This One Goes to 11

My favorite reality show has returned and it's loaded with talent. And there's even a contender for personal favorite this year like Haley Reinhart was for me last year, only this time it's a young dude with a very unusual energy and a killer rasp in his voice named (I kid you not) Phil Phillips.

This past week the contestants sang 50's and 60's tunes in groups in Las Vegas and these were the four that stood out to me, with annotations on my emerging faves. By standing out, I mean that I've listened to these versions numerous times since Thursday night, like released music. Roughly in order of overall quality (IMHO), they are:

Sealed with a Kiss, with harmonies right out of The Mamas and the Papas, sounds like a professional recording act already:



Jen Hirsh is the one to watch for top four honors as the season progresses. She clearly has range and when she goes big, it's still in control, while hinting at awesomeness to come. Creighton Fraker is unusual and powerful in his own right.

I Only Have Eyes for You feels like a 1950's act come back to life. The early part of the song, their movements and the sway, it feels like water lapping the shore:



Neco Starr is perfect as Little Anthony and the unfortunately (and, I think, erroneously) cut Jairon Jackson is flawless and mellow in tone as well. But it's the other two guys that are breaking out bigtime.

Yep, Heejun Han could be the first Asian-American Idol, so strong is his tone and the crazy surprise of the polished voice that comes out of him, when he's very drily humorous in accented English offstage. And then there's Phil Phillips, who doesn't get very much solo time on this number but it's timed for maximum impact, as if a little of his personality-rich voice goes a very long way. He's the first one this season who's music I could see actually purchasing...like Haley last year.

I Really Doesn't Matter Anymore: Has anyone ever done a Buddy Holly song as a slow-but-hard-driving blues grinder before?



Crazy, unusual harmonies. Again, an African-American cut (in the end-of-episode paring down, not this clip) that feels unfair and unwise, as Candice Coleman does a great job. Deandre Brackensick has the sick high-end vocals that impress as well.

But it's Jessica Sanchez who just made a name for herself this week. Did anyone expect a Jennifer Hudson-sized voice to come out of this girl? With such soul. At age 16. A star may have just been born.

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes: This was an early performance for this batch and the only one I saw that received a standing ovation from the judges. Whether that was due to the early spot or the high-quality revision of this '50's classic into a jazzy 1970's SoCal groove, you be the judge.



Eban Franckewitz is Idol's shot at a Justin Bieber but he doesn't seem to have the full control yet and could use a year or two. Chances are he'll be in the top 12 anyway. Haley Johnson is strong as well but, to my mind, the other two are the standouts.

Reed Grimm is this year's Casey Abrams, extremely musical, improving any group he's in, a good part showman, quite an instrument. He's got a signature bent-leg dance posture and even did one his Hollywood Week solo performance behind a drum kit. Could be the guy to watch for a top four spot.

Then there's Elise Testone. I'm not sure if her breaks on the top notes are planned or not, but she's got a crazy amount of soul and guts, and I love her style of singing. Some funk to come, perhaps? Some hard blues? A Janis number should she make the Top 12?

There you go: Jen, Creighton, Phil, Heejun, Jessica, Reed and Elise are my faves, as in I'm very interested to see what they do next. Others may emerge -- I want to hear more from Hallie Day, in particular. In early seasons sometimes it was a question of whether the top contestants could even stay on pitch, so that picking the final few was easy. Since last season it's felt like pitch talent isn't a problem, so what's going to make the difference is something distinctive in the voice, the musical choices and the personality that comes through.

It's way too early but let me make my prediction:

Phil Phillips FTW.

Behind the Col-Mask

Stephen Colbert lays it all out in reddit, answering questions from that audience thanks to a promise he made if the site raise over a half million dollars for DonorChoose.

It's a pleasure to learn about the guy, his method, his training, his doubts. This one is my fave answer:

When you are young and single, there really isnt anything to worry about.

Will you starve? Not likely. I worried that I didnt have enough gumption to get work. That I wouldn't know how to network or something. But at a young age several people, some professors and directors, told me I had talent, and that it was mine to husband if I was willing to work. Those kind words sustained me, many times.

I mostly just said yes to any opportunity to get on stage. Pay or no pay. Equity, amateur, comedy, avant garde, and improv especially. Chicago has a great improv community, and I could get up on stage a lot after I got to know the other members of the community. I called it getting in trouble. You say yes to something, then you are in trouble. You have to deliver. Each mini-crisis I forced myself into made me work hard.

As for true doubt, it got under my skin deeply only once. I was newly-married and I was offered a part I would have loved, but no pay. I had worked for six years doing anything, but had made a deal with myself that if I ever was to have family I could support, I would have to insist on pay. A small rule, right? But hard for a young actor to keep. Mostly you don't really get paid.

