johnny Depp impersonator Husny Thalib strangely chose my favourite karaoke song ‘Torn’ for his solo performance. It’s not bad. It’s not great though he is definitely individual and completely different to anyone else in the competition. There’s a place for him in the Semi’s. (BUT NOT FOR DEWAYNE. NEED TO PUNCH SOMEONE SOOOO HARD).
Our favourite nutter Jasmine Anderson, who I still thought was a dead cert to get through based on her original audition and her solid solo perf of ‘Lean On Me’, obviously pushed her luck waaaay too far with her group shenanigans and even her tearful mea culpa to panel will help her now. She FABULOUSLY loses her shit (and although it’s for herself, I like to think a little of it was for Dewayne). It is a hissy fit worthy of Joan Collins in Dynasty, circa 1984. I fully expected her to throw a glass of whisky in Mark’s face and have a catfight in a waterfountain with Marcia with both of them wearing ear high shoulder pads – come on, you know Marcia could lend her something without even having to get clothing out of storage. Call her crazy, but chick can still totally rock out a tune. But, yeah, killer fatigue. Killer.
Wonderful little crooner Sarah Lloyde, who made the Top 100 in 2005 but has never gotten any further, giggles giddily when she gets in. Awwww, she's cute. And friends with Jacob.
Group Nicole, Tim, Nikki and Chad go in together and are all told no. Time saving, I likey. Me no likey? When the next group brought in, which consists of Annabel, Daniel, Shaye and Jack Byrnes is told that it's a no. Except for one of you. So that's, let me see - amazing low. Followed by amazing speculative scary potential high. And then amazing bottoming like a drunk out of three dollar hooch low for the three people who aren't Jack. It's like a quick lesson in what its like to have bipolar disorder. Cruel, show.
MiniJohnButler, shaggy haired and over eyebrowed Marty Simpson sings Tom Petty's 'Won't Back Down'. It's got a laid back beachy feel to it and he has a pretty good voice, but he isn't impressing the judges with his personality. He however, is still in. I am still pissed about Dewayne.
Like Daniel before him, Matt I Am NOT Dean Geyer Mark II Corby doesn't really need to be put through this rigmarole bullshit we're so sorry but we have to . . . put you in! Hah! Faked you out totally, right? Please. Don't waste our motherfucking time. Now, I put it to you that the kid has a good voice (he's sixteen, he's sixteen) and is pretty cute. But I'm making the call now - he'll make the Top 12, of course he will. He won't win. Brand me foolish. Laugh at me if you will, but like Anthony Callea and Dean Geyer before him, the tween vote won't be enough. He'll need to persuade us oldies, we control the Idol vote, this ain't Big Brother. If Tim Brunero could sing, he'd have cakewalked Idol.
Let's move on to Ben McKenzie, adorable little ragamuffin who is told they think he's too young (he's the same freaking age as the last guy you saw, wankers, but yes, he IS too young and so is Matt . . . ) He's in. I will spend his performance biting my nails worrying about him. God.
Jacob Butler, oh you silly silly boy, 'Across The Universe'? Do you not know that Chanel Cole fucking owns the Idol rights to this song? And no one else is allowed to sing it. Ever. Don't make me hurt you - if you come on the show and do 'Constant Craving' or 'History Repeating' I will have to break your arm. They put him through and he runs outside straight into the arms of Ben McKenzie - seriously, that kid is getting body time with everyone.
Joining the ranks of cute girls through is Natalie Gauci who kicks ass with her own version of 'Crazy'. She's very very cute, I love her scarf and she knows how to sing a song at her loudest and proudest without strangling the notes. I like more of the girls this season. Some really good voices.
Rather pretty Lyall Adonis makes me like The Verves 'Drugs Don't Work'. It's lovely and restrained - I'm a big fan of restraint, its more emotional than the belting the living hell out of and oversinging vocal gymnastics favoured by 'big' singers like Tarasai. I'm relieved we appear to only have one of them this season. He is through and my goodness, we DO have some hottie boys this season. Yowzah.
It's 4.30 fucking am before they get to the final two girls. Dude, that sucks. It's not good for your nerves to be tortured for that long - can we get the Geneva Convention altered or the UN on to this or something? The last two are Rosie Ribbons and Cyndi Dietrich and I'm sorry Cyndi, but Rosie is amazing, you have to know going in that it's her and not you. Rosie's voice is just great and she didn't make Top Six of UK Idol for nothing. Cyndi sang Sarah McLachlan's 'Angel' and again, why do a song that a previous Idol (in this case, Hayley) owned? Silly. Redundant. Rosie sang 'Stand By Me', a song that I'm not thrilled by for this kind of competition and I hope her song choice is better at the semi's, but when Marcia asks Rosie what this means to her, her answer is perfect in her simplicity; "I don't believe that I'm not supposed to sing". That's how you acknowledge destiny or fate and praise whatever higher power you believe in. Rosie goes through, Cyndi is understandably sad and I note that not one of Jasmine's group got through.
The last two boys to see panel are Dave Andrews (who is keeping his daughter up at 4.30 am, bad daddy!) and James Davies. Both guys are quite good singers, both with their own unique qualities and although they tell James that he's the one they think is ready, they put Dave through. I'm ambivalent about this one, I must admit. I don't think Dave will make it past the semi's and I'm still just red rage coma inducingly pissed that they didn't put Dewayne in. Remember season one, when they brought that guy back who made it to the top 100 but not the semi's? I don't remember his name, but they Wildcarded him, maybe they'll see the error of their ways and Wildcard Dewayne. Otherwise, someone needs to be punched. Punched.
Oh, and as usual we didn't get to see some people who made it to the Semi's - this year they completely ignored Junior To'o, Mark da Costa, Sally van der Zwart, Lana Krost, Madison Pritchett and Morgan Hosking. So odds are, as no one knows who they are, unless they ROCK the hell out of their semi final perfomance, they won't make it to the Top 12.
Sunday night, the boys are up first - Matt (dead cert), Jacob, Lyall, Daniel (dead cert), Husny and HotCarl.
Sixty three are left to be put through the mean, nasty, psychosis inducing process of one on one yes/no drawn out interviews with the judges. They’re putting through 12 guys and 12 girls – sucks if you’re that 13th guy who is massively more talented then the 12th girl they put through. I call that guy Dewayne Everett-Smith. I also call the judges massive tools.
Tarasai Vushe and her big, booming Gift From God voice, is the first girl through. Her solo performance is waaaaaaay oversung but I do enjoy the vaguely gospel-ly aspects of it, and when she pauses after BELTING a note, to cheekily ask if the audience heard her, she gets a laugh from them and me. Keep the humour, love but slow down on the Praise Jesus and the bigger then Ben Hur notes and we’ll get along fine. (Also – never again match your eye shadow to your top. The Fug Girls will fug you like they fugged Amali.)
Daniel Misfud is up next and no-one really thinks this guy isn’t getting through, right? It’s not backwards day or anything. His solo perf is laid back and Irish has been kind enough to lend him the Idol Falsetto. That’s sweet. Now go and buy his CD. Now, bitches.
Both Mildura girls Jesse Curran and Holly Weinert go in together because omigod, they are like so totally the same person, can you even tell them apart because I know I can't, they are such total bookends!! I mean, they're like both TOTALLY blonde and both really good singers and both from Mildura!! Totally!! For real!! Maybe they’re related?!! Oh my god, are they twins??!! Stupid show. I personally prefer Jesse’s voice, she has a gorgeous natural quaver going on. Holly’s solo was ‘Blackbird’ (by way of the Sarah McLachlan version, I believe) and I have to say, I didn’t care for it at all but that’s more about the arrangement and less about her voice.
WA boy Mustard gets knocked back. He takes it gracefully. This will be a recurring theme until we hit Jasmine.
Cat eyed Brianna Carpenter is still my current fave (go check out her Myspace page, her original shit is AWESOME). She thinks she’s quirky and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s self aware or a little pretentious. Time will tell. Hope it’s the former. She wants the show to embrace left of centre and you can practically see Marcia’s hackles rise there because she can smell Eau De Chanel Cole – and that ain’t one of Mother Marcia’s favourite things, boys and girls. Through clenched and gritted teeth, Marcia tells her she’s in.
Dylan Yeandle's cheeky passion and actually quite awesome rendition of The Cure’s ‘Love Cats’ isn’t enough to get him through the SemiFinal door. He is heartbroken but I am glad to see that his often previewed hissy fit moment of shoving a glass off a table is done in light (broken)hearted jest. Bravo on taking it so well, young sir.
HotCarl Risely the trumpeter is up next and I have to pause the tape and clean up the mouthful of pasta that goes flying across the room when Mathieson says that his horn is his best friend. Dudes, seriously? The trumpet is SO very very hot. His solo includes both the playing of the trumpet and tilting his chiselled jaw at us. His biceps also do a lovely thing when he shakes the judges hands (pausing to kiss Kyle’s – eww, you do not know where that thing has been) after they put him through. You know, sometimes I just plain forget he’s here to sing . . .
Cheray Doughty is another of my favourites right from her first audition. Her solo is the usually career killing Four Non Blondes ‘What’s Going On’ but her version is gorgeous in its restraint and I loudly applaud her arranging skills. She is overjoyed to make it through and it’s at this point that I notice young Ben McKenzie is one of the first to hug whoever comes out from panel.
Jordan You Can Never Be Too Orange Paris, is wearing a white suit that is colour co-ordinated to his teeth. His flashbacks remind me that, crazy suits and overtanning aside, he doesn’t have a terrible voice but he cheesily overperforms ‘Right Here Waiting’ for his solo and as much as thinks he is in, he isn’t. His lip literally quivers and my cold bitchy heart breaks a little for him.
The silky voiced motherfucking awesomeness of Dewayne Everett-Smith doesn’t get through. I’m so FUCKING FURIOUS about that, that I can’t even LOOK at the judges without wanting to punch every single one of them in the middle of the throat. They ask him to come back next year and Marcia is crying and I scream at him to PUNCH THEM DEWAYNE, PUNCH THEM HARD.
Johnny Depp impersonator Husny Thalib strangely chose my favourite karaoke song ‘Torn’ for his solo performance. It’s not bad. It’s not great though he is definitely individual and completely different to anyone else in the competition. There’s a place for him in the Semi’s. (BUT NOT FOR DEWAYNE. NEED TO PUNCH SOMEONE SOOOO HARD).
Our favourite nutter Jasmine Anderson, who I still thought was a dead cert to get through based on her original audition and her solid solo perf of ‘Lean On Me’, obviously pushed her luck waaaay too far with her group shenanigans and even her tearful mea culpa to panel will help her now. She FABULOUSLY loses her shit (and although it’s for herself, I like to think a little of it was for Dewayne). It is a hissy fit worthy of Joan Collins in Dynasty, circa 1984. I fully expected her to throw a glass of whisky in Mark’s face and have a catfight in a waterfountain with Marcia with both of them wearing ear high shoulder pads – come on, you know Marcia could lend her something without even having to get clothing out of storage. Call her crazy, but chick can still totally rock out a tune. But, yeah, killer fatigue. Killer.
Wonderful little crooner Sarah Lloyde, who made the Top 100 in 2005 but has never gotten any further, giggles giddily when she gets in. Awwww, she's cute. And friends with Jacob.
Group Nicole, Tim, Nikki and Chad go in together and are all told no. Time saving, I likey. Me no likey? When the next group brought in, which consists of Annabel, Daniel, Shaye and Jack Byrnes is told that it's a no. Except for one of you. So that's, let me see - amazing low. Followed by amazing speculative scary potential high. And then amazing bottoming like a drunk out of three dollar hooch low for the three people who aren't Jack. It's like a quick lesson in what its like to have bipolar disorder. Cruel, show.
MiniJohnButler, shaggy haired and over eyebrowed Marty Simpson sings Tom Petty's 'Won't Back Down'. It's got a laid back beachy feel to it and he has a pretty good voice, but he isn't impressing the judges with his personality. He however, is still in. I am still pissed about Dewayne.
Like Daniel before him, Matt I Am NOT Dean Geyer Mark II Corby doesn't really need to be put through this rigmarole bullshit we're so sorry but we have to . . . put you in! Hah! Faked you out totally, right? Please. Don't waste our motherfucking time. Now, I put it to you that the kid has a good voice (he's sixteen, he's sixteen) and is pretty cute. But I'm making the call now - he'll make the Top 12, of course he will. He won't win. Brand me foolish. Laugh at me if you will, but like Anthony Callea and Dean Geyer before him, the tween vote won't be enough. He'll need to persuade us oldies, we control the Idol vote, this ain't Big Brother. If Tim Brunero could sing, he'd have cakewalked Idol.
Let's move on to Ben McKenzie, adorable little ragamuffin who is told they think he's too young (he's the same freaking age as the last guy you saw, wankers, but yes, he IS too young and so is Matt . . . ) He's in. I will spend his performance biting my nails worrying about him. God.
