Archive through May 19, 2003
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: American Idol (FOX): Miscellaneous Gossip (ARCHIVE): Archives: Archive through May 19, 2003

Serate

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 06:11 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
"They each have a different style and if they do sing the same last song, I hope they find a song that matches both of their styles equally. "

How about the two of them singing a song that totally clashes with both of their styles equally? How about some old time country western [none of this new country rock stuff]. I can just picture both of them singing like Hank Williams. AND make it a requisite that they have to have that old time twang. *L*

There's a tear in my beer 'Cause I'm crying for you dear You are on my lonely mind
Into these last nine beers I have shed a million tears You are on my lonely mind
I'm gonna keep on sitting here Until I'm petrified And then maybe These tears will leave my eyes Last night I walked the floor And the night before You are on my lonely mind
It seems my life is through And I'm so doggone blue You are on my lonely mind
I'm gonna keep on sitting here Till I can't move a toe And then maybe My heart won't hurt me so

Ok I'm being silly here but I'm trying to LIGHTEN up the conversation. Whoever wins wins. I don't think I'm gonna even consider voting - probably wouldn't got thru anyways and who would I vote for?

Nanarobin

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 06:48 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Several interesting articles on all contestants (especially the voting) at:
http://www.foxesonidol.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl

And more articles at:
http://www.realitynewsonline.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl?mode=2&page=page1062.php

I hope you find the articles as interesting as I did
...both sites seem to have a lot of info on the show and the contestants
...although the foxes site does have more current news

Sadiesmom

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 06:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Uh, Serate, Clay sings country. It is on his demo.

Sadiesmom

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 06:54 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
SO, now, Barry White is seriously ill?

Wcv63

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 07:30 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I've come to the conclusion that all the media hype is an effort to whip the fans into a voting frenzy. Perhaps it was to guarantee that both these young men (both of whom Simon has already confirmed will be signing with his company) will have the largest fanbases possible.

The success of the singers isn't really the issue. It's the success of 19 that is being considered.

Good luck to both Ruben and Clay and to all the fans out there. I personally hope that Clay wins and will channel my efforts to that end.

Sadiesmom

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 08:22 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Is it against the rules to post to another board for something someone has posted?

Serate

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 08:31 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Sadiesmom - didn't realize Clay sang country. Thanks for the info.

Sadiesmom

Friday, May 16, 2003 - 09:08 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Clay's country is just an accent, not singing through the nose like some we can mention.

Tabbyking

Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 08:38 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
edgar was hispanic and did an enrique iglesias number...he was horrid. then he showed up in hollywood on his own and freaked the judges out...he's a guy much like keith who also had the judges cringing and laughing and not always behind their hands. he was a fun, crazy guy...and i would laugh like heck if he showed up at the CI auditions.

Lala

Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 10:05 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Hi everybody, first time poster but long,long time lurker. I have not read this anywhere, so here it is, on Thursday night I heard Kim L tell an interviewer, that she & Clay are planning to move to L.A. & share an apartment & expenses. CLAY WILL WIN!

Tabbyking

Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 10:21 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
how cool! and welcome to actually posting here, lala!!

Sherbabe

Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 08:53 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I had posted a week or so ago that i read that Kim and Clay were very close to each other. Read an article in People magazine this week. They asked both Clay and Reuben who they thought would win at the start of the competition. Clay said Frenchy. Reuben said Reuben.
Wsh he had a little more humility.

Sadiesmom

Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 07:09 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I don't know if this is true or where he gets his crap from but here is the latest Drudge on Ruben.

RIGOROUS SCHEDULE, STRESS: 'AMERICAN IDOL' FRONTRUNNER HEALTH FEARS

With recording legend Luther Vandross still hospitalized after a severe stroke, concern over AMERICAN IDOL finalist Ruben Studdard's health and well-being has become a priority with recording executive Clive Davis, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Pound-progressive Studdard is often captured on TV sweating profusely after only a few notes. "He sometimes can be terribly lethargic, he moves slow," one top insider explains.
There is more.

Why does this article , well first - Is he a front runner in votes, they never tell us and that's OK, but secondly, this article makes me think they are going to be critical of him in the final show, they can't have an ill idol go the rounds. Who knows what is in the minds of the evil record producers. I only say that from personal knowledge of friends in the business who have been damaged. Plus my best friend is a vice president (the perks of being old, friends are powerful) the ******** department for the major company and has told me nightmare stories of what the company lawyers do, she is having a concience problem right now, tough being a nice person who does superb work in a business without a concience.

Tishala

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 02:39 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Sorry....there is no place to put this and, rather than starting a new thread, I thought I should post it here.

