singers-related stories
Posted Nov 16th 2009 4:35PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Music and Variety, Celebrities
So Simon Cowell and Sting are going at each other.
Sting said some not-so-nice things about The X Factor , including "it's a preposterous show, and you have judges who have no recognizable talent apart from self-promotion...basically I was looking at televised karaoke." Cowell responded by saying: "Talking about these contestants being a bunch of karaoke no-hopers ... I thought it was pompous." Cowell invited Sting to come on the show.
So who's right? I assume Sting's comments would apply to
American Idol too.
Posted Jun 12th 2009 4:29PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: American Idol, Contestants
It seems like it was just a few weeks ago that Kris Allen was crowned the new
American Idol champion (it was), but
auditions for the next season have already begun! As this photo from
The Boston Herald shows, contestants had to stand out in the rain at Gillette Stadium (home of the New England Patriots). This is the first of seven cities where auditions will be held. (There's also video at the link above, where you can see one or two singers that might have their dreams crushed.)
Posted May 21st 2007 7:01PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Video, Celebrities
For a disturbingly long time now, I've been bothered by the Pussycat Dolls. Every time I pass a poster of the girls, a marquee boasting their name, or their extremely well-supported racks on the CD racks (sorry, I had to), I feel a sting of recognition in singer Nicole Scherzinger. Had I seen her in an ad for a
late-night hotline or
Olive Garden once upon a time? Or passed her in the street years ago? These moments of confusion were brief and fleeting, because I have bigger things to worry about and, well, I have a short attention span. It wasn't until I recently stumbled across Scherzinger's Wikipedia page that I remembered the WB and its reality show,
Popstars.
Continue reading I knew that oversexualized gyration looked familiar... - VIDEOS
Posted Apr 3rd 2007 2:03PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: OpEd, Game Show, Pickups and Renewals
Of course, one "Great American Singing Bee" was already on NBC many, many years ago, but this is different.
The Great American Singing Bee is a new game show from producers Phil Gurin and Bob Horowitz, who will each produce different versions for American and UK television audiences. Contestants will be given lyrics to songs and asked to sing the missing words. This is very similar to an old family game called SongBurst, which was based on pretty much the exact same idea.
Continue reading The Great American Singing Bee coming to NBC
Posted Jan 15th 2007 1:05PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, CSI: New York, Music and Variety, Celebrities
It's a cross-promotional party over at CBS for Grammy Week '07. In anticipation of the February 11th broadcast of the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, nominees
Mary J. Blige and
Nelly Furtado will be making special guest appearances on CBS shows. Blige will be playing opposite lackluster recording artist Jennifer Love Hewitt on an episode of
Ghost Whisperer, and Nelly Furtado will be playing a dead hooker on
CSI: NY. Oops... actually she's not playing a dead hooker. I just saw "network crime procedural" and "attractive woman" so I thought "dead hooker."
Continue reading Blige and Furtado to drop by CBS for Grammy Week
Posted Dec 19th 2006 3:22PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, American Idol, Music and Variety
The people behind the FOX megahit say that a bombshell is coming to the show in midseason. To quote producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz, it's "something that will blow America away."
Hmmm ... what could this possibly be? A viewer at home has a chance to win a million dollars? All of the contestants are robots? Ryan Seacrest is going to reveal that he's ... Catholic (hey, where did you think I was going with that?).
Maybe they're going to do a crossover with another FOX show. Maybe bad guys will take over the studio and hold everyone hostage, and then it's up to Jack Bauer to rescue everyone and clear the phone lines so America can get through and vote for their favorite singer.
The new season starts on January 16.
[via TV Tattle]
Related:
American Idol ain't broke
Taylor Hicks: The TV Squad Interview
How much for an American Idol to appear at your party?
Posted Jul 24th 2006 7:28PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: FOX, Talent, Music and Variety
The list of singers agreeing to appear on FOX's
Duets, a contest that pairs regular celebrities with singing celebrities, is a mixture of has-beens, legends, and Michael Bolton. The singers are: Cyndi Lauper, Smokey Robinson, Chaka Khan, Clint Black, Dionne Warwick, Patti LaBelle, Brian McKnight, Macy Gray, Kenny Loggins, Richard Marx, Randy Travis, and Aaron Neville. That's actually a pretty impressive list. I think many of those singers have done guest appearances on
American Idol.
Now... who would make an interesting pair? I wouldn't be surprised to see Nicollette Sheridan coupled with her fiance, Michael Bolton. How about Punky Brewster with Cyndi Lauper? And Johnny Fairplay with Macy Gray?
The series debuts August 29th. The celebrity pairs will be eliminated each week by judges and viewer votes.
Posted Jun 24th 2006 9:21AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: NBC, Industry, Programming, Music and Variety
The first episode of the new talent show
America's Got Talent - a two hour episode - got
fantastic ratings the other night for NBC. Over 12 million people tuned in, making it the night's #1 show and the top show among 18 to 49 year olds, too. It was the highest NBC has done in that Wednesday time period since the Winter Olympics a couple of years ago.
So it looks like NBC has a hit on its hands. So that means many, many more weeks of Hasselhoff-mania. I wonder if I could go on the show. Maybe sit in a chair on stage and blog on my laptop, see if I get gonged. Or whatever it is they do to performers they don't like.
Posted May 10th 2006 5:48PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, NBC, TV Royalty, Talent, Music and Variety, Celebrities
American Idol mastermind Simon Cowell has grabbed
Regis Philbin to host his new talent show
America's Got Talent, which NBC probably hopes will be its own
Idol.
