Canadian Idol Fans Watching American Idol

[ross 1]

I found the essay you were talking about. I do agree about it and as I mentionned last week, I believe, I love that Kris managed to get to top 4 without any backing from the show. I think he was fodder for sure at first, so it's quite incredible that he's still there. Most importantly, he's still there because of his talent, not a backstory or producer favoritism. I'll still be (happily) surprised if the bus doesn't come for him tomorrow.

I would like to see him get farther than Jason Castro, who he's been compared to (not by me!). Castro was also supposedly fodder who went farther than expected, but, just my opinion, I think Kris is in a whole other league, musically. Vocally, also.

I thought Kris was more popular than Allison. He's never been in the bottom 3 until last week (why did the top 5 have a bottom 3, anyway? Odd). But now everyone thinks Allison will outlast him. Is it because people think TPTB need a girl in the top 3, and the show will throw Kris under the bus to save her? How important is it to have a girl? For a while now I've thought she's lucky to have lasted this long. Judging just from the response to him in the theatre, that I see on my TV, he should be the one to stay. But who knows what will happen?

I was thinking today, when Kris did Ain't No Sunshine, and very likely won the night in votes, and got all sorts of attention from everywhere (including Las Vegas, where his odds to win jumped to Adam/Danny levels)...the very next week (when he did All She Wants To Do Is Dance), they stopped his momentum cold. He wasn't as great as the previous week but I thought he was way better than the judges said. I think now it was planned. Damn show.

And honestly, I don't even think that Kris is that original in the real world (*gasp*). I mean, he's probably aiming for the same market as Jason Mraz, Matt Nathanson, Justin Nozuka, Missy Higgins and others. And I don't have a problem with that, because I happen to either really like or absolutely love the artists I mentionned. His phrasing and the way he uses his voice actually remind me a lot of Mraz, and Mraz is my favorite singer without a doubt.

We're talking two different things, I think. By original, I meant Kris creates his material, writes, composes, arranges, plays instruments. The music originates with him, and it's personal. This is different from Adam.

I didn't mean he's like no one who ever sang before. lol

Funny but I can't ever see the Mraz comparison! I understand that he might be aiming for that market, but I mean, when people say he sounds like Jason Mraz, I'm stumped, I don't think so at all. Have you noticed about Kris that he's sort of theatrical? Not in a put-on way, but just naturally. He tends to act a song and to emote. I'd call his sound and his presentation warm and Jason Mraz and Justin N. cool. They're more detached. I also think Kris is more southern-bluesy-jazzy, and just more down to earth, earthy, or something. Rough where they are smooth.

I don't know about that. I've never gotten the impression that he was shallow. Maybe he is, it's hard to tell. Still, when the top 7 appeared on AI Extra the night the save was used, the host asked them who the "camp counselor" was and all of them (except Danny!) pointed to Adam. Kris even added that he was very wise and gave good advice.

Good points! I forgot all that stuff, and it makes me think I'm probably wrong in what I assumed.

 

[missaddicted]

I would like to see him get farther than Jason Castro, who he's been compared to (not by me!). Castro was also supposedly fodder who went farther than expected, but, just my opinion, I think Kris is in a whole other league, musically. Vocally, also.

I thought Kris was more popular than Allison. He's never been in the bottom 3 until last week (why did the top 5 have a bottom 3, anyway? Odd). But now everyone thinks Allison will outlast him. Is it because people think TPTB need a girl in the top 3, and the show will throw Kris under the bus to save her? How important is it to have a girl? I have to say, for a while know I've thought she's lucky to have lasted this long. Judging just from the response to him in the theatre, that I see on my TV, he should be the one to stay.

I honestly thought Castro was horrible last year! Still, he didn't deserve stupid Paula criticizing his second performance on top 5 night before he even did it! The poor guy then had to go out and sing knowing that the judges would hate his performance.

