Saturday, May 28, 2011

Cool video I saw today

I saw the video today for Brett Eldredge's song "Raymond". First time I've heard the song and saw the video and the video really touched me. It reminded me of my mom when she was rehabbing in the nursing home. I remember seeing so many older folks there that wouldn't get visits from family or friends. One of the things that the administration at the place always used to rave about my family was that we were always there to visit my mom and I was always on top of any issues she needed addressed. It was so sad to hear them tell me that many of the patients there wouldn't have any visitors at all, not even once a week. They were just dumped there and forgotten by their families and former loved ones. That's really tragic. No one should spend their last days alone and feeling unloved. I want to do something to help this and bring awareness to this, I guess this is my start to doing that. I really recommend checking out the video, search for it - it's worth seeing.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Sad news about a great Mets player

Just read some news today about former Mets great Gary Carter being diagnosed with brain cancer. Doesn't sound good. :(

I'm a huge Mets fan, even though I've lived most of my life in the Bronx (Yankees territory). I've always liked the underdogs and root for them so it was natural for me to like the Mets growing up. The '86 team was a great team that is still celebrated today and Gary Carter was a huge part of the heart and energy of that team. Gary always showed lots of heart and determination, many days he spent getting his knees drained so he could go and play that night. For a catcher to have his knees drained every day and then going out and playing 9 innings shows heart and determination beyond the norm. I know Gary will use that in this fight as well and I wish him the best in this, the fight of his life. He and his family are in my prayers.

American Idol season 10 finale!

Well, here we go. AI finale night! Lots of cool performances and we get the winner!

All the contestants did Lady Gaga's "Born this way". Very cool.

James performed "Living after midnight" & "Breaking the law" with Judas Priest. Way cool to see Priest on TV!

Jacob performed "I smile" with Kirk Franklin. I love this song. Gladys Knight came out to join. I have always been very awed by Gladys Knight since I was a kid. This was too cool.

Casey performed Queen's "Fat bottomed girls" with Jack Black. That was er... mighty interesting. Lol.

The Top 13 girls performed a Beyonce medley of "Single ladies", "Irreplaceable", "Get your body", "If I were a boy" and "Deja Vu". Beyonce came out to do Crazy in love. That's big!

Haley performed "Stepping out" with Tony Bennett.

Lil Jon & TLC performed. The girls came out to join TLC on "Waterfalls". Weird to see TLC without Lisa. :(

Scotty performed "Live like you're dying" with Tim McGraw.

Mark Anthony performed. JLo came out to dance for him. Lol!

The top guys performed a Tom Jones medley, Tom came out to sing "It's not unusual" with the guys.

Lady Gaga performed "The edge of glory". Great performance as usual.

Lauren performed Carrie Underwood's "Before he cheats". Carrie joined her. How awesome was that for Lauren to sing with her Idol? Cool.

Beyonce performed her new single "One plus one".

A spiderman performance? 'Nuff said.

Steve Tyler performed his great song "Dream on".

Official results time! Scotty was calm & cool. Lauren was hyperventilating. And the winner is... Scotty!! Congrats to the newest American Idol!!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Congrats to the 2011 American Idol winner!

So, tonight was the AI finale and it was filled with good performances by contestants who should have good & interesting careers ahead. I'll be listening out for their music!

In the end, Scotty won America's vote over Lauren. I'm happy for Scotty, he seems to be a good kid and he has quite a career ahead. But my winner is still Lauren and I will look forward to hearing more from her and wish her a great career.

Congrats to both, they're both winners. Fans of country music such as myself are winners as well as we'll be hearing plenty of good country music from these two for decades to come. :)

American Idol: Lauren & Scotty sing for our votes!

So.... I had a problem with my phone app and it wiped out all my notes for last night's AI :/

So, I guess that means you'll get a short version of my AI thoughts instead. I can just see some of you celebrating my brevity so settle down! ;)

I wasn't happy to hear of Lauren's vocal problems but she looked determined and not defeated by it so that was good to see.

Scotty sounded good doing his favorite song of the season. Lauren sounded really good doing her favorite song, the raspiness actually added a nice quality to her voice. I gave the oh so slight edge to Scotty in that round.

The next round was doing songs that were given to them by their Idols. George Strait picked a good song for Scotty but I felt he had a little trouble with the higher notes. Carrie Underwood picked a real good song for Lauren that I think she would've really done well had her voice been better. By this point she was beginning to lose volume in her voice.

The last round was Iovine giving them what will be their 1st singles. Scotty's song was nice for a first single but Lauren's song was so strong and perfect for her that I think it removed any doubt as to who the winner of Idol should be.

In case you're still wondering then here's my pick for American Idol 2011 winner - Lauren!!!! :)

Thursday, May 19, 2011

American Idol - the Final 2 are chosen!

