American Idol down to 5 and we’re baaaaaack
Last week was such a blur I barely remember a single thing that happened...hopefully this week will be much calmer and we’ll actually get our blog postings out. Okay here’s whats up:
Last week on American Idol we lost two folks Anoop and Lil’Round and neither was a surprise to go. Both were very talented but there was nothing original about the sound of their voice, look, song selection, etc that made them stand out as star material. Not to say they won’t continue to develop these qualities and one day become stars it’s just not happening right now. Now we’re down to 5 contestants and the choices are going to be tougher. After last night’s performances I would definitely put Matt and Kris in the bottom two. Adam, Allison and Danny are all at a different level than Matt and Kris and I think the results this week and next will pan that out (or at least I hope so :)). Beyond that I had been hoping for an Adam vs. Allison finale for a long time but I can see its going to be difficult to keep Danny out of the finale. I really like Danny a lot, his voice and artistry are really good..I just think commercially that both Adam and Allison have a better shot at becoming a legimate star after the intial Idol attention fades (ie. A Kelly or Carrie vs. Taylor or Ruben.
This week is apparently National Karoake week so there are many opportunities to sing your stuff in your local bars, clubs and even online. Its kinda funny that this week coincides with nearing the end of the Idol season. Maybe you can use this week as a springboard to audition for next years American Idol :)
Mothers Day is around the corner (less than 2 weeks) and we’ll be posting lyrics to some of our favorite songs about Mom later this weekend. In the meantime have a great Tuesday and we’ll be back at ya on Thursday after the Idol results.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Weekend Edition - National Record Day 4/18/2009
Saturday April 18th is National Record day where you can help celebrate the spirit of the independant record store in 1000 locations throughout the US. Once the hot spot where almost everyone stopped and shopped to listen to and buy their favorite records, the number of stores continue to dwindle as the big chains and online retailers take over. I can remember early in my youth going to record stores, walking the aisles and browsing through hundreds of artists and titles and being fascinating by the very cool album covers (remember album covers anyone??). Oh well maybe album art will make a comeback in some fashion in the online world so we can print out own covers and posters from our favorites. Well remember a bit of history tomorrow by visiting your local indy record shop..there are contests, live performances and other cool stuff going on to help celebrate the day (visit Record Store Day for locations near you.
Sad note for all you baseball fans, our Philadelphia Phillies announcer for the last almost 40 years has moved on to the big baseball diamond in the sky. That's right Harry Kalas "That ball is outta here" passed away suddenly earlier this week and will be greatly missed by many. You could also hear Harry's voice prominently on NFL films for the last 32 years which brought Harry fans far beyond the Philadelphia and baseball worlds. Baseball and music were my two passions growing up and Harry's voice on the radio was a big part of my baseball world and I will definitely miss hearing him.
That's all for the weekend edition folks...enjoy the weekend and we'll be back at ya on Monday with some new music news.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Saturday April 18th is National Record day where you can help celebrate the spirit of the independant record store in 1000 locations throughout the US. Once the hot spot where almost everyone stopped and shopped to listen to and buy their favorite records, the number of stores continue to dwindle as the big chains and online retailers take over. I can remember early in my youth going to record stores, walking the aisles and browsing through hundreds of artists and titles and being fascinating by the very cool album covers (remember album covers anyone??). Oh well maybe album art will make a comeback in some fashion in the online world so we can print out own covers and posters from our favorites. Well remember a bit of history tomorrow by visiting your local indy record shop..there are contests, live performances and other cool stuff going on to help celebrate the day (visit Record Store Day for locations near you.
Sad note for all you baseball fans, our Philadelphia Phillies announcer for the last almost 40 years has moved on to the big baseball diamond in the sky. That's right Harry Kalas "That ball is outta here" passed away suddenly earlier this week and will be greatly missed by many. You could also hear Harry's voice prominently on NFL films for the last 32 years which brought Harry fans far beyond the Philadelphia and baseball worlds. Baseball and music were my two passions growing up and Harry's voice on the radio was a big part of my baseball world and I will definitely miss hearing him.