Jacob Butler, oh you silly silly boy, 'Across The Universe'? Do you not know that Chanel Cole fucking owns the Idol rights to this song? And no one else is allowed to sing it. Ever. Don't make me hurt you - if you come on the show and do 'Constant Craving' or 'History Repeating' I will have to break your arm. They put him through and he runs outside straight into the arms of Ben McKenzie - seriously, that kid is getting body time with everyone.
Joining the ranks of cute girls through is Natalie Gauci who kicks ass with her own version of 'Crazy'. She's very very cute, I love her scarf and she knows how to sing a song at her loudest and proudest without strangling the notes. I like more of the girls this season. Some really good voices.
Rather pretty Lyall Adonis makes me like The Verves 'Drugs Don't Work'. It's lovely and restrained - I'm a big fan of restraint, its more emotional than the belting the living hell out of and oversinging vocal gymnastics favoured by 'big' singers like Tarasai. I'm relieved we appear to only have one of them this season. He is through and my goodness, we DO have some hottie boys this season. Yowzah.
It's 4.30 fucking am before they get to the final two girls. Dude, that sucks. It's not good for your nerves to be tortured for that long - can we get the Geneva Convention altered or the UN on to this or something? The last two are Rosie Ribbons and Cyndi Dietrich and I'm sorry Cyndi, but Rosie is amazing, you have to know going in that it's her and not you. Rosie's voice is just great and she didn't make Top Six of UK Idol for nothing. Cyndi sang Sarah McLachlan's 'Angel' and again, why do a song that a previous Idol (in this case, Hayley) owned? Silly. Redundant. Rosie sang 'Stand By Me', a song that I'm not thrilled by for this kind of competition and I hope her song choice is better at the semi's, but when Marcia asks Rosie what this means to her, her answer is perfect in her simplicity; "I don't believe that I'm not supposed to sing". That's how you acknowledge destiny or fate and praise whatever higher power you believe in. Rosie goes through, Cyndi is understandably sad and I note that not one of Jasmine's group got through.
The last two boys to see panel are Dave Andrews (who is keeping his daughter up at 4.30 am, bad daddy!) and James Davies. Both guys are quite good singers, both with their own unique qualities and although they tell James that he's the one they think is ready, they put Dave through. I'm ambivalent about this one, I must admit. I don't think Dave will make it past the semi's and I'm still just red rage coma inducingly pissed that they didn't put Dewayne in. Remember season one, when they brought that guy back who made it to the top 100 but not the semi's? I don't remember his name, but they Wildcarded him, maybe they'll see the error of their ways and Wildcard Dewayne. Otherwise, someone needs to be punched. Punched.
Oh, and as usual we didn't get to see some people who made it to the Semi's - this year they completely ignored Junior To'o, Mark da Costa, Sally van der Zwart, Lana Krost, Madison Pritchett and Morgan Hosking. So odds are, as no one knows who they are, unless they ROCK the hell out of their semi final perfomance, they won't make it to the Top 12.
Sunday night, the boys are up first - Matt (dead cert), Jacob, Lyall, Daniel (dead cert), Husny and HotCarl.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Daniel Johns made zero (0) friends today
It’s the Seymour Centre? Already? Really? Didn’t that both fly by and crawl painfully? Idol Contestant Hopefuls about to have their dreams crushed out of them like so many fingers caught in a garlic press, bound gaily into Australian Idol Sponsored Mazda’s and marvel at the many sights Sydney has to offer. I marvel at the rather significant amount of them who appear to not be wearing their seatbelts as they gad about town. Then I tut. Then I realise that I just channeled my mother and get the full blown body creeps. (love you Mamma, hola!)
Never one to suffer large numbers gladly, Mark Holden immediately breaks the news that because his abacus broke and he counted his toes too many times, they accidentally put a smidgen too many untalented fools through and like kangaroo’s in the outback, there’s a cullin' a comin'. Forty of the least likely to make it through are told to sack up or go home, and I would argue that if they’re that unlikely to make it to the Semi Finals, here’s a revolutionary idea – DON’T SEND THEM TO SYDNEY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
MOTHERFUCKERS.
For real, forty really excited singers who legitimately thought they were in with a chance to soar the dizzying heights of Idol fame, who didn’t sleep for the WEEK before they flew in to Sydney, who told EVERYONE they know that, yes, they made it to the Top 100; didn’t even get to raid their mini bars properly. They now have to go home and tell their parents, their friends, their singing teachers, that no, they weren’t good enough. I imagine that probably stung slightly, don’t you?
Mixing madness in his method, Holden DARED to put HotTrumpeterCarl Risely in this Bottom 40 – but success! He Harry Connick Jr’s much more successfully then he Michael Buble’d – put him through!! They can keep at least four and still have a Top 100!! All ten of the first group get return tickets home; lone Anthony Newcote is the only one from group two; two unnamed lasses from group three and then Kyle Chorus Line’s group four and the people in the front line go home. They all look, understandably, pissed. HotCarl is safe. Phew.
Solo line singing for the rest . . . Daniel Misfud and his bouncy hair don’t sing Green Limousine nearly as well as Chanel, I don’t care how hot Fosse thinks he is. Sarah Lloyde and Sally van der Zwart (that ain’t going to work across an album cover, love) both sound fantastic singing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and Tennessee Waltz, respectively. All three singers make it through and I comment to Eupholoofo that we’ve already seen more singing in the first twenty mins then we did ALL last season Seymour Centre.
Singer after singer attempts to screech their way through instead of singing and unsurprisingly, that doesn’t so much work. Mark DaCosta rocks the living HELL out of Evie – damn, Idol is determined to make me like this song, isn’t it? Morgan Hosking sings some hauntingly gorgeous melody and if anyone knows what that was, please email me! Jacob Butler is letting his growl out and Euph is not ashamed to report that he has made her knees tremble since his X Factor days. I see it, but do not share it.
Casey Marangon-Elliot’s quite well performed number gets slammed by Kyle and starts an argument about song choice in which the conclusion is; Kyle Knows Jack Shit. We are all astonishment.
Shamara-Lea Hassett does not sing as well or look as comfortable as she did during her sit in audition, she looks like she hungers to have her guitar in her hands and gets herself sent home along with roughly twenty three others as we are left with a grand total of seventy seven – yes, 77 – still to torture.
Mathieson and G stand in the cold Sydney rain as Euph and I launch ourselves at the tv wanting to give them both hugs – G needs a hug! Look he’s cold, vegans have no body fat! I have body fat! Hug me G!! I’m warm blooded!
Holden breaks the apparently awful news that the group songs will be unisex. Yeah? So? And then that they won’t have any help from John Foreman or Erana Clark. Right. Well, now I call bullshit. This fucking process is obviously difficult enough, so why – WHY – take away any shred of decent musical support and give them one of their shit stirring judges? They need impartial help at this point. Not someone who is going to *spoiler* slink around the fucking corridors looking for trouble or who will lurk on the end of a walkie talkie to hear from the camera crews where he can cause the most trouble. BULL. SHIT.
This years group songs are two really quite difficult ones that you should never attempt to harmonise as a newly formed group of nervous singers trying to impress three bitchy judges and the Wigged One; and an obviously really quite smart choice, smarter then the other two to the point where I can’t believe they didn’t have it highlighted in bright pink marker and with some kind of motion sensing device attached to it so that everytime you looked at, it beeped at you and cried in the voice of Stephen Fry, ‘pick me, pick me’ . . .
Straight Lines – silverchair (no, not this one)
Knowing Me, Knowing You – ABBA (nuh-uh, keep going)
End of the Road – Boys II Men (ding ding ding!!)
Supergroup Matt Corby, Rosie Ribbons, Daniel Misfud and Natalie Gauci (may I potentially introduce you to your Final Four?) decide on EotR after Matt comments that Straight Lines is ‘a really hard song’. This will become DEAFENINGLY important very very soon to other people. But not these four. These four are grown up, gorgeous and golden.
Killer Fatigue takes out players all over the damn hotel as Husny Thalib argues with his peroxided groupmate Phil, an argument that just goes on and on, when they should be shutting up and getting the fuck on with it. Dude.
But wait! There’s more and better shit to hit the fan as we quickly move to Northern Territorian Jasmine whose wig has completely flipped - her group of Chad, Dylan and persistent three times this season auditionee Cyndi Dietrich eventually decided to try on Daniel Johns’ falsetto and Jasmine is breaking in pieces right in front of our very eyes as she realises that THEY CAN’T. More specifically? That SHE won’t . . . Holden, in an act of what I can only imagine was pure LUCK, stumbles on to their hotel room and immediately uses his spider senses to hone in on Jasmine’s jacked off visage. He pokes the tiger, saying the group song is to see who can handle pressure and who will crack. Crap. It’s about good tv. It’s about mostly unseasoned and non professional kids staying up all motherfucking night to learn a fucking pop song, trying to work with other non professional kids to harmonise so they don’t sound like cats on heat, then coming in the next day on no sleep, hungry, starving for YOUR approval Holden, dehydrated because they don’t know how to look after themselves and dancing like monkeys for our unadulterated viewing pleasure. The group song NEVER means anything. It barely registers in regards to who you put through to the semi’s. If it did, we would see actual consequences and year after year you put through weaker group performances because they aced their individual auditions. We’re not stupid. Shut up Mark.
Jasmine, who is magnificently backed into a corner by the famous tv star who will later be JUDGING HER strangely looks sullen as Holden berates her and tells her she’s a miserable cow. Awwww, that’s helping, Mark, good work. Yes, she’s being a pain but hey, nonetheless, that’s stellar advice. How she didn’t jump up and just stab him, I don’t know.
HotCarl Risely sleeps with his trumpet. That is strangely, not a euphemism.
Those Lynx BamChicka ads are fucking gold.
More shit goes on. Jasmine says she’s pulling a Jorge Bec and leaving. Then she’s telling her groupmates who basically don’t give a flying fuck because its THREE IN THE MORNING, then lo and behold Holden comes in on his white steed of Mischief to convince her to stay. Even if her voice is shredded. They obviously want this girl in the semi’s. All I’m saying. Because there is no other way on this green earth that her group gets through otherwise. They are bollocks. Cyndi is the only one keeping her shit together in any way, shape or form and is the ONLY one who deserved to get through. The fact that they put all four of them through stinks of shenanigans to me and says Jasmine is in the Top 24. She has a great voice, but she’ll need to keep an eye on the sullen, methinks. She breaks down afterwards – ohhh, lookee, our first real emotional damage of the season. Huzzah! Well done, show.
The silverchair songs proves to be everyone’s downfall – we pause briefly to hate on Tarasai who tries to start a Hillsong convention in the auditorium. HotCarl’s group does not a great job, do (but Monday night previews show him so he makes it through). Then Matt, Rosie, Daniel and Natalie save the day – their End of the Road is pretty effing awesome, right up there with Chris Murphy and Dean Geyer’s Beautiful Day from last season. They communicate very well on stage and you can pick the kids who’ve done this sort of shit before, they have their asses together. Then it’s a cascading waterfall of good group after good group – most of whom have chosen EotR and not Straight Line – Daniel Johns sits at home watching Idol, chuckling evilly to himself and getting more friends addicted to Facebook.
We see lovely individual performances from Lana Krost, Jack Byrnes and Junior To’o and then G & James break it to us that there are sixty four left.
You . . .
Ex . . . cuse . . . me?
The fuck?
We just had seventy seven. We had group perfs and there are STILL SIXTY FOUR? You wankers only ditched THIRTEEN from the group performan . . . . fuck off show. Just fuck right off. I can’t speak to you right now. I’ll see you Monday night as you continue to not show me any Brianna Carpenter.
Bastards.
Never one to suffer large numbers gladly, Mark Holden immediately breaks the news that because his abacus broke and he counted his toes too many times, they accidentally put a smidgen too many untalented fools through and like kangaroo’s in the outback, there’s a cullin' a comin'. Forty of the least likely to make it through are told to sack up or go home, and I would argue that if they’re that unlikely to make it to the Semi Finals, here’s a revolutionary idea – DON’T SEND THEM TO SYDNEY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
MOTHERFUCKERS.
For real, forty really excited singers who legitimately thought they were in with a chance to soar the dizzying heights of Idol fame, who didn’t sleep for the WEEK before they flew in to Sydney, who told EVERYONE they know that, yes, they made it to the Top 100; didn’t even get to raid their mini bars properly. They now have to go home and tell their parents, their friends, their singing teachers, that no, they weren’t good enough. I imagine that probably stung slightly, don’t you?