For sure I think Kris should be the one to stay! I never wanted to imply the contrary. The thing is, this year's top 4 is very similar to last year's top 4 (not so much the contestants themselves though): a preordained finale (David/David vs. Adam/Gokey), an underdog guy (Jason vs. Kris) and a girl who spent a lot of time in the bottom 3 (Syesha vs. Allison). I think last year, TPTB might have been scared that Jason would dislodge one of the two Davids (presumably Archie) from the top 2. Jason, as much as I didn't like him, had a pretty big fanbase, just like Kris does. And Syesha wasn't a threat at all for the top 2 and neither is Allison, I believe. That's why I believe TPTB will want to get rid of Kris before Allison since he has a bigger chance of being a spoiler for the finale.

I hope I'm wrong, but it's just how I see it unfold. I'll take everything back if they happen to love Kris tomorrow!

Funny but I can't ever see the Mraz comparison! I understand that he might be aiming for that market, but I mean, when people say he sounds like Jason Mraz, I'm stumped, I don't think so at all. Have you noticed about Kris that he's sort of theatrical? Not in a put-on way, but just naturally. He tends to act a song and to emote. I'd call his sound and his presentation warm and Jason Mraz and Justin N. cool. They're more detached. I also think Kris is more southern-bluesy-jazzy, and just more down to earth, earthy, or something. Rough where they are smooth.

We'll just have to agree to disagree, because as much as I love Kris, he's still far from Mraz in my opinion. I've seen him live twice in the last year and he doesn't come across as "cool" at all when he's on stage. He's full of personality and intensity and emotes very well. Also, and this is where Kris fails a bit for me, Mraz's singing is effortless. I like Kris' quirky faces when he sings, but his singing is not effortless to me. I also don't see how he's more theatrical. And I don't really see Justin Nozuka as cool either. I mean, I pretty much just discovered him, but at his young age, I'm really impressed with the emotion contained on his CD. "Save Him" is an increbibly heart-breaking song and it is definitely not smooth.

Anyway, we're probably not understanding each other and it's OK. I just wanted to say that everything I love about Kris are already things I love about Mraz (the vibe, the emotion, the incredibly touching voice, the slight quirkyness). And I'm perfectly OK with that, Kris is still unique enough. Kris doesn't have to try to be Mraz for me, I already have one, but it's no surprise for me that I like Kris so much when I compare him to a lot of the artists I listen to.

We're talking two different things, I think. By original, I meant Kris creates his material, writes, composes, arranges, plays instruments. The music originates with him, and it's personal. This is different from Adam.

I get what you're saying. It's just not necessarily fair to compare the two on that front, I think. Kris' musicality and artistry (tm Kara) make him interesting, while Adam has his own unique thing with his showmanhip and his versatility. I'm pretty sure Adam has done some songwriting of his own also. Both their voices appeal to me and really that's all that's important right now.

 

[ross 1]

Okay. Let's forget the debate and look at some pictures.

 

[missaddicted]

Okay. Let's forget the debate and look at some pictures.

Yay, pictures! Good for Kris for getting the paps' attention. I guess? Isn't it a sign that he's famous now? They're such a cute couple though, they really look perfect together. And they were driving a red New Beetle! Cuteness overload!

Adam was also stalked by TMZ last night, MJ posted the video on her blog. Hilarious. The guy wanted to out Adam, but Adam totally turned the tables on him! He handled the guy like a champ.

 

[ross 1]

I liked the comment: "Nick and Jessica 2.0." The Kris Allen thread on TWoP has spoilers. Actually they seem pretty good. If the hints happen to be accurate...

(Drag over to see spoilers. If you haven't heard this stuff already!! I can never scoop you, missaddicted!)

Kris and Adam are supposed to be performing Under Pressure as a duet.

The hint about Kris's song choice was Red Sox and Charlie's Angels. This led to the conclusion his song is probably Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer, since this was the Red Sox song in '04, and was on the C.A.2 soundtrack. Someone linked to Bon Jovi's acoustic performance which I could easily see Kris doing. (Though personally, I dislike Bon Jovi--and that song--a lot.) Apparently the producers nixed his first two song choices (!). This is all I have.

 

[missaddicted]

Yeah, spoilers. I don't know, they haven't been real many times this season. As for Kris solo song, if it's the one you posted, maybe it could be good, but Cook auditioned with this song and does an incredible acoustic version of it. I'm not sure Kris could improve on it a lot for me. Maybe he could, we'll see. Now I really have to get to bed!