That's all for the weekend edition folks...enjoy the weekend and we'll be back at ya on Monday with some new music news.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Saved by the Bell and Britains Got Talent Toooo!
As expected Adam and Allison were both safe safe safe (yeah) and our bottom three of the night was Lil Rounds, Matt Giraud and Anoop Desai. Matt drew the short straw and was sent home...no wait a minute the judges have decided to finally invoke the special save and Matt stays another week. Matt is certainly relieved and next week two contestants will be sent packing (most likely two out of the three in the bottom three this week). Next weeks music theme is ugggh Disco week :) Well I kinda liked Disco as a passing fad (no other music sounds more dated to me). It should be interesting to hear what 7 song choices these folks come up with and I hope and pray they mix it up at least a little bit (ie. take a Disco song and extract the disco out of it...should be interesting.
So what did everybody think of the two judge comments after each performance on Tuesday instead of all four? I have to say it definitely felt better paced though at times I missed hearing what certain judges (meaning Simon) had to say about a certain performance. If all of the judges could learn to keep their comments brief and not ramble on then I guess it wouldn't be necessary ...I guess we'll see what happens next week.
I'm sure many of you have seen the story already but in case you haven't, there recently was an amazing audition contestant for AI's counterpart Britain's Got Talent. Apparently for this show there is no age limit and when 47-yr old Susan Boyle took the stage absolutely no-one in the audience wanted to give her a chance. As the old adage goes "appearances can be deceiving" and they certainly were as Susan "rocked the house" with her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Le Miserables. Check out this incredible clip on YouTube at Susan Boyle Audition tape
That's all for Thursday will be back Friday with some non-Idol related music news (hey we've got to find something else to talk about once this years show is over sometime in May :))
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
As expected Adam and Allison were both safe safe safe (yeah) and our bottom three of the night was Lil Rounds, Matt Giraud and Anoop Desai. Matt drew the short straw and was sent home...no wait a minute the judges have decided to finally invoke the special save and Matt stays another week. Matt is certainly relieved and next week two contestants will be sent packing (most likely two out of the three in the bottom three this week). Next weeks music theme is ugggh Disco week :) Well I kinda liked Disco as a passing fad (no other music sounds more dated to me). It should be interesting to hear what 7 song choices these folks come up with and I hope and pray they mix it up at least a little bit (ie. take a Disco song and extract the disco out of it...should be interesting.
So what did everybody think of the two judge comments after each performance on Tuesday instead of all four? I have to say it definitely felt better paced though at times I missed hearing what certain judges (meaning Simon) had to say about a certain performance. If all of the judges could learn to keep their comments brief and not ramble on then I guess it wouldn't be necessary ...I guess we'll see what happens next week.
I'm sure many of you have seen the story already but in case you haven't, there recently was an amazing audition contestant for AI's counterpart Britain's Got Talent. Apparently for this show there is no age limit and when 47-yr old Susan Boyle took the stage absolutely no-one in the audience wanted to give her a chance. As the old adage goes "appearances can be deceiving" and they certainly were as Susan "rocked the house" with her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Le Miserables. Check out this incredible clip on YouTube at Susan Boyle Audition tape
That's all for Thursday will be back Friday with some non-Idol related music news (hey we've got to find something else to talk about once this years show is over sometime in May :))
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday - Adam in Concert and This Rose isn't blooming
Sorry we missed our post yesterday this means we'll need an extra one this weekend to catch up ha ha. Last nights Idol Movie Theme night demonstrated once again why Adam Lambert is the clear front runner. Singing "Born to be Wild" from Steppenwolf he managed to take his performance both vocally and visually to another level. I honestly don't see any other contestant having a chance against Adam in the finals. The trick will be what song choice will they dump on Adam once he is the new Idol and how much leeway will he have after the initial Idol song to forge his own artistic direction.
Most of the other songs sung last night were nicely done but my goodness with all the possible movie songs did we really need to hear that many sappy ballads (and this is coming from me the king of ballads ha :)). Anoop sang "Everything I do" from Bryan Adams and Matt sang "Have you Ever Really Loved a Woman" both well sung and with great feeling but just too much slow stuff. I more enjoyed Kris Allen's take on an obscure song that I can't even remember at the moment but at the time it had me more interested (bad me I'll have to look up the tune again..it was faintly recognizable as I heard it last night).