Mixing madness in his method, Holden DARED to put HotTrumpeterCarl Risely in this Bottom 40 – but success! He Harry Connick Jr’s much more successfully then he Michael Buble’d – put him through!! They can keep at least four and still have a Top 100!! All ten of the first group get return tickets home; lone Anthony Newcote is the only one from group two; two unnamed lasses from group three and then Kyle Chorus Line’s group four and the people in the front line go home. They all look, understandably, pissed. HotCarl is safe. Phew.
Solo line singing for the rest . . . Daniel Misfud and his bouncy hair don’t sing Green Limousine nearly as well as Chanel, I don’t care how hot Fosse thinks he is. Sarah Lloyde and Sally van der Zwart (that ain’t going to work across an album cover, love) both sound fantastic singing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and Tennessee Waltz, respectively. All three singers make it through and I comment to Eupholoofo that we’ve already seen more singing in the first twenty mins then we did ALL last season Seymour Centre.
Singer after singer attempts to screech their way through instead of singing and unsurprisingly, that doesn’t so much work. Mark DaCosta rocks the living HELL out of Evie – damn, Idol is determined to make me like this song, isn’t it? Morgan Hosking sings some hauntingly gorgeous melody and if anyone knows what that was, please email me! Jacob Butler is letting his growl out and Euph is not ashamed to report that he has made her knees tremble since his X Factor days. I see it, but do not share it.
Casey Marangon-Elliot’s quite well performed number gets slammed by Kyle and starts an argument about song choice in which the conclusion is; Kyle Knows Jack Shit. We are all astonishment.
Shamara-Lea Hassett does not sing as well or look as comfortable as she did during her sit in audition, she looks like she hungers to have her guitar in her hands and gets herself sent home along with roughly twenty three others as we are left with a grand total of seventy seven – yes, 77 – still to torture.
Mathieson and G stand in the cold Sydney rain as Euph and I launch ourselves at the tv wanting to give them both hugs – G needs a hug! Look he’s cold, vegans have no body fat! I have body fat! Hug me G!! I’m warm blooded!
Holden breaks the apparently awful news that the group songs will be unisex. Yeah? So? And then that they won’t have any help from John Foreman or Erana Clark. Right. Well, now I call bullshit. This fucking process is obviously difficult enough, so why – WHY – take away any shred of decent musical support and give them one of their shit stirring judges? They need impartial help at this point. Not someone who is going to *spoiler* slink around the fucking corridors looking for trouble or who will lurk on the end of a walkie talkie to hear from the camera crews where he can cause the most trouble. BULL. SHIT.
This years group songs are two really quite difficult ones that you should never attempt to harmonise as a newly formed group of nervous singers trying to impress three bitchy judges and the Wigged One; and an obviously really quite smart choice, smarter then the other two to the point where I can’t believe they didn’t have it highlighted in bright pink marker and with some kind of motion sensing device attached to it so that everytime you looked at, it beeped at you and cried in the voice of Stephen Fry, ‘pick me, pick me’ . . .
Straight Lines – silverchair (no, not this one)
Knowing Me, Knowing You – ABBA (nuh-uh, keep going)
End of the Road – Boys II Men (ding ding ding!!)
Supergroup Matt Corby, Rosie Ribbons, Daniel Misfud and Natalie Gauci (may I potentially introduce you to your Final Four?) decide on EotR after Matt comments that Straight Lines is ‘a really hard song’. This will become DEAFENINGLY important very very soon to other people. But not these four. These four are grown up, gorgeous and golden.
Killer Fatigue takes out players all over the damn hotel as Husny Thalib argues with his peroxided groupmate Phil, an argument that just goes on and on, when they should be shutting up and getting the fuck on with it. Dude.
But wait! There’s more and better shit to hit the fan as we quickly move to Northern Territorian Jasmine whose wig has completely flipped - her group of Chad, Dylan and persistent three times this season auditionee Cyndi Dietrich eventually decided to try on Daniel Johns’ falsetto and Jasmine is breaking in pieces right in front of our very eyes as she realises that THEY CAN’T. More specifically? That SHE won’t . . . Holden, in an act of what I can only imagine was pure LUCK, stumbles on to their hotel room and immediately uses his spider senses to hone in on Jasmine’s jacked off visage. He pokes the tiger, saying the group song is to see who can handle pressure and who will crack. Crap. It’s about good tv. It’s about mostly unseasoned and non professional kids staying up all motherfucking night to learn a fucking pop song, trying to work with other non professional kids to harmonise so they don’t sound like cats on heat, then coming in the next day on no sleep, hungry, starving for YOUR approval Holden, dehydrated because they don’t know how to look after themselves and dancing like monkeys for our unadulterated viewing pleasure. The group song NEVER means anything. It barely registers in regards to who you put through to the semi’s. If it did, we would see actual consequences and year after year you put through weaker group performances because they aced their individual auditions. We’re not stupid. Shut up Mark.
Jasmine, who is magnificently backed into a corner by the famous tv star who will later be JUDGING HER strangely looks sullen as Holden berates her and tells her she’s a miserable cow. Awwww, that’s helping, Mark, good work. Yes, she’s being a pain but hey, nonetheless, that’s stellar advice. How she didn’t jump up and just stab him, I don’t know.
HotCarl Risely sleeps with his trumpet. That is strangely, not a euphemism.
Those Lynx BamChicka ads are fucking gold.
More shit goes on. Jasmine says she’s pulling a Jorge Bec and leaving. Then she’s telling her groupmates who basically don’t give a flying fuck because its THREE IN THE MORNING, then lo and behold Holden comes in on his white steed of Mischief to convince her to stay. Even if her voice is shredded. They obviously want this girl in the semi’s. All I’m saying. Because there is no other way on this green earth that her group gets through otherwise. They are bollocks. Cyndi is the only one keeping her shit together in any way, shape or form and is the ONLY one who deserved to get through. The fact that they put all four of them through stinks of shenanigans to me and says Jasmine is in the Top 24. She has a great voice, but she’ll need to keep an eye on the sullen, methinks. She breaks down afterwards – ohhh, lookee, our first real emotional damage of the season. Huzzah! Well done, show.
The silverchair songs proves to be everyone’s downfall – we pause briefly to hate on Tarasai who tries to start a Hillsong convention in the auditorium. HotCarl’s group does not a great job, do (but Monday night previews show him so he makes it through). Then Matt, Rosie, Daniel and Natalie save the day – their End of the Road is pretty effing awesome, right up there with Chris Murphy and Dean Geyer’s Beautiful Day from last season. They communicate very well on stage and you can pick the kids who’ve done this sort of shit before, they have their asses together. Then it’s a cascading waterfall of good group after good group – most of whom have chosen EotR and not Straight Line – Daniel Johns sits at home watching Idol, chuckling evilly to himself and getting more friends addicted to Facebook.
We see lovely individual performances from Lana Krost, Jack Byrnes and Junior To’o and then G & James break it to us that there are sixty four left.
You . . .
Ex . . . cuse . . . me?
The fuck?
We just had seventy seven. We had group perfs and there are STILL SIXTY FOUR? You wankers only ditched THIRTEEN from the group performan . . . . fuck off show. Just fuck right off. I can’t speak to you right now. I’ll see you Monday night as you continue to not show me any Brianna Carpenter.
Bastards.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Because its been too long since I talked about The Clooney
New film. Serious Clooney. Also Hot Clooney; Clooney Who Knows How To Join A Project With An Amazing Motherfucking Cast*; Academy Award Winning Clooney Who Is Possibly Looking Sideways At Another Nomination, But This Time For Best Actor, Pretty Please, Don't You Think?; and I Look Great In A Movie Poster Even When I'm Blurred, Suck On That Bitches, Clooney.
He has my vote. Sigh.
*Seriously; Tom Wilkinson, Michael O'Keefe, Sydney Pollack and Her Royal Brilliance Tilda Swinton. This movie is NOT allowed to suck, even marginally. I will not have it.
And PS - Happy Birthday to Shaneequa. And just for her . . . The Depp.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
This show needed more Irish.
Sydney! Sydney! Sydney! Irish! Irish! Irish! Lots of shots of my boy make me very happy, thank you editors of Idol.
What doesn’t make me happy? That the first real person they show doing a significant amount of singing? Is called Damian. Boo hiss, bad form show. He attempts George Michael’s ‘Faith’ and gives it the old Nine Inch Nails treatment and it makes me wish they’d shown more of the guy with the umbrella who was throwing crumpets around the room. How is it humanly possible that I am NOT making this shit up?
Elizabeth. Elizabeth regularly publicly sings karaoke with a cardboard house on her head and blithely tells the judges she lives with 90 cats, only one of whom is alive – and did anybody else think she maybe meant that she had Norman Bates’d the other 89? She is the kind of crazy cat lady who gives the rest of us crazy cat ladies a bad name.
The people responsible for the first lot of auditions (remembering you have to audition in front of a panel before you get to see the actual Big Four at the second panel) are NOT earning their money because I don’t care how funny they think it is to put through half naked guy or crotch grabbing guy, it is NOT and WHAT IS THE EFFING DEAL WITH SPIDERMAN COSTUMES THIS YEAR, FAMEWHORES? Did a memo go out? Are you people ORGANISED??
First real singer of the episode is Tarisai Vushe. Okay, my issue with Jesus Freaks is well documented (I believe ASIO may have a file) and yes, Tarisai pushes the God Loves Me And Has Blessed Me With A Gift That I Must Share thing just a little past the point of already annoying thankyou, but she does have quite the powerful chops on her. She belts the living hell out of that bloody Whitney Houston song ‘I Have Nothing’ Rick-Lee style and gives all four of the judges the big horn. She’s good, yes but she’s got the kind of singing style that leaves me shivering.
Boys? Are weird. And Daniel who hums and wails, I think, a Jeff Buckley number, is their King. Kyle makes my fucking day by telling him he’s come dressed like a purse snatcher. Gold Sandilands, take a bow.
Hirsute gentleman Adam describes his voice in one word; Love. I describe it in a different word; Shite. He makes a soul connection with fellow space cadet Mark before deep breathing into a wailing, gnashing rendition of ‘You’re The Voice’, getting so red in the face that I think he actually makes himself a little dizzy. Seems fair, he’s made me slightly nauseous.
Irish!! More Irish!! Oh GOD, I missed that accent . . . go buy his single, people and the CD which is out on the 18th. I will be pissed if it doesn’t hit Top Ten in the first week and NO ONE wants that . . .
Young Welsh accented lass, Rosie Ribbons got to number 6 on Pop Idol in the UK the same season Will Young won it. She sings ‘Butterfly Wings’ – I don’t know it, is it an original? – and has a really nice voice. She’s also pretty cute – good voice and cute chick? She’s doomed. Also I like her, so she’s doubly doomed. Dicko might as well just tell her she can win the damn thing to give her a third strike.
Benjamin McKenzie is 16 (too young too young too young) and sings nicely in the lower register but his voice really pops when he hits a little higher and shows much more promise. Dicko tells him he needs polishing and I silently beg him to tell Benjamin to take a few years and develop, strengthen his voice even more, because the kid is good but I hate when they put 16 year olds through this soul sucking process for people like me to bitch at and mock. Sigh.
Can I just say? Jessica Mauboy looks unbelievably gorgeous in those Head and Shoulders ads. She fucking glows, man.
Jason sings ‘Freaky’ and Mark encourages him to make out with Mother Marcia who disses him with righteous anger in her eyes. Honestly, I thought she was going to cut him. Or Mark. Actually . . .
Aaaah, guys and guitars. Boys with instruments. I am one of those XX chromosome’d creatures who gets weak at the knees when an XY plays an instrument in front of me. It’s something about the hands and yes, it’s a fingering thing – get your minds out of the gutter, I mean guitar fingering – although yes, boys who have good guitar skills are usually quite skilled in other areas also . . . oooh, I need to date a flautist . . .
. . . . . . . ahem . . . . . . . .
And we’re quickly moving on to Daniel Misfud who has the bounciest damn hair I think this show has ever seen and a divine soul ridden voice to go along with it. He’s also rather hot. Smouldering even. Excuse me whilst I pause to splash some cold water on my face . . .
Builder Lyall Adonis (no, really!) has a gorgeous Stevie Wonder quality to his voice. He shoobydoobydoo’s in his song and I think that may be the first successful attempt on this show of a shoobydoobydoo. His brother is also awesome. They are both quite cute too and I’m seeing why Dicko said this season is the most shaggable so far.
(I love So You Think You Can Dance.)
Oh. My. Fucking. God. Thank the gods that I went to the gym and taped Idol because now I can pause the tape and breathe into a paper bag when they show the total hotness that is navy trumpeter Carl Risely. They compound my breathing problems by showing him in his uniform and I have to go have a lie down. Please god, let him be able to sing . . . he Michael Buble's at the judges and he isn’t the world’s greatest singer but he convinces the judges and thank you, because TallulahB needs her some eye candy!!
