Tag: singing competition (Page 8 of 8)

American Idol: Hollywood week showcases some fine talent

Hollywood week began on “American Idol” last night, and I believe they had promised us an extended Hollywood experience on TV this year, which is fine by me, especially when they continue to keep these episodes to a bearable 60 minutes.

There were 147 contestants plucked out of the tens of thousands who auditioned in the eight cities last summer. And in last night’s episode, they whittled it down to 104, meaning only 43 were sent packing. This season, there are makeup artists and vocal coaches to get these singers ready to perform in front of the four judges, and even Barry Manilow was a surprise coach and speaker.

The contestants were then put into groups of eight, and each group had to line up on stage at the Kodak Theatre, and sing a cappella in front of Randy, Paula, Simon and Kara. Then they were asked to either step back or step forward, and one line or the other was told they were through to the next round, and the other line was headed home. Immediate elimination Continue reading »

American Idol: Pass the salt shaker

Last night the “American Idol” auditions moved to Salt Lake City, home of last season’s runner-up, David Archuleta. They made reference to the fact that there are a lot of nice people who live in Salt Lake, much like young David. That’s amazing considering that many people who live there do not drink alcohol. But I digress….the judges had to sift through a lot of bad auditions, probably many more than they showed last night, to find a few jewels. Here were the bad and the good from this round…..

THE BAD

Tara Mathews, a 21-year old local Goth girl (a Goth in Salt Lake is like a peanut in Italian food) said that she had ESP powers. Well that’s good, because she sure can’t sing….they only showed a few seconds of this girl Aleesha, who I’ll call vibrato girl, but her audition made me laugh out loud…..there was Chris, who brought along his friend Greg the Rabbit. Greg wore a pink bunny costume Continue reading »

American Idol: Welcome to Randy Jacksonville

So last night in part five of eight of FOX’s “American Idol” audition rounds, the scene shifted to Jacksonville, Florida. And the producers of the show decided to have a little fun and give judge Randy Jackson some love due to the name of the city (that’s really a stretch, isn’t it?). They showed Jackson in his days performing with the rock band Journey, and basically paid tribute to him a bit. That’s okay, but still a stretch. Anyway, this city did not seem to have the talent level of other audition rounds, and it was obvious right from the start of the show last night. Here are the highlights and lowlights:

THE BAD

Dana Moreno was shouting a Chaka Khan song, and I do mean shouting. Next! 16 year old Kaneswa had been told her entire life by her mom what a great vocalist she was, but that is always the recipe for failure, isn’t it? Kaneswa sang Anita Baker’s “Caught Up in the Rapture,” complete with some of Anita’s vocal acrobatics. However, for Kaneswa, they were not acrobatics, but more like nasal inflections….Darren Darnell was the life of the party among contestants waiting to audition, so much so that I was thinking he could be the next Ryan Seacrest. But then when his buddy didn’t get a golden ticket, a switch went off and this guy looked depressed and started crying, right up through his own audition, which bombed anyway….A girl named Naomi sang Minnie Ripperton’s “Lovin’ You” and while she may have hit the high falsetto note at the end, it was the only note that was on key. Naomi brought along her friend who was semi-obsessed with Randy Jackson, and the friend got to sit on Randy’s lap. Anyway, Naomi was awful….George Ramirez, an 18 year old who sort of looked like a young Abe Lincoln, was a physics student who just happened to want to give singing a try, but it was more like a low rumble of off-key mess Continue reading »

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