Vox Hunt: Cut & Paste

Ctrl-V (PCs) or Command-V (Macs) Time! Paste whatever text you copied last.

Once again, with feeling:

[For] everyone's sake - for fans of good music, as well as for Archuleta himself - it would be better if he loses on "American Idol."

On the plus side, the kid can sing. He has a beautiful voice, he's technically proficient at hitting the right notes, and his puppy-dog sweetness even had Paula Abdul gushing (OK, gushing more than usual).

...Archuleta suffers from problems common to "American Idol" contestants. One is a tendency to put too many flourishes in songs, never singing one note when a dozen will do. The other is that he doesn't adapt his singing style to the song, but instead brings the song into his personal comfort zone: slow ballads ("Love Me Tender" this week) and midtempo R&B-lite numbers (as he did with "Stand By Me").

His performance of "Love Me Tender" was the most problematic. This is one of the greatest love songs in the modern canon, filled with heartache. It was made famous by Elvis Presley, rock 'n' roll's original sex symbol - the embodiment of carnal desire, wearing a pompadour. And Archuleta sang it as if it were a hymn.

Compare this with Archuleta's closest rival, 25-year-old rocker David Cook. When Cook prowled the stage and sang "Hungry Like the Wolf," his eyes assured you he wasn't singing about merely a taste for meat.)

(I'm not counting anything that I C & P'd today at work. Incidentally, I was reading USA Today online today, and read a similar article about why David Archuleta should not be American Idol. The Archtards were also busy on the intarwebs, I must say. They responded to the above article, and similar ones, with "OMGYourjusjellus cause David is liek, OMG SOOOOOO TALENTED" and "Why do you hate David? What did he ever do to you?" Meh.

[Nearly] everything [Archuleta's] done has been a variation on this theme -- ballad or ballad-like tempo, inspirational or impersonal message, runs around the melody line to show off his vocal skills, not seemingly to invest the song with greater significance. (He's far from the only Idol in history to indulge in this practice, of course.) In other words (Frank Sinatra's, actually, adapted liberally), it's the song serving the singer, not -- as Sinatra's credo was -- the singer serving the song.

So, yeah, part of my overall feeling is that musically David would make a poor Idol, likely coming up with a dreadfully saccharine, goop-laden album that...would set the Idol franchise back by years. [What? I thought Jorbacca already did that!] But that's not all.

Ken also thinks that widdle David won't be able to take the stress of being American Idol and will eventually crack up:

I worry that when it all becomes too much -- and given the spotlight trained on the Idol champ in particular, that's more of a "when" than an "if" -- David could have a meltdown that would not only severely embarrass Idol but, more important, might scar him for life.

Well, that's possible, but not necessarily probable.

I'm surprised that people are coming up with articles critical of The Next One (according to Stoopid Randy). Although they're not criticizing "Idol" itself - now that would result in a news outlet not getting access to contestants or anyone else connected with the show.

Why do I watch this stupid show anyways? Bring back William Hung!