And the pretty just keeps on coming . . . James Davies, Dave Andrews, lordy!! And they can sing!! Huzzah!
Mark commits hari kari to some poor dude singing Mariah Carey’s ‘Hero’. They need to officially put a stop to the Mariah and the Whitney at auditions, truly they do.
Oh, nutbag Angela from the Brisbane auditions is back and she’s dragged sister Amal with her. They try to be wacky and funny but they are NOT the Duffy sisters who magnificently took the piss the season they auditioned. These two are just painful, go away. Now.
Cyndi Dietrich didn’t get in on the Sunday show? Aw, I liked her. But she’s back and she’s trying again – ballsy. She sings ‘Black Velvet’ and they’ve already kind of sucked her soul because she’s not as good as she’s previously been which doesn’t bode well for her in later stages of the competition if she gets through . . . which she does, even though Kyle and Mark chastise her for being eggshell boring and dull dull dull, but Dicko likes her moxie enough to put her through after Kyle relents and Marica backs her up as well.
The good male voices continue with Junior To’o and Marty Simpson whose John Butler impersonation is impressive. Dicko asks him to sing without his guitar before agreeing to put him through, I don’t know, dude can sing but he looked uncomfortable without the guitar in his hands . . .
And then 16 year old Matt Corby proceeds to make me feel like a gross old pervy lady by rocking the hell out of ‘Superstitious’ and being ridiculously cute at the same time. I am getting a Dean Geyer thing from him but he comes across as a better singer than Geyer was and is HEAPS less cheesy, which can only be a positive. But he’s 16. Gah. Fix the age limit on this damn show.
And we’re done – 48 contestants go through from NSW/ACT making the It Never Is An Actual Top 100, 136. So be prepared next Sunday for cut after cut as we whittle down to the semi final 24 contestants by the end of Monday’s show. Tune in for meltdowns, smackdowns, put downs and sundowning. That might just be Holden . . .
What doesn’t make me happy? That the first real person they show doing a significant amount of singing? Is called Damian. Boo hiss, bad form show. He attempts George Michael’s ‘Faith’ and gives it the old Nine Inch Nails treatment and it makes me wish they’d shown more of the guy with the umbrella who was throwing crumpets around the room. How is it humanly possible that I am NOT making this shit up?
Elizabeth. Elizabeth regularly publicly sings karaoke with a cardboard house on her head and blithely tells the judges she lives with 90 cats, only one of whom is alive – and did anybody else think she maybe meant that she had Norman Bates’d the other 89? She is the kind of crazy cat lady who gives the rest of us crazy cat ladies a bad name.
The people responsible for the first lot of auditions (remembering you have to audition in front of a panel before you get to see the actual Big Four at the second panel) are NOT earning their money because I don’t care how funny they think it is to put through half naked guy or crotch grabbing guy, it is NOT and WHAT IS THE EFFING DEAL WITH SPIDERMAN COSTUMES THIS YEAR, FAMEWHORES? Did a memo go out? Are you people ORGANISED??
First real singer of the episode is Tarisai Vushe. Okay, my issue with Jesus Freaks is well documented (I believe ASIO may have a file) and yes, Tarisai pushes the God Loves Me And Has Blessed Me With A Gift That I Must Share thing just a little past the point of already annoying thankyou, but she does have quite the powerful chops on her. She belts the living hell out of that bloody Whitney Houston song ‘I Have Nothing’ Rick-Lee style and gives all four of the judges the big horn. She’s good, yes but she’s got the kind of singing style that leaves me shivering.
Boys? Are weird. And Daniel who hums and wails, I think, a Jeff Buckley number, is their King. Kyle makes my fucking day by telling him he’s come dressed like a purse snatcher. Gold Sandilands, take a bow.
Hirsute gentleman Adam describes his voice in one word; Love. I describe it in a different word; Shite. He makes a soul connection with fellow space cadet Mark before deep breathing into a wailing, gnashing rendition of ‘You’re The Voice’, getting so red in the face that I think he actually makes himself a little dizzy. Seems fair, he’s made me slightly nauseous.
Irish!! More Irish!! Oh GOD, I missed that accent . . . go buy his single, people and the CD which is out on the 18th. I will be pissed if it doesn’t hit Top Ten in the first week and NO ONE wants that . . .
Young Welsh accented lass, Rosie Ribbons got to number 6 on Pop Idol in the UK the same season Will Young won it. She sings ‘Butterfly Wings’ – I don’t know it, is it an original? – and has a really nice voice. She’s also pretty cute – good voice and cute chick? She’s doomed. Also I like her, so she’s doubly doomed. Dicko might as well just tell her she can win the damn thing to give her a third strike.
Benjamin McKenzie is 16 (too young too young too young) and sings nicely in the lower register but his voice really pops when he hits a little higher and shows much more promise. Dicko tells him he needs polishing and I silently beg him to tell Benjamin to take a few years and develop, strengthen his voice even more, because the kid is good but I hate when they put 16 year olds through this soul sucking process for people like me to bitch at and mock. Sigh.
Can I just say? Jessica Mauboy looks unbelievably gorgeous in those Head and Shoulders ads. She fucking glows, man.
Jason sings ‘Freaky’ and Mark encourages him to make out with Mother Marcia who disses him with righteous anger in her eyes. Honestly, I thought she was going to cut him. Or Mark. Actually . . .
Aaaah, guys and guitars. Boys with instruments. I am one of those XX chromosome’d creatures who gets weak at the knees when an XY plays an instrument in front of me. It’s something about the hands and yes, it’s a fingering thing – get your minds out of the gutter, I mean guitar fingering – although yes, boys who have good guitar skills are usually quite skilled in other areas also . . . oooh, I need to date a flautist . . .
. . . . . . . ahem . . . . . . . .
And we’re quickly moving on to Daniel Misfud who has the bounciest damn hair I think this show has ever seen and a divine soul ridden voice to go along with it. He’s also rather hot. Smouldering even. Excuse me whilst I pause to splash some cold water on my face . . .
Builder Lyall Adonis (no, really!) has a gorgeous Stevie Wonder quality to his voice. He shoobydoobydoo’s in his song and I think that may be the first successful attempt on this show of a shoobydoobydoo. His brother is also awesome. They are both quite cute too and I’m seeing why Dicko said this season is the most shaggable so far.
(I love So You Think You Can Dance.)
Oh. My. Fucking. God. Thank the gods that I went to the gym and taped Idol because now I can pause the tape and breathe into a paper bag when they show the total hotness that is navy trumpeter Carl Risely. They compound my breathing problems by showing him in his uniform and I have to go have a lie down. Please god, let him be able to sing . . . he Michael Buble's at the judges and he isn’t the world’s greatest singer but he convinces the judges and thank you, because TallulahB needs her some eye candy!!
And the pretty just keeps on coming . . . James Davies, Dave Andrews, lordy!! And they can sing!! Huzzah!
Mark commits hari kari to some poor dude singing Mariah Carey’s ‘Hero’. They need to officially put a stop to the Mariah and the Whitney at auditions, truly they do.
Oh, nutbag Angela from the Brisbane auditions is back and she’s dragged sister Amal with her. They try to be wacky and funny but they are NOT the Duffy sisters who magnificently took the piss the season they auditioned. These two are just painful, go away. Now.
Cyndi Dietrich didn’t get in on the Sunday show? Aw, I liked her. But she’s back and she’s trying again – ballsy. She sings ‘Black Velvet’ and they’ve already kind of sucked her soul because she’s not as good as she’s previously been which doesn’t bode well for her in later stages of the competition if she gets through . . . which she does, even though Kyle and Mark chastise her for being eggshell boring and dull dull dull, but Dicko likes her moxie enough to put her through after Kyle relents and Marica backs her up as well.
The good male voices continue with Junior To’o and Marty Simpson whose John Butler impersonation is impressive. Dicko asks him to sing without his guitar before agreeing to put him through, I don’t know, dude can sing but he looked uncomfortable without the guitar in his hands . . .
And then 16 year old Matt Corby proceeds to make me feel like a gross old pervy lady by rocking the hell out of ‘Superstitious’ and being ridiculously cute at the same time. I am getting a Dean Geyer thing from him but he comes across as a better singer than Geyer was and is HEAPS less cheesy, which can only be a positive. But he’s 16. Gah. Fix the age limit on this damn show.
And we’re done – 48 contestants go through from NSW/ACT making the It Never Is An Actual Top 100, 136. So be prepared next Sunday for cut after cut as we whittle down to the semi final 24 contestants by the end of Monday’s show. Tune in for meltdowns, smackdowns, put downs and sundowning. That might just be Holden . . .
No, she isn't
The weirdest thing people have googled for and gotten my blog instead :
is ellen pompeo abigail breslin's mother
is ellen pompeo abigail breslin's mother
Monday, August 13, 2007
Topsy Turvy
Melbourne. Sunny, windy, icy, balmy Melbourne. Home of the four seasons in one day. You know, they say that if you can’t make it here . . . you audition for Idol. I kid! I kid, because I love! And hey, way to represent, Melbourne! Our cup runneth over with decent to great singers this episode. I know! I know! I am as surprised as you! We had a good singer within the first fifteen minutes! I KNOW!! Melbourne, take a bow and get down with your bad self! And they tried to throw us off the scent by pretending Melbourne was a horror movie, right there on your tv.
Yes, they gave us some dross to start with, like young Andrew who pushes Amazing Grace through his vocal cords like he’s in labour and who has people stop him in the street to tell him how great his singing is. I am not kidding anymore people, you need to keep your frakking mouths shut. Stop randomly telling strangers they can sing, unless you make it FRIGHTENINGLY OBVIOUS that you are kidding. If you need to, literally pull their leg. They might call a member of the constabulary over to deal with the freak who complimented their singing and then started tugging at their trousers, but hey, these are the dangers associated with telling the guy walking down St Kilda beach bellowing at the top of his lungs that he can sing.
Melbourne. Home of beatboxers Zeb and Scott, who manage to beatbox and slate Kyle at the same time. Well played, those chaps!
And then BAM. Idol sucker punches us in the eyes by giving us a decent singer well before previously established timelines have led us to expect them, Natalie Gauci who works her way quite nicely around an original and starts a little Tet Offensive between Dicko and Holden about whether you can win AI doing your own stuff (Dicko takes the negative, Holden the affirmative). She then RIPS out I Will Survive at Dicko when he demands some poppy satisfaction, with a gorgeous little Fuck Off attitude that makes me fall just a teensy bit in love with her. Never uncomfortable on the back foot, Dicko fires BACK that he thinks she’s great and puts a voodoo curse on her by saying he thinks she could win the whole shebang. Somewhere Lisa Mitchell gets goosebumps and needs a hug. Marcia quite rightly (I KNOW!!) points out that she just got the Kiss Of Death and we all flash back to Kyle asking the Semi Final live audience to give Lisa a standing ovation because she’s the best thing this country has ever seen. Ever. Run away Natalie, run quickly away to some reverse voodoo practising doctor!
They show us a bazillion 16 year olds who oversing and are too young for this competition. I wholeheartedly hope that none of them make it to the Top Twelve, unless it’s Karla Tonkich who sings well, even if it is a trifle overdone, but whose stage mum is the Puppet Master and feeds her all her replies to camera – that’s great, can we make sure that if Karla makes Top Twelve that her mum gets to come to all the live performances and makes sure the button in her back that enables her to talk is pressed to ‘on’? Other 16 year old Madison Pritchett is pretty good too and holy crap, that’s THREE decent singers before we hit the half hour mark – what the HELL, Idol?
Then we get Donna, who is so very much not remotely close to the right side of thirty (that is, the right side of thirty for this show, I still maintain they should up the age range from 18 to 35, the famewhore gene doesn’t stop working the day you turn 31 – let My People make fools of themselves too, we want to dress up as banana’s and pirates and sing Oops I Did It Again badly on national telly!!). I know she plays it like she thinks she’s fooling everyone, but I don’t honestly think she really thinks she’s fooling anyone.
Cyndi Dietrich has a quiet, unassumingly pleasant voice but no real ‘thing’ going for her and Dicko asks her to get a PR team on that right away so she can work out who she is musically. I don’t . . . know . . . did she get through? I think she did.
Ahhhh, Mark Holden’s Lessons In How To Be A Passive Aggressive Wanker, Chapter Eightyfive. Julie Ann is an ambitious lass who has sent close on a thousand CDs to any and every one she can think of who might be able to help her out on her way to a career in this biz we call show. I’m not sure if she’s taking the piss when she sings because she’s terribly earnest but not terribly great. Mark unpacks his asshole and pretends to not understand why she hasn’t gotten anywhere. I get a headache grinding my teeth in anger at him. Dicko takes the honest line and tells her that she just ain’t that great. She is the first in a long line of auditionees with pitch problems, tone deaf-ness and general craptitude.
