Reality Rocks

  • Before you read on, watch this Rock Of Ages performance from tonight's Tony Awards. You'll be oh-so-glad you did:

    OK, now. A few years ago, I was cordially and rockin'-ly invited to a preview performance of Rock Of Ages, a nostalgic rock opera featuring music from the big '80s era of big hair and big riffs. Man, I couldn't RSVP "yes" fast enough. C'mon, a Broadway musical featuring the classic headbanging hitz of Poison, Ratt, and Whitesnake? Dood, what was not to like?

    Well, actually, there was a LOT not to like. Rock Of Ages just did not, well, ROCK. I dunno, I thought that seeing a chorus line of spandex-sheathed, haystack-haired Sunset Strip metal groupies high-kicking their way through Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" would make for a totally awesome night of theater. But I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Somehow, something was just missing...

    ...and hey, you know what Rock Of Ages was missing, specifically? CONSTANTINE MAROULIS!!

    Yes, the American Idol also-ran (who long before

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  • You may not have heard of Ferras. But if you've been watching American Idol for a while, you may recognize the maudlin strains of his tune "Hollywood's Not America," which was the official farewell song that fittingly soundtracked season 7's Hollywood Week. Here's a clip of Ferras performing the song in the Yahoo! Music studio last year to jog your memory, plus an interview in which Ferras talks about how the song was chosen for the show:

    Anyway, I'm sure Ferras was hoping "Hollywood's Not America" would do for his career what another Idol goodbye theme, "Bad Day," did for Daniel Powter's. But, sadly, that did not happen. If it had, I wouldn't have had to start this blog with the sentence "You may not have heard of Ferras," right?

    Oh well. To be honest, this MOR ballad didn't really properly represent Ferras's musical style, which was more majestic and grandiose in a total Elton/Mika/Bowie vein. So I am happy to report today that--according to a couple of Ferras's own excited Twitter

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  • Some glass-half-full-viewing Adam Lambert fans argue that it's a blessing in disguise that Adam came in second on American Idol. And I'm beginning to see their point.

    Last week, Kris Allen played the big annual Wal-Mart stockholders' meeting, and today he sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the NBA finals game. Something tells me both settings were far more suited to Kris's heartland soft-rock than to Adam's glittery, guylinered theatricality...especially the latter scenario, considering that Adam's most (in)famous past rendition of the national anthem took place at Burning Man and was accompanied by a cast of bleating, larger-than-life farm animals:

    Yup, maybe Adam really dodged a bullet, after all, by losing.

    Anyway, that being said, I must say Kris did a pretty good job handling the national anthem at the NBA game today. It's a very difficult song to sing, but he's had plenty of practice singing unsingable songs lately, since he's been saddled with that challengingly syllable-crammed

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  • First, Adam Lambert was befriended by Queen. Now, he's being defended by Quween! This guy seems to have no problem making famous friends.

    For those of you who do not know who Quween is, she is the possibly crazy but hopefully well-meaning L.A. woman who randomly and unsolicitedly came to Katharine McPhee's defense when Kat was swarmed by aggressive paparazzi a few weeks ago. Seeing the season 5 Idol in trouble, Quween jumped into action, seizing Kat by the hand and dragging her to the shelter of a nearby building.

    Sure, it was a building that Katharine probably had had no intention of entering in the first place. And sure, Katharine probably wasn't in any real danger, and might have even welcomed the media attention given the somewhat lackluster state of her career. But trifling details like that didn't stop Quween from doing her self-appointed job.

    Since then, Quween has become a media darling of sorts, keeping the Los Angeles streets safe for everyone from Miss Teen pageant winner

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  • My regular readers know that I have just a little a bit of an obsession with Adam Lambert. They may also be aware that I am hopelessly fascinated by Keyboard Cat, the synthesizer-poking YouTube feline whose upbeat yet eerily doleful canned music is currently soundtracking every EPIC FAIL on the Interweb.

    (See my blog on Green Day's Colbert Report Keyboard Cat spoof here.)

    So just imagine my delight and amazement when I discovered my two pop-culture passions had been combined in one convenient and awesome viral video. Huzzah! The clip below is so funny, it almost made Adam Lambert losing American Idol worth it. ALMOST:

    And while I'm at it, here are some of my favorite other Idol-themed Keyboard Cat videos:

     

    Nope, it never gets old...