America's Got Talent won't be just singers though. There will also be dancers and jugglers and standup comics and everything in between. The first prize will be $1 million. The show starts on June 21 with a two hour special, then settles into its regular Wednesday time slot.
Wow, you know how the auditions for
AI can be hideous. Can you imagine how awful some of the standup comics are going to be?
[via
TV Tattle]
Posted May 9th 2006 6:35PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Reality Shows
Are you between the ages of 21 and 99? Are you also a man or woman? If you are, I just want you to know that's totally awesome. Oh yeah, and New Line television has sent out a casting call for a new reality series called
Battle of the Wedding Singers in which two wedding singers compete at the same wedding reception. The bride, groom, and all of their guests then vote on who they think the best singer is. The loser is then taken out into the street and shot in the head. Or so I assume, there's not much information. The idea of a competition for something that doesn't really require much more than mediocre vocal talent doesn't seem especially appealing to me, but at least the rest of the show sounds incredibly boring.
Posted Feb 27th 2006 7:21PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, OpEd, American Idol, The Five, The Daily Best
The funny thing about each and every
season of
American Idol is the contestants with mediocre talent who continue to sail through to the next
round. You know what I'm talking about. They're cute and cuddly and have oodles of personality, but they're a little
short on the talent category. There's a faction of television-watching, telephone-using Americans out there who insist
on keeping these people on the show while other contestants with more talent get the boot.
I have five
examples of
American Idol contestants who wouldn't go away:
5.
Constantine Maroulis.
Yeah, I said it. Constantine thought he was sexy and talented. Not an attractive characteristic on a man who only has
mediocre looks and talent. Constantine regularly sang out of tune and falsely advertised himself as a rocker. He was in
Rent, for crying out loud! A musical! The dude was a poser and I wanted to slap that pout right off his face. I
think we all know who the
true rocker was
last season. (P.S. More proof he's a poser: his
new album is Adult
Contemporary. Watch out, Clay!)
Continue reading The Five: American Idol contestants who wouldn't go away
Posted Feb 2nd 2006 8:47AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, OpEd, American Idol
Has anybody else noticed this? Paula, Randy and
Simon keep sending bad singers on to Hollywood. Is the talent pool really that shallow this season?
Last
night they passed Ashley Jackson on to Hollywood. You may recall that Ashley was the "fit model". She sang
Something to Talk About and it really wasn't enjoyable at all. When Paula asked Ashley to sing with her mouth
closed (it was a skill she listed on her bio), she told the girl, "things aren't going your way right now."
After she sang the
Star Spangled Banner, with full enunciation even though her mouth was closed, all three
judges passed her to Hollywood. Now, we know that a lot is edited out of the auditions, but I want to know what
happened between that first, awful song and her rendition of the national anthem to make the judges pass her to the
next round.
I've noticed they've passed other bad singers along in previous episodes this season. I'm
wondering if
American Idol producers think that we like the bad singers so much that they want to have some
around in Hollywood to humiliate? 'Cuz I'm, like, tired of the bad auditions.
Posted Jan 19th 2006 1:59PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, Talent, American Idol
Damn. I really liked these two. Terrell and Derrell Brittenum, 28, are accused of stealing a man's identity to buy a
2005 Dodge Magnum last June in Georgia. Terrell has been sitting in jail since January 10, and Derrell is expected to
turn himself in soon on charges of forgery, theft by deception, and financial identity fraud. Wow. That's serious
stuff. The brothers are from Memphis but they auditioned in Chicago last September. I wonder if they drove that stolen
Magnum up for the occasion?
Such a waste of a good talent. Both of these guys sounded spectacular in their
auditions on Tuesday night. And, what I really liked about them was that they "got it". That is, they
auditioned together, as twins, but they also belted out separate songs to show off their individuality. The Brittenum
boys understood that the twin gimmick wouldn't get them very far in the auditions process. They even told Seacrest that
they didn't want to perform together, but against each other. I was really looking forward to a twin face-off.
Posted Jan 16th 2006 8:02AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, OpEd, American Idol, The Five
I have a love-hate relationship with
American Idol. I would say that, for about two-thirds of each
season, I wince and roll my eyes and fast-forward my TiVo through all sorts of crap. But, I also feel like I have an
investment in some of the singers who are about to fall on their faces or propel themselves from obscurity to
unimaginable stardom. Plus, I usually like hearing what Simon has to say.
With another season of
American Idol set to start tomorrow night, I am on the fence about whether I will watch this season. Here are
the reasons why I shouldn't watch:
Continue reading The Five: Reasons I shouldn't watch American Idol
Posted Jan 9th 2006 10:03AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, Programming, American Idol
Does
anybody remember
Circus of the Stars? It seems as though all of our reality shows lately are just the next
version of that 1980s show, doesn't it? First it was dancing. Then it was skating. Now, it's singing with celebrities.
American Idol's Simon Cowell just signed a deal with FOX to create a celeb-reality show called
Duets.
You've already figured out the premise, haven't you? Non-singing celebrities pair up with singers and compete for the
public's affection. Just like the skating and the dancing, the viewers vote for their favorite duo. Even though Cowell
is a creator, he will not be a judge. Pity. I'd love to see him rip into Paris Hilton or a lower-calibur celebrity.
Cowell's also producing this show in the U.K.
Expect to see
Duets this summer on FOX. When nothing
else is on.
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