"American Idol"
I was just thinking, it might be nice to write something other than a journal today. Let’s see.. hmm.. maybe I should write about American Idol. Why American Idol? Well, because I just watched it on TV last night, and it was supposed to be a good one.
Well, as you know, American Idol is a singing competition based on “popularity” and “likeability” since the winner is determined by votes from the audience (i.e. Americans who watch the show). As controversial as it might sound (what if the vote is simply for look, appearance and not voice or singing ability?), I think the past winners have been proven to be quite singing-capable. Besides, I believe those American publics are smart enough to differentiate between shallow idolatry and true admiration of talent and capability.
Anyway, it’s running on the 5th season now, has been rounded up to 8 finalists. Last night they were asked to sing classic songs, with the vocal coach Rod Stewart. It was quite a good one last night, as I mentioned earlier, in a sense that I believe that most of them picked the right song, sang it nicely and perform with a professional singer quality. The theme changes every week, previous week for example they had to sing songs from Queen (the band), the week before that they had to sing songs from the 21st century (news songs, supposedly), and so on.
The judges, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell make comments on each performer and audience (i.e. voter) are supposedly listening to what they have to say and make their vote based on their suggestion. Although sometimes the results are quite surprising, all in all, the judges have quite great influence on the vote turnout.
I like a few of this season’s finalists. To name some of them, I think I like either Katharine McPhee or Elliott Yamin to go through the final. They both definitely can sing, they have talent, they have personality, they are quite good looking and in my opinion, they are the least pretentious of all of them.
Last night, Katharine sang “Someone to Watch Over Me,” She put all her fragility, adorability, her powerful voice, and her amazing personality that makes her look so believable. It was her greatest performance, ever, on idol. On the other hand, Elliott sang some “weird song that I don’t even remember what the title was. It was an okay performance but, I’m not to keen on that.
Other contestants were quite good also last night. Chris Daughtry, surprisingly performed a sort of ballad, “What A Wonderful World” with an acoustic guitar. It was quite refreshing and for the first time I really liked him.
Anyway, it’s only a few more weeks left. I believe the grand finale will be somewhere in May. Well, whatever the result will be, I hope it is the best that will come up as the winner.
By the way, if you missed any of the shows, don’t expect you can view the video clip from Idol website. Fremantle Media (the owner of the license) doesn’t let the video to be posted anywhere on the net. But who can prevent fans who want to show off their Idol? You bet, you can find it somewhere else. Try YouTube. It’s like a video website where members can upload their videos in macromedia format. Just type in any of the idol’s name that you want so his/her performance, and will give you plenty results to pick at.. ☺
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