Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber & Your Top 6

Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber mentored the Idol Wannabes this week which provided quite a challenge for the less talented who made it into the Top 6.

Syesha Mercado "One Rock & Roll Too Many" (Starlight Express)
Syesha started the evening off with an excellent song choice and a sexy, evocative performance that showed off her personality and opened the doors of Broadway for her. It should be enough for her to stick around and ultimately land her a career onstage.

Brooke White “You Must Love Me" (Evita)
It has become painful to watch this lovely blonde train wreck. With a double shot of repertoires that were too big for her (Mariah Carey & Lord Andrew) Brooke made everything worse when she stopped and restarted her song several bars in.

Her time should be up this week if http://www.votefortheworst.com/ doesn’t save her.

Jason Castro “Memories" (Cats)
Clearly the Idol Troubadour was going to have difficulty this week as Lord Andrew doesn't write songs for single key singers but his selection of one of the Broadway master's most well known power ballads sealed our horrible fate.

Castro didn't help himself in his interview when he added that he didn't know the song or that it was sung by a cat. It was quite a battle for worst this week and without the support of http://www.votefortheworst.com/ Casto may be finished tonight.

David Archuleta "Think of Me" (The Phantom of the Opera)
There is no disputing that David Archuleta can sing; I continue to question if he's got what it takes to be a successful mainstream artist.

Carly Smithson "Superstar" (Jesus Christ Superstar)
During her workshop with Lord Andrew and I consider it amazing that these young singers got a private workshop with this music icon, Lord Andrew steered Carly to a song that he thought better captured her personality and a great suggestion it was.

Carly rocks. She has a big voice, beautiful tone, excellent control, poise, style and she sells herself as an artist. She should be back.

A few weeks back I mentioned Carly Hennessy's (Smithson's maiden name) major label album Ultimate High which is now on sale at Amazon.com if you want it, I suggest that you get it now before it gets pulled.

David Cook "The Music of the Night" (The Phantom of the Opera)
Cook gave an inspired performance of what Lord Andrew referred to as "the most sensual, the most sexy song I've ever written." Cook's voice is strong, he demonstrates excellent control and he had no problem taking on one of the most iconic stage roles ever written, the Phantom or as Randy said, "Another hot molten hot lava bomb tonight!"

I've also mentioned in previous posts that David Cook's album Analog Heart is available at Amazon.com. After reaching #1 on Today's Top MP3 Albums at Amazon (beating out last week's mentor Mariah Carey) all Cook's tracks and album have been pulled from the online retailer. See an image of the page here. Note all that remain are the 79 customer reviews giving the record 5 stars.

On a separate note, though she sounded great during her duet with Chris Brown two weeks ago, last year's Idol Jordin Sparks is enduring some pretty horrible medical issues with regard to her vocal cords and has been forced to cancel as the opening act of Alicia Keys tour.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Jordin.

Results tonight,

Anne

Grammy First Kanye West

Another item I wanted to blog about but time got away from me is the Grammy Award show February 10, 2008 in Los Angeles. Happy 50th Grammy.

Overall the show was great. A lot of acts kicked ass including 67 year old Herbie Hancock who also took home Album of the Year for River: The Joni Letters beating out Kanye West's Graduation and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, the Foo Fighters' Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Vince Gill’s These Days.

But the item that I’ve most wanted to blog about is Kanye’s acceptance speech. Sorry NARAS, you did a great job on this show but Kanye upstaged you here and this was the most interesting moment of the night for me; but I’ll plug the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS), the org that actually awards the Grammys.

Best Rap Album was awarded by Chris Brown, Solange and Akon at which time a first in award show history occurred…

One minute into Kanye West’s acceptance speech for Graduation the orchestra began to play in an attempt to cue his exit. But Kanye being Kanye and not yet done expressing himself called out the orchestra and expressed his disbelief that they were trying to cue his exit. As the band continued to play, he began speaking about his mother who passed away on November 10, 2007 from complications of recent cosmetic surgery.

He then suggested that it would be in good taste for them to stop and they DID! I was stunned. Kanye definitely was staring someone down in the orchestra pit but in all my years of award show viewing I have NEVER seen any orchestra stop for anyone. When he finally concluded his speech 53 seconds later the orchestra began again.

All I could think of was Frank Sinatra at the 1994 Grammys when Bono introduced him as a Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. A few minutes into his speech the orchestra swelled and the Chairman of the Board was ushered off stage.

In that moment I was sad for old blue eyes as you could tell that there was so much that he wanted to express but Bono may have unintentionally upstaged the Rat Packer with his prepared eloquence that Sinatra just could not match on the fly. I later heard that Sinatra was relieved that the music started because he didn’t have a closing for his speech but the memory is with me still.

Following shortly thereafter at the 1994 Grammys was Billy Joel performing “River of Dreams.” Now I’ve always loved Billy Joel for his songwriting and piano skills (he is a far more accomplished piano player than most realize), but that night I loved him for another reason. There’s a pause in the middle of “River of Dreams” and at that point in the song Billy Joel stopped, took his hands off the keyboard, looked at his watch and taunted the producers by saying “Valuable advertising time going by, valuable advertising time going by, dollars, dollars, dollars” and then sat silently as the crowd roared for him and Sinatra.

Vindication, I wasn’t the only one horrified. This was the best immediate protest I have ever seen. Joel did finally finish the song after a 23 second pause and since then hundreds have been cut off by orchestras at award shows around the globe, it’s a necessary evil if we don’t want to grow old watching the 3-4 hour extravaganzas but Kanye was a first.



I wish that they had just let Kanye speak; he had something to say that the audience (in the theatre and on TV) wanted to hear. Thankfully I doubt that this will start a trend; I don’t think many stars will have the wherewithal to stand up to the music director like Kanye did or have as compelling a reason.

Kanye West Grammy acceptance speech for Best Rap Album Graduation

“It definitely good to be home here at the Grammys. You know, we snuck in four years ago, four or five years ago and now we basically made this our new place of residence. and um, when working on a hip-hop album in a state with the music game. They say like, you know you can't sell records. A lot of people said Hip Hop is dead not just Nas but you know a lot of people just like the art form wasnt poppin' like that anymore

You know, I wanted to cross the genres and show people how we could still express ourselves with something fresh and new that's what hip-hop has always been about, coming out with new sounds and stuff. I always tell Common like man, you gotta time the album out better and can’t drop em the same year as me.
You gotta…This is my award. Um, I wanna

(music starts)
And for Marc Ronson and Amy Winehouse Come on, you gonna play music on me?
For Marc Ronson, Amy Winehouse if I don’t get to get up here for album of the year you deserve it just as much as me, I deserve it too.

And just to say something about my mother.
I appreciate all the support I appreciate all the prayers

It would be in good taste to stop the music then.
(music stops)
(applause)

I appreciate everything and I know you really proud of me, right now
And I know you wouldn't want me to stop
And you want me, to be the number one artist in the world
And Mama all Ima do is keep makin you proud
We run this.”

- Kanye West

See the video here
http://www.prefixmag.com/media/kanye-west/grammys-acceptance-speech-video/17208/


Idol tomorrow,

Anne