Tonight's the night we found out who the Top 2 contestants for American Idol winner would be.

But first we had performances to see and also see the contestants triumphant and touching returns to home.

We saw Haley go home. Very nice to see all the love shown to her. She has a big career ahead of her.

Next we had the pop-opera trio Il Volo performing. Interesting. An opera version of the Jonas Brothers?!

We next get to see Scotty go home. He was very touched at the outpouring of love throughout the day. While singing his always talked about cover of Josh Turner, he got to meet Josh Turner himself as he came out on stage while he was singing the song for the crowd. Very cool moment!

Nicole Scherzinger performed. Big fan of Nicole but couldn't believe how thin her voice sounded tonight. She is a waaaay better singer than that song showed. Just my opinion.

Next we got to see Lauren go home.  Very touching moment when she saw the storm damage in her area and state. Sang for the crowds that came to see her.

The results finally! Scotty in the final 2. Lauren in the final 2. Haley goes home :(

I wasn't too big a fan of Haley when she first began on the show. She didn't seem to take it seriously enough but little by little she rose to the ocassion as she was beaten down week after week with bottom 3s and harsh criticism that the others didn't seem to get thrown their way. She blossomed and won me over. I look forward to seeing her career. I'm a fan.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

American Idol - The Final 3 sing for our votes

Tonight's show began by showing us that Beyonce was this week's mentor. That pretty cool.

Tonight's show was broken up into 3 segments. Idols picking their song; Iovine's choice and judge's choice.

Idols pick segment went first.

Scotty did Lone Star's "Amazed". Was pretty good.
Lauren did Faith Hill's "Wild one". Very good.
Haley did Led Zeppelin. Had her Dad playing guitar which was very cool. Even though she tripped, she rocked it!
All 3 judges said Haley took Round 1!!

Iovine picks segment went next
Scotty did Thompson Square's "Are you gonna kiss me or not". Interesting choice. He did a good version of it but it felt subdued without the female dynamic of the original song. I can't believe Randy compared this performance to a Garth Books performance. That's hyping the performance waaaay too much. Smh...
Lauren did The Band Perry's great yet very sad song "If I die young". Very good.
Haley did Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon". Interesting choice but very good.
Steve liked Lauren; Randy & JLo liked Scotty in Round 2.

Judges pick went last
Scotty did Kenny Rogers' "She believes in me". Very good.
Lauren did one of my favorite songs ever, Leann Womack's "I hope you dance". Very good.
Haley did Alanis Morissette's "You oughta know". She rocked it!
Steve picked Haley; JLo & Randy picked Lauren in the last round.

I think Haley has a chance but Lauren and Scotty seem to be the favorites here so I expect Haley to go home tomorrow :(

Thursday, May 12, 2011

American Idol - another Idol goes home

James & Scotty opened up the show doing the Brad Paisley / Keith Urban duet "Start a band". I love this song but I didn't like this much.

Haley & Lauren did Miranda Lambert's "Gunpowder & lead". They both sounded great.

Lauren named the first Idol in the top 3!

Lady Gaga video performance while the Idols watched which was rather lame. Enrique Iglesias performed "Dirty dancer" & "I like it". Jordin Sparks did her new song "I am woman". Great performance! The slimmed down Jordin looked great (not that she didn't look great before) and rocked it! We saw the video premiere of Steven Tyler new single "It feels so good".

Haley is in!! She's had the hardest road to the Top 3. I'm so happy for her!!!

Scotty in, James out. James went out singing. I respect that he flew the flag for rock/metal and flew it proudly. I will be following him in the future.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

American Idol - Idols do 2 songs again

So this week the Idols are doing songs that inspire them & songs from the Leiber & Stoller songbook. Lady Gaga is the mentor this week!

James began the show with Journey's "Don't stop believing". I am a huge Journey/Steve Perry fan and Perry was the reason I started to do rock music so I looked at James performance a little more critically than I normally would. It was a good performance but sounded like of a Rock of Ages performance.

Haley did MJ's "Earth song". Great performance! I did not agree with Randy or JLo. They just seemed to slam her to the point that it was almost shunning her in favor of the others. I did not like how they treated her.

Scotty did Alan Jackson's "Where were you when the world stopped turning". Good performance. Timely. He knows his audience well.

Lauren did Martina McBride's "Anyway". Her best vocal performance to date. Loved it!

Ryan asked the judges who they thought won the round and Randy said everyone except Haley did well. What was his problem with Haley tonight? >:/

Haley did "I who have nothing". Good advice from Gaga. Great performance again. The judges loved it. Haley just did her thing again. Maybe they should've listened better on the first song too.

Scotty did "Young blood". His performance was too cartoony and over the top.

Lauren did Elvis' "Trouble". Gaga gave her great advice. She looked great & sounded great.

