Thank you everyone, who read my blogs, and thank you for the comments. I really am happy that most of you out there like them and find them useful, and amusing.

I would like to explain my reaction to the singers, uh, some singers on American Idol.

I truly believe that in the past few years the show has had more talent competing in the top 20. This season, it’s almost too easy to see who will remain for the Top 5. As I remember from the past years, there were many more talented singers.  I must also remind my readers that this is a popularity contest.  The public votes, and the demographic of people that text and vote are predominantly 10-25 years old.

The judges seemed so disinterested in making choices during the preliminaries, that we are stuck with a weak group. When I say, this or that one got me, I mean, “I saw potential that a record exec may see, it is about looks, and a connection with the audience..as much as the actual voice.” If actual singing were required to be famous, then Dylan, Duffy, Mick Jagger, and thousands of others would not have made it..

I am saying that a stylist and singer are in different catagories. Eva Cassidy and Karen Carpenter were two great singers. Corinne Bailey Rae, Duffy, and others  like them, are stylists.  I like them, but would not put them in the same group.

When I was 12 or 13 and went to visit my cousin attending U.C. Berkeley. I came from Los Angeles and saw him a lot before he went to Cambridge, England, and got married, never to return. I mention Eric because he gave me the first Bob Dylan album.  I gagged. I didn’t get him. I was expecting a singer, not a poet. I didn’t get it. I rudely left the album there when I returned home, only to have him send it to me!.. I was listening to jazz singers, because my father was a jazz and recording big band drummer, and that was what I was exposed to. I knew Joe Williams before I knew the Beach Boys.

The point in writing this is to put my commentary in perspective. I know when someone has too much vibrato, or is sharp, or flat, or their tone is  not pleasant. I know when they sing the lyric, or do not sing the lyric. I know what a good singer sounds like.

However, often, I’d rather hear a singer who moves me with their heartfelt style than say, Maureen McGovern or the late Mel Torme, who sings technically correctly. I’d rather listen to the late Eva Cassidy; she moves me. The late Karen Carpenter moved me.  Lydia Pense (Cold Blood) moves me, Jennifer Hudson, moves me.

The challenge with American Idol, Season 9, is that the producers and judges have left us with a weak field of 24. One has to always remember, that starting this week, Idol is a popularity contest, not as much a singing competition. The judges’ comments are academic, in that they provide occasional insight, rarely provide solid constructive criticism, and may not even impact the voting public.

American Idol is all-too-often 15 minutes of fame for guys like ‘General’ Larry Platt (Pants On The Ground) and William Hung.

And, it’s less stressful than watching the news. Let the band play on!

Jessica Marciel
Las Vegas Vocal Training