Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert

[Johnny Canuck3]

One of the problems with not being around, is not knowing what's been discussed already. This has been gnawing at me, so I wanted to say something about these two.



They're both losers. UK and America, respectively, made them into second place. The media is saying that it shows that the voting viewer has spirit, that they won't be told what to do.

To that, I say bullshit. What it really is telling us, is the sad and dreary message that prejudice and discrimination are as alive and well as they ever were.

A coworker said her kid went to school and told her friends that Adam Lambert was a good singer. The friends said, "But ewww.....he's gay!" These kids are eight years old.

I've only heard Susan sing in little snippets, mostly on news items about the show. It sounds like she's really good. No doubt the judges loved her. I heard a lot of Adam. I watched him every week. It was exciting to see someone with such a powerful and moving gift, actually rise out of obscurity, and head for the top.

But wait: I'm forgetting something. He's gay. And she's as homely as.... well, as homely as some really homely thing.

What their second place finish really tells us, is that Joe and Josephine Blow cannot elevate outsiders, outcasts and misfits, to the highest station of the fantasy railway. If you don't look the right way, if you don't fuck the right way, America and Britain will not give you the golden ticket.

Instead, we get some bland nonentity winning American Idol. I don't even know who won Britain's Got Talent.

You kind of know this is how it is, inside; but when it is slapped across your face in such a blatant manner, it is to despair.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Welcome back

 

[strung out]

SuBo really wasnt very good though

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

SuBo really wasnt very good though

With her, I'm more going by what the judges said. Maybe they were wrong.

But there's no mistake with Adam. He was robbed.

 

[Onket]

Welcome back

This. ^^

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Susan Boyle was shit though. Actually listen to her sing . She's passable but because it's not what you expect you think it's amazing.


Don't know who the other person is. Will youtube.


And welcome back.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Watched it. Both shit.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Susan Boyle was shit though. Actually listen to her sing . She's passable but because it's not what you expect you think it's amazing.


Don't know who the other person is. Will youtube.


And welcome back.

Thanks.

Adam Lambert is a gifted singer who stood head and shoulders above the other finalist, who was not without talent. He reminds me of another winner in one of these musical competitions, a Canadian named Lucas Rossi.

If you're interested in hearing what Adam Lambert sounds like, I'd suggest this as a good start:



Tracks of my tears. Smokey Robinson was in the audience, and gave him a standing ovation. Robinson wrote the song.

 

[Geri]

I don't think the fact that he is gay and came second will do any harm to his career - look at Will Young, he is far more successful than Gareth Gates now.

It is annoying when someone who is clearly the best doesn't win - I am still smarting from Rhydian coming second to Leon Jackson, but again, he is doing a lot better than the actual winner.

Sometimes the public are a bunch of fools!

 

[mentalchik]

I don't watch BGT but i have listened/watched SB on youtube (got sick of everyone at work going on about her).....

TBH JC2, i think it worked in reverse with her, contrary to what you mean....

She's got a goodish voice (imo) but not brilliant and i seriously doubt if she'd been a stunner she would have got anywhere......iykwim !

That programme (and all that goes with it) is so contrived it beggars belief !

 

[lemontop]

I don't think the fact that he is gay and came second will do any harm to his career - look at Will Young, he is far more successful than Gareth Gates now.

but Will Young won that and only came out after the competition had finished

 

[Maggot]

TBH JC2, i think it worked in reverse with her, contrary to what you mean....

She's got a goodish voice (imo) but not brilliant and i seriously doubt if she'd been a stunner she would have got anywhere......iykwim !

^This.

The whole fuss surrounding Susan Boyle is the 'novelty' of a plain woman with a good voice. When she first appeared, people were expecting some kind of embarrasing car-crash performance and were surprised that she could actually sing. Then the tabloids picked up on it and things snowballed.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

My experience of Ms Boyle's voice consists of only a few seconds on television, but does she actually have any capacity to show any personality through her singing?

 

[Geri]

but Will Young won that and only came out after the competition had finished

Oh, I thought he came second. His career hasn't nosedived after coming out though.

Being gay has not stopped people winning Big Brother, for example. I honestly don't think being gay would stop someone from winning X Factor or Britain's Got Talent.

 

[berniedicters]

I don't watch BGT but i have listened/watched SB on youtube (got sick of everyone at work going on about her).....

TBH JC2, i think it worked in reverse with her, contrary to what you mean....

She's got a goodish voice (imo) but not brilliant and i seriously doubt if she'd been a stunner she would have got anywhere......iykwim !

That programme (and all that goes with it) is so contrived it beggars belief !

I think that anyone who thinks there's much of a link between quality and winning talent contests is being a little naive. But, that said, some of those who get through to the end are bound to be at least passable.

