Post by: Xairbusdriver on April 14, 2009, 01:58:45 PM
Post by: gunug on April 14, 2009, 02:55:36 PM
Post by: jwboyd on April 14, 2009, 04:14:00 PM
First impressions don't count for very much, do they?
Post by: kimmer on April 14, 2009, 05:57:11 PM
Post by: Highmac on April 15, 2009, 01:08:54 AM
QUOTE(jwboyd @ Apr 14 2009, 10:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Beautiful rendition!
First impressions don't count for very much, do they?
First impressions don't count for very much, do they?
I wasn't sure what you meant - but I did when I watched it!
Must admit I stopped watching these talent shows long ago because, generally, they seemed to be an opportunity for people like Morgan and Cowell to show how "clever" they were by piling humiliation on contestants. Wasn't a song I know, but it certainly tested her range. And she passed with flying colours.
Post by: Jack W on April 15, 2009, 07:55:18 AM
The song was from the Broadway Play Les Miserables, and she did a splendid rendition of it.
I loved to watch the expressions on the judges faces and the audience reactions.
The play had numerous memorable songs, one of my favorite musicals, along with Evita.
Both best played LOUD.
- Jack
Post by: LR827 on April 15, 2009, 12:56:06 PM
QUOTE(jwboyd @ Apr 14 2009, 03:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
First impressions don't count for very much, do they?
"You can't tell a book by its cover" ...
No truer words...
Post by: Xairbusdriver on April 15, 2009, 02:35:44 PM
But I do hope this lady gets some attention from those who can help her get closer to her dreams!
Wouldn't hurt if she got some 'cosmetic' help, either! 
Post by: george on April 15, 2009, 03:28:43 PM
good comes to them that waits
George
Post by: george on April 15, 2009, 03:30:57 PM
If you can delete my latest posting you have obviously enjoyed listening to her.
George
Post by: kimmer on April 15, 2009, 04:53:16 PM
... but I merged your topic with this one.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on April 16, 2009, 06:10:30 PM
xABD (aka: the black [crack-]pot)
Post by: kimmer on April 16, 2009, 06:57:04 PM
The Beauty That Matters is Always on the Inside
and yes, I was ashamed of myself for being so surprised. I'm still enjoying listening to Susan ...
Post by: Texas Mac Man on April 16, 2009, 09:01:27 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090417/ap_on_...ing_sensation_7
Post by: Xairbusdriver on May 25, 2009, 08:54:01 AM
Post by: Highmac on May 25, 2009, 01:11:34 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ May 25 2009, 02:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
This should make this day brighter for everyone! "A new day has begun," < indeed>. Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day and my best to all and every Vet!
Report here says Susan Boyle is favourite with the bookies at 8/13 (I'm not a gambler - apart from Lotto - so the figures mean little to me, but apparently they are very "short" odds)
Post by: Xairbusdriver on May 25, 2009, 01:45:36 PM
Post by: kimmer on May 25, 2009, 04:10:18 PM
So why not as strong? I think because she wasn't herself. All this is just my opinion, but the first time she seemed comfortable with herself - her looks, her clothes, her song, herself. This time she was "fancied up" (hair, makeup and dress) and she just didn't seem at ease. I realize it could all be nerves from what was at stake, but that's just the way it all came across to me.
I'm hoping she wins it all -- because she has a lovely voice and I like to see normal folks rise above and do well.
Oh, and I'm sooooo sick of all the media outlets that keep saying, "The frumpy Susan ... "
Post by: Highmac on May 25, 2009, 04:37:33 PM
Post by: kbeartx on May 25, 2009, 08:38:38 PM
In the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies*, one's ability as a musician/singer/songwriter/performer was the standard by which new, aspiring 'talents' were judged. How you looked was a secondary consideration [if that]. Beginning in the Eighties, a person's aesthetic appeal was added to the criteria, so that in order to 'make it', you had to not only be truly Talented, you had to be Good-Looking as well.
With close to thirty years of this being The Way Things Are, we have become accustomed to our Stars all being pretty/handsome as well as musically gifted.
It is into this mix that we find ourselves surprised that someone like Susan Boyle, who is wonderfully talented yet aesthetically 'plain', should ascend the same World Media Stage as the 'beautiful' artists and performers we have been spoon-fed by the Media moguls all these years.
I fervently hope that this pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way.
Kb
* I seriously doubt that musical giants such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Don and Phil Everly, Mama Cass, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Simon/Art Garfunkle, Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, just to name a few, would have achieved their respected places in Popular Music if they had 'come up' in the last twenty years.
Post by: Highmac on May 26, 2009, 01:40:44 AM
Someone's edited Keith Richards's comments together for a YouTube video
If anyone wants to watch out for the whole 90-minute programme being shown in the US, its title over here was "Blues Britannia - Can Blue men play the Whites?"
Post by: krissel on May 26, 2009, 05:21:12 AM
http://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/
As to Kenny's mention of how looks have become so important, note that it coincides with the advent of MTV. Before that we really didn't much care what the singers looked like. MTV changed the expectations.
Post by: chriskleeman on May 26, 2009, 07:09:11 AM
QUOTE(kbeartx @ May 25 2009, 09:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
This discussion has touched on an aspect of our Entertainment Industry [in particular musical performers] that I remember noticing as it became prevalent in the 1990s and has continued to this day.
In the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies*, one's ability as a musician/singer/songwriter/performer was the standard by which new, aspiring 'talents' were judged. How you looked was a secondary consideration [if that]. Beginning in the Eighties, a person's aesthetic appeal was added to the criteria, so that in order to 'make it', you had to not only be truly Talented, you had to be Good-Looking as well.
