my own opinion on various topics. usually current to todays news or entertainment issues.maybe you share the same and maybe you don't but always entertaining
My First Thoughts (previous to 1st airing of Idol 12)
nypost.com
Has it been a year already? Next week will see yet another season of American Idol begin. In passed years it is reported that ratings, while the envy of most , have fallen slightly from the beginning days. Could it have been the loss of Judges that those in the beginning were fond of? It was said that the edition of Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez is what brought the show back and now this season will see them gone. Steven Tyler I gotta say was a great addition to the team with his years of experience in achieving and losing and achieving yet again the spotlight for himself and his band Aerosmith makes him wise beyond his years, a true veteran of what the people want. I heard from many that they were surprised at his knowledge of music genres that were not his forte' because many believe that whatever style a singer sings is their only listening choice and these people could not be more wrong. Being a paisan on his mother's side and from his remarks on the show< I know he is familiar with the likes of Louis Prima, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra and last but not least Dino Martin. just give a listen to the similarities in this music, you can hear the influences Greenback Dollar Bill (Live) () (1999 Digital Remaster)
pictures.4ever.eu
push play button for Louis Prima
Jennifer Lopez , along with her expertise and advise for those chomping at the bit to get some notoriety, also brought some style, grace,sex appeal, and a feminine point of view.In the past, in my opinion, female Idol judges have a more nurturing attitude toward the contestants in giving constructive criticism, trying to help them help themselves.Kara DioGuardi was one I especially thought had a lot to offer to these wanna-be superstars.Unlike the rantings of the one most loved to hate(Simon Cowell) who is probably licking his wounds after leaving Idol to run X-Factor, maybe thinking he was the one people tuned into American Idol to see and could win them to X-Factor and that show isn't making the cut in the ratings world.
perezhilton.com
Even after the addition of bad girl Brittany Spears, then the rumor that an Earpiece was placed into Brittany's ear so someone could make her more intelligent sounding, and now it is rumored that she is to be fired. You can most likely chalk all of these headlines up to "publicity" There was once a belief that getting caught with one's proverbial "pants" down (or missing in Brittany's case) was a no-no. No one wanted to be seen by the public eye in this manner and that was the norm. These are the by-gone days. Today's world says it doesn't matter if you get filmed saving a child from a burning building or someone surfaces a pic or video of your college days in an inebriated state in your underwear and wearing someone Else's underwear on your face....well you know. It is publicity.I guess the short version is that in today's world of publicists, they live by the motto "whatever it takes" If it's fame you want, it's fame your gonna get. And sadly this works. It boosts ratings.
I wasn't an immediate viewer of American Idol because I had a different view of the show until I watched.Which by the way was because a friend and classmate of my granddaughter at a local high school was a contestant, sadly, he was one of the first let go when the call in voting started. That brings me to the fairness of this, not to take away from the winners because we have seen a lot out of winners like Carrie Underwood to mention one, but, we have also seen almost nothing out of others. In my opinion there has to be a more fair way for this to be done. It seems those from a large metropolis are the ones that last the longest.Can you name the winners from let's say the last 5 years without looking them up? (see below)
courtesy wikipedia But I became a fan of these entertainers. I especially enjoy hearing what they do with music from my era of rock-n-roll (60's and 70's and a fan of earlier music) I'll save my views on that for another day.
Well, that brings me to this coming season. I have enjoyed the show even though the ones I favored as winners don't always win but, they seem to do alright. I had the pleasure of seeing Crystal Bowersox at a free outdoor concert last August at the City of Lima, Ohio's town "square fair" (about 75 miles south of her hometown of Toledo)and was not disappointed. I think we will hear a lot more from her. Reports started coming in a while back when the taping of the auditions started about a tiff between judges Nikki Menage and Mariah Carey and supposedly the B word came out and some other insults and they were publicizing how the two were not a good match to work together and so forth and so on and blah blah blah."publicity" Otherwise they would have kept it under wraps. Remember this is a show that disqualifies contestants who have anything against them that could harm the shows good look. This leads me to think that is the only reason to bring this feud to light previous to the airing, and it is something that could be edited out. This is a family show. I think this show serves a good purpose because this is a hard business to get into if you want to be famous and rich. Don't buy into the ones that cry and say they just want to sing because there are many places you can sing. You wont get rich and famous and you may live paycheck to paycheck,but, if all you want is to sing, have at it.
Back in my day, there was once a thing called the "garage band" and they generally got hired to play school dances and such but sadly those days are gone thanks to the techno age where anyone can be a DJ and play the popular music of the day. I think I just hit on another article.
remember all of this is just In my opinion and to all the contestants "break a leg"
here are some recent tweets I'm boycotting #americanidol this year solely on the fact that@nickiminaj is NOT qualified at all to be a judge. How she is an artist...?
Even though I thought long and hard about not watching this year because of all the attempts to lure viewers with publicity releases of a tiff between the two diva judges, I watched. My main reason is like I mentioned is, these kids have good potential. I think it was well done but, they could spare me the ones that shouldn't even get in the door.Idol could save us all some time by having everyone audition maybe online or something and the same judges could watch and just cut it off after the first dozen notes and move on and then invite the ones they feel have a shot. You know the ones that "did okay"
I was first impressed with the very first singer Tenna Torres audition who said she went to camp Mariah as a young girl and even showed pics to Mariah of the two of them at the camp. Of course it was her singing that impressed me though. I think this one has a shot getting to the call in voting part of the show.
Of course the press and media are going to continue publicizing the Nikki-Mariah thing because this helps their own ratings as well. The Insider asked on FB if people thought this was real and asked for an answer by A/real, B/publicity, C/ don't care at all D/not real and wish_______/ can you guess what the top answer was? Out of 220 comments, almost all were B or C, some were D and almost none were A.
I bring this up because of the big discussion that went on after another contestant where I even said to my wife, "why don't they just vote to send her or not, they don't have to discuss her career right here" and was saved from listening to it all by Kieth Urban who said the same thing basically to the panel of judges.
That contestant was Sarah Restuccio, a dago from south Jersey.,(I can say that as I'm one). This girl can sing but, I wanted to see what everyone else was saying and saw some that seemed to think she was all over the place with pitch and others mentioned they loved her performance as auditions go. It was split pretty good. I tend to agree with the latter. I thought she did great, for those who don't sing publicly, it's very easy to criticize when you don't really know what your talking about. It takes a lot of moxie to get in their and sing without the benefit of music to sing to. If you watch "Elvis on Tour" a documentary covering Elvis in the 70's, in an interview, he mentions how nervous he is before every concert. To paraphrase from memory, Elvis said "till I get that first note or first line of the opening song, I am a nervous wreck".
Back to Sarah Restuccio, A couple comments were from those that have heard her before at a local establishment and were impressed. So , I went online and found the following videos where she is singing and trying to get some notoriety.
this is a good one if you take the crap out of it, I'm sorry I meant rap out of it. but it's very little so I can live with it. I think this girl really has a shot. Here are some more bE SURE TO VISIT YOUR FAVORITES FAN PAGE AT https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-Restuccio/440766762660584 ON FACEBOOK!
this is a good one if you take the crap out of it, I'm sorry I meant rap out of it. but it's very little so I can live with it. I think this girl really has a shot. Here are some more bE SURE TO VISIT YOUR FAVORITES FAN PAGE AT 