And in a way I'm not sure if it ends up mattering who actually wins - surely it's about exposure and publicity in the end, since not everyone will be watching the shows, so they may well only pick up what's been heard around the place.

Accordingly, I've seen nothing of the BGT winners, but I've heard Susan Boyle's singing. She has a very good voice. It sounds very expressive and all that. But that's nowhere near all there is to making it as a singer in the real world.

She's already shown that the pressure of publicity and fame is a bit more than she can handle and, like it or not, that's a big part of being in the biz. But you need a ton more than that, too. As someone who's grappling with his own singing training (not with any pretensions to fame and fortune - just for fun), I'm learning that even having a decent voice isn't enough. To be a performer that people other than your mum want to see, you have to be able to deliver a song and engage your audience. That means not only having personality, but being able to communicate it. And if you're going to be a professional (rather than just "that woman wot won BGT"), you need to be adaptable and flexible in a way I don't think she was - it's one thing handpicking a few songs that you can do well, but what happens when a role demands something a bit more?

She had a good crack at it, and it'd be nice to think (I really hope this, at least) that she's had an experience she can look back on fondly, once the bumps and bruises have subsided a bit. But she wasn't ever going to be starting a career out of this.

All these TV programmes are contrived - I was in a (fairly serious) televised choir competition back in January (Cor Cymru, on S4C, peak audience: 9). We made it to the semi-finals, and we did OK. But we knew we were never going to win, because we didn't really fit the format (and we weren't really polished enough for it, either! ). Doing it was a revelation, though - there was a clear attempt to whip up a certain amount of (mostly good-spirited competitive) "needle" between the choirs, and much careful editing of the screenreels to convey a particular impression. If that was the level of compromise between musical integrity and good TV going on in an ostensibly serious competition, it's not hard to see how skewed the picture might well get on a much more entertainment-oriented show like Britain's Got Talent, or any of the other ones. It's a circus, and anyone participating who doesn't acknowledge that is going to get a few surprises...not always nice ones.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I think that anyone who thinks there's much of a link between quality and winning talent contests is being a little naive. But, that said, some of those who get through to the end are bound to be at least passable.

And in a way I'm not sure if it ends up mattering who actually wins - surely it's about exposure and publicity in the end, since not everyone will be watching the shows, so they may well only pick up what's been heard around the place.

Accordingly, I've seen nothing of the BGT winners, but I've heard Susan Boyle's singing. She has a very good voice. It sounds very expressive and all that. But that's nowhere near all there is to making it as a singer in the real world.

She's already shown that the pressure of publicity and fame is a bit more than she can handle and, like it or not, that's a big part of being in the biz. But you need a ton more than that, too. As someone who's grappling with his own singing training (not with any pretensions to fame and fortune - just for fun), I'm learning that even having a decent voice isn't enough. To be a performer that people other than your mum want to see, you have to be able to deliver a song and engage your audience. That means not only having personality, but being able to communicate it. And if you're going to be a professional (rather than just "that woman wot won BGT"), you need to be adaptable and flexible in a way I don't think she was - it's one thing handpicking a few songs that you can do well, but what happens when a role demands something a bit more?

She had a good crack at it, and it'd be nice to think (I really hope this, at least) that she's had an experience she can look back on fondly, once the bumps and bruises have subsided a bit. But she wasn't ever going to be starting a career out of this.

All these TV programmes are contrived - I was in a (fairly serious) televised choir competition back in January (Cor Cymru, on S4C, peak audience: 9). We made it to the semi-finals, and we did OK. But we knew we were never going to win, because we didn't really fit the format (and we weren't really polished enough for it, either! ). Doing it was a revelation, though - there was a clear attempt to whip up a certain amount of (mostly good-spirited competitive) "needle" between the choirs, and much careful editing of the screenreels to convey a particular impression. If that was the level of compromise between musical integrity and good TV going on in an ostensibly serious competition, it's not hard to see how skewed the picture might well get on a much more entertainment-oriented show like Britain's Got Talent, or any of the other ones. It's a circus, and anyone participating who doesn't acknowledge that is going to get a few surprises...not always nice ones.

I think you're right about what it takes to become a successful performer, but if what you're having is a 'talent show', shouldn't it be the talent that wins it?

 

[berniedicters]

I think you're right about what it takes to become a successful performer, but if what you're having is a 'talent show', shouldn't it be the talent that wins it?

Rather depends how you define "talent". I suspect that a lot of these shows would define it somewhat differently to the accepted definition...

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Rather depends how you define "talent". I suspect that a lot of these shows would define it somewhat differently to the accepted definition...

True. American Idol makes no bones about the fact that they're looking for a recording artist.

Perhaps my observation is more applicable to Adam Lambert. Likely that British viewers haven't been exposed to him much, but the unfairness of that particular decision, seems very apparent.