Holy mother of all that is . . . holy. DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee has a motherfucking Clinkers commercial. By the power of Greyskull, will SOMEONE please smite him?
Jack Byrnes sings with some aptitude (he’s not great, but he’s not meh) and is loved by Kyle and Marcia. Dicko calls him fascinating and thinks he has a “journey” in him. I and the other TWoP Biggest Loser posters call shoutout! JOURNEY!!
Anthony Nuku isn’t letting a broken foot hold him back, he BELTS out Hit The Road, Jack and falters only slightly on the big notes. Andrew G tries to kill him by pushing his wheelchair into a line of chairs but its cute and G’s hair is awesome this season so we’ll forgive him anything.
Matthew Morris sings Alanis Morrisette’s Uninvited. Dude needs a haircut and a shopping spree but his voice is delightful. Gosh. There are a lot of good singers this episode, I am confused and slightly alarmed by this . . . is Sydney going to suck big time?
Mark Holden’s Lessons In How To Be A Passive Aggressive Wanker, Chapter Eightysix involves making fun of Siki Daha’s name who looks quite put out by the middle class white guy picking on the kid with dark skin. Instant Karma isn’t just a John Lennon song and Mark is forced to be a decent human being when it turns out Siki can RnB the HELL out of Norah Jones. Siki deposits a nice cold serve of Eat Your Own Words, Dickhead in front of Mark and it is frankly schadenfreudalicous.
Idol sidebars itself to Mildura so we can meet Jesse Curran, the cute blonde who we’ve seen a dozen times already making a Gstring joke. It’s still kinda funny. She sings a song about cleavage and bulges which Mother Marcia is vaguely offended by, although Dicko loves the weird chicks (shades of Chanel finding her note. Good times.) So she sings another song. Look, she has great tone and a gorgeous sound. And she’s funny! I like the funny! Put her through, wankers. Thank you.
Tasmanian Dewayne (really? De. Wayne. Okay.) Everettsmith has a lovely old fashioned quaver in his voice and even kicks out some great high notes with no apparent effort whatsoever. He is restrained and fantastic. I can’t wait to see/hear more of him. This is all looking remarkably good. That concerns me.
Hippie Andrew is dressed like a tree and singing a song about tree felling that makes me want to single-handedly deforest the Amazon.
Ain’t nothing wrong with a boy wearing eye makeup Husny Thalib, don’t let them talk you out of it. Awww, he’s singing Spandau Ballet, I had this tape! He’s actually kind of cute, but I’m getting such a Lee Harding vibe. Marcia wants him to do something more suited to his look, sigh, she wants him to punk, doesn’t she? Marcia, you, of ALL people, should know that eye makeup on boys is the domain of the New Romantics and you don’t get a more eyemakeup wearing, quirky hair styled, pierced ears New Romantic band than Spandau Ballet. Unless you raise me a Duran Duran. At which point, I fold and you win the pot.
Oh good god. The next singer is effing Jacob Butler. He sings Oasis – of course he does – and it is quite good and Dicko calls him a “real find”. A real find? Find? He was on X Factor and made the top 100 of Idol in 2005. Find? Was he misplaced in some way? Did Holden put him down and forget where he left him? Did he fall inbetween the seat cushions? Has he been down there with $3.55 of spare change, some dust bunnies, a battery, the tv guide from the third week of October 2003 and some stale fries? He’s Jakey effing B, he's Holden’s protege. Eh, he’ll probably at the very least make the semi’s this year, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing quite so damn much of him, right? I don’t mind him that much actually, he has a decent voice - but I will brook no favouritism this damn early in the piece, Holden. No!
Then Idol upends my world once more by showing more bad singers and then failing completely to have the Last Auditionee Of The Day Who Will Totally Surprise You Completely By Getting Through, Not, not appear. They merely inform us that 39 got through from Victoria/Tasmania and that they’ll see us in Sydney.
Oh, and tonight? We get Irish.
I may or may not have squeeeeeed with delight and loosed a huzzah!
Yes, they gave us some dross to start with, like young Andrew who pushes Amazing Grace through his vocal cords like he’s in labour and who has people stop him in the street to tell him how great his singing is. I am not kidding anymore people, you need to keep your frakking mouths shut. Stop randomly telling strangers they can sing, unless you make it FRIGHTENINGLY OBVIOUS that you are kidding. If you need to, literally pull their leg. They might call a member of the constabulary over to deal with the freak who complimented their singing and then started tugging at their trousers, but hey, these are the dangers associated with telling the guy walking down St Kilda beach bellowing at the top of his lungs that he can sing.
Melbourne. Home of beatboxers Zeb and Scott, who manage to beatbox and slate Kyle at the same time. Well played, those chaps!
And then BAM. Idol sucker punches us in the eyes by giving us a decent singer well before previously established timelines have led us to expect them, Natalie Gauci who works her way quite nicely around an original and starts a little Tet Offensive between Dicko and Holden about whether you can win AI doing your own stuff (Dicko takes the negative, Holden the affirmative). She then RIPS out I Will Survive at Dicko when he demands some poppy satisfaction, with a gorgeous little Fuck Off attitude that makes me fall just a teensy bit in love with her. Never uncomfortable on the back foot, Dicko fires BACK that he thinks she’s great and puts a voodoo curse on her by saying he thinks she could win the whole shebang. Somewhere Lisa Mitchell gets goosebumps and needs a hug. Marcia quite rightly (I KNOW!!) points out that she just got the Kiss Of Death and we all flash back to Kyle asking the Semi Final live audience to give Lisa a standing ovation because she’s the best thing this country has ever seen. Ever. Run away Natalie, run quickly away to some reverse voodoo practising doctor!
They show us a bazillion 16 year olds who oversing and are too young for this competition. I wholeheartedly hope that none of them make it to the Top Twelve, unless it’s Karla Tonkich who sings well, even if it is a trifle overdone, but whose stage mum is the Puppet Master and feeds her all her replies to camera – that’s great, can we make sure that if Karla makes Top Twelve that her mum gets to come to all the live performances and makes sure the button in her back that enables her to talk is pressed to ‘on’? Other 16 year old Madison Pritchett is pretty good too and holy crap, that’s THREE decent singers before we hit the half hour mark – what the HELL, Idol?
Then we get Donna, who is so very much not remotely close to the right side of thirty (that is, the right side of thirty for this show, I still maintain they should up the age range from 18 to 35, the famewhore gene doesn’t stop working the day you turn 31 – let My People make fools of themselves too, we want to dress up as banana’s and pirates and sing Oops I Did It Again badly on national telly!!). I know she plays it like she thinks she’s fooling everyone, but I don’t honestly think she really thinks she’s fooling anyone.
Cyndi Dietrich has a quiet, unassumingly pleasant voice but no real ‘thing’ going for her and Dicko asks her to get a PR team on that right away so she can work out who she is musically. I don’t . . . know . . . did she get through? I think she did.
Ahhhh, Mark Holden’s Lessons In How To Be A Passive Aggressive Wanker, Chapter Eightyfive. Julie Ann is an ambitious lass who has sent close on a thousand CDs to any and every one she can think of who might be able to help her out on her way to a career in this biz we call show. I’m not sure if she’s taking the piss when she sings because she’s terribly earnest but not terribly great. Mark unpacks his asshole and pretends to not understand why she hasn’t gotten anywhere. I get a headache grinding my teeth in anger at him. Dicko takes the honest line and tells her that she just ain’t that great. She is the first in a long line of auditionees with pitch problems, tone deaf-ness and general craptitude.
Holy mother of all that is . . . holy. DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee has a motherfucking Clinkers commercial. By the power of Greyskull, will SOMEONE please smite him?
Jack Byrnes sings with some aptitude (he’s not great, but he’s not meh) and is loved by Kyle and Marcia. Dicko calls him fascinating and thinks he has a “journey” in him. I and the other TWoP Biggest Loser posters call shoutout! JOURNEY!!
Anthony Nuku isn’t letting a broken foot hold him back, he BELTS out Hit The Road, Jack and falters only slightly on the big notes. Andrew G tries to kill him by pushing his wheelchair into a line of chairs but its cute and G’s hair is awesome this season so we’ll forgive him anything.
Matthew Morris sings Alanis Morrisette’s Uninvited. Dude needs a haircut and a shopping spree but his voice is delightful. Gosh. There are a lot of good singers this episode, I am confused and slightly alarmed by this . . . is Sydney going to suck big time?
Mark Holden’s Lessons In How To Be A Passive Aggressive Wanker, Chapter Eightysix involves making fun of Siki Daha’s name who looks quite put out by the middle class white guy picking on the kid with dark skin. Instant Karma isn’t just a John Lennon song and Mark is forced to be a decent human being when it turns out Siki can RnB the HELL out of Norah Jones. Siki deposits a nice cold serve of Eat Your Own Words, Dickhead in front of Mark and it is frankly schadenfreudalicous.
Idol sidebars itself to Mildura so we can meet Jesse Curran, the cute blonde who we’ve seen a dozen times already making a Gstring joke. It’s still kinda funny. She sings a song about cleavage and bulges which Mother Marcia is vaguely offended by, although Dicko loves the weird chicks (shades of Chanel finding her note. Good times.) So she sings another song. Look, she has great tone and a gorgeous sound. And she’s funny! I like the funny! Put her through, wankers. Thank you.
Tasmanian Dewayne (really? De. Wayne. Okay.) Everettsmith has a lovely old fashioned quaver in his voice and even kicks out some great high notes with no apparent effort whatsoever. He is restrained and fantastic. I can’t wait to see/hear more of him. This is all looking remarkably good. That concerns me.
Hippie Andrew is dressed like a tree and singing a song about tree felling that makes me want to single-handedly deforest the Amazon.
Ain’t nothing wrong with a boy wearing eye makeup Husny Thalib, don’t let them talk you out of it. Awww, he’s singing Spandau Ballet, I had this tape! He’s actually kind of cute, but I’m getting such a Lee Harding vibe. Marcia wants him to do something more suited to his look, sigh, she wants him to punk, doesn’t she? Marcia, you, of ALL people, should know that eye makeup on boys is the domain of the New Romantics and you don’t get a more eyemakeup wearing, quirky hair styled, pierced ears New Romantic band than Spandau Ballet. Unless you raise me a Duran Duran. At which point, I fold and you win the pot.
Oh good god. The next singer is effing Jacob Butler. He sings Oasis – of course he does – and it is quite good and Dicko calls him a “real find”. A real find? Find? He was on X Factor and made the top 100 of Idol in 2005. Find? Was he misplaced in some way? Did Holden put him down and forget where he left him? Did he fall inbetween the seat cushions? Has he been down there with $3.55 of spare change, some dust bunnies, a battery, the tv guide from the third week of October 2003 and some stale fries? He’s Jakey effing B, he's Holden’s protege. Eh, he’ll probably at the very least make the semi’s this year, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing quite so damn much of him, right? I don’t mind him that much actually, he has a decent voice - but I will brook no favouritism this damn early in the piece, Holden. No!
Then Idol upends my world once more by showing more bad singers and then failing completely to have the Last Auditionee Of The Day Who Will Totally Surprise You Completely By Getting Through, Not, not appear. They merely inform us that 39 got through from Victoria/Tasmania and that they’ll see us in Sydney.
Oh, and tonight? We get Irish.
I may or may not have squeeeeeed with delight and loosed a huzzah!
Friday, August 10, 2007
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
All filler, no singing to speak of
Adelaide. Oh Adelaide Adelaide Adelaide. You wacky wacky town, you! You build me up with your patented looney tunes and wacky hijinks and you raise me high with Your People’s inability to read a fucking room.
Let’s open with Julie, shall we? Julie has quite a pronounced lisp. That doesn’t mean she can’t sing, though, no, it’s her complete lack of tone and profound inability to hit any of the actual notes in the song she’s bellowing that means she can’t sing. (And whilst she’s quite upset that the judges are harsh on her, she still gets a hug from Mathieson, so don’t feel too sorry for her, in point of fact, you may envy her a little. Humiliation on a national scale but also a hug from Mathieson? Tempting . . .) Let’s follow on from Julie with a flock of truly astoundingly deluded individuals whose vocal cords you would quite cheerfully stomp on in the largest and spikiest Gene Simmons from Kiss boots you could find – like Eliza who FLAT OUT SCREAMS the Four Non Blondes song What’s Going On and who calls the judges snide. Or Bianca who trills All Saints song Never Ever and has the kind of sweet semi maybe possibly decent-ish voice where if you were driving a really long distance with her and you were sort of jacked up on coffee, red bull and sugar, you might tell her Stockholm Syndrome Style that she doesn’t have a bad voice, but THAT’S WHERE IT ALL STARTS, PEOPLE. The friends who smile at their friends whilst they’re badly singing along to Kelly Clarkson in the car, who drunkenly encourage karaoke performances, the parents who tell little Alice and Jack that YES, you have the voice of an angel, my sweet, because no one wants to tell their kids that they sound like banshees sent from hell to DEVOUR OUR SOULS.
