TOP 9 - TONY BENNETT WEEK
So we're back to the "decades and decades" worth of experience...in this case, 6 of them for Tony Bennett!!! Wow!
BLAKE - Very good!! Another intuitive, "just enough" performance!
PHIL - In the meeting with Tony it looked like he was growing his hair back, but no, he must shave it right before performance. Very good! The judges don't seem to like him much, but I think he's good.
MELINDA - The plunger on the end of the trumpet (or horn or whatever...sorry I don't know my instruments...) was cool! This is completely her genre. I liked her hair. She did an excellent job as usual.
*So Simon likes to be mean just for the sake of being mean...it's not like we didn't know that, but at least he admits it!
CHRIS R. - (or I guess I can just say "Chris" now... :) ) Because of earlier comments it appears to me that the contestants are meeting with Tony the day before the live show. Are you telling me that the day before the show he STILL hasn't learned the words to the song? (And when he sang it, it had like 5 words: "don't get around much anymore"...how hard is that to learn???) Not to mention that you know you're going to be singing in front of Tony Bennett, and you don't make it a priority to *know* what you're singing???? I think that's poor form and shows a lack of... preparation? caring? professionalism? Come on!!! I didn't like that at all. His performance was pretty good, but I am not pleased with him...
JORDIN - Very good!!! I like her a lot! I disagree with Simon, she did make the song young and hip!
GINA - Very good! I have to say, I am distracted by her tongue piercing. I can't help thinking of the bacteria in there, food and gunk being caught, etc. Yuck! But good singing... ;) (No offense to anyone out there with tongue piercings, btw, maybe I'm wrong about that... :) )
SANJAYA - He's trimmed his hair! It's shorter on the bottom. We'll have to see how it looks when he's got his natural curl in it. First I have to say...WHAT GUTS to go up and dance with Paula in the middle of his performance! I give him credit for that, even if it was a little goofy. I still think he needs to be able to project more, but he's doing something right! It'll be interesting to see how long he stays, because I don't think he's going anywhere yet...
HALEY - She should have included Paula and Randy in her answer to the viewer question - those 2 get (rightfully) miffed when people single Simon out and act like they aren't even there. It's like she was saying she didn't care what Paula or Randy thought or had to say (and you saw that in their comments...they basically didn't and turned it over to Simon since "that what she wanted to hear"). Bad move Haley! Her song was pretty good, but she may be in trouble this week.
LAKISHA - Really good! It's a tough call when the mentor tells you they think you should do a certain thing with your song (in this case, holding the power note at the end), but you want to do something else. Do you risk looking like you don't care about their opinion or like you think you know better by doing what you want anyway? I like that she did what she wanted to, but I think Tony was right - she should have ended it on the money note.
TOP - Well, no one completely blew me away this week. There were a lot of good performances, but no major stand-outs for me. I'll say JORDIN and MELINDA were the best for me tonight.
BOTTOM - Also like the top, no one did completely awful tonight, so there wasn't some stand-out in the bottom. For me, I'd put SANJAYA and CHRIS first, followed by HALEY and PHIL. I think any of those may be going home, *except* for Sanjaya - he'll definitely make it through.
Yes, that was a trupmet. And yes, you can still call it a horn. Most jazz musicians refer to their brass instruments as "horns." And yes, you astutely noticed he was using a 39-cent Home Depot brand plunger as a mute, although I'll assume it's only been used for his horn and not for other traditional uses.
ReplyDeleteWhat comments make you think they meet Tony the day before? No challenge, just wondering what you heard that I missed.
And if Paula said anything critical besides, "uh, well. You look great!" then contestants might put more weight in what she says. And Randy's just random with people sometimes (although often he's the most sane of the bunch, even if he is a bit harsh). Simon's been so hard on Haley I can't blame her for singling out Simon during her interview. Even if she had mentioned Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum they probably would have made the same comments.
OK, that was a long rant.
Great post Rapine!
Thanks for the music lesson! :)
ReplyDeleteTony was talking to Blake, and he said "This song is pre-rap,... so think of that when you go out there tomorrow" which made me think it was the day before the performance. (I was thinking that was a little late in the game to be getting advice on how to sing the song!) If he wasn't talking about the performance, then I take back 1/2 of what I said about Chris... ;)
You are totally right about Paula and Randy and their worthless comments... "that's a nice dress" (yeah, thanks?) and "yo yo yo, I don't know..." (what's that supposed to mean?). I still think you have to be a little *political* though and let them think it matters what they say, and not do stuff to get on their bad side (which I realize you can't help sometimes, but you know...).
And there's a long rant in return!
Yay...somebody else didn't think Phil completely sucked!... ; )
ReplyDeleteGood insights about Haley.
Thanks for the Haley commentary! Now I know what Mags was talking about--that totally makes sense.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I never said Phil completely sucked. I said, "And what the hell was with his voice tonight?" Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but those comments are quite different the way I see it.
ReplyDelete