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Pop Rock Nation

Category: News

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  • Vital Idol: It’s On Like Donkey Kong

    We’re down to the final three and I feel much like I did last year. All three contestants are strong, yet none of them seem like can’t miss prospects. When Fantasia won Season 3, I felt like if she hadn’t been on Idol, but had received some of the same publicity, record companies would be lining up at her door ready to sign her. I think all three of the contestants this year are capable of being decent recording artists, but has anyone seen CD sales recently? Decent just doesn’t cut it. I hope I’m wrong as all three contestants are very likable, but I can’t say that I’m going to be looking out for their album come release date like I was when Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard released albums.

    I wouldn’t go as far as to say American Idol sucks (though my partner in crime would), but let’s just say that this hasn’t been their best year. Declining television ratings say so as well.

    It’s time to get on with the show.

    – Before we go on, was it just me or were Simon, Randall, and Paula pushing heavily for a Big Dave Archuleta and David Cook final? Poor Syesha wasn’t getting any R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me. Sorry, I got a little carried away.

    – The threesome do Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now and Big Dave Archuleta wasn’t feeling comfortable on that dance floor. I think he’s going to have nightmares about dancing for about the next fifteen years.

    – Speaking of Fantasia, she’s back and singing live. She has bright red hair, tight pants, is screaming her head off, and is shaking that junk in the trunk while singing Bore Me. Simon looked confused, especially after the ending of the song was an ode to the JB’s and Funky Good Time.

    – Ryno introduces each contestant, shows a 5 minute video package of them going home, and then another 2 minute video package of how they got here. Let’s just say that I’m doing lots of fast forwarding on the DVR.

    – If you’re going to base your vote on the video packages, David Cook wins hands down. His was most compelling, including a story about how he was just supporting his brother at the Idol auditions and he was pressured to try out.

    – Ryno says that Big Dave Archuleta is going to the final next week as is David Cook. That means Big Rube is going to celebrate Syesha home. Ashley Banks did good y’all.

    – I just saw David Cook whisper to Big Dave Archuleta, “It’s on like Donkey Kong.”

    Next week it’s the final that the judges wanted.

    Until next week, I’m out like gout.

  • "Idol" Sucks

    No other way to put it.

    Granted, this is only my third season of even watching one episode, but damn if this isn’t the sorriest crop of contestants I’ve ever seen in my life! Was I spoiled by Season 5? ‘Cause damn, I’d take McPhee, Bennett, Daughtry, Yamin and Taylor over any of this year’s final three.

    David Cook is bland beyond milquetoast, David Archuleta is a pretty-singing cipher, and Syesha is in a bit over her head.

    Moreso than the blandness of the finalists, though, this season’s episodes have had the slightly sour air of a fix. The product placement is amazingly obvious, and this episode seemed as much of an advertisement for Switchfoot and Diane Warren as it was anything else. (Is it me, or does it seem amazingly obvious that Cook has won this competition?-or at least that the judges are pulling ridiculously strongly for him?). This just feels a little preordained for me, and it makes me feel more than a little uncomfortable. Not like I should care at all, but still…

  • Mike’s Gripes Vol. 1: Mariah Carey


    No, I’m not writing this to discuss her marriage to bad actor/bad rapper/semi-funny comedian Nick Cannon. Hey, if Mariah’s happy (after what seems like decades of bad relationships), then more power to her.

    I’m writing this to discuss the slippery slope of suckitude that her music has bobbled around for nearly a decade now. Not that Mariah’s ever been a particularly consistent listening experience-even this diehard pop fan can’t think of more than 2 or 3 Mariah albums completely worth your time. However, her last two albums in particular have been hailed almost as masterpieces by a segment of the critical community when they’re, well…they’re not very good.

    Hey, I don’t want to hear “Hero” again either, you know? But I can see what people are getting at when they turn their noses up at “hip-hop” Mariah. Not only has she caught the same excessive collaboration bug that’s afflicted just about every pop & R&B performer of recent days, but she seems to have regressed lyrically. She’s never exactly been Joni Mitchell (or even Mary J. Blige), but her earlier songs had a maturity to them that newer songs like “Touch My Body” completely lack. And “Touch” is one of the *better* written songs on her new “E=MC2” album.

    Despite the fact that “E=MC2” is well on it’s way to unseating Jack Johnson as 2008’s best-selling album, it’s not much different qualitatively than Mariah’s two relative “flops”: “Glitter” and “Charmbracelet”. From the hip-hopped out “One Sweet Day” rewrite of “Bye Bye” to about 4 or 5 songs that directly rip Mariah’s comeback smash “We Belong Together”, the album is overall a lazy and unadventurous experience. And while contemporaries like the aforementioned Blige seem to be at their creative peaks in their late thirties, Mariah (who’s just a year and change older than Mary J.) seems to be regressing. Listen to “Love Takes Time” or “Can’t Let Go” (two of her best early career songs) and then listen to…well, just about any song on “E=MC2” or even half of “Emancipation”. The difference is almost startling.

    For my money, her best work came on mid-career albums like “Daydream” and “Butterfly”. The former album is her only completely satisfying listening experience other than her debut. I can even tolerate her somewhat sappy cover of Journey’s “Open Arms” (although I’m not sure I can say the same about the overwrought Boyz II Men collaboration “One Sweet Day”, which I’ve deliberately avoided listening to for at least a decade) but it’s the album that best balances “Adult Contemporary Mariah” with “Urban Mariah”. The latter album ODs a bit on the collaborations (“Breakdown” with Bone Thugs ‘n Harmony, is particularly atrocious), but makes up for it with a wicked awesome song built on Mobb Deep’s unforgettable “Shook Ones” sample (“The Roof”), her all-time best ballad (the title track) and a truly bizarro cover of Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” with Dru Hill (‘memba them??). She’s more or less been off the rails ever since. And even though I own each of the five albums she’s recorded since, there’s maybe an album and a half’s worth of great material between them.

    Despite her astounding success (hell, she has more #1 singles than anyone except for the friggin’ BEATLES) and the fact that critics seem to actually dig her nowadays, it’s probably safe to say that not only has Mariah’s music been decidedly average for the past ten years or so, but that it’s *never* been consistently great. How she’s sustained a two-decade career as (more or less) nothing more than a pretty solid singles artist is one of those mysteries I don’t think I’ll ever figure out.

    …but it might be interesting to see her as a guest on “Wild ‘N Out”…