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Request Mikalah Gordon's "Baby" at Idol Waves
Paula Abdul's New Single - Dance Like There's No Tomorrow
Paula's new single off of Randy Jackson's upcoming album just leaked. And actually, it's not half bad. It sounds like anything else you'd hear someone like Britney Spears do, because we're sure Paula would sound like pure crap live. Which is why even though this is a modest victory for her, we're excited to see her perform it live at the Superbowl! There's a train wreck you won't want to miss.
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Chris Sligh Album Confessional Cam
Happy Holidays... Now Eat a Potato (Introducing Carly Hennessy)
Happy Holidays, Worsters! We have a small present for you... the name of that overpimped Irish girl who will be on this season's American Idol. You may remember her as the plant from season 5 who was suddenly dropped for not having a visa. Simon called her, "The only person I can genuinely remember from the auditions." Nigel Lythgoe, everyone's least favorite American Idol producer, is back to pimping the Irish girl this season, saying "there are three girls who are superb, including one girl we saw three years ago who wasn't an American citizen." Well, Vote for the Worst found out this mystery girl's name. She is none other than failed singer Carly Hennessy (pictured, left, with oddly tattooed husband). Literally, minutes after we outed Carly on our message board, she set her MySpace to private. Don't be scared, Carly. We love producer plants here at Vote for the Worst... seriously... OK, who are we trying to kid? If you want to see this enigma in motion, here's a crappy music video she did about blowing some guy (and his mind). We'll literally have to spend months with her, so we might as well get used to her.
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The Schedule for American Idol 7 is Set
American Idol 7 has set its craptacular schedule for 2008, and they haven't learned a thing since last year. Once again, there are far too many audition episodes, far too few Hollywood episodes, and a long long wait until we actually get to vote. The schedule is as follows:
- Jan 15 through Feb 6 - Obnoxious audition episodes (That's 8 episodes. One for each of San Diego, Dallas, Omaha, Atlanta, Charleston, Miami and Philadelphia... and probably one lame Best Of episode). Craptastically enough, the first 2 episodes are 2 long hours each.
- Feb 12 & 13 - The Hollywood round is compacted into one two hour episode on Tuesday (why? that's the good stuff!) and the pointless chair episode will take place on the 13th.
- Feb 19th and 20th - The top 12 males (Tuesday) and top 12 females (Wednesday) perform. Feb 21st (Thursday) is our first results show. The semifinals continue until March 6.
- March 11 - The top 12 perform. Singing shows will continue to take place on Tuesday. Eliminations will still be on Wednesday.
- May 21 - We have our next pimped winner at the finale. It better be a VFTW pick this year!
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Vote for the Worst Album Review - Blake Lewis: Audio Day Dream (ADD)
Blake Lewis wants us all to get ADD, his semi-clever abbreviation for his debut album Audio Day Dream. After reviewing Jordin’s album, I was expecting more of the same post-Idol crap. What I found though was a surprisingly consistent and listenable album that is actually much better than the typical contestant fare. That’s not to say the album doesn’t have its problems (we’ll get to those in a bit), but overall, Blake may be the first finalist in the history of the show to actually produce an album that actually flows like a real album.
During his time on Idol, Blake made no apologies for being an 80’s kid. He beatboxed, he synthesized, and he put on his best Cure impression week after week. It seemed that his strengths were his live performance abilities, as his vocal talents are lacking, but he put on a hell of show with varying results. So I approached the album with trepidation, wondering if the one-man show could translate to record. Fortunately, it usually does. Blake’s beatboxing is woven in and out of tracks in a pretty decent fashion. And his interludes between tracks, while sometimes annoying, are varied enough that they’re palatable.
Let’s start with the album’s strong points. First, there really isn’t much filler here. Most of the songs follow along with the 80’s theme and are pretty catchy. The standout track for me is “How Many Words”, which is really the only track that effortlessly combines Blake’s beatboxing and an incredibly well crafted pop song into a potential radio hit. “Gots to Get Her” is incredibly catchy, but it’s mostly due to its reworking of “Puttin On the Ritz” and not really because of the new lyrics. And songs like “Surrender” are good if you ignore the fact that Blake thinks he’s a bigger casanova than he really is. The last few tracks on the album seem like a love letter written to Chris Richardson about how Blake will go to the “End of the World” or go “1000 Miles” for him (cue Caketards spontaneously combusting), but the ballads are actually surprisingly well crafted, albeit a bit generic.
One of the problems with the album is the fact that Blake sees himself as a man who can steal your girl at the club, when in reality he’s an 80’s dork. The album could have been stronger if Blake rid himself of the Justin Timberlake style bragging. The bravado works for Timberlake because girls actually do want him. Also, Blake still seems to be in Idol mode, where he sang songs to the audience as if he was trying to flirt with them for votes. He habitually picked songs that tried to play up the fact that he wanted to go home with the voting audience and be their boyfriend. It was just androgynous enough that he was obviously flirting with tweenage girls and gay men at the same time. Though Idol’s over, Blake still takes the same approach hoping to sell albums, but it doesn’t work as well.
