That's just wrong
No, my title is not referring to Chris Daughtry’s elimination, although he really didn’t deserve to go this week. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m infuriated about something else.
What’s wrong is allowing Rebecca Romaijn to produce the show. If being subjected to another X-Men 3 promo wasn’t annoying enough, they now allow supermodels to make requests from the audience? It’s a live show and they have to go off the air at 9:32. I’d imagine every minute is planned before they go on the air. They wasted time with coma-inducing clips of the Idols’ trip to Graceland (hey, Elvis had a lot of gold records!) and a (not bad, although Katharine continued to oversing) medley of three dozen Elvis hits. So it’s 9:20 and there’s Rebecca Romaijn and since she wants Taylor to sing, they have him do it?
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not angry that Taylor sang “Jailhouse Rock,” even though his other song was better. What I’m angry about is that letting Taylor sing meant we only got to hear 30 seconds of Chris’ singout (and he didn’t even have time to say a few words other than in the “Bad Day” montage). He sounded better than he did last night on “Suspicious Minds,” started walking over to the other Idols for what looked like an emotional moment and–cut. It’s time for Unan1mous (and I know the ratings say people are watching it, but I have a hard time believing any functioning human being is.) Chris has been a huge part of this show for three months, and we can’t see his full singout because they want to fulfill Rebecca Romajin’s request? Ryan couldn’t say, “Um, we’re running short on time tonight and we don’t want to cut the singout short like we have the last two weeks, even though we have only one job in 32 minutes and that’s to tell you who’s leaving and have them exit the show by singing?”What a joke. This show just infuriates me sometimes. As I’ve said before, the producers don’t seem to know why we watch the show. I can’t believe even Taylor’s biggest fans wouldn’t have rather seen Chris get a full singout than see Taylor (who the producers knew was coming back next week) sing again.
OK, I’m off my soapbox. As for Chris getting eliminated, I wouldn’t have been surprised by anyone getting eliminated tonight (although I will note that I did predict Chris, and that’s without looking at DialIdol.com, which once again had this one correct). But Elliott really did turn it on last night, Taylor has a huge fan base and had one of the best performances of the night, and Katharine is the only woman (meaning people might vote for her because they want some variety in the final three) and she’s, um, hot. But I will admit, despite my swooning every week, she really was the one that deserved to go tonight. Having said that, I think Chris just seemed too nonchalant Tuesday night. Maybe he was trying to conserve his voice after last week’s problems, but for me as Randy would say, he didn’t seem all that great. Other reasons Chris lost: People didn’t want to hear his screaming, modern rock-inflected songs for two more weeks (he couldn’t do it this week, but he demonstrated last week that if he has any choice in the matter, he will sing the same type of song he’s already sung 14 times on the show. You can get by if they’re good songs, but most of the songs Chris sung are not going to be classics, and with good reason.) And of course, you can’t underestimate people being so disturbed by Chris’ way-too-much-information moment revealing his underwear choice (Ryan’s reaction was so creepy I don’t even want to discuss it) that they felt they had enough. But I’ll give Chris some credit–he brought a real rocker presence to this show for the first time, and he did show some versatility a few weeks ago, just not enough of it. Will he be as successful as Paula thinks he will be? (And I hope someone’s on suicide watch at her house tonight.) Hard to say. (Way to take a position, Fingerhut.)
Finally, I had two people tell me that they were surprised that I did not comment on Tommy Mottola’s comment about not wanting Elliott to sing his first song like it was “a bar mitzvah song.” Well, I don’t want to disappoint any of my readers, and if I take a request, it doesn’t prevent Chris Daughtry from singing–so I’ll take the challenge.
But actually, just like last night, I ‘m not quite sure what to say. And the more I thought about it, the more confused I became. Was Tommy Mottola referring to a song that the band plays when the bar mitzvah boy walks in to the room at the reception? Just any old slow song that a band plays at a bar mitzvah (nothing particularly original, since Simon often throws around the epithet wedding singer). Was he saying that he didn’t want Elliott to sound like he was singing his Haftorah portion? Wouldn’t it have been great if Elliott broke into the blessings before the Torah at that point? Yeah, I know, my attempt to riff on this was kind of lame, but at least I tried.
What’s wrong is allowing Rebecca Romaijn to produce the show. If being subjected to another X-Men 3 promo wasn’t annoying enough, they now allow supermodels to make requests from the audience? It’s a live show and they have to go off the air at 9:32. I’d imagine every minute is planned before they go on the air. They wasted time with coma-inducing clips of the Idols’ trip to Graceland (hey, Elvis had a lot of gold records!) and a (not bad, although Katharine continued to oversing) medley of three dozen Elvis hits. So it’s 9:20 and there’s Rebecca Romaijn and since she wants Taylor to sing, they have him do it?
