Why hast thou forsaken us, Clive?
May. 17th, 2006 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhSorry this is late; I sort of crashed last night after watching it on the TIVO.
Wow, Ryan, bad mood, probably because he knows he'll have to do that whole "judges choice" bit with Paula. See, this is why you need to stop having 25 jobs, sweetie though I love the facial hair as usual. Only one week left so I want to pause for a moment and give you a brief treatise on Ryan:
TWOP recapper Jacob was talking about Ryan's little moment in last week's show where he weirdly implied that Paula is a stripper and referred to the whole ripping-Kathy-Griffin's-top thing and that the joke about Simon's lifestyle being about Ryan's power and sex issues and need to occasionally self-sabotage. I have to say, this is something I really love about Ryan, that he's so professional he's like a little robot but every once in a while he loses it because it's actually all just an act of will. It's pretty clear that he has willed himself into this "Ryan Seacrest" product from the time he put down the tray of nachos and turned off Oprah and decided to go into radio. Let's face it, radio is not the place where the good looking people are because there's more money in television, so I think that Ryan's looks were still a work in progress when he quit college and moved west. (Not that he isn't fantastic in radio still; I listened to part of AT40 this week and Ryan is very talented, very intimate, sounds like he's just your local DJ, alone in the studio on the weekend, vamping between songs and allowing for pauses, in a show that was traditionally packed full of bullshit and ridiculousness.) He's still pretty young and he's running fast enough to not have to process anything like who he really is (particularly his sexuality). I just hope he has enough shit in place that when he really has the meltdown that's coming that he will be able to take some time off and come back and do the obligatory People cover and biography and blah blah blah. I just want to pat his head and tell him it's going to be okay and make him a fruit salad sometimes, because the idea that the only way to avoid the abyss is to dance as fast as you can is very, very familiar.
Anyway, meanwhile, Ryan really didn't want to deal with anyone's bullshit tonight and you could tell that he knew it was coming and had already made it worse in his head than it ended up being anyway. I liked the Simon smack down—like dude, don't make talking to Paula and getting some kind of sense out of her before the whole show runs long any harder than it's already going to be. (I really wish someone would do an intervention for her because jesus, it's really upsetting.) But the little happy dance with Taylor about Simon being happy? That's the moment I had to rewind and watch five times not because it's shippy but because he was just so darn cute, shaking his little fists in joy.
As for Randy, the whole "I was in Journey" thing, like, no one cares that you were the session musician that they took on tour a few times, dude. And all your vamping when Ryan was sitting with y'all before Elliott sang, and that weirdo fax to the governor? Christ, you're worse than Taylor, which is probably why you like him, because neither of you have an actual personality so you're substituting for it with a series of ticks and catch phrases.
So Elliott was screwed by Clive and Paula, Katharine was screwed by Clive but served by Simon, and Taylor was served by Randy and Clive, and this is why people think the show is fixed.
Aside: that movie "The Lake House" looks pretty good actually, though it makes me annoyed anew that "Enchanted April" isn't out on DVD. What is that about?
[Poll #730593]
Wow, Ryan, bad mood, probably because he knows he'll have to do that whole "judges choice" bit with Paula. See, this is why you need to stop having 25 jobs, sweetie though I love the facial hair as usual. Only one week left so I want to pause for a moment and give you a brief treatise on Ryan:
TWOP recapper Jacob was talking about Ryan's little moment in last week's show where he weirdly implied that Paula is a stripper and referred to the whole ripping-Kathy-Griffin's-top thing and that the joke about Simon's lifestyle being about Ryan's power and sex issues and need to occasionally self-sabotage. I have to say, this is something I really love about Ryan, that he's so professional he's like a little robot but every once in a while he loses it because it's actually all just an act of will. It's pretty clear that he has willed himself into this "Ryan Seacrest" product from the time he put down the tray of nachos and turned off Oprah and decided to go into radio. Let's face it, radio is not the place where the good looking people are because there's more money in television, so I think that Ryan's looks were still a work in progress when he quit college and moved west. (Not that he isn't fantastic in radio still; I listened to part of AT40 this week and Ryan is very talented, very intimate, sounds like he's just your local DJ, alone in the studio on the weekend, vamping between songs and allowing for pauses, in a show that was traditionally packed full of bullshit and ridiculousness.) He's still pretty young and he's running fast enough to not have to process anything like who he really is (particularly his sexuality). I just hope he has enough shit in place that when he really has the meltdown that's coming that he will be able to take some time off and come back and do the obligatory People cover and biography and blah blah blah. I just want to pat his head and tell him it's going to be okay and make him a fruit salad sometimes, because the idea that the only way to avoid the abyss is to dance as fast as you can is very, very familiar.
Anyway, meanwhile, Ryan really didn't want to deal with anyone's bullshit tonight and you could tell that he knew it was coming and had already made it worse in his head than it ended up being anyway. I liked the Simon smack down—like dude, don't make talking to Paula and getting some kind of sense out of her before the whole show runs long any harder than it's already going to be. (I really wish someone would do an intervention for her because jesus, it's really upsetting.) But the little happy dance with Taylor about Simon being happy? That's the moment I had to rewind and watch five times not because it's shippy but because he was just so darn cute, shaking his little fists in joy.