The State of American Singing as Heard on 'I-I-I-I-I-I-Idol'
By JODY ROSEN

THE cover of the new CD "American Idol Season 2: All-Time Classic American Love Songs" features grinning head shots of 11 of the television talent show's 12 finalists — an attractive, amiable-looking group that could be a high school glee club. Don't be fooled. Competitive karaoke is not for the fainthearted; "American Idol" contestants do not sing songs so much as attack them. In nearly every verse of every number on "All-Time Classic American Love Songs," the young singers pursue a strategy of violent Mariah Carey emulation. Their credo is clear: never hesitate to warble seven notes where one would suffice.

Vocal showboating is to be expected in a high-stakes singing contest with a repertory that leans toward florid pop ballads. (Among the "all-time classics" covered by "American Idol" competitors on the CD are breast-beating staples of lite radio like Journey's "Open Arms" and Jeffrey Osborne's "On the Wings of Love.") But what is noteworthy about "American Idol," whose new winner will be crowned on Wednesday, is the similarity between its young hopefuls and the reigning royalty of Billboard's pop and rhythm and blues charts. "American Idol" offers a telling glimpse of the state of American popular singing, an art which has in the last decade been dominated not just by a single style — a kind of watered-down gospel-soul — but by a particular vocal mannerism: melisma.

A melisma is a passage of several notes sung to a single syllable. It is a nearly universal musical gesture — heard in everything from Gregorian chant to Indian raga to the Muslim muezzin's trilling call to prayer — and a fixture of many of the genres that nourished American pop, in particular the gospel music that Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin and others carried out of the black church and recast as secular soul and R & B.

It is this gospel-style melisma that is rampant on "American Idol" and the top-40 airwaves. Turn on the radio: Christina Aguilera hurtles across octaves, distending the "I" in "I am beautiful" into a fluttering "I-I-I-I-I-I"; R & B stars like Destiny's Child and R. Kelly pile melismas atop a skeletal backdrop of beats and backing vocals. Singers of R & B "slow jams" are particularly prone to melismatic flights — Stevie Wonder impersonations gone terribly wrong. "How You Gonna Act Like That," the current hit ballad by the R & B lothario Tyrese, is typical, packing more than a hundred melismas into its 4 minutes 54 seconds. There is scarcely a vowel sound in the song that Tyrese does not use as an occasion for vocal embroidery.

Even singers physically incapable of melisma have gone to extremes to include it in songs. Cher's huge 1998 hit "Believe" was built around a feat of studio trickery — the singer's voice was manipulated to produce gasping grace notes in the song's chorus — and Madonna has also dabbled in computer-generated melisma on recent records. These days, a machine-made warble is better than no warble at all.

On the one hand, the quavering voices of today's singers tell us something meaningful about music history. The sanctified sound that migrated from the church to the charts a half-century ago has proven unusually resilient. Listening to hit radio, it is clear that the enduring music of the 1960's is not post-Beatles guitar rock but post-gospel soul.

But that grand tradition has been largely reduced to a signature trick; through sheer overuse, singers are sapping melisma of its expressive power. Soul innovators like Mr. Charles and Ms. Franklin were capable of melisma that could singe the false eyelashes of divas like Ms. Carey and Whitney Houston, but they used the technique more sparingly, and more meaningfully — as fevered expressions of emotions beyond words. Listen to Mr. Charles's "Come Back Baby" (1954). He employs all kinds of vocal flourishes, whooping and growling, lagging teasingly behind the beat and sliding into an unearthly falsetto. When he does break into melisma, he does so in the service of his song: in his vocal hiccups we hear the pain of a spurned lover.

Ms. Carey and Ms. Houston are technical virtuosos, but their overwrought melismas communicate nothing but ego. The difference between "Come Back Baby" and Ms. Carey's melisma-saturated "Hero," between Ms. Franklin's transcendent 1972 recording of "Amazing Grace" and Ms. Houston's showpiece ballad "I Will Always Love You," is the difference between a musical performance and an athletic exhibition — the difference between soul and "soul."

If "American Idol" is any indication, few of today's young singers are aware of such distinctions. The show's early audition rounds were a tragicomic spectacle of tone-deaf singers attempting melismatic runs — wild musical embellishments in search of a melody. The winner of the first "American Idol," Kelly Clarkson, is a full-on melisma specialist; her hit debut album, "Thankful," is full of her bland mastery of the craft.

It is worth remembering that good popular singing is less about technical polish than personality amplification. Many of the greatest pop singers are freaks, cranks and technical ill-adepts; the bona fide American idols who would likely flop on "American Idol" include not just vocal eccentrics like Bob Dylan, Chet Baker and Billie Holiday, but even the definitive modern soul diva, Mary J. Blige, whose occasionally imperfect pitch is more than compensated for by her charisma and large lungs.

