Unfortunate Event indeed. Abby and I had just finished watching the end of A Series of Unfortunate Events, when I switched the TV back to satellite and saw American Idol contestents trying to sing Queen.
I sat in front of the TV dumbfounded, and I couldn’t turn away from the trainwreck. I know Queen fans who are turning over in their graves who are not even dead yet.
One of the contestents actually had the gall to say that he hadn’t even heard the song he was going to perform until a week prior. You’re a singer vying for a place as a so-called “American Idol” and you didn’t know that song? How long have you been living under a rock?
Note that I haven’t been watching this poor show all season, so I have no idea of what chaff they’ve already thrown off. But for pity’s sake, I can only imagine how bad they must have been to have only these fools remaining. The quality of the contestants is so pathetic, I wonder how anyone can stand to watch the show.
The song selection was atrocious. If there are so many songs in the Queen repertoire, why would you pick one that you know you can’t perform onstage by yourself?
What on Earth would possess anyone to sing “We Will Rock You” as part of a talent competition? I mean, I guess it will rally the audience, but you really need to pull it off correctly - the song must be performed in the manner in which it evokes that enthusiasm. Singing that song like a Richard Marx rock ballad? Ugh.
Bohemian Rhapsody? I was thinking, “This could be ok, provided they skip the operatic parts.” But then, not so much.
That Kellie person could be slightly more braindead. You know, flopping about on the floor like a fish. “I don’t have an accent.” Uh, yes, you do, dear.
The only singer worth mentioning was Paris Bennett, who could have even stepped it up a notch herself with “The Show Must Go On”. She’s the only one who seemed to get into the music and not concentrate so much on being on stage.
And what’s with all of these singers leaving key words out of their songs? Paris Bennett left out the “The”, singing only “show must go on”, which seems fairly syllabically odd, if not grammatically incorrect. And that Taylor Hicks dude, who did that atrocious version of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, kept not saying “Love”. Uh, hello?! It’s the point of the freakin’ song!
The Idol website is so full of itself, too. They have a “My Idol” area where they have “blogs” about their show. But they are self-hosted. They might as well call it a bulletin board. They show blog-like features, like tagging, but they don’t actually accept tags from blogs over which they can’t exercise control. So I guess bad press like this blog post isn’t up for display on their site!
There is also a voting option for the Queen performances. There are four options:
Where is “Stunk like day-old roadkill”?
I’m not the only one who thought that the Queen “challenge” was an atrocity. Check these sites out:
And also I found it interesting how songs are chosen for the show. Here’s the essential info, distilled from MTV “news reporting”.