 

[ross 1]

Writing this at 8:54, during the show...Just watched Gokey and wrote these notes:

"Gokey-- Horrible-sounding. Quite bad. He's no rocker, either. HORRIBLE. It sucks but they won't say so."

Well, he was horrible, and they didn't say so.

That was not only the train wreck of the night but maybe the whole season. Epic, epic fail. Excuse the idol jargon. lol

Not one judge liked it, but after saying they didn't like it, he gets an A+ from Randy and and A++ from Paula, plus this pimpage: "How many of you are Danny fans?" And Simon: "I still think you're gonna be safe tonight, though."

Um, why?

I really can't take much more of this show. I'm serious.

Now I'm watching the Adam-Allsion duet, which was a clever way for the show to give Adam the pimp spot yet again, even though he started off the show. Let me say this: Adam (though I don't think I could listen to that voice for another week, never mind on an album) probably deserves to win the competition, but I totally resent having him shoved down my throat week after week. Okay, I get it, the show wants us to love him. Tonight I've reached my limit.

At least he was on his game tonight. But Gokey? I do not get it. Someone explain to me why they want him there until the end.

Okay, do I need to say this? In the solos, Kris was far better than Danny (who wasn't?). But, earlier, Simon proclaimed Danny the "winner" of the duet "against" Kris, so it probably doesn't matter. (Somehow, when Adam and Allison sang a duet, they were not in competition, though.) And I think Kris was quite a bit better than Allison, who wasn't memorable and really lacked charisma when she was singing.

So let's review. Simon says no one can top Adam. Simon says Danny is going to be safe tonight. Simon says singing with Adam probably gave Allison a chance to stay in the competition. And that leaves one.

 

[missaddicted]

I'm so happy that there are only two weeks left to this show. I can't take it anymore.

Kris, meet Bus. Bus, meet Kris. I wish I could have taken back what I said last night, but no, pretty much everything happened as expected.

The thing is, I wasn't feeling him tonight. At all. It pains me to say it and it's obvious that rock isn't his thing but he just wasn't good enough.

First, I have to say that classic rock isn't my cup of tea at all. And I'm tired of this "old" music on AI. Some might differ, but I've had pretty much enough. I don't live in the past! I don't care whether any of them can do Zeppelin, Janis or whatever. Just my opinion.

The duet with Danny was all kinds of awkward. In this case, I do actually love the song (only because of the show "Supernatural", one of my favorites ever). And their harmonies sounded good. But individually, it didn't really work. Also, the whole point of a duet is to interact with the other, which they pretty much didn't do. Kris looked kind of out of it. I guess I shouldn't blame him with all the drama that unfolded before the show with the cancellation of the rehearsal.

Then, he had to do Come Together. I mean, a Beatles song was a good choice in theory, but now I guess I'm a bit tired of Come Together on the Idol shows. Carly did very good with it last year on AI and Mookie was excellent with it on CI (and I wasn't a fan of Mookie at all, but he was awesome with that song). And yes, it pains me to say it, but Mookie was way better than Kris with that song. I mean, I thought Kris was good and I actually really liked a part in the middle when the song became a bit funky for a few seconds. And I applaud his effort, but yeah, I don't know. And the poor guy looked totally gloomy when Ryan was reading his numbers.

Adam and Allison's duet was obviously better because of their interaction, but I was extremely bored with the song.

I thought Allison's performance was very good, but she pretty much did what was expected from her as always. Not really exciting.

Adam singing Zeppelin left me a bit confused. I mean, it was great I guess and I was kind of giddy at the end of the performance. But if that's the kind of music that he wants to do (and Kara seems to think that's what he should be doing, really? Would that really be popular?), I'm off the train. I guess that's what he was doing with his band Citizen Vein and I don't really like that stuff anyway.

At least, he didn't play it safe, even after his visit to the bottom 2 last week! I have to give him that!