 

[Looby]

^This.

The whole fuss surrounding Susan Boyle is the 'novelty' of a plain woman with a good voice. When she first appeared, people were expecting some kind of embarrasing car-crash performance and were surprised that she could actually sing. Then the tabloids picked up on it and things snowballed.

Yep, she's not that great. I don't read the tabloid papers but I heard that part of the reason she didn't win is there had been quite a backlash against her in the last week or two in the papers. Lots of reports of angry outbursts with fans and other contestants.

 

[1927]

Watched it. Both shit.

Agreed,being gay is a smoke screeen, the guy wouldnt have made the final in UK.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Agreed,being gay is a smoke screeen, the guy wouldnt have made the final in UK.

Maybe not; but do you think that the guy who won Idol, is the better performer?

 

[Jazzz]

If you're interested in hearing what Adam Lambert sounds like, I'd suggest this as a good start:

Good singing for sure, but the vocals are pitch corrected

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Good singing for sure, but the vocals are pitch corrected

You're the musician: what is 'pitch correction'?

 

[Jazzz]

You're the musician: what is 'pitch correction'?

it's using device or software that takes your voice and 'corrects' it to the nearest proper note. It means you can't sing slightly flat/sharp, ever. Very common on pop tracks I guess. But still something slightly clinical about it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

it's using device or software that takes your voice and 'corrects' it to the nearest proper note. It means you can't sing slightly flat/sharp, ever. Very common on pop tracks I guess. But still something slightly clinical about it.

How does one distinguish pitch corrected vocals, from vocals that were sung in the proper pitch?

 

[pk]

How does one distinguish pitch corrected vocals, from vocals that were sung in the proper pitch?

The correct pitch is played in before the singing begins, and the vocal is toyed with to hit the notes that have been predetermined.

You can hear the effect exaggerated to weird effect in Cher's "Do You Believe" and a million R&B songs.

 

[berniedicters]

How does one distinguish pitch corrected vocals, from vocals that were sung in the proper pitch?

Often, they acquire a certain "vocoder"ish quality to them - Cher's voice in the track "Believe" is a classic example of what pitch correction sounds like turned up to 11

Nobody sings bang on the note all the time, every time. The danger when using pitch correction is that there's a tendency to get the pitch absolutely spot-on too much of the time (and then sometimes attempt to fudge it with a spot too much chorus, another giveaway "treatment" for a featureless voice), which gives it away.

I couldn't pretend to spot a pitch-corrected voice every time, and I am sure that a judicious bit of tidying up is probably possible without anyone noticing, but when you're trying to polish a turd, it's going to show.

About the hardest thing for most singers to manage is pitch - I have perfect pitch, and there are times when I don't quite hit the note right. Your average talent show wannabe is a lot less likely to be good at it, and it usually shows - especially as it is going to be even harder to tweak it properly for live performances.

ETA: oh. pk got there first

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The correct pitch is played in before the singing begins, and the vocal is toyed with to hit the notes that have been predetermined.

You can hear the effect exaggerated to weird effect in Cher's "Do You Believe" and a million R&B songs.

As an untrained listener, it was apparent to me that there was something different with the vocals in Do You Believe. To use the language of yesteryear, it sounded as if the vocal track had been put through a synthesizer somehow.

Are you saying that the same process was applied in the Adam Lambert vocal?

 

[berniedicters]

The correct pitch is played in before the singing begins, and the vocal is toyed with to hit the notes that have been predetermined.

You can hear the effect exaggerated to weird effect in Cher's "Do You Believe" and a million R&B songs.

it's not normally used to correct to other notes - as I understand it (never ever having used it ), you set it to tolerate a certain amount of variation from chromatic pitches before it corrects. It'd be interesting to play around with, since so much good singing requires portamento and other messing around with pitch, which I'd have thought autotune would bugger up completely.

ETA: ohhh, you actually give the autotuner the key you're singing in, so it doesn't correct to chromatic pitch. Hmm, I wonder how it handles accidentals and so on.

http://www.temple.edu/ispr/examples/ex03_08_25.html

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

it's not normally used to correct to other notes - as I understand it (never ever having used it ), you set it to tolerate a certain amount of variation from chromatic pitches before it corrects. It'd be interesting to play around with, since so much good singing requires portamento and other messing around with pitch, which I'd have thought autotune would bugger up completely.

To the extent that you're interested, try Youtubing up the live performances of that song or others by him. Most of my exposure was on the tv show itself, where I assume they haven't had time to electronically doctor the performances.

What you say is right: there are times that he and others don't quite get the note, but I think it's possible to overlook a minor slip or two, if the overall performance is good. It seemed to me that his performances were very good, with or without the doctoring.