I said no to the part and immediately (I mean within minutes) went into a spiral of panic that lasted for months. I was sure I had made the wrong decision (I hadn't) and would never get a part like it again. But the worst feeling was that I knew I truly wanted to be an actor and there was no turning back now. I was too old to do anything else. This was a feeling I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Yep, Stephen Colbert once again proving himself a man of his word -- and a man of the people.

Baggin' with the Stars

I'm not a fan of this show, so it's somewhat hilarious to me that their money-grubbing decision to enter the Palin Family Enterprise may backfire bigtime:

At first, having Bristol Palin participate in 'Dancing With The Stars' seemed like a brilliant idea. Just like Kate Gosselin before her, casting an admittedly bad dancer who was shrouded in controversy has raked in big ratings and tons of press. But now the joke is on the show's producers, as they fear Bristol is actually going to win this thing.

"This will be a disaster for the show if Bristol wins," one TV insider tells me. "Any creditability the show had will be over. It will go from being a dancing competition to a popularity competition where whoever has the most rabid fan base will always win no matter how little talent they have."

Plus:

"Another problem the producers foresee is that after Bristol wins no one in Hollywood will ever want to be on the show again," a well-placed ABC source tells me. "Why would a real star want to compete and lose against someone like [former U.S. Senate candidate] Christine O'Donnell or Levi Johnston."

Bonus:

A friend of one of the judges tells me Bristol has made a fool out of all of them. It's now painfully obvious that the judge's scores and opinions mean nothing.

I'm sick of hearing people say that Palin is winning because people identify with her failings. This is the exact opposite of what Conservatives claim to believe, that it's all a meritocracy and we shouldn't be dumbing down classrooms to make it nicey-nice for the less talented. No, this is massive Tea Party drone voting, making their political point, whether or not they're using computerized means to generate "legitimate" email addresses and flood they system. Does anyone, anywhere, honestly doubt this is all about Sarah?

I'm starting to think that Palin's world and that of her drones is an even more self-aggrieved subset of the Glenn Beck audience, your true talent is, ostensibly, your adherence to the Sarah-approved ideology, no matter have provisional or acausal the selection. Because the apparatchik reason isn't even what it's all about; the only ideology that matters is that which reinforces the vanity production of Sarah Palin that is her politelebrity career.

And this is where Sarah Palin is, for once, a true pioneer. Her grifter roots are clearly Amy Semple McPherson, Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy but no one has ever done what she's doing before in world political history, mainly because there wasn't a mass media quite like this one before. With so many outlets, so much hunger for content, this rapacious time of widening rich-poor gaps as our corporate feudalistic solidifies for what may be centuries, with so many buyers out there, mass media networks of books, cable, digital, social, Sarah Palin has engineered the very first political campaign where the networks have paid candidate for the honor of creating their long-form campaign commercials and giving them huge hours of airtime, frosted with dominating amounts of free publicity

TLC has given Palin her biggest TV deal, paying her production company to make the shows, with their staged scenes and obvious cutaways, semiotics gone haywire in the ultimately lumpen service or reinforcing Palin's brand messaging and image, endlessly tiresome, endlessly smug, endlessly mean high school girl in the big leagues.

The Obama Family and the Democratic Party had better start adapting immediately. If you think this is polarized nation now, just wait until we're watching entirely separate television shows.

Wait, we already are:



I don't care how serious a candidate, politician or statesman you are. You have to at least acknowledge that this new evolution of bullshit is the most significant since Sen. John Fitzgerald Kennedy bested Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon in the first nationally televised Presidential debate.

One can only hope that, thanks to some combination of narcissistic ambition and aggrieved venality, just as Nixon ultimately lost control of his brand image Palin and her family will lose control of theirs. I mean, even the type of vile use of "gay" and "faggot" as a vicious insult by a teenager, the type of language parents are generally held responsible for teaching their children is wrong, hasn't led to a single admonition of Sarah Palin's mothering skills. Is this the kind of language Mama Grizzlies teach their little grizzlies? Grrr.

The fact is that Palin is media ascendant. There's a rule in Hollywood that you're only a superstar for three years, then the public moves on. You can still be in the firmament, even at your peak earning, but the audience for and against you is already formed, and you're not dominating their fantasy lives anymore.

So can we date Palin's superstardom from when she spoke at the 2008 Republican National Convention? I think maybe from when her book came out last year, her first purely commercial endeavor (and a huge success -- her big step-up that caused her to ditch her elected office about halfway into her commitment). If that's the case, she'll peak next year, and start fading in 2012, just in time for the GOP Primaries.

But is the answer more ominous. Is the TLC show where she really starts, taking over the airwaves? Even on Fox, she's not in control, and you can see the short-circuits behind her eyes, her hard little smile growing tight or tipping downwards when O'Reilly catches her out as is his sport.