As for Randy, the whole "I was in Journey" thing, like, no one cares that you were the session musician that they took on tour a few times, dude. And all your vamping when Ryan was sitting with y'all before Elliott sang, and that weirdo fax to the governor? Christ, you're worse than Taylor, which is probably why you like him, because neither of you have an actual personality so you're substituting for it with a series of ticks and catch phrases.
- Elliott
- "Open Arms." Clive, come on now—the universal junior high talent show song? Totally boring and lame, poor Elliott.
- "What You Won't Do for Love." Another weird and not quite right song choice for poor Elliott. Seriously I can feel him getting screwed by this show this week. I can understand why Paula picked it but Elliott has these weird problems with mid-range mid-tempo songs, and that Paula picked this makes me feel like she hasn't really been listening critically to what he's been doing all season. Oh, wait, that's right: she hasn't.
- "I Believe to My Soul." Now, if either of his other songs had actually worked tonight, this would have been the perfect choice, because he sang a power ballad and some soulful midtempo wedding song so it's understandable that he'd want to show off his blues chops. But they didn't work, so now it's like he did a great job singing a really tough song that no one has heard of and no one cares about, and we all know that Simon being nice to you is the kiss of death. Well, I still voted 20 times for him.
- "Open Arms." Clive, come on now—the universal junior high talent show song? Totally boring and lame, poor Elliott.
- Katharine
- "I Believe I Can Fly." Another dreadful song from Clive. The judges were right; it's exactly the song she shouldn't be singing. She has a big voice but it's better when it's intimate than when it's a show stopper. Cabaret, not broadway. She just ended up sounding like Paris or something, and she got completely lost in that arrangement.
- "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." See, this is why Simon is a millionaire because he 100% called this; when properly channelled his tendency to go for the cheese (which, Ryan aside, I feel is one of the gayest things about Simon) is magic-with-a-snap. And Katharine was smart enough to see that she had to do this super small.
- "I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues." She sort of muffed it. She's been really off the last three weeks, barely able to put together more than one good performance and I'm really not sure what that's all about. I'm sure she picked this song for the same reason Elliott picked his, but Simon was right that it was too bad she didn't end on his song.
- "I Believe I Can Fly." Another dreadful song from Clive. The judges were right; it's exactly the song she shouldn't be singing. She has a big voice but it's better when it's intimate than when it's a show stopper. Cabaret, not broadway. She just ended up sounding like Paris or something, and she got completely lost in that arrangement.
- Taylor
- "Dancing in the Dark." He'll sing better later, but the real genius of his singing this song is that all of his bullshit actually worked for him. He danced around but it was fun instead of spastic (probably because he didn't know the song that well and had to think about singing) and the pulling Paula up to dance was the perfect move. However, his need to say "soul patrol" every five seconds makes me feel like he'd be one of those people who'd come on a talk show and remind you of the title of his new CD and the release date like, 45 times in a two-minute segment.
- "You Are So Beautiful." Thank god for Randy is all I can say. He was as right as Simon was. It's sad that we need to be forcefully reminded of what a good singer Taylor is because really, he should be shoving it in our faces with every song he sings, but instead he indulges in bullshit. Momentarily I have lost my existential angst over his almost-certain win.
- "Try a Little Tenderness." It's a wedding song. He jumped around and did his wedding bullshit. But he was right; it's what his fans love and he is not stupid. Banal, but not stupid.
- "Dancing in the Dark." He'll sing better later, but the real genius of his singing this song is that all of his bullshit actually worked for him. He danced around but it was fun instead of spastic (probably because he didn't know the song that well and had to think about singing) and the pulling Paula up to dance was the perfect move. However, his need to say "soul patrol" every five seconds makes me feel like he'd be one of those people who'd come on a talk show and remind you of the title of his new CD and the release date like, 45 times in a two-minute segment.
So Elliott was screwed by Clive and Paula, Katharine was screwed by Clive but served by Simon, and Taylor was served by Randy and Clive, and this is why people think the show is fixed.
Aside: that movie "The Lake House" looks pretty good actually, though it makes me annoyed anew that "Enchanted April" isn't out on DVD. What is that about?
[Poll #730593]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-26 01:59 am (UTC)http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=4E5D4EC501D88AE3
They are so unbelieveably cute in it!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-26 04:26 pm (UTC)I would direct you to something you likely have already heard. It's on the website for Ryan's morning show--an interview from October with Simon--and it's completely delightful.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-26 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-26 10:39 pm (UTC)http://ryan.kiisfm.com/timages/page/media/SIMON1129.mp3
no subject
Date: 2006-05-27 12:31 am (UTC)omg, that was so adorkable.
"Talk to me later."
I love Simon. XD
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 02:14 am (UTC)And who I hate most? TPTB and their not so subtle way of jerking around my poor Elliott. Wahh!!! *is seriously in tears*
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 05:51 pm (UTC)Hope you don't mind if I friend you.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 02:54 pm (UTC)No, please do, and thanks so much! Hopefully you'll be able to suffer through whatever else I decide to natter on about until January.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-26 02:04 am (UTC)I miss Rymon already.
But I think I can tough it out with you. ;)