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Get Breaking News on your cellDoes Neil Diamond Seem An Odd Fit With The Idol Crowd?
9:42 AM Wed, Apr 30, 2008 | Permalink
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May 2008
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Many questioned Andrew Lloyd Webber and his songs for the Idol singers and, indeed, quite a few seemed uncomfortable with it (although Syesha and David Cook seemed to have a good time!). But I think the Neil Diamond songbook was much tougher. While there are many interpretations of Webber by Broadway singers out there (which in turn gives this crew a lot of room for interpretation), Neil Diamond's work is so defined by his vocals, love 'em or leave 'em, that they are really hard to cover. He's raw, he's ragged, he's powerful, he's out there. And for me, the best these kids could do (yeah, sorry, even for Syesha and David Cook who were at least smart enough to sing lesser known Diamond songs) was tread water. I actually do like David Archuletta, but come on, you can't sing Sweet Caroline without the audience wishing they were listening to Diamond's version. Your thoughts? Which songbooks have proved the toughest so far this season? (And do you know Diamond has a new CD coming out next week, Home Before Dark?) |
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Comments
Posted by Teresa @ 1:44 PM Wed, Apr 30, 2008
I think this season, more than any other previous season, has been incredibly difficult for the contestants--the "themes" have really made them stretch, get out of their comfort zone, whatever. Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey, ALW, Neil Diamond--none of these artists have "gimme" songs--there's got to be a lot of effort involved to pull them off. But then, they keep telling us that this is the most talented group of AI contestants ever, so maybe it was thought that these kids were up to more of a challenge.