Danny. Ugh. Michael Johns was eliminated with that song last year and I only wish the same would happen to Danny tomorrow. Michael did way better with it, especially his sing out. I still have his studio version on rotation on my iPod and I actually really like that song. But Danny, ugh. The beginning sounded all kinds of out of tune and the scream, ugh. I don't think I even want to get started about it. It was probably the single most horrible note from this season. Ugh.

 

[missaddicted]

OK, just read your post ross, after posting mine and I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything you said.

Even the Adam pimping. I knew it was there before but I didn't really mind, but tonight was way OTT. It even bothered me.

And Danny was horrible. Trainwreck horrible. A+ for effort really? I don't get it. VFTW must be happy right now that they picked him. He is truly the worst.

So let's review. Simon says no one can top Adam. Simon says Danny is going to be safe tonight. Simon says singing with Adam probably gave Allison a chance to stay in the competition. And that leaves one.

Yes, that's the agenda, they can't deviate from it. I wasn't expecting anything less.

I think I'll go watch a bit of CI to cleanse from the memories of tonight.

 

[ross 1]

Voting anyway. A lot.

 

[missaddicted]

Good!

Man, I hate this show.

*Making a serious mental note not to watch next year*

 

[SleepinIn]

As soon as Danny said Dream On .. I went... NOOOOoooo - Danny don't do it. If I learned anything from Rockstar it was that no one should sing that song on a competition stage. That last note can strangle you completely it literally makes or breaks the whole song. And it really broke Danny tonight. That was so painful.

(Although you're right Missadicted Michael's wasn't bad at all, I just didn't remember it)

I didn't think any of them had stand out performances tonight. Whether or not the lack of preparation time had anything to do with that I don't know, but I thought there were flaws in all the performances. I guess that's the beauty of the live show - and what makes it so interesting.

Another thing I thought about tonight was the fact that none of the AI judges really have a rock background. Which is a big difference from CI where almost all of them do. Sass and Zach with their bands and then Zach and Jake managing. I wonder what advice they would have given to the peeps from AI? That would be interesting. Of course I'd probably disagree with that too.

(Oh.. and Justin Nozuka? My favourite youtube video of his - No Heaven)
YouTube - no heaven

 

[missaddicted]

Thanks for the video SleepinIn, that "kid" is incredibly talented.

Another thing I thought about tonight was the fact that none of the AI judges really have a rock background. Which is a big difference from CI where almost all of them do. Sass and Zach with their bands and then Zach and Jake managing. I wonder what advice they would have given to the peeps from AI? That would be interesting. Of course I'd probably disagree with that too. :icon_smile:

My question is, what would Zack think of Gokey? Of Adam? I can't believe Zack (or any of the CI judges really) would really be into Gokey. At all.

ross, what did you think of Kris tonight? You didn't really say in your post?

 

[ross 1]

The thing is, I wasn't feeling him tonight. At all. It pains me to say it and it's obvious that rock isn't his thing but he just wasn't good enough.

I have to take a small amount of exception to this because Kris was out of his element and I wasn't thrilled with what he did, either, but I think he was good enough. In other words, his solo was not the worst of the four, to me, and since it's a competition of four, he was good enough. That's what's sad, here. If Danny was the worst, then Kris was good enough to stay. I also think he edged out Allison, who was safe and predictable.

Of course, he's coming from the stigma of last week (though everyone seemed to love him but Simon). And being in the bottom three. Seemingly "it's just his time to go," also, so he had to pull off something great to turn that perception around. Danny could probably come out on stage and make balloon animals and not lose any momentum after his surprising top 2 standing last week. Plus his favorite status. So Kris had to do more than just be better than Danny's epic fail. He had to do something winning and fasntastic. And he was only professional and good. Not great. Luckily he did nothing to be ashamed of, and he wasn't bad. All season, he has never once been bad, and he's been great sometimes. I think he has a right to be proud, no matter what happens tomorrow.

I think tonight he should have done a rock ballad. It would have been the only ballad, would have been a contrast to the other songs, and it would have been what he does best. But..whatever. I'll now trundle out the tired cliche, Kris is too good for this stupid show.