There are signs that a melisma backlash may be stirring. Millions of record buyers are gravitating to Norah Jones, whose vibratoless croon completely eschews melisma. The neo-soul movement, which enshrines the sounds and production values of 1970's black pop, has also revived that era's less histrionic approach to singing. Stars like D'Angelo, Erykah Badu and Macy Gray remind listeners that the great soul singers of the 70's were distinguished by the grain of their voices and their stylish syncopations rather than by cramming songs with hundreds of gratuitous notes.

spectacle for signs of restraint. The odds-on favorite to win "American Idol" is a 25-year-old Alabaman, Ruben Studdard, the show's melisma powerhouse. Meanwhile, on Thursday night VH-1 will broadcast "Divas Duets" — a live concert, starring Ms. Blige, Ms. Houston, Beyoncé of Destiny's Child, Celine Dion, Chaka Khan, Ashanti and other melisma queens, that promises to devolve into a wild cutting contest.

But don't look to this week's television

Who will win that grudge match is anybody's guess, but musical subtlety will not carry the day. In melisma-mad 2003, more — as any would-be American idol will tell you — is mo-oo-oo-oo-re.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/arts/television/18ROSE.html?th

Llkoolaid

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 04:55 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Now I have a name for what I hate singers do to a song. MELISMA, lose it, it is over used. Nothing and I mean nothing will turn me off a singer more than MELISMA. It makes them sound like a dog with his tail caught in the door.

Mamaanja

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 07:46 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Amen, Llkoolaid, amen!!!!

Twinkie

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 07:49 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I couldn't agree more! And I think alot of people must feel the same way because the last four standing this year did almost none of that.

Marymc

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 07:56 am EditMoveDeleteIP
it says to me that they can't sustain a note. is there anyway we can all stand up and demand a return to the purity and beauty of a song sung simply? ANTI-MELISMANIANS UNITE!

Weenerlobo

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 12:20 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Lol - include me in that movement!

Bracken

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 02:13 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Simon was just interviewed on Extra! and he said that Clay wouldn't win cause he has feet like skis. He said the public won't vote for someone with big feet, lol. I have this great pic of clay (he feet are enormous in it) but can't figure out how to import it from my picture file to this location. Anybody know how I do this?

Nanarobin

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 02:31 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Where do I sign up for the anti-MELISMA club. I have stated numerous times that I hate that and wish for 'real' signing to come back. I just did not know the correct terminology to use.

Thanks for the story, Tishala...very enlightening article from which even us oldies can learn!!

NanaRobin
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AND...who cares if Clay has big feet...he has a big heart and a big strong voice capable of varied styles. It seems, that poor lil Simon is worried and keeps trying to slant the voting to 'his guy' Ruben. What a shame...

LET THE CONTEST BE EQUAL AND FREE...
HHHHHWHAAAT??? Simon, shut up already!!!

Crazydog

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 02:40 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I think the "big feet" thing was Simon attempting to make a joke. He is one of the judges, and he wants Ruben to win, seemingly, so I don't see a problem with giving his opinion. No need to get all worked up....

Bracken

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 03:32 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I thought you all knew this was a joke by Simon. Frankly, I think he was trying to back off the "I Want Ruben to Win" opinion he purported earlier in the week. This was a typical Simon response rather than "no comment."

Meanwhile, the picture I wanted to post is quite amusing, it's Ruben and Clay together.

Surealityjunkie

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 03:33 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Sadiesmom,

I tried to post this earlier this a.m. but my computer was acting crazy!!! :)

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Barry White is "in great spirits" as he recovers from a stroke that affected his speech and the right side of his body, his daughter says.

The deep-voiced soul singer suffered the stroke earlier this month while waiting for a kidney transplant needed because of complications from years of chronic high blood pressure.

His daughter, Shaherah White, said the singer must be stabilized before he can undergo a transplant operation.

"He's had a minor setback, but have no fear, he'll be fine," she said Friday. "He will definitely be performing again."

White, 58, was hospitalized in August 1999 for a blood pressure problem that forced him to cancel several performances. He is undergoing dialysis treatment.

Shaherah White spoke at a news conference on plans to rename South Park Recreation Center in Los Angeles after her father, who grew up in the area.

White, whose popularity reached a peak in the 1970s, won two Grammys in 2000 for best male and traditional R&B vocal performance for the song "Staying Power."

Meme9

Monday, May 19, 2003 - 03:46 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
My cable in out on the channel AI is on!!!! I'm hunting for family that is getting it....not fun.

Oh, I have an idea where Clay could put his foot...er Simon turn around! LOL