It.
Must.
Stop.
Really, it must, because next up is pizza maker Adam who has his own fanclub and two guitars for some unknown reason and who lets them drag his friends into his audition. He might actually be able to sing, who knows, but everyone else is singing along with him and he gets completely drowned out, then he does this ridiculous original that feels like he just made it up on the spot and he has this terrible look in his eyes about halfway through and if you pause the tape just so, you can see the point where he realises it ain’t gonna happen. Then Marcia gets her Pointy Finger out when he tries to backchat her about coming across as superficial or something, I don’t know, all I know is Mother Hines sounds like she needs a nap and it is too soon in the season for fatigue to be hitting you Marcia.
There’s a montage of criers interspersed with the judges throwing their arms in the air and their heads on the table in despair and then cutiepie Bree who chooses a shitful song to sing and provokes The Fight between Holden and Marcia (who says shit and arse and forget you . . . when you know she wanted to use a naughty word – use it Marcia, use your words!) who threatens to take off her shoe and thump Mark with it and I missed the next few minutes because I was too busy loudly advocating any and all violence against Holden with a shoe, especially if its one of those really pointy heeled ones, you know the ones where if you were fighting a vampire and didn't have a stake you could TOTALLY use your shoe? That kind. It’s nowhere near the smackdown we were promised. There isn’t any blood or anything. Ripped off.
Channel Ten? I don’t give a fuck about James Cameron and his search for some guy’s tomb, where the hell is my Torchwood, you motherfuckers . . .
There are too many idiots who don’t know what song they want to sing – dude, you slept overnight in line to NOT know what you’re going to do – seriously? It at least leads to some very cute Mathieson schtick, belting out a Whitney Houston song, praying in church for someone good . . . Fosse making a rude remark about James on his knees that I will gloss over for the greater good.
Chris sings Alicica Keyes’ What Comes Around and what doesn’t come around for him is a ticket to Sydney, we are 20 mins in and are yet to see anyone decent, aren’t you GLAD you’re watching the audition shows??!! (But it does give Dicko the opportunity to bust out with the old favourite ‘delusions of adequacy’, ahhh, still funny.)
Huzzah – Sarah Lloyde, who is soulful and builds her song quite nicely (if a touch RickiLee-ishly for me) and who auditioned back in 2005 and looks like she made Top 100 but not the semi’s. She’s done the smart thing, she gave herself a couple of years, she’s done the hard work getting her voice up to scratch and she’s come back older, wiser and better. Then we see a flurry of singers who made it through but once again get to hear not a skerrit of their effing singing. Badly played show, badly played.
Last SA’n of the day is barmaid Holly Weiner from Mildura who has an alternative, grungy voice with a nice little husky twang. She gets slightly shouty to rise over her guitar playing (Marcia calls it projection) and Dicko doesn’t LOVE her but she gets herself a golden ticket, and rightly so, she is the best we’ve seen all day. She joins 11 other Mystery Contestants.
Hometown, Perth is up next and can I just say, Andrew G? Your new haircut is divine.
Not divine? Ben who marches in with attitude and caterwauls the Fremantle Dockers team song as loud as he can. I want to join the Dockers just so I can rescind my membership purely on the strength of this guy and the hurt he does to my delicate ears. I feel they’d understand and wholeheartedly support me in this endeavour.
Man, WAAPA needs to keep an eye on their Musical Theatre students because the amount of MT geeks who wail Phantom of the Opera at the judges, dude, NO ONE deserves that level of pain, not even Sandilands. And Zarni, who came with a dossier of inspirational quotes – I might have liked your chutzpah if you hadn’t then chosen to slaughter As Long As You’re Mine from Wicked, not that I heard most of it because I immediately curled into the foetal position and my piteous whimpering drowned you out. Mostly.
Lana Krost played Les Miserables Cosette and rips out the very sad song that Cosette sings that I may have done myself a couple of times. (She may sing it slightly better than I do.) She’s cute, she has a good stage voice but her nervous disposition signposts that she’ll get eaten alive at the Seymour Centre.
Woeful singer after woeful singer gets the Dicko Smackdown, a one liner here, a zinger there, a deprecating putdown to the left and a mean upper punch to the right – to the point where Sandilands calls him out for not having any tact when he is making young Jovan practically blub in front of them.
SANDILANDS. TACT. END OF THE WORLD.
So off Dicko slouches to Bunbury where I assume he sampled some of the samples available at the lovely wineries in that region (I cast no stones) and then brought back some singers to audition in Perth, including our first RnB singer of the competition, Andrew Morton. Then Shamara-lea Hassett who plonks herself down on the floor. Her song and her guitar playing is restrained and quite lovely. She loses some points for crying but then I may have also gotten a little teary as well, so I’m giving her those points back and we shall never speak of this again.
Chad Woods has just about the best country voice I think I’ve heard in this competition and also makes it on to Fossie’s Hottie Watchlist. I just think if we can get him to Klancie up his wardrobe, put him in a dress slit down to his navel then he just might be on to something . . .
Cookie Sidebar : Red has just called me whilst reading this to inform me that in fact, no he wasn't great and that her husband whimpered and cringed whilst Chad was singing. There may have been the odd 'f' word also. I bow to Cookie's greater countrynwestern knowledge whilst still maintaining that little ol' Tallulahbelle kinda loved it . . .
Kalgoorlie is the residence of Tafadzwa Chirobo and I immediately tell him he needs to agree to an Aussie shortening of his name because ain’t no one slowly texting Tafadzwa – I can’t even tell you long it takes to type – to Idol. G calls him Taf, as shall I. Taf sings a lovely tune that wouldn’t sound at all out of place as the backing track to a Paul Simon song but his voice is lovely and souful and he is deservedly through.
Jeremy Harris is an okay singer and gets through – Dicko says he looks like he’s enjoying the smell of his own farts when he sings . . . oooookay . . . I actually got a ‘praise jesus’ vibe from him but maybe there was an olfactory cue that we weren’t in on during Jeremy’s audition.
22 make it through from WA including our final Perth auditionee (don’t hurt yourself gasping in surprise) Mustard. Yes. Mustard. As in ‘keen as’. Ladies and gentlemen, this season’s Mutto is in the house. He’s actually endearingly Aussie and admits to being so nervous that he’s overcompensating trying to hide it so I cut him some slack, but honestly – after three months of Travis on BB, I am ockered right the hell out. I can take two ‘I loves youse all’ but that’s it Mustard. Thin ice, my friend. I loves youse all, god, I worry for the Youth of Today, I really do . . .
Next Sunday, Melbourne.
Monday, Sydney and then god willing, straight on until dawn and we’ll hit the Seymour Centre the Sunday after that . . .
Let’s open with Julie, shall we? Julie has quite a pronounced lisp. That doesn’t mean she can’t sing, though, no, it’s her complete lack of tone and profound inability to hit any of the actual notes in the song she’s bellowing that means she can’t sing. (And whilst she’s quite upset that the judges are harsh on her, she still gets a hug from Mathieson, so don’t feel too sorry for her, in point of fact, you may envy her a little. Humiliation on a national scale but also a hug from Mathieson? Tempting . . .) Let’s follow on from Julie with a flock of truly astoundingly deluded individuals whose vocal cords you would quite cheerfully stomp on in the largest and spikiest Gene Simmons from Kiss boots you could find – like Eliza who FLAT OUT SCREAMS the Four Non Blondes song What’s Going On and who calls the judges snide. Or Bianca who trills All Saints song Never Ever and has the kind of sweet semi maybe possibly decent-ish voice where if you were driving a really long distance with her and you were sort of jacked up on coffee, red bull and sugar, you might tell her Stockholm Syndrome Style that she doesn’t have a bad voice, but THAT’S WHERE IT ALL STARTS, PEOPLE. The friends who smile at their friends whilst they’re badly singing along to Kelly Clarkson in the car, who drunkenly encourage karaoke performances, the parents who tell little Alice and Jack that YES, you have the voice of an angel, my sweet, because no one wants to tell their kids that they sound like banshees sent from hell to DEVOUR OUR SOULS.
It.
Must.
Stop.
Really, it must, because next up is pizza maker Adam who has his own fanclub and two guitars for some unknown reason and who lets them drag his friends into his audition. He might actually be able to sing, who knows, but everyone else is singing along with him and he gets completely drowned out, then he does this ridiculous original that feels like he just made it up on the spot and he has this terrible look in his eyes about halfway through and if you pause the tape just so, you can see the point where he realises it ain’t gonna happen. Then Marcia gets her Pointy Finger out when he tries to backchat her about coming across as superficial or something, I don’t know, all I know is Mother Hines sounds like she needs a nap and it is too soon in the season for fatigue to be hitting you Marcia.
There’s a montage of criers interspersed with the judges throwing their arms in the air and their heads on the table in despair and then cutiepie Bree who chooses a shitful song to sing and provokes The Fight between Holden and Marcia (who says shit and arse and forget you . . . when you know she wanted to use a naughty word – use it Marcia, use your words!) who threatens to take off her shoe and thump Mark with it and I missed the next few minutes because I was too busy loudly advocating any and all violence against Holden with a shoe, especially if its one of those really pointy heeled ones, you know the ones where if you were fighting a vampire and didn't have a stake you could TOTALLY use your shoe? That kind. It’s nowhere near the smackdown we were promised. There isn’t any blood or anything. Ripped off.
Channel Ten? I don’t give a fuck about James Cameron and his search for some guy’s tomb, where the hell is my Torchwood, you motherfuckers . . .
There are too many idiots who don’t know what song they want to sing – dude, you slept overnight in line to NOT know what you’re going to do – seriously? It at least leads to some very cute Mathieson schtick, belting out a Whitney Houston song, praying in church for someone good . . . Fosse making a rude remark about James on his knees that I will gloss over for the greater good.
Chris sings Alicica Keyes’ What Comes Around and what doesn’t come around for him is a ticket to Sydney, we are 20 mins in and are yet to see anyone decent, aren’t you GLAD you’re watching the audition shows??!! (But it does give Dicko the opportunity to bust out with the old favourite ‘delusions of adequacy’, ahhh, still funny.)
Huzzah – Sarah Lloyde, who is soulful and builds her song quite nicely (if a touch RickiLee-ishly for me) and who auditioned back in 2005 and looks like she made Top 100 but not the semi’s. She’s done the smart thing, she gave herself a couple of years, she’s done the hard work getting her voice up to scratch and she’s come back older, wiser and better. Then we see a flurry of singers who made it through but once again get to hear not a skerrit of their effing singing. Badly played show, badly played.
Last SA’n of the day is barmaid Holly Weiner from Mildura who has an alternative, grungy voice with a nice little husky twang. She gets slightly shouty to rise over her guitar playing (Marcia calls it projection) and Dicko doesn’t LOVE her but she gets herself a golden ticket, and rightly so, she is the best we’ve seen all day. She joins 11 other Mystery Contestants.
Hometown, Perth is up next and can I just say, Andrew G? Your new haircut is divine.
Not divine? Ben who marches in with attitude and caterwauls the Fremantle Dockers team song as loud as he can. I want to join the Dockers just so I can rescind my membership purely on the strength of this guy and the hurt he does to my delicate ears. I feel they’d understand and wholeheartedly support me in this endeavour.
Man, WAAPA needs to keep an eye on their Musical Theatre students because the amount of MT geeks who wail Phantom of the Opera at the judges, dude, NO ONE deserves that level of pain, not even Sandilands. And Zarni, who came with a dossier of inspirational quotes – I might have liked your chutzpah if you hadn’t then chosen to slaughter As Long As You’re Mine from Wicked, not that I heard most of it because I immediately curled into the foetal position and my piteous whimpering drowned you out. Mostly.
Lana Krost played Les Miserables Cosette and rips out the very sad song that Cosette sings that I may have done myself a couple of times. (She may sing it slightly better than I do.) She’s cute, she has a good stage voice but her nervous disposition signposts that she’ll get eaten alive at the Seymour Centre.
Woeful singer after woeful singer gets the Dicko Smackdown, a one liner here, a zinger there, a deprecating putdown to the left and a mean upper punch to the right – to the point where Sandilands calls him out for not having any tact when he is making young Jovan practically blub in front of them.
SANDILANDS. TACT. END OF THE WORLD.
So off Dicko slouches to Bunbury where I assume he sampled some of the samples available at the lovely wineries in that region (I cast no stones) and then brought back some singers to audition in Perth, including our first RnB singer of the competition, Andrew Morton. Then Shamara-lea Hassett who plonks herself down on the floor. Her song and her guitar playing is restrained and quite lovely. She loses some points for crying but then I may have also gotten a little teary as well, so I’m giving her those points back and we shall never speak of this again.