Lastly Lil decided once again to sing an old song "The Rose" which is again again another ballad and another old song for her. Yes she dressed up the 2nd half with some R&B flavor but in the end its still "The Rose" from like 1980 and you would never hear that song in a ballad arrangement as a new tune on radio. With all the great vocal ability Lil has, she really doesn't understand what Simon means about song choice...pick something more current/hip, whatever you want to call it and even then re-arrange it to make it your own. For the first half of "The Rose" last night I could close my eyes and it was almost exactly like Bette Midler's version from way back..which was real nice way back :)
I really think that unfortunately we'll be down to a single lady contestant after tonight and that will actually be teen Allison Iraheta who did a nice job with Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing". It was a current song (within last decade) and was sung originally by a different gender (always smart to do) and although the beginning part of the arrangement was a little dull, the song and her voice picked up considerably after that.
So my bottom 3 for tonight will be Lil, Kris and Matt and Lil getting the unwanted ticket home.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Sorry we missed our post yesterday this means we'll need an extra one this weekend to catch up ha ha. Last nights Idol Movie Theme night demonstrated once again why Adam Lambert is the clear front runner. Singing "Born to be Wild" from Steppenwolf he managed to take his performance both vocally and visually to another level. I honestly don't see any other contestant having a chance against Adam in the finals. The trick will be what song choice will they dump on Adam once he is the new Idol and how much leeway will he have after the initial Idol song to forge his own artistic direction.
Most of the other songs sung last night were nicely done but my goodness with all the possible movie songs did we really need to hear that many sappy ballads (and this is coming from me the king of ballads ha :)). Anoop sang "Everything I do" from Bryan Adams and Matt sang "Have you Ever Really Loved a Woman" both well sung and with great feeling but just too much slow stuff. I more enjoyed Kris Allen's take on an obscure song that I can't even remember at the moment but at the time it had me more interested (bad me I'll have to look up the tune again..it was faintly recognizable as I heard it last night).
Lastly Lil decided once again to sing an old song "The Rose" which is again again another ballad and another old song for her. Yes she dressed up the 2nd half with some R&B flavor but in the end its still "The Rose" from like 1980 and you would never hear that song in a ballad arrangement as a new tune on radio. With all the great vocal ability Lil has, she really doesn't understand what Simon means about song choice...pick something more current/hip, whatever you want to call it and even then re-arrange it to make it your own. For the first half of "The Rose" last night I could close my eyes and it was almost exactly like Bette Midler's version from way back..which was real nice way back :)
I really think that unfortunately we'll be down to a single lady contestant after tonight and that will actually be teen Allison Iraheta who did a nice job with Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing". It was a current song (within last decade) and was sung originally by a different gender (always smart to do) and although the beginning part of the arrangement was a little dull, the song and her voice picked up considerably after that.
So my bottom 3 for tonight will be Lil, Kris and Matt and Lil getting the unwanted ticket home.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Monday, April 13, 2009
Monday - Start of Tax week boooo :)
That's right if your in the US this is the week to get your taxes in by April 15th oh what fun. I usually manage to delay mine by 4-6 months with an extension so we'll see how it goes by this Wednesday :)
I took a look around and thought it was interesting that Entertainment weekly also is listing Adam (no surprise) and Allison (yeah!) as their favorites to be in the American Idol finals (see Adam and Alison on EW ). With any luck and some continued seasoning on Allison's part our wish will come true :)
Todays posting is short as not much went on music wise over the Easter weekend. I did see that the new Music video channel coming from Google and Universal has a name and the name is "Vevo"...kinda like Viva only not as exciting ha ha. Hopefully the service will do a little better than the name.