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  • It was apocalypse-indicating enough when The Hills' Heidi Montag tried to establish herself as a legitimate, pink-bikini-wearing, exaggeratedly-hand-gesturing, beach-romping pop starlet, in that so-bad-it's-bad "Higher" music video lensed by Speidi's lesser half, Spencer Pratt. But now Spencer seems no longer content to remain behind the camera, or behind Heidi's shadow...and so he's recorded his own pop single and video, the dubiously titled "I'm A Celebrity":

    Ugh! Get me out of here!

    Let me tell you, readers...this song makes Heidi's "Higher" sound like the Beatles' "A Day In The Life." I mean, at least Heidi had the common sense and decency to NOT RAP...unlike MC Spencer here, who recently, psychotically told MTV News: "I've always known that I secretly am the hottest rapper in the game. But I didn't feel the urge until Asher Roth started hitting the airwaves and, no offense to Asher Roth--somebody with some real swagger needed to come into the game. So I'll challenge him. I'll

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  • So Celebreality starlet Brooke Hogan has made another stab at a pop career, releasing a new music video, "Falling," just in time for summer. Perhaps uncoincidentally, this video also comes out just in time for the VH1 season 2 premiere of Brooke Knows Best this coming Sunday. Such synergy!

    So when it comes to making music, does Brooke know best? Well, she certainly knows what her, um, main assets are. And, frankly, her voice is not among them. Therefore, her video is basically an upgrade of the similarly credible Heidi Montag's "Higher"--meaning it has a bigger budget, an actual director instead of Spencer Pratt behind the lens, several professional cameras instead of one wobbly handheld camcorder, and the addition of a rapping sidekick named Stack$.

    But the concept is basically the same: a reality-TV blonde rolling around on the beach in a teensy-weensy bikini. Hey, if the formula ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

    As for the song, "Falling" is an inoffensive and somewhat forgettable

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  • Yesterday, I compared Susan Boyle's second-place finish on Britain's Got Talent to Adam Lambert's loss on American Idol--NOT because the two singers shared any similarity with regards to musical style or image, but simply because both were considered frontrunners on their respective shows, both contestants' defeats were shockers, and both may have lost due to hype overload that turned off voters.

    But really, there is no similarity whatsoever between Adam Lambert and Susan Boyle. While Adam, who has seemingly been groomed for stardom since childhood, has handled his second-place setback like a pro, Susan Boyle--according to reports by AFP, People, E!, and U.K. paper The Sun, among many others--has been rushed to London's Priory health clinic after suffering an emotional breakdown, just one day after losing on BGT to street-dance group Diversity.

    According to another source, the NY Daily News, Susan ranted, "I hate this show!" and tossed a cup of water at a BGT staffer who tried to calm

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  • I can scarcely comprehend how Jennifer Hudson has weathered the ups and down of her life over the past couple years. In a very short span of time, she has experienced incredible highs (the release of her successful debut album; her Oscar, Golden Globe, and Grammy victories; her engagement to I Love New York 2 reality-star-turned-pro-wrestler David "Punk" Otunga; performing the national anthem for a televised audience of millions at the Super Bowl; starring in The Secret Life Of Bees alongside A-listers Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, Dakota Fanning, and Sophie Okonedo). And tragically, she's experienced even more unimaginable lows, namely the horrific triple-homicide of her mother, brother, and nephew in October 2008--which caused her to go into seclusion just as her album was coming out, and also motivated her to move away from Chicago, where the murders took place. On top of all that, Jennifer also suffered vocal-cord problems recently, which forced her to postpone some dates on her 2009

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  • First Adam Lambert, now Susan Boyle. Both have become victims of the megahype machine. It seems the British population is no more tolerant of having a talent show contestant rammed down its collective throat than the American viewership is.

    This weekend, Susan Boyle--the dowdy, "never been kissed" 48-year-old Scottish singer who'd been Britain's Got Talent's frontrunner and biggest media darling since she first startled Simon Cowell with her performance of Les Miserables' "I Dreamed A Dream"--shockingly lost on BGT. Even more surprisingly, she didn't even lose to the show's other two frontrunning vocalists, 10-year-old singing ballerina Hollie Steel and 12-year-old soul sensation Shaheen Jafargholi, but to a dance troupe called Diversity that had received far less attention (at least on this side of the pond).

    Perhaps so much insta-hype is never a good thing for any talent competition voted on by the public, in any country. In America, ubiquitous Lambertmania--the fawning judges'

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Pagination

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