Goddamn that TWC

[jlh]

So my DVR had a freakout and didn't record Idol tonight. This has led me into the shady world of the bittorrent (oh, Ryan, what I do for you) and means there won't be anything from me until the morning at least. In the meantime, in between time: the following recaps aren't live, either, but they're good places to check, especially as the latter two are by music snobs, which gives them an interesting aspect.

If you aren't already reading the Television Without Pity recaps that I'm not sure what you're doing here. Jacob and Joe R. are similarly about the "ho-yay" of Simon and Ryan, and they catch stuff I don't and confirm my suspicions generally. Recaplet up by the night after; full recap up on Monday.

The LA Times American Idol Show Tracker can be a little silly (recently referring to Ryan as the Angel of Death) but they did break that Cryin' Ashley was a plant, so there you go.

Idolator is a music blog by the folks that brought you Gawker. Their recaps are heavy on the music and light on the ho-yay, but have a good sorting mechanism of the good, the bad and the inexplicable. Updates the night after, so W-Th.

Allmusic also follows Idol, with their editors posting what seems to me like a chat transcript, but it's fucking hilarious and includes clips of the original versions of the songs that were sung. Usually their full recap of performance and results is up by the Saturday or Sunday following the shows.

Comments

[thepodsquad.livejournal.com]

My Fox station went out! So I..ran to my grandmother's. Nothing will seperate me and my Ryan and Simon...American Idol. Because it's about the singing, sometimes.

And..oh, I love Jacob on TWOP. I find him delightful and wacky and lovable...and I just cannot like Joe R for some reason. I guess I always end up getting the vibe that Jacob sort of inexplicably loves the show, and definitely has love for Ryan and Simon, and Joe R. just...doesn't seem to like it very much, and I just don't find his recaps very fun.

I am SO picky. :P

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

I...don't read the Television Without Pity recaps. Can I still be here? :( I just like reading what you have to say about stuff....

[eilujspark.livejournal.com]

I so agree with you on JoeR. His recaps are so..I don't know how to word it..but they aren't fun like Jacobs.

I'll admit that a lot of my love for Jacob has to do with his love for Ryan, but there is more to my dislike of Joe's caps than his Ryan dislike. He just seems to be doing it for the extra money and really hates it. I don't think Jacob is a huge fan or anything, but he seems to enjoy it a bit in spite of himself.

[thepodsquad.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

Jacob thinks it's BS, but I don't actually know anyone that DOESN'T think it's BS, but like a lot of fans he just finds aspects of it lovable, and it's just such a spectacle. And I think he honestly enjoys recapping it most of the time. And his Ryan-love doesn't hurt.

And I honestly just think that Joe R deeply loathes the show and everyone on it, and there is a fine line between snarking on something and just hating something. Snarking always has some strange amount of affection to it, and you can always tell when a recapper on TWOP is just implementing snark and when they would shoot themselves in the foot rather than watch a show if they weren't being paid.

It's infinitely more fun and entertaining when they like it.

[eilujspark.livejournal.com]

Like Shacks recaps. As funny as they admittedly were, there are times when I read it when I think to myself "Dude. Shut up. There are better ways of making money than doing something that obviously cause you pain." Well, I guess he finally agreed with that.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

ITA about Jacob's love for Ryan and that making his recaps more fun. I think actually that Joe has just been worn down by the machine of this show over the years. By now he knows how the voting works, like clockwork, and the good people going early bums him out but he's trying not to be whiny so instead he gets snarky and irritable. But when someone sings really well? Joe is all about it. Also, Joe is only about a half step away from truly believing that Simon and Ryan are fucking, which I find sort of funny.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I actually like Joe because he's like, the dark side of my love for Idol: staring the horrible machine in the face. I'm more like Jacob in that my Ryan and Simon love can get me through, but if I didn't have that I couldn't watch this show, because of the way that it works. I think a lot of that was what happened last year—Joe could see Taylor winning, like a horrible bad dream, very early on and could do nothing to stop it. You can see that in his hatred of VFTW; he wants this show to actually be what it says it is, but he knows that it will only be exactly what it actually is, which is why the title of his recap for the final is "America gets the Idol it deserves."

But yeah, Jacob's freak out over Ryan's Nana was awesome.

[thepodsquad.livejournal.com]

I like Joe's old recaps, I find his season 5 ones amusing, but I just love Jacob more.

And this year he just...really, he seems to hate it, and hate watching it, and I would just rather read a recap by Jacob, who while he resents what the show really IS as opposed to what it WISHES it was, seems to take some pleasure from it. And I just don't get that from Joe R anymore.

But even when I really liked Joe R fine, no one could replace Jacob. I loved Jacob from the moment he started talking about Constantine, who will always freak me out more than anything, and just never looked back. I think I probably resent Joe a little bit for taking the job and thereby restricting my Jacob rambles to only half of what they once were. Sad.

[eilujspark.livejournal.com]

I also kind of think that Jacob sometimes is embarassed by his Ryan love and says some snarky things about him(not that Ryan doesn't deserve some snark) just to not seem lame to the other TWoPers.

I could be very wrong, but there was a wierd bit in a recent recap in which he actually said "I'm sorry, but I love him. I TRIED to stop but it won't go away."

Uh, why did you try to stop? To please who?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks! I admit, I was sad when you said you don't like that sort of big Broadway sort of singing because, well, er, that's what my voice sounds like, or more like that than not, or at least pretty jazzy and not like, poppy. So I was all, woe! and then I was like, shut up, Clio, she's not actually talking about you.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

Oh geez, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend. And it's not that I don't love beautiful voices, or even Broadway-style voices - my preferences have more to do with the performance style. I dislike the kind of polished theatricality Melinda (and Jordin, usually) uses when she sings. Lakisha has an equally beautiful voice and a similar vocal style to Melinda, but she's far less good at bringing off the theatricality, which for me is a plus. It has to do with feeling manipulated at a given moment by random strangers, which is very hard to explain and very self-involved/navel-gazey. But I definitely wasn't trying to make a sweeping judgement against that type of voice.

And honestly, the 'given moment' and 'random stranger' elements are significant. If I was already emotionally involved with Melinda for some reason - if I knew her or liked her from something else already - I'd most likely have a more positive reaction to her performances.

I just. I hope I'm not making things worse. I don't really know what to say. I'm really sorry that I seem to have hurt your feelings on some level, and I wish I could explain myself in some way to put things in perspective. Or unsay what I said, which would be better...

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think the pertinent part was: and then I was like, shut up, Clio, she's not actually talking about you and that it was just me being a little oversensitive. I mean, personal preferences are personal preferences, and you really aren't required to like the way I sing particularly as you haven't ever heard me sing. I think what I meant was that I've always been told that I sing with a lot of emotion, which I kind of do, although hopefully it isn't too overly dramatic! So you didn't hurt my feelings; you just reminded me that not everyone likes the same sort of thing and that's perfectly okay!

For me, part of why I love Melinda is that she's such a pro and puts so much feeling into the song, really interprets them, and IS very smooth and super competent at the whole thing. I'm very admiring of her control and ability to get exactly the effect that she's going for.