Chad Woods has just about the best country voice I think I’ve heard in this competition and also makes it on to Fossie’s Hottie Watchlist. I just think if we can get him to Klancie up his wardrobe, put him in a dress slit down to his navel then he just might be on to something . . .
Cookie Sidebar : Red has just called me whilst reading this to inform me that in fact, no he wasn't great and that her husband whimpered and cringed whilst Chad was singing. There may have been the odd 'f' word also. I bow to Cookie's greater countrynwestern knowledge whilst still maintaining that little ol' Tallulahbelle kinda loved it . . .
Kalgoorlie is the residence of Tafadzwa Chirobo and I immediately tell him he needs to agree to an Aussie shortening of his name because ain’t no one slowly texting Tafadzwa – I can’t even tell you long it takes to type – to Idol. G calls him Taf, as shall I. Taf sings a lovely tune that wouldn’t sound at all out of place as the backing track to a Paul Simon song but his voice is lovely and souful and he is deservedly through.
Jeremy Harris is an okay singer and gets through – Dicko says he looks like he’s enjoying the smell of his own farts when he sings . . . oooookay . . . I actually got a ‘praise jesus’ vibe from him but maybe there was an olfactory cue that we weren’t in on during Jeremy’s audition.
22 make it through from WA including our final Perth auditionee (don’t hurt yourself gasping in surprise) Mustard. Yes. Mustard. As in ‘keen as’. Ladies and gentlemen, this season’s Mutto is in the house. He’s actually endearingly Aussie and admits to being so nervous that he’s overcompensating trying to hide it so I cut him some slack, but honestly – after three months of Travis on BB, I am ockered right the hell out. I can take two ‘I loves youse all’ but that’s it Mustard. Thin ice, my friend. I loves youse all, god, I worry for the Youth of Today, I really do . . .
Next Sunday, Melbourne.
Monday, Sydney and then god willing, straight on until dawn and we’ll hit the Seymour Centre the Sunday after that . . .
Monday, August 06, 2007
Heeeeeee's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
And the world shivered.
In its bed, in its backyard, at the shop, in its car, in the jungles of deepest darkest Africa, in the desert plains of Egypt. Volcanoes shuddered to a stop, mid spew of molten lava. Hysterical news reports flooded in, of children ice skating on the Atlantic, of Middle Eastern snowball fights, of lions with snowy manes, of gazelles skiing through the veldt and of giraffe popsicles.
And the world shivered.
And the Dark Lord emerged from Below, his red horns covered in pristine white snow, icicles forming in his neat goatee, his hooves clicking on the frozen tundra, clothed in a large pea green duffle coat with gloves and a kicky Doctor Who style scarf that muffled his voice as he bellowed furiously to the skies . . .
“Dicko, you BASTARD, I was in the middle of Harry Potter and now the pages have FROZEN TOGETHER.”
For lo! It was true. He hath returned.
Having spent the last month of BB trying to convince us that the local Idol franchise had something to do with Jennifer Hudson strapping on her Big Girl’s Voice and getting to be air bussed (ye olde worde for ye kisse) by George Clooney at the Kodak Theatre, Idol 2007 opens with an American Movie Monologue, astounding only in its ability to not be funny. Except for the line about there being One Vegan – that totally cracked me up because I flashed back to that one episode of Ready Steady Cook when Mathieson beat out G and proceeded to serenade him with the Homer Simpson inspired ‘you don’t win friends with salad’. Trust me, it was hilARious.
I suspect I can hear people falling off their lounges all over Australia when the Montage of Past Winners actually acknowledges the black sheep of Idol, Poor Poor Casey. Of course it is brief, brisk and immediately followed by multiple shots of the Young Divas (edited for misuse of the possessive apostrophe - thankyou Fosse) with an almost apologetic tone that they dared remind us of the Season Two winner when talking about the impact of Idol. Which, apparently is saving the Australian Music Industry. Right. (Sorry Missy, sorry John Butler – you long fingernailed guitar playing god weird haired hippy freak – and back to splitsville please Crowded House, Idol has the Aria charts under control, we don’t need ANY of you . . . )
What we need apparently is SIX episodes of auditions. SIX. Honestly, if we could just ignore the famewhores (who would STOP turning up and wasting the judges time if we all JUST IGNORED THEM) and pay attention to the actual singers who audition we’d have two, count it TWO, audition shows, we’d actually get to see some of the talented buggers who turn up and make it to the top 100 instead of getting to the Seymour Centre and barely recognising a third of them and as an added bonus, I would not get tired typing fingers. It would be a win all round!
Instead we get Elke, first singer of the day, she’s – honestly – she’s Luna Lovegood. She’s a drag queen Jewel and she isn’t so much singing as waving a shaky murmured vibrato at the song and hoping to hit some of the notes. She kinda fails. It’s two thirds of the way through the song before Fosse even recognises it, at which point we get our first visible Fosse-recoil of the season – huzzah! Mark is horribly passive aggressive at her, and his fun at pretending he liked it goes so far as to actually convince the poor deluded soul that if he had been the only judge she would have got through. Nice work Holden.
Then we are subjected to Tanya, who chews apart a Kelly Clarkson song in a most painful manner, as the blood pouring from my ears can attest and who then starts in on the most horridly woeful original song, so bad that Mark literally has to walk away from the Judges desk, he is laughing so hard. Kyle brutally rips the cord from her keyboards, saving us all from going mad, but sadly too late to save Tanya’s own sanity. Off to therapy, love, there you go . . .
It is 23mins in before we meet the fabulous Brianna Carpenter, who is a gorgeous cross between Ms Chanel Cole (style wise) and Lisa Mitchell (vocally). You know. When we all thought Lisa might amount to something. Her original song is freaking delightful and they actually show the whole thing. She is resoundingly adored by the judges but I refuse to fall in love with her. No. No, I refuse. I will not be disappointed again by a fantastic first audition. Because then we get to the second week of the Top Twelve and you know, she’ll have stopped bringing me flowers, she won’t return my calls, I’ll see her flirting with another blogger, maybe even *gasp* hear about her singing a Mariah Carey song and my heart will just be broken into a thousand tiny pieces and I WON’T HAVE THAT DONE TO ME AGAIN. I will NOT be the Idol equivalent of your crazy spinster aunt who comes to Christmas dinner and tells you that men can’t be trusted and you should always look to see if they have a faint tan line around their ring finger because it means they’re married and just took their wedding ring off five minutes before they came into that speed dating session to try and get someone into bed and you’ll be left alone - except for your eighteen cats - despising yourself. I may, in fact, have issues . . .
Qld is a parade of the tanned and pretty. Tanned, pretty and thoroughly untalented. Hot chick after hot chick who bellow, shrill and screech at the four judges to the point where I want to send them aspirin. And earplugs.
Then Jordan Paris (who immediately strikes me as another Fuck I Hate James) comes in wearing a bright red suit that is frighteningly colour co-ordinated with his fake tan. He’s a tall, skinny Oompa Loompa. He sings some hymn and doesn’t have a bad voice, but it feels infinitely more suited to playing Joseph whilst wearing a jacket made of many colours. He gets four ayes. I give him an oy. I just want to exfoliate him back to a normal colour.
We get a brisk montage of guitar playing fellas who make it through and then Angela who came prepared with a little booklet of stuff she downloaded from the Idol Official Site, who sings kinda badly, who refuses to take no for an answer and who is obviously drunk. Right? Then Dylan Yeandle who has auditioned three previous times and who comes in with a cheeky grin, a guitar and a song about Yummy Mummies. A dreadful song. They put him through and he has the barefaced cheek to stand in front of a poster of My Boy Irish and extol his own virtues. He needs to move . . . away . . . from the Irish . . .
Famewhores : Ravel Lee has seen Borat too many times, but he can Cossack dance really well and is actually one of the few entertaining fame whores of the day. Spanish speaking Angel is terribly earnest whilst torturing Killing Me Softly – which, it’s a cheap shot, but he is – and who gets the words wrong, even though he’s reading them. Thomas Chen tries to rap. I got nothing.
Hayden Andrews is this years Bobby Flynn, he has an endearing lilt that slides into a lovely upper register and reminds me of a singer from the 70’s whose name escapes me. He’s in. They zap through some guitar playing chicks pausing briefly to completely shit on Cleo Holloman for being too pretty. Fosse’s calls a Hottie Watch on Tim Florea who plays an awesome guitar and sings okay and who Dicko calls out for having commitment issues. Huh. I should totally date him.
Our first traditional Last Auditionee Of The Day Who Will Totally Surprise You Completely By Getting Through, Not; is Cheray Doughty, the impish daughter of Ray Burton who co-wrote “I Am Woman” with Helen Reddy. Awww, her dad rules and she has a great voice too! Good for her, she IS woman, hear her roar! (I promise to limit myself to just one more I Am Woman joke if she makes it to the semi finals . . . scouts honour.)
We take off to the Top End and some patented G & Mathieson silliness, oh G & Mathieson silliness, how I missed thee . . . crocodiles. Beer. Beards. Drag queens. The NT tourism board thanks you Idol.
John Coulhan wants to pull a Daughtry, bring fame to his band through his appearance on Idol. I have no problem with that. He has a lovely pub rock voice with shades of Tyrone Noonan. He’s brought his own guitarist, he obviously got the memo about needing a guitar to get through to the top 150,000. His original is not bad, if a little repetitive around the chorus but I can totally close my eyes and hear it on Fox. He’s golden.
Kate Miller is another repeat offender and sings a Sarah Maclachlan song. I am indifferent to her and the whole process until Dicko remarks that he doesn’t like that she is deferring to the note – which I TOTALLY get and love him for saying – and then Holden gets involved, prattling about how he doesn’t know what the hell Dicko is talking about and does anyone in the room, does the general public and I’m screaming at the tv that yes, I do and shut the fuck up Holden to the point where Brand New Housemate, Able pokes his head out of bedroom to see who the hell I’m screaming at, discovers it’s the TELEVISION and worriedly looks at Fosse. Fosse sighs like a long suffering man stuck living with a demented harpy and explains I have a mental illness and think they can hear me. I tell him to shut up, take a deep breath and continue yelling at Holden who continues to ignore me. Good times . . .
Our final contestant is Jasmine Anderson who can’t dress worth a damn, but who has a fantastic voice. Kyle makes her sing three different songs and she nails every damn one. Girl really knows what suits her voice, she hits Gabrielle, Xtina and that band that isn’t Creed or Hinder but who sounds like them (and seriously, the first person to sing that god awful Hinder song about cheating on your girlfriend because this other chick has the lips of an angel? Top of the shitlist.) Jasmine is one of only three who make it through from the NT.
And we’re done. For show one that is, five to go until we get to the good stuff. Tonight is WA & SA (ahhh, Adelaide, where the crazies come out to play) and Marcia. Smacking. Holden. Down.
Sound like fun? It’s a date.
In its bed, in its backyard, at the shop, in its car, in the jungles of deepest darkest Africa, in the desert plains of Egypt. Volcanoes shuddered to a stop, mid spew of molten lava. Hysterical news reports flooded in, of children ice skating on the Atlantic, of Middle Eastern snowball fights, of lions with snowy manes, of gazelles skiing through the veldt and of giraffe popsicles.
And the world shivered.
And the Dark Lord emerged from Below, his red horns covered in pristine white snow, icicles forming in his neat goatee, his hooves clicking on the frozen tundra, clothed in a large pea green duffle coat with gloves and a kicky Doctor Who style scarf that muffled his voice as he bellowed furiously to the skies . . .
“Dicko, you BASTARD, I was in the middle of Harry Potter and now the pages have FROZEN TOGETHER.”
For lo! It was true. He hath returned.
Having spent the last month of BB trying to convince us that the local Idol franchise had something to do with Jennifer Hudson strapping on her Big Girl’s Voice and getting to be air bussed (ye olde worde for ye kisse) by George Clooney at the Kodak Theatre, Idol 2007 opens with an American Movie Monologue, astounding only in its ability to not be funny. Except for the line about there being One Vegan – that totally cracked me up because I flashed back to that one episode of Ready Steady Cook when Mathieson beat out G and proceeded to serenade him with the Homer Simpson inspired ‘you don’t win friends with salad’. Trust me, it was hilARious.