James did "Love potion #9". Good performance but too indulgent at the end.

I thought everyone was good so I will go by past bottom 3's and say that Haley will go home but should get people voting for her if they feel she was criticized too harshly tonight like I thought she was.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

American Idol - another idol goes home

It's that time for another Idol to go home. The Idols performed to open up the show.

We got a funny video segment with the Idols in the kitchen with Gordon Ramsey. The Idols were making omelettes with Gordon judging. LOL.

Lady A performed their new single "Just a kiss".

We got a video segment on how they choose their songs & clothes.

James up first. Iovine felt James showing emotion was not good & hurt him. I totally disagree. Ryan had James start a group.

Lauren up next. Iovine felt she held back and would be in the bottom 2. Lauren was asked to be in the other group. She looked very sad and scared. I felt so bad for her but this is what the show is about.
We got another Gordon Ramsey segment with the Idols. JLo performed.

Jacob up next. Iovine didn't like either performance. He was asked to stand with Lauren.

Haley up next. Iovine defended his song choice and felt she was the best of the night. Sent to stand with James.

Scotty up last. Iovine liked the 1st song. But not the 2nd song as much. Scotty safe. Asked him to stand with the group he thinks is the bottom 2. He refused. Ryan walked him to the group that was safe - James & Haley safe too!

Lauren a mess. Poor girl. Jacob looked like he wanted to console Lauren but was sad himself. Jacob was sent home. :(

I definitely will be watching to see what Jacob does in his career. If he follows Randy's advice of doing R&B ala Luther then he will have a big career. I hope that's where he goes with his music.

American Idol does new gen & older gen songs

Interesting theme to last night's show - doing a song from their generation and another song from their parents generation. Pretty broad categories.

We were shown that Sheryl Crow was this week's mentor. She gave some good advice and had some good insight.

The Idols would do the new gen songs first and then come back later and do the older gen songs.

James went first and did "Closer to the edge" by 30 seconds to Mars. Iovine seems to not like older metal/hard rock and felt that this more modern rock fit James better. I don't think this song did much of anything in showing James range and I found it solid but average. His second song "Without you" was way better though and we saw that it meant a lot to James as well. I am an emotional singer myself so I not only really liked it but also know that when you know a singer feels what he's singing, that leads to magic on stage and we saw that last night.

Jacob decided to do the Jordin Sparks/Chris Brown duet "No air" as his first song. He also decided to try to sing both parts and not only was the idea not a very good one but the execution of it was a mess. NOT GOOD at all. His second song was Nazareth's "Love hurts" and Sheryl showed him how to approach the song and it seemed he mimicked her delivery at the start of it. It was good but a bit too all over the place.

This second song was the first time of the night where we saw Iovine giving bad avice to a contestant. He told him that he has to be careful with just being the Luther guy. Really? Luther is a legend and is right where Jacob should be aiming his sights vocally and musically. To have Jacob leave his comfort zone and away from where he is going to be an artist at this point in the competition is not only short-sighted but risky. Another piece of advice that Iovine gave to another contestant was really bad too. More on that in a bit. Was Iovine stacking the deck against some or was it just really bad advice?

Lauren went 3rd and she did Carrie Underwood's "Flat on the floor". It was a good performance for a 16 year old but nowhere near what Carrie does. I think in a few short years that Lauren will be near Carrie's level vocally but Carrie brings so much more to a song than just her vocals, she also brings attitude and an emotional connection that Lauren still is failing to grasp IMO. That's my biggest complaint with Lauren, she sings great but I just don't see that emotional connection to the lyrics. Hopefully it will come with age and experience. Still, with all that said, she sounded really good. Her second song was "Unchained melody" and I basically feel the same with this performance as her first. Really good but not totally connected to the lyrics.

Scotty went 4th and he did Montgomery Gentry's "Gone". I found his singing pretty good but his performing was vastly improved! He didn't do too much of the weird mic holding and he was commanding on stage. I liked the performance a lot. His second song was "You're always on my mind" and his vocals sounded really good. He's definitely constantly improving and working on little things to get better.

Haley went 5th and was given a song by Iovine that was an unreleased Lady Gaga track. At this point in the competition, that was highly risky. She was hesitant at first but did it after getting Miss Gaga's blessing. She was right to be hesitant to do a song that nobody knew. Turns out as usual, there's a reason why the song was unreleased. It wasn't very good by Gaga standards. Haley gave it her all but the song let her down and the judges came down hard on her for it. Felt bad for Haley. She followed it up with an amazing powerhouse performance of "House of the Rising Sun". She brought it and by the end she knew she had nailed it and sent a statement to the judges and Iovine to let her do her thing. Performance of the night by far.

I expect Jacob and Haley in the bottom. I think Jacob goes home tonight.