Pop Goes the World

[jlh]

Not pop, actually, but an assortment of "songs that Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal really love and/or wrote." ziggy1278 noted that Gwen was an excellent coach and I completely agree. No Rymon tonight, but a weird "Ryan mugs for the camera in a closeup shot" moment that I love but do not entirely understand.

1. Lakisha, "Last Dance." But what will be left for disco night with Barry Gibb? She was lovely, and I, too, loved the boots.
   
2. Chris Sligh, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." Jesus, Chris, it's called syncopation. What a mess.
   
3. Gina, "I'll Stand By You." She was awesome! Yay!
   
4. Sanjaya, "Bathwater." Like the judges, I have nothing to say here, except perhaps *sigh*
   
5. Haley, "True Colors." I feel that Gwen wasn't all that impressed with Haley. I wish that we'd had more time tonight so that we could have heard what the hell Haley was trying to do, but I really didn't like her version at all. Hugely clunky.
   
6. Phil, "Every Breath You Take." So this song is actually sort of boring if you aren't staring at Sting's cheekbones. But then I usually find Phil sort of boring. He did a nice job, but it didn't touch me.
   
7. Melinda, "Heaven Knows." Once again, awesome. But they really have to stop with the belts. They think that they're giving her a waist, but they actually call attention to her tummy, which is like, her only figure flaw. Where are the Gayles? But I love the flip; so much better than the pageboy thing she was rocking last night.
   
8. Blake, "Love Song." First, he didn't do the Cure song; he did the bullshit 311 cover (Paula), which is unsurprising since they're his favorite band. So I hated it and the cheesy hand gesture at the end, and also 1982 is calling and wants its sweater back.
   
9. Jordin, "Hey Baby." She sounded fantastic. But I actually really hated the outfit, like, so much. Grey is NOT her color. Even in a horrible outfit she managed to be adorable, so hey.
   
10. Chris Richardson, "Don't Speak." Um, you know, it was fine, whatever. I'm just sort of not really all that impressed with him. He'll be around for a while, and then he'll be gone. Seems like a nice kid though.
    

So this is the thing about Sligh and his inability to find the "pocket": He needs to listen to more black music, or even rock that was actually influenced by black music. There is little whiter than Christian rock and he just can't handle anything that isn't a straight ahead rhythm, which is weird, because he has all these pretensions of musicality but actually a child can hear the reggae syncopation of The Police. It's like he sang too many pop songs in a show choir, because those school choir arrangements nearly always take out the tricky rhythm because it's so tough to get a lot of kids to do it in unison. Music master class my ass. I dread his still being around for disco night, I really do.


[Poll #955896]

Comments

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

(My answer to the last question was totally tongue in cheek. :P)

[dana-kujan.livejournal.com]

There was a teeny bit of Rymon... Ryan did that goofy, too-wide, twinkly-eyed grin at Simon shortly after introducing the judges. Simon did that thing where he looks everywhere but at the stage (during a performance) until he spots Ryan.

[zorb]

Sanjaya's hair sucked all of the Rymon away.

[eilujspark.livejournal.com]

Oh, there was a bit of Rymon. That whole "I'm not finished!" bitchery, followed by "I'm not pushing the buttons....not YET anyways." Hmmm..does he mean the technical buttons or Simon's buttons? ;) Probably the former but it's fun to think otherwise.

[toastoos.livejournal.com]

God, I'm so tired of Sligh, it's not even funny.
He didn't know the song? What?? Everyone knows that song!

And I'm loving Blake (the guy, not particularly his songs) more and more every week. And I hope he's in the finale with Melinda. Which is weird because I couldn't stand him in his first audition.

I have no idea who's going home this week. Maybe Haley or Chris R.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You know, I have to say, while I always noticed the way that Simon would stare at Ryan while he was intro'ing the singers (to the extent that Ryan smacked him to turn around the other week, did you notice that?) I didn't realize until this year how often Simon is flirting with Ryan during Randy and Paula's judging. It may be that only recently has the director been putting he and Paula in two shots, or I just wasn't paying attention, but my god, like, he's really obsessive about it.

Okay, the results just started and Ryan threw his wig at Simon. God I love them.

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

You know, when Ryan announced that someone would be doing a Cure song, I turned around to Shawn and said, "Blake's gonna do Love Song, and it's not going to be the Cure version, it's going to be the 311 version."

So. Called. It.

At this point I'm secretly wondering if Sanjaya is TRYING to get kicked off, and he's beyond flustered at his continued success? I mean, the hair?

[thepodsquad.livejournal.com]

I hate Fox. I hate Fox. I hate Fox. GAH! It was off again, and just...gah. I wanted to see the wig throwing. :(

and who got kicked off, but eh, I'm surprised but not upset.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Wow. You associated me with American Idol. In public.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in guilty pleasures, therefore there is no guilt by association here. :P

[jlh.livejournal.com]

but now you are seeing it too! I so win.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, I put it into the drabble, anyway. I have no idea what the "not yet" was about since they are so not making him a producer on that show, since they haven't even made Simon a producer. That said, I love it when Ryan gets all backstagey with his "camera 3? can you follow me?" and shit.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I'm actually really interested to see what happens with Blake post-show. I think he could actually be a really interesting recording artist. I like the way he thinks.

I'm so glad you were wrong and also right about Sligh. I loved Jacob's commentary that Sligh was so over his head that he didn't even understand just how over his head he really was. That's what happens when you go from being a big fish in a small pond to suddenly being in an incredibly large pond. Master class my ass, dude.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Bittorrent is your friend, as it was also mine. Also, nice icon.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think that he was, and now he's sort of settled into this place where he doesn't even really sing anymore, but just does whatever he wants. I'm sure the others in the house, especially those who have been in the bottom 2-3 while he has not (which would be Haley and Phil mostly) are really not fans of his at all. I noticed that during results the entire top row was holding hands, but Haley was NOT holding Sanjaya's (who was on the end).

Blake's unfortunate love for 311 is the chink in his armor. I actually find a lot of what he does to be sort of interesting, and I agreed with Simon that what he actually needs to watch out for is being too stubborn like Daughtry. I'm excited to see what Blake will do once he gets inside a studio, but I worry that it won't be incredibly radio-friendly.