I suspect I can hear people falling off their lounges all over Australia when the Montage of Past Winners actually acknowledges the black sheep of Idol, Poor Poor Casey. Of course it is brief, brisk and immediately followed by multiple shots of the Young Divas (edited for misuse of the possessive apostrophe - thankyou Fosse) with an almost apologetic tone that they dared remind us of the Season Two winner when talking about the impact of Idol. Which, apparently is saving the Australian Music Industry. Right. (Sorry Missy, sorry John Butler – you long fingernailed guitar playing god weird haired hippy freak – and back to splitsville please Crowded House, Idol has the Aria charts under control, we don’t need ANY of you . . . )
What we need apparently is SIX episodes of auditions. SIX. Honestly, if we could just ignore the famewhores (who would STOP turning up and wasting the judges time if we all JUST IGNORED THEM) and pay attention to the actual singers who audition we’d have two, count it TWO, audition shows, we’d actually get to see some of the talented buggers who turn up and make it to the top 100 instead of getting to the Seymour Centre and barely recognising a third of them and as an added bonus, I would not get tired typing fingers. It would be a win all round!
Instead we get Elke, first singer of the day, she’s – honestly – she’s Luna Lovegood. She’s a drag queen Jewel and she isn’t so much singing as waving a shaky murmured vibrato at the song and hoping to hit some of the notes. She kinda fails. It’s two thirds of the way through the song before Fosse even recognises it, at which point we get our first visible Fosse-recoil of the season – huzzah! Mark is horribly passive aggressive at her, and his fun at pretending he liked it goes so far as to actually convince the poor deluded soul that if he had been the only judge she would have got through. Nice work Holden.
Then we are subjected to Tanya, who chews apart a Kelly Clarkson song in a most painful manner, as the blood pouring from my ears can attest and who then starts in on the most horridly woeful original song, so bad that Mark literally has to walk away from the Judges desk, he is laughing so hard. Kyle brutally rips the cord from her keyboards, saving us all from going mad, but sadly too late to save Tanya’s own sanity. Off to therapy, love, there you go . . .
It is 23mins in before we meet the fabulous Brianna Carpenter, who is a gorgeous cross between Ms Chanel Cole (style wise) and Lisa Mitchell (vocally). You know. When we all thought Lisa might amount to something. Her original song is freaking delightful and they actually show the whole thing. She is resoundingly adored by the judges but I refuse to fall in love with her. No. No, I refuse. I will not be disappointed again by a fantastic first audition. Because then we get to the second week of the Top Twelve and you know, she’ll have stopped bringing me flowers, she won’t return my calls, I’ll see her flirting with another blogger, maybe even *gasp* hear about her singing a Mariah Carey song and my heart will just be broken into a thousand tiny pieces and I WON’T HAVE THAT DONE TO ME AGAIN. I will NOT be the Idol equivalent of your crazy spinster aunt who comes to Christmas dinner and tells you that men can’t be trusted and you should always look to see if they have a faint tan line around their ring finger because it means they’re married and just took their wedding ring off five minutes before they came into that speed dating session to try and get someone into bed and you’ll be left alone - except for your eighteen cats - despising yourself. I may, in fact, have issues . . .
Qld is a parade of the tanned and pretty. Tanned, pretty and thoroughly untalented. Hot chick after hot chick who bellow, shrill and screech at the four judges to the point where I want to send them aspirin. And earplugs.
Then Jordan Paris (who immediately strikes me as another Fuck I Hate James) comes in wearing a bright red suit that is frighteningly colour co-ordinated with his fake tan. He’s a tall, skinny Oompa Loompa. He sings some hymn and doesn’t have a bad voice, but it feels infinitely more suited to playing Joseph whilst wearing a jacket made of many colours. He gets four ayes. I give him an oy. I just want to exfoliate him back to a normal colour.
We get a brisk montage of guitar playing fellas who make it through and then Angela who came prepared with a little booklet of stuff she downloaded from the Idol Official Site, who sings kinda badly, who refuses to take no for an answer and who is obviously drunk. Right? Then Dylan Yeandle who has auditioned three previous times and who comes in with a cheeky grin, a guitar and a song about Yummy Mummies. A dreadful song. They put him through and he has the barefaced cheek to stand in front of a poster of My Boy Irish and extol his own virtues. He needs to move . . . away . . . from the Irish . . .
Famewhores : Ravel Lee has seen Borat too many times, but he can Cossack dance really well and is actually one of the few entertaining fame whores of the day. Spanish speaking Angel is terribly earnest whilst torturing Killing Me Softly – which, it’s a cheap shot, but he is – and who gets the words wrong, even though he’s reading them. Thomas Chen tries to rap. I got nothing.
Hayden Andrews is this years Bobby Flynn, he has an endearing lilt that slides into a lovely upper register and reminds me of a singer from the 70’s whose name escapes me. He’s in. They zap through some guitar playing chicks pausing briefly to completely shit on Cleo Holloman for being too pretty. Fosse’s calls a Hottie Watch on Tim Florea who plays an awesome guitar and sings okay and who Dicko calls out for having commitment issues. Huh. I should totally date him.
Our first traditional Last Auditionee Of The Day Who Will Totally Surprise You Completely By Getting Through, Not; is Cheray Doughty, the impish daughter of Ray Burton who co-wrote “I Am Woman” with Helen Reddy. Awww, her dad rules and she has a great voice too! Good for her, she IS woman, hear her roar! (I promise to limit myself to just one more I Am Woman joke if she makes it to the semi finals . . . scouts honour.)
We take off to the Top End and some patented G & Mathieson silliness, oh G & Mathieson silliness, how I missed thee . . . crocodiles. Beer. Beards. Drag queens. The NT tourism board thanks you Idol.
John Coulhan wants to pull a Daughtry, bring fame to his band through his appearance on Idol. I have no problem with that. He has a lovely pub rock voice with shades of Tyrone Noonan. He’s brought his own guitarist, he obviously got the memo about needing a guitar to get through to the top 150,000. His original is not bad, if a little repetitive around the chorus but I can totally close my eyes and hear it on Fox. He’s golden.
Kate Miller is another repeat offender and sings a Sarah Maclachlan song. I am indifferent to her and the whole process until Dicko remarks that he doesn’t like that she is deferring to the note – which I TOTALLY get and love him for saying – and then Holden gets involved, prattling about how he doesn’t know what the hell Dicko is talking about and does anyone in the room, does the general public and I’m screaming at the tv that yes, I do and shut the fuck up Holden to the point where Brand New Housemate, Able pokes his head out of bedroom to see who the hell I’m screaming at, discovers it’s the TELEVISION and worriedly looks at Fosse. Fosse sighs like a long suffering man stuck living with a demented harpy and explains I have a mental illness and think they can hear me. I tell him to shut up, take a deep breath and continue yelling at Holden who continues to ignore me. Good times . . .
Our final contestant is Jasmine Anderson who can’t dress worth a damn, but who has a fantastic voice. Kyle makes her sing three different songs and she nails every damn one. Girl really knows what suits her voice, she hits Gabrielle, Xtina and that band that isn’t Creed or Hinder but who sounds like them (and seriously, the first person to sing that god awful Hinder song about cheating on your girlfriend because this other chick has the lips of an angel? Top of the shitlist.) Jasmine is one of only three who make it through from the NT.
And we’re done. For show one that is, five to go until we get to the good stuff. Tonight is WA & SA (ahhh, Adelaide, where the crazies come out to play) and Marcia. Smacking. Holden. Down.
Sound like fun? It’s a date.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
All Frocked Up
Until I get my Oscar bitch on, check out my homey Sweatergirl's take on Oscar fashion :
http://stylepolice.blogspot.com/2007/02/oscars-frock-verdict-slightly-delayed.html
(Yeah, I can't believe I typed 'homey' either.)
http://stylepolice.blogspot.com/2007/02/oscars-frock-verdict-slightly-delayed.html
(Yeah, I can't believe I typed 'homey' either.)
Monday, February 26, 2007
Addendum
Oh, and Al Gore's film An Inconvienent Truth winning Best Documentary.
That would rock my socks.
That would rock my socks.
My dearest Oscar
My dearest Oscar,
It’s been a year since last we talked and I feel terrible that we parted on such bad terms. That our last words to each other were angry and bitter ones. I’ve spent the last year without you, searching my soul, questioning my actions, pondering how and why everything went so horribly wrong, when they started so well.
Last year was off to a magical start. The Clooney was nominated for three of you, one of my favourite movies of the year was going to win your Best Picture, my darling Jon Stewart was presenting. Things looked good, nay, great. The opening montage was hilarious, Jon was self deprecating and George won the first Oscar of the night. We were off to a flying start! I laugh joyously to think of it.
But as the night wore on, I noticed your audience didn’t seem to appreciate Jon’s humour as much as one might have expected. They seemed . . . disappointed. What was it? Were his constant references to The Clooney not appreciated? Are you still not ready to let someone take Jack Nicholson’s place as Hottest Man Requiring A Seat Filler? Were there too many jokes about the number of facelifts in the room? Were the people from Botox on the phone? Were they pissed?
And then the Horrid Thing That Happened, happened. Was I out of line to expect it to win Best Picture? When you gave Ang Lee Best Director, I thought, for sure, this is it, finally you would right the wrong grievously forced upon me the year Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. Good god, the betrayal. I’ve struggled with the betrayal for the last 365 days. That awful awful film winning Best Picture.
It hurt. It hurt me greatly.
Now the ball? Is in your court. I’ve taken the first step. It’s up to you now to make things right between us. You've made a good start, as much as I'm sad Jon won't be back this year, I am happy you've chosen Ellen to host. And your habit of always asking back the previous years winner to present an award means that once again George will wear The Tux. But you know what? I’ve seen the bookie’s odds. There are too many Dead Certs this year. I was surprised (shocked, horrified, didn’t sleep for three nights) when Crash beat Brokeback, so I want to see some shock winners this year.
Now, I’m not talking about Helen Foregone Conclusion Mirren losing out, if that happens, consider our relationship dead and buried. If Helen doesn’t win Best Actress, you may as well just slap a toetag on us and call for a time of death. But as much as I’d like Jennifer Sure Thing Hudson to win Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls, my heart would soar if adorable Abigail Breslin won for Little Miss Sunshine. And if Forrest Isn’t It My Time Please Forget That I Was In Species and Battlefield Earth Whitaker can’t win Best Actor for Last King Of Scotland, then the rugged hotness of Ryan Gosling winning for Half Nelson would more than make up for any past indiscretions. As an added bonus, we’d get to see his lovely partner Rachel McAdams when he won. Wouldn’t that be worth the shock?
Please Oscar, I beg of you. Help me patch up our relationship.
We’re worth it.
Love TallulahBelle
xx
It’s been a year since last we talked and I feel terrible that we parted on such bad terms. That our last words to each other were angry and bitter ones. I’ve spent the last year without you, searching my soul, questioning my actions, pondering how and why everything went so horribly wrong, when they started so well.
Last year was off to a magical start. The Clooney was nominated for three of you, one of my favourite movies of the year was going to win your Best Picture, my darling Jon Stewart was presenting. Things looked good, nay, great. The opening montage was hilarious, Jon was self deprecating and George won the first Oscar of the night. We were off to a flying start! I laugh joyously to think of it.
But as the night wore on, I noticed your audience didn’t seem to appreciate Jon’s humour as much as one might have expected. They seemed . . . disappointed. What was it? Were his constant references to The Clooney not appreciated? Are you still not ready to let someone take Jack Nicholson’s place as Hottest Man Requiring A Seat Filler? Were there too many jokes about the number of facelifts in the room? Were the people from Botox on the phone? Were they pissed?
And then the Horrid Thing That Happened, happened. Was I out of line to expect it to win Best Picture? When you gave Ang Lee Best Director, I thought, for sure, this is it, finally you would right the wrong grievously forced upon me the year Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. Good god, the betrayal. I’ve struggled with the betrayal for the last 365 days. That awful awful film winning Best Picture.
It hurt. It hurt me greatly.
Now the ball? Is in your court. I’ve taken the first step. It’s up to you now to make things right between us. You've made a good start, as much as I'm sad Jon won't be back this year, I am happy you've chosen Ellen to host. And your habit of always asking back the previous years winner to present an award means that once again George will wear The Tux. But you know what? I’ve seen the bookie’s odds. There are too many Dead Certs this year. I was surprised (shocked, horrified, didn’t sleep for three nights) when Crash beat Brokeback, so I want to see some shock winners this year.
Now, I’m not talking about Helen Foregone Conclusion Mirren losing out, if that happens, consider our relationship dead and buried. If Helen doesn’t win Best Actress, you may as well just slap a toetag on us and call for a time of death. But as much as I’d like Jennifer Sure Thing Hudson to win Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls, my heart would soar if adorable Abigail Breslin won for Little Miss Sunshine. And if Forrest Isn’t It My Time Please Forget That I Was In Species and Battlefield Earth Whitaker can’t win Best Actor for Last King Of Scotland, then the rugged hotness of Ryan Gosling winning for Half Nelson would more than make up for any past indiscretions. As an added bonus, we’d get to see his lovely partner Rachel McAdams when he won. Wouldn’t that be worth the shock?
Please Oscar, I beg of you. Help me patch up our relationship.
We’re worth it.
Love TallulahBelle
xx
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