X Factor: Top 4

We are getting very close to seeing the finales for all our favourite shows… The Voice,  Factor, Survivor will all come to a  conclusion in the coming week just in time for the Christmas Yule log.

The X Factor performance show featured 2 songs by each of the Top 4 contestants, both carefully selected by their Mentors. Do we still believe that Britney Spears is making any decisions on her own at this point? I guess if we actually believe that they are showing us the real ‘rankings’ every week, we can believe anything. Neither here nor there… the Mentors are still apparently guiding the path of their proteges in their infinite wisdom.

Let’s begin with Tate Stevens:

Song 1: Bonfire

There’s nothing Americans love more, than a down-home country tune, sung by a man who loves his wife, reads the bible and wears the you-know-what out of a cowboy hat. Tate Stevens knows that. So what is his plan to win this show? Sing good ole fashioned country songs about the good ole fashioned country boys sitting around a bonfire drinkin’ American beer on a Saturday night (but tomorrow, they’ll all go to church with their mammas). . that can’t hurt his chances 😉

Song 2: Fall

Smooth, very smooth. His vocals were smooth, and so was the idea to show footage of he and his high-school sweetheart wife as he performed. It has always been Tate’s back story that has made him such a compelling individual. He knows his audience, he knows his voice, he’s ready to make an album. No, he’s not my favourite – but I have to admit that every time he takes the stage, he does so with a seasoned professionalism that every other contestant lacks. Oh, and he also has a wife and kids… which never hurts.

5th Harmony

Song 1: Anything Can Happen

I think this was the first time we’ve seen 5th Harmony work a ‘production’ – we very rarely see them step outside their 5-across formation. They were starting to remind me of the 3 Tenors, so I was very pleased to see them interact with stage settings and props. How nice of Katy Perry to donate her candyland set to the show. These girls can ‘SANG’. Every single girl could be a star in her own right, each having spotlight moments in each performance. I like this direction for them combining art, drama, fashion but never losing their ‘voice’.

Song 2: Impossible

There are a ka-jillion songs in the global songbook to choose from, Simon (the genius producer), suggests that his struggling girl group song a song they’ve already performed. He doesn’t offer any suggestion about how to make it different or better, the only obvious change was including sections of Spanish lyric – which was not even his idea. It needed to be shaken up, to show how much they’ve improved, how far they’ve come, the kind of artist they will be. This song lacked their name-sake harmonies, and it definitely felt flat after their energetic first song. No one can deny their talent, but even Simon knows they will need a miracle of biblical proportion to beat out 3 cute beach-blond boys, a country singing American dream, and a young singing-phenom.

Emblem 3

Song 1: Baby I love Your Way

I will preface this by warning you, that I hate this song. Unless Emblem3 had blown it to pieces and made it a completely different and modern version, I was always going to hate this performance. And I did. I hated the song, but I am also growing very tired of watching this group perform. It’s a formula. Wave your arms, crouch and reach out to the audience, jump, send a boy into the crowd, back to formation. It doesn’t really matter that I was not a fan, because the judges seemed to think this was the quintessential XFactor winning performance. Sigh. #idisagree

Song 2: Hey Jude

I get defensive when it comes to covering Beatles music. Some things are sacred. Every once and awhile, a performer on one of these shows will take on a Beatles song and do it justice… but when I heard Emblem3 was singing Hey Jude, I was not optimistic. The entire video segment built of the story line that the youngest beach boy needed to step up his game and take the lead on this tune – letting out a classic McCartney scream at the end of the song. I was waiting for it… he sang one line at the end of the song, and it was hardly even a decibel over the screams of the 13 year old girls in the audience. So, for Demi and LA to compare these boys to The Fab Four, is just ludicrous. In fact, it’s irresponsible and irreverant. I need to move on… #hotandbothered

Carly Rose Sonenclaire 

Song 1: Your Song

Right. Britney Spears chose Elton John for her little songbird. Carly Rose is coming off a big week – she was covering new songs and giving them the Carly treatment, knocking them out of the park with big notes and smooth runs. Your Song is a classic, but it is not the kind of song Carly Rose should be singing. She may be an old-soul, but she can’t sing old songs and stay current. Elton John had a stellar voice in the 70’s, and even he would tell you that this was not a power singer’s song… if she was adamant about choosing something from the Elton John collection, how about My Fathers Gun?

Song 2: Imagine

Right. Britney Spears chose John Lennon. I simply refuse to believe this. You now know how I feel about amateurs taking on The Beatles. The problem I had was NOT Carly Rose’s vocal on a song I deem virtually untouchable, it was the arrangement of the song. She stuck in big notes and fabricated big moments in a song that was NEVER intended to win someone a talent competition. It’s not a competition song, it’s a song that invites you to quietly reflect on the state of the world. I might be the only song that cannot be elevated by a big voice, or a big note.

I don’t think Carly Rose is in danger – I think her past performances will give her momentum. She benefits from the mis-steps of Simon’s girl-group this week.

Thoughts?