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not angry that Taylor sang “Jailhouse Rock,” even though his other song was better. What I’m angry about is that letting Taylor sing meant we only got to hear 30 seconds of Chris’ singout (and he didn’t even have time to say a few words other than in the “Bad Day” montage). He sounded better than he did last night on “Suspicious Minds,” started walking over to the other Idols for what looked like an emotional moment and–cut. It’s time for Unan1mous (and I know the ratings say people are watching it, but I have a hard time believing any functioning human being is.) Chris has been a huge part of this show for three months, and we can’t see his full singout because they want to fulfill Rebecca Romajin’s request? Ryan couldn’t say, “Um, we’re running short on time tonight and we don’t want to cut the singout short like we have the last two weeks, even though we have only one job in 32 minutes and that’s to tell you who’s leaving and have them exit the show by singing?”What a joke. This show just infuriates me sometimes. As I’ve said before, the producers don’t seem to know why we watch the show. I can’t believe even Taylor’s biggest fans wouldn’t have rather seen Chris get a full singout than see Taylor (who the producers knew was coming back next week) sing again.
OK, I’m off my soapbox. As for Chris getting eliminated, I wouldn’t have been surprised by anyone getting eliminated tonight (although I will note that I did predict Chris, and that’s without looking at DialIdol.com, which once again had this one correct). But Elliott really did turn it on last night, Taylor has a huge fan base and had one of the best performances of the night, and Katharine is the only woman (meaning people might vote for her because they want some variety in the final three) and she’s, um, hot. But I will admit, despite my swooning every week, she really was the one that deserved to go tonight. Having said that, I think Chris just seemed too nonchalant Tuesday night. Maybe he was trying to conserve his voice after last week’s problems, but for me as Randy would say, he didn’t seem all that great. Other reasons Chris lost: People didn’t want to hear his screaming, modern rock-inflected songs for two more weeks (he couldn’t do it this week, but he demonstrated last week that if he has any choice in the matter, he will sing the same type of song he’s already sung 14 times on the show. You can get by if they’re good songs, but most of the songs Chris sung are not going to be classics, and with good reason.) And of course, you can’t underestimate people being so disturbed by Chris’ way-too-much-information moment revealing his underwear choice (Ryan’s reaction was so creepy I don’t even want to discuss it) that they felt they had enough. But I’ll give Chris some credit–he brought a real rocker presence to this show for the first time, and he did show some versatility a few weeks ago, just not enough of it. Will he be as successful as Paula thinks he will be? (And I hope someone’s on suicide watch at her house tonight.) Hard to say. (Way to take a position, Fingerhut.)
Finally, I had two people tell me that they were surprised that I did not comment on Tommy Mottola’s comment about not wanting Elliott to sing his first song like it was “a bar mitzvah song.” Well, I don’t want to disappoint any of my readers, and if I take a request, it doesn’t prevent Chris Daughtry from singing–so I’ll take the challenge.
But actually, just like last night, I ‘m not quite sure what to say. And the more I thought about it, the more confused I became. Was Tommy Mottola referring to a song that the band plays when the bar mitzvah boy walks in to the room at the reception? Just any old slow song that a band plays at a bar mitzvah (nothing particularly original, since Simon often throws around the epithet wedding singer). Was he saying that he didn’t want Elliott to sound like he was singing his Haftorah portion? Wouldn’t it have been great if Elliott broke into the blessings before the Torah at that point? Yeah, I know, my attempt to riff on this was kind of lame, but at least I tried.
posted by Eric Fingerhut at 11:00 PM
3 Comments:
Good one.
I think that you need to get caught up on Lost, so you can post about that. It sound like even you are getting fed up with American Idol.
I would have to assume that the Romaijn things was already set-up with the producers ahead of time. I doubt they'd let her do that on the fly, nu?
But I think that Taylor might deserve to win. He has that odd charisma and is a better singer than the other two.
Unfortunetly somebody has to lose and in my humble opinion the fans got it right. Katherines performances Tuesday were more energized and appealing to the masses. Plus if you compare Chris's and Katherine's body of work Katherine is the clear choice. That and the fact Chris was splitting votes with two other dudes gave him a slim chance of survival.
In my mind this paves the way for Katherine to become the new American Idol. In the end she is the only one that will sell any records anyway...
I must admit that I was one of the many whose jaw dropped when they announced that Chris would be the one to leave last night. As I said the other day, Katherine really should have been voted off. From her reaction, you knew that she agrees with this assessment. But, as they say, America has voted. But then again, they voted for Bush...I do agree that Chris got too cocky for his own good. Maybe people figured that he would make it without the win. Who knows?
As they say, and then there were three. Unless Katherine does some serious work on her performances, she won't make it to the finals. And unlike some people out there, I think that she could use some serious work on her dancing. If you are a person who does dance well, her moves kind of grate on the nerves. As does Elliott's. Taylor doesn't bother me as much because his jerks are part of his schtick. Just one woman's opinion. Elliott needs to continue performing as he did on Tuesday to have a chance. Yes he can sing. Yes he is nice. No, he does not get the looks vote. He actually scares me a bit. And that leaves Taylor. At this juncture, my favorite. I hope that America takes him all the way. I have liked him from the beginning, and I would love to see an unconventional Idol. He won't be your cookie-cutter pop star. Time for a change...hopefully.
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