Have a great rest of tooday Monday and we'll see ya tomorrow for some new info on AI and other music happenings.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
That's right if your in the US this is the week to get your taxes in by April 15th oh what fun. I usually manage to delay mine by 4-6 months with an extension so we'll see how it goes by this Wednesday :)
I took a look around and thought it was interesting that Entertainment weekly also is listing Adam (no surprise) and Allison (yeah!) as their favorites to be in the American Idol finals (see Adam and Alison on EW ). With any luck and some continued seasoning on Allison's part our wish will come true :)
Todays posting is short as not much went on music wise over the Easter weekend. I did see that the new Music video channel coming from Google and Universal has a name and the name is "Vevo"...kinda like Viva only not as exciting ha ha. Hopefully the service will do a little better than the name.
Have a great rest of tooday Monday and we'll see ya tomorrow for some new info on AI and other music happenings.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Friday, April 10, 2009
Happy Easter Weekend!!
To all the folks who celebrate this holiday I wish you all a very happy Easter Weekend. Its a very meaningful holiday for many of us and for the rest well its an excuse to scarf down jelly beans, marshmellow peeps and chocolate bunnies :)
Amazon joins ITunes with Variable Pricing for MP3s
It appears that Amazon.com, Walmart.com and other online retailers are also being pushed into variable MP3 pricing by the record labels. Some songs are at 0.69, many more at 0.99 and some of the bigger hits are 1.29 . Its funny now that the labels finally see the eventual demise of record stores and physical CDs they are starting to jack up the price. I know I said this before but come on I should be able to buy 10 good songs for $10...there are no manufacturing or inventory costs for them so the profit they make from each sale is increased. In fact if the record labels had jumped on the digital band wagon long ago like they should have then they could have had their own digital online store eliminating the middle man costs of Itunes/Amazon and letting us pay even less.
No More Digital Rights Management for MP3s
The only good thing the labels have done with the variable pricing move is finally eliminate the DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection the MP3's sold...now we can freely move our purchased songs from computer to computer to Ipod to anywhere without having to worry about losing our rights. This move was long over due and of course will give the labels a chance to blame piracy once again for their own misguided business decisions. Since the labels in large part no longer discover and nurture new talent, new and even existing artists no longer have to be tied to major labels to get their music out to the masses. I can write a song this morning, record it this afternoon and have it available for listening and for sale by this evening all over the world. What an incredible shift in power this is for artists folks. Of course with this power comes the responsiblity to create the best art we can and not litter the internet landscape with piles of sub-par art that we all have to wade through just to find something decent. More on this topic later...
Please all have a great weekend and we'll see ya on Monday with another update. AI is down to seven contestants and we'll see whose star is rising and whose star is beginning to fade.
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Its ByeBye for Scott - Was a great ride!
I admit when I first heard Scott MacIntyre audition I was rooting for him. He definitely has a great voice but like most of us there are limitions to his voice and some of his recent song and arrangement choices did not serve him well. But we will get to see Scott on the tour and hopefully his American Idol exposure will lead to some good opportunities for him.
We're now down to the lucky 7 AI Contestants and its going to get harder each week as more talented folks start to get cut. I was originally rooting for Anoop to be in the top 2-3 and he certainly has the voice to be..however I don't believe his onstage persona is large enough to rate star quality and that will eventually bring him down in the competition. The same goes for Kris Allen and Matt and Lil to a lesser extent. I believe the top 4 will round out to be Adam, Danny, Allison and I'm rooting for Lil to make an artistic comeback with some smart song and arrangement choices...we'll see as the weeks count down.
Universal and Google to Launch All-Music Video Channel - Just announced Google and Universal are teaming up to launch an all music video online website later this year. Universal Records is one of the four major labels left in the game and currently only their artists will be a part of the channel, but the new venture is negotiating to bring the other 3 into the venture. Well if your old enough to remember the launch of MTV in August 1981 it was so cool back then when there was a channel dedicated to playing video's all day and night..yes I know there are MTV spin-offs/etc that do play mostly videos but its just never the same as the original. Maybe this new web channel will bring a spark of creativity and newness to the Music Video profession and we'll be rewarded with some really cool music videos made especially for web viewing.
That's all folks see ya tomorrow with our Easter-edition weekend blog!
~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
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