Anyhow...holy crap, that whole show was a big, loud, epic mess. Slash is not my favorite, I wasn't expecting much from him, and I didn't get much. He wasn't a good mentor. Well, hard to tell, he wasn't onscreen a lot. I would rather have had a singer, at this point. (Have they had any great singers as mentors this season?)

 

[missaddicted]

Well said, ross! Yes, Kris was way better than Danny and maybe on par with Allison (IMO of course), but you pointed out exactly why maybe Kris just wasn't "good enough".

And Slash was pretty useless as a mentor I believe. He didn't seem to have that much to say.

 

[SleepinIn]

Anyhow...holy crap, that whole show was a big, loud, epic mess. Slash is not my favorite, I wasn't expecting much from him, and I didn't get much. He wasn't a good mentor. Well, hard to tell, he wasn't onscreen a lot. I would rather have had a singer, at this point. (Have they had any great singers as mentors this season?)

Although I don't really have any negative feelings towards Slash outside of the show - I agree he wasn't a good mentor. I don't remember hearing him tell them anything constructive. I'm sure playing with him was cool but in the long term it wasn't overly helpful to any of them. Or didn't seem to be anyway.

 

[SleepinIn]

crap - I wish I could vote.

 

[ross 1]

ross, what did you think of Kris tonight? You didn't really say in your post?

Ha. I'm too pissed off to even know.

I don't know. They just showed him in a clip before the local news and I liked it, he looked/sounded great, but the show was just...too much rock, for my taste. I mean, I know it was the genre, but nobody was as creative with it as they've been with other genres. I actually think that had to do with Slash being there. I mean, they all made the mistake of trying to rock out. Adam was of course the best at that, but he was still (to me) like a guy in a rock musical where they do Zeppelin songs, rather than a real rocker. He's great, but it just isn't authentic. Plus, his voice is so good and the poses are so theatrical it's easy to forget he really doesn't get as down and dirty as an actual rock frontman would. And his voice is too pure sounding. To me. Anyway, I wish they had used the songs as a jumping off point to do their own thing.

Someone on a forum earlier today speculated that Kris was going to do a slow, intimate ballad version of a rock song and was going to play the viola! (He does play the viola.) And though it sounds nuts, this is the kind of thing he needed to do, I think. It had to be so Kris and so different from what you would expect on rock week that you wouldn't worry if he was a rocker or not.

Damn.

The duet: Kris had some moves, there, but it aggravated me how the camera kept cutting away from him whenever he was groovin'. I don't think either of them was great and the song wasn't such a hot choice. I said they'd pair him with Danny. Adam/Danny and Kris/Allison pairings would have indicated to me they weren't trying to throw him under the bus. Danny would have sounded like crap paired with Adam and they knew that, and Kris and Allison would have been cuteness to infinity (and probably would have sounded good, too), and they must have known that, too.

Anyhow, did you guys see Kris's face after Simon made his comment about Danny being better in the duet? First time I ever saw him looking like that. (Disgusted, frustrated, pissed? I don't know. Not happy.)

So, I don't know. What I actually saw (but I'm willing to think I'm just biased and imagining it) was somebody who was getting a little tired of not being fully appreciated. I mean I saw that from him the whole night.

Wow, guess we're all writing at the same time! Sorry I didn't really address what you guys were saying. I will, eventually. Great posts, you guys!

 

[ross 1]

I actually now think this is a pretty cool, awesome performance. Since you asked.


Listen to the comments. Isn't it amazing how whenever Paula is saying something positive about Kris (this has happened, I think, three times) Simon tries to distract her (and does -- though this time not as much). Still, this is one of the worst things he does. I can't stand the guy for this alone. Never have seen it mentioned anywhere.

Honestly, you must watch this again. And then listen to the comments he gets.
I'm not sure I'll watch if he's around next week. I've about had it.

 

[In Between Man]

Finally some friggin' Rock n' Roll!!!! Why was that so hard? Why can't we see more music like this? The house was rocked tonight, esp. by Adam and Allison. Danny tortured "Dream on" I thought, but it just felt so good to hear that kind of music I didn't really care.

Gimme more, more, MORE!!!