With close to thirty years of this being The Way Things Are, we have become accustomed to our Stars all being pretty/handsome as well as musically gifted.
It is into this mix that we find ourselves surprised that someone like Susan Boyle, who is wonderfully talented yet aesthetically 'plain', should ascend the same World Media Stage as the 'beautiful' artists and performers we have been spoon-fed by the Media moguls all these years.
I fervently hope that this pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way.
Kb
* I seriously doubt that musical giants such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Don and Phil Everly, Mama Cass, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Simon/Art Garfunkle, Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, just to name a few, would have achieved their respected places in Popular Music if they had 'come up' in the last twenty years.
In the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies*, one's ability as a musician/singer/songwriter/performer was the standard by which new, aspiring 'talents' were judged. How you looked was a secondary consideration [if that]. Beginning in the Eighties, a person's aesthetic appeal was added to the criteria, so that in order to 'make it', you had to not only be truly Talented, you had to be Good-Looking as well.
With close to thirty years of this being The Way Things Are, we have become accustomed to our Stars all being pretty/handsome as well as musically gifted.
It is into this mix that we find ourselves surprised that someone like Susan Boyle, who is wonderfully talented yet aesthetically 'plain', should ascend the same World Media Stage as the 'beautiful' artists and performers we have been spoon-fed by the Media moguls all these years.
I fervently hope that this pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way.
Kb
* I seriously doubt that musical giants such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Don and Phil Everly, Mama Cass, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Simon/Art Garfunkle, Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, just to name a few, would have achieved their respected places in Popular Music if they had 'come up' in the last twenty years.
Thanks Kenny, now I know, I'm probably too ugly to be famous!!! At least I can now live out the rest of my musical days in anonymity without worrying about it any more!!!
(wishing I had a voice as good as Susan Boyle's!)Chris
Post by: kbeartx on May 26, 2009, 10:00:28 AM
QUOTE(krissel @ May 26 2009, 05:21 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
...how looks have become so important, note that it coincides with the advent of MTV. Before that we really didn't much care what the singers looked like. MTV changed the expectations.
That's a compelling explanation for this phenomenon; it certainly corresponds with the beginnings of this trend [mid-eighties].
But I'm still left with a suspicion that some people carefully engineered a deliberate 'beautification program' on popular singers and artists almost across the board *
Kb
* Some noteworthy exceptions come to mind: I was glued to the tube during MTV's early years, and I clearly recall that some artists began to use this new medium as more than a staged/simulated live-performance video. Micheal Jackson, Huey Lewis, and Billy Joel, and I'm sure I'm forgetting other notables, were artists whose music videos were very much like mini-musicals [driven and propelled by the music, and in some cases the lyrics as well...intrrupted, more later]
Post by: Xairbusdriver on May 26, 2009, 10:07:22 AM
Of course, ugly people (I'm thinking of what I saw when I awoke this morning and looked in the mirror!) still had a problem in most areas of 'entertainment,' side shows excepted.
I can still remember listening to a couple of local guys on a three-hour radio program back in the early 60's. One was the 'straight man,' of course, but the program was not only hilarious but imaginative, entertaining, intelligent and the music was outstanding (lots of big bands...). Anyway, after college, they moved on to TV. Yikes!!! The guys with the velvety, well articulated, almost accent-free (and certainly not Southern, anyway) voice, turned out to have a pock-marked face! 
Who wanted to look at that?! 
Who cared what he sounded like? Who watched TV with their eyes closed (back then, anyway...)?No more of that! Even the radio 'jocks' have to have an 'appealing' countenance. Remember, their faces will be plastered all over the country on billboards...
Thank goodness for people like Bob & Ray, Harry Shearer and Stiller & Meara... OK, none of them are really 'ugly,' but you get the idea.
Post by: kbeartx on May 26, 2009, 10:44:34 AM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ May 26 2009, 10:07 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I think it came well before MTV...none of them are really 'ugly,'...
Jim, you might be correct that the seeds of this trend were sown back in the Fifties with the spread of TV itself, but this 'you can't make it big unless you're cute' is much more recent than that, and seems more prevalent among musical performers than other entertainers [there are still plenty of successful actors/comedians who can be described as 'at least a little funny looking'].
And you reminded me of a phrase I've heard used to describe an aspiring TV person whose looks were not up to TV's aesthetic standards: "She/he has a face made for radio." As I've become a major consumer of Podcasts over the last couple o' years, I've broadened that idea to include writers/narrators who "have a voice made for printed media."
Kb
Post by: Jack W on May 26, 2009, 12:38:46 PM
I would love to see her cut a CD with the following songs, although she probably couldn't because of locked in contracts.
But here goes with a list:
Andrew Lloyd Weber:
• Several songs from Evita (can't find the album)
• Memory from Cats
• Duets with Michael Crawford
The Power of Love
Or any duets from Les Miserables
And a bunch of others
Come on Susan, send chills up and down my spine!
I would buy her album in a minute, or go to see her in concert in Cleveland! Up close!!!
Or watch her any day on TV!
- Jack
Post by: Xairbusdriver on May 26, 2009, 01:40:51 PM
Or, better yet, go to the kitchen and make some more brownies!
Post by: kimmer on May 26, 2009, 02:04:46 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ May 26 2009, 10:40 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Or, better yet, go to the kitchen and make some more brownies!
And then send them to ABD.
Post by: kimmer on May 30, 2009, 09:38:56 PM