This is the playing field now. The killing field. The battleground. This is where political war is now being waged. Politicians on the Left may develop a different flavor, maybe one that doesn't seem so constructed, really candid and unedited as Obama can be in ways she never will. The key is to leverage your celebrity as a brand that attracts curious, interested and engagement-starved viewers. If you're not already a politelebrity you need to become one, and if you already are then you need to exploit it with speed and savvy to get control of your image and blast away with your messaging.

This will also become a new discipline in political consulting. I recommend the talent agencies getting their Blue and Red political teams on and integrated with production and network sales. I even mean Below the Line crew. Control everything.

It's post-1984. 1984 has nothing on this. Orwell meets McLuhan. Makes you want to burn the whole mother****ing thing down.

Vote Bristol.

The First Punk

Siobhan Magnus was the first authentic punk rocker on American Idol. She's a 20 year-old glass blower apprentice from Cape Cod with the soul pipes and glory notes. And she got cut this week.

While Siobhan is acknowledged to be peculiar even by her family. She didn't want to be put in a box on Idol, nor did she construct her own box. Like Crystal Bowersox, the only woman left competing in the top five, her appearances had the power to transform the show into something distinct, their own show, their own time.

Coming from a large and musical family, her mother's favorite band is The Ramones and she grew up singing "House of the Rising Sun" with her dad. Her wild mix of influence yielded the show-stopping rendition of "Think" where she revealed her ability to hit and hold psychotically high notes, an entremely un-Idol "Wicked Game," a gorgeous "Across the Universe" and the one she wanted the be the one everyone remembered, "Paint it Black":



The judges dissed her for having too many contradictions, no knowing where to put her in their heads. She replied that it was point of pride for her that she wouldn't even put herself in a box, let alone expect other people to. That's the Joe Strummer-style punk attitude, which makes sense as she's the first Top 12 contestant to have sung in a punk rock band.

And, best of all, her demeanor when she isn't a song goddess walking the stage or owning a room and the airwaves with a note, is so much slower, with the big wacky eyeglasses, but also more considered, per this exit interview at USA Today:

You've had one of the most eclectic musical backgrounds of anyone on the show.

What do you look for in music that gets you from Hanson to Rob Zombie to musical theater?

I guess anything that moves me, anything that comes across as sincere and emotional and an honest expression. Music, to me, is an outlet. It's what you turn to when you don't know how else to get your feelings out. I can detect that in an artist. When somebody writes a song and you hear it and you can tell that they needed to write that song to explain how they felt, then it moves me, and I like it.

There are so many different kinds of music, and there's a difference between good polka and bad polka. Even if it's not your favorite genre, you have to appreciate that it's good for what it is. I'm just blessed that I had parents who raised me with such varied tastes in music, so that I was never closed-minded to anything.

When you like so many different kinds of music, does it get hard to figure out what you sound best singing? Because the music you love and the music you're good at aren't always the same thing.

A little bit, but I try not to take it as a bad thing. I try to see it as gaining versatility. I learn from everything that I love. I learned how to sing the way I do through imitating singers that I love. I try and encapsulate all of that and create my own unique sound from that. I try and use it as a positive thing, that I like so many different kinds of music.

I'm guessing, while there will always be some Siobhan haters out there, this girl will sell music and appearances.

It's about talent, but it's also about taste.

Early Line

It's early in the season for me to be watching American Idol, let alone pegging finalists, but there are a number of very talented and interesting adults this year -- no one left is actually a bad singer who consistently can't hit the notes as in years past at this stage -- but I do want the kids to go. The Top 12 are figured out this week, with four getting cut, then down to once a week, and I guarantee you'll see at least two great performances every week.

MC has it nailed. As of this week, the competition is between one gal and one guy who are just broke away from their respective packs.

Chrystal Bowersox, guitar slinging young mom who looks nothing like any other Idol winner in the past, who is totally legit as a singer songwriter (if they ever let her play her songs) with a great sense of rhythm and taste in covers, usually on acoustic but completely owning the electric this week:



And Big Mike, Michael Lynche, another young parent just turned dad as the auditions kicked in, proved to be a force of nature next to the other men, even the ones in their 20's:



I'm telling you, Idol doubters, there's a number of other good ones as well, but if these two aren't in the final episode, either something's gone haywire or there is no justice. I can see myself buying her songs. He's a more traditional type of star, but what counts now is how they bring it and continue to grow week to week.

The last time I liked a contestant this much this early was Fantasia Barrino, who went on to win, even though she never looked like what you'd expect from a show like this. She was authentic, she had raw throwback talent like these two (Michael with the theatrical, Crystal with the Bonnie Raitt-era white blues/folk women), and she continued to grow noticeably week to week, giving her all in different ways, going the distance.

And, like Fantasia, these two are gunslingers. You can see it in their eyes, especially during the judging, they know what they've done but they're smart, they're thirsty to absorb the feedback.

C'mon, Crystal.