My Christmas Programming Rant 2012

Preface: I love Christmas. It’s my absolute FAVOURITE time of the year. I love the music so much that I listen to it non-stop starting Dec.1 and I sing along when I’m wandering through malls and shopping the aisles of grocery stores. I spend way too much money, but I don’t care. I deal with credit cards in the off-season. I go nuts decorating my house, and berate the people in my neighbourhood without adequate light displays. I send Elf Yourself ecards. I have special ‘once-a-year’ Christmas socks. I will buy any food product that is ‘Candy Cane flavoured’. I still have trouble falling to sleep on Christmas Eve, and I still wake up before dawn just to lay awake watching the ceiling until it is an acceptable hour to get the family up.

So to be perfectly clear… I love Christmas.

Now…

That being said. (Feel free to re-read the Preface before continuing…)

I am NOT a fan of how TV networks deal with Christmas. Let me explain. Somehow I envision the TV execs getting together to pitch Holiday programming, and that it might go a little something like this:

Exec 1 “Here is a list of all the (XYZ) network celebrities that signed their big TV contracts without reading the fine print.”

Exec. 2 “Here is a list of every potential scenario we’ve come up with for 6-episode Game Shows”

Exec 3 “Here are the celebrities with Christmas Albums dropping this year”

Exec 1 “Attach as many (XYZ) network celebrities to either host, or judge these shows. Add performances by any celebrity with a Christmas album.”

Exec 3 : What should we do about the rest of the list?

Exec 1: Give them their own Christmas special.

 

No, I did NOT watch ‘Take it All‘ last night. I also steered clear of Extreme Home Makeover: The Holiday edition… and I found myself finding reasons to leave the room when The Voice became a Holiday Sing-along and Promo for Blake Shelton Christmas album and Michael Buble’s Christmas Special.

There’s cheeseball Christmas, like faberge ornaments and Rudolf the Red Nosed reindeer in stop motion. Then there’s insulting Christmas, like weepy specials that exploit the poor, the sick or the families of military just to get a reaction. These shows are ratings gold mines because they pull everything else OFF the air to make room for them.

…and when was the last time you watched a Christmas Special without feeling a little uncomfortable about the level of cheeseball you were enduring? It’s not natural, and there is a reason why they can only get away with airing this stuff once a year.

The reason? People like me, and perhaps, people like you. We become the Christmas versions of ourselves this time of the year. The more patient, the more accepting, the more easily entertained by an off-key children’s choir on a paper mache float.

Sigh…

As much as I can get on my soapbox and demand reform, I can’t promise that I won’t get sucked in by a caroling competition featuring inner-city at-risk youth. I’m not a martyr. I simply wish that networks could find a way to ‘keep Christmas’ without assaulting us with overt Holiday filler… sponsored by your favourite soft drink.

The Joys of Christmas Programming

Falalalalala -lala-lala

Tis the Season.

I watched a Home Alone Marathon last night… as a result, I set a marble trap at my door before I went to bed. Just in case. They’ll never outsmart the well-prepared.

The signs of Christmas are all around us – I’m not really referring to Christmas trees, lights or the occasional flurry, I’m much more interested with what the networks have come up with to keep us tuned in this Christmas. They bank on us forgetting how MUCH we hate Christmas specials hosted by marginal celebrities and their even more marginal friends (I’m talking about you Blake Shelton…). They KNOW that we’ll forget how excruciating it is to sit through a Holiday parade… unless it’s muted. Otherwise, you have to listen to the cheese-ball announcers pretend their degree in Journalism was worth it.  And they consider us to be naively entertained by any ‘new’ special, game show or filler episode on TV between Thanksgiving and New Years that has anything to do with Christmas, giving, or singing. They wouldn’t spend a dime on this rot if we didn’t fall for it… every year.

This year?

Extreme Home Makeover takes over the TV for 2 hours every Monday for a  SPECIAL Holiday edition. 2 hours. Remember when Extreme Home Makeover was an HGTV show, and the most compelling part of the show was the big reveal? Now its a show that spends 1:45 minutes forcing waterworks from even the coldest of hearts. Just when you thought a story couldn’t get anymore tragic… they throw in a terminal illness, or a war veteran. And just so we are clear on the semantics… a makeover is working with what you’ve got to make it better. Ty and crew do NOT ‘Makeover’ – they tear down and build mortgage busting mansions that would make King Louis XIV jealous. Just sayin’.

Today, I look at the TV line up for this evening (yes, i start planning my attack at 8am, don’t you dare judge.) and see a new show that I don’t recognize airing after the Voice on NBC. The show is called ‘Take it All‘ – it’s a limited -run gameshow, and it’s hosted by… wait for it, in fact, I could give you 3 guesses and you’d nail it in one… Howie Mandell.

Howie Mandell – who says the show is, and I quote, “The Price is Right meets Jerry Springer“. That sounds like afternoon programming at the retirement estates in Crocketbluff, Arkansas. Or what’s on a loop in the 7th ring of hell. Either or…

That’s not all ladies and gents… after an hour of this insult to intelligence, stay on NBC for the sophomore season of Michael Buble Christmas – featuring his famous pals, Carly Rae Jepson (Grammy nominated… don’t shoot the messenger), Rod Stewart (yep, still living) and Blake Shelton (who did he sell his soul to?).

Oh it’s on. It’s officially the Christmas season – when TV gets really really bad, and we don’t care.

What are YOU watching tonight?