Most of the album’s tracks vary from enjoyable to typical, but a 3 track section had me questioning Blake’s judgment (and my own… for listening to the album). “Whatcha Got 2 Lose” starts amping up the 80’s to a horrifically cheesy peak. Unlike the fun cheese on the rest of the album, the song starts to grate after a while. But it doesn’t truly all fall apart until the worst track, “She’s Makin Me Lose It”. Here, Blake does a third-rate Prince impression and the track is almost unlistenable because it’s so terrible. Throw in a few metallic voices and the song becomes the musical version of a robot being neutered. To finish off the trio of pain, Blake decides to do an interlude called “Bshorty Grabs Mic!” The beatboxing here certainly doesn’t work outside the context of performing on stage like the shorter interludes, though thankfully this track is only about a minute. If you have the option to buy this album minus the above three tracks (iTunes anyone?), you really should consider it.
So is Audio Day Dream groundbreaking? No. But is it a well crafted pop record? Yes. And the one thing I have to hand to Blake is that he made the album he actually wanted to make. It’s a bit cheesy, it’s a bit generic, but so is Blake. It doesn’t take away from the fact that Blake did make a highly enjoyable record. Just don’t play “She’s Makin Me Lose It” around any cats in heat and you should be fine.
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Vote for the Worst Album Review: Jordin Sparks - Jordin Sparks
Well, Jordin Sparks' self-titled album has finally been released after months of lackluster single Tattoo struggling at radio. After some well timed payola, the song has finally caught on a bit, just in time for the big album push. Not surprisingly, the album is on track to only sell between 100,000 and 200,000 copies in its first week. What is surprising is that the album actually isn't complete crap. Inconsistent? Yes. But that's what happens when you bring in a slew of big name producers and don't make any connection between any of the songs.
After hearing Tattoo, I was sure there was no way I'd ever like Jordin's album. The song is a horrible clone of Beyonce's Irreplacable without any of the elements that made Irreplacable likeable. And This Is My Now is one of the worst coronation songs in the history of Idol. How can a 17 year old talk about how she has overcome her past? What past? The time Joey pulled her pigtails in 1st grade?
But as I mentioned, the big surprise is that a few of the songs are very catchy. Sure, it's a bubblegum pop record, but you have to analyze it with that in mind. Jordin is never going to make relevant music like many of her peers. Jordin's duet with Chris Brown, No Air is actually listenable (even if Chris was probably forced into doing it by the record label he shares with Jordin). A few other songs that are actually guilty pleasures are the trippy See My Side and the Coldplay Clocks clone Now You Tell Me.
The bad news though is that when Jordin strikes out, the results are horrendous. God Loves Ugly is a terribly schlocky ballad that reeks of beauty pageants. Permanent Monday is full of so many bad glory note moments that it evokes the feel of a "big ballad" theme week gone wrong from her time on Idol. And Wal-Mart bonus track Worth the Wait is laughable. Someone needs to tell today's pop stars to not write songs about how they won't lose their virginity soon because they will surely look foolish when they break their promises. The aforementioned Now and Tattoo are of course the worst songs on the entire album. Unfortunately that will keep listeners away from giving the album's better songs a chance.
Most of the songs I haven't mentioned fall into mediocre territory. None will be hits. None will do anything worthwhile for Sparks. And she even sounds bored on most of them. Just For the Record, for example, meanders pointlessly through a snoozefest chorus and verse that encourage track skipping. Young and in Love tries to ignite Sparks with a tinge of Avril Lavigne's poser spunk, but the flame never catches. And none of Jordin's tweenage MySpace fans are going to place tepid Next To You on their profiles.
Jordin Sparks' album is wildly inconsistent, yes, but it shows ahem... sparks... of promise. Maybe if Jordin is wise beyond her Oh-my-God-only-17 years, she might parlay this album's finer moments into a better sophomore effort. And seriously, sweetheart, you're not doing yourself any favors by promoting Tattoo. Sit down with your label pronto and get a new single out. You'll thank me later.
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Chris Sligh Signs Record Deal with Brash Music
VFTW favorite Chris Sligh has signed a record deal with Brash Music. Congrats, Chris! We read the big news on MJ's Big Blog and Chris stopped by the message board to give us some more details. He's really excited about the deal and says that they understand where he's coming from and where he wants to go. Chris also posted a MySpace bulletin update this morning that says tracking starts on November 26 and "we will have my single to radio at the first of the year and I start touring hard in February. The album will drop the last Tuesday of March or the first Tuesday of April." It couldn't have happened for a nicer or more talented guy. So stop by the message board and congratulate Chris on the great news!
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