Hmm I still think Clay is better than Ruben.... I suppose it's just black male soul voices do nothing for me.... I'll be hoping Clay wins

I didn't see much of the first series, but God I thought Tamyra was shit..... it was note by note a karaoke copy of Eva Cassidy's version - but nowhere near as good

And does Simon have so little imagination to make Justin do UM :S

Oh I can't believe it's between Ruben and Clay.. I so wanted it to be Kimberly and Clay.... I just want Clay to do a Will and beat the so called favourite. Roll on next week.

Btw it takes all the willpower I have to stay out of this forum between Wednesday and Friday!

It's been a stone cold certainty final two for months, so much so that I didn't even bother to watch recently!

From the hype of the judges, the two finalists were almost assured and the fact that golden marine Josh was pretty crap in the latter stages made it certain!

Good voices, but neither of them would ever make me consider buying their cd, but who knows what other tastes will buy!

This is interesting ...all the people I was with thought clay was poor ..... I thik for some of you guys here think Clay can do no wrong. Id be interested to know what three CD you guys last purchased... to get an idea of what people are into. I recently got Justin Timberlake, J LO. and R. Kelly

Clays unchanied melodies was not as good as Justin`s and I think Gareth from pop idol did better versions of both unchanined melody and Mack The Knife though. I did not enjoy his performances to be honest.

Ruben I feel did well on all three songs but was a little nervous on the last one so some notes were off. Still came across well I though.

Kim for me was best on the night with each song better than the last. Hope she gets a record deal soon.

I agree with ebony rascal in that I cant really see it with Clay. Kim I find a bit hit and miss. She'll sing one song absolutley fantastic and then the next one will be dire.
Ruben I loved from the first time I saw him BUT am beginning to think hes a bit of a one trick pony. He just wants to be the new Luther Vandross.
As someone who is a total soul girl (Heros Marvin, Otis, Stevie, Donny Hathaway, Al Green etc) Ruben hasnt really got the depth of emotion to his vocal yet to make him a great soul singer. Think that can only come with time and experience.

I do have to say, imo, the last 3 on AI are not as interesting as the last 3 on Pop Idol. I dont think you're being shown enough of their personalities whereas in Pop Idol by the end you felt you knew Will, Garath and Darius personally.

Who do I want to win? Dont really mind tbh as I dont think either of them are really what yiou would call 'Pop stars'

What the hell was Justin trying to do with UM last night? He sounded like Lemar on an off day.
Just for the record I'd put all the versions of that oversung melody into the dire category, with the exception of Gareth-OK and The Righteous Brothers-brilliant. You cant beat the original in this case. Now can we please give this "choon" (as Ben would say) a rest and let it get buried for a generation?
Thought Tamyra was sensational, but why oh why yet another version of "Over The Rainbow"?

Simon and Originality just dont belong in the same sentence do they? I think I'm going to be bored with our PI2, especially if its on at the same time as FA2.
Last edited by tally : 17-05-2003 at 13:57

I certainly do think he can do wrong, I think Vincent was nooooot good at all. It's one of my favourite songs but it just did not go with Clay's voice and I think he overcompensated his voice to cover the fact he didn't know what he was singing.


Well I'll tell you but I don't think it'll enlighten you much. Last 3 CDs I bought were Darius- Dive In, Paul McCartney - All the Best and Alphaville - Afternoons in Utopia (German electro group.)


Well I have to disagree drastically there, I thought coming after Clay's UM Justin sounded frankly bland. His voice is so flat and empty and he had to partically drag that high note from his shoes. I've never seen Justin before but I really wasn't impressed. I do agree though that Gareth's UM was better (not than Clay's but better than Justin's) and his Mack the Knife had more bite than Clay's. I actually was dreading Clay singing UM because it is such an over done song, but to me it wasn't just another person singing it, Clay managed to catch my attention and pull me in and his high note gave me a tingle. I was mucho impressed he could - as Randy said - make something of that song.


Sorry but I can't agree, I have always liked Ruben but I thought he was terrible last night on all three. I was watching with my family and we all started cringing during his second song, it was all over the shop pitch wise. My mum is convinced he had a sore throat because he sang so badly. It wasn't the velvet voice I was used to hearing, it wasn't a joy to listen to as Ruben's singing usually is. I think it's just that the nerves got to both the boys last night and showed.


Well this I TOTALLY agree with, I think Kim was by far the best on the night, she was consistant and her last song was amazing.

The last CD I purchased was Simon & Garfunkel. Before that it's been a while ... maybe Charlotte Church (i now own five of her CDs ) ... Dixie Chicks?! Guster?! I can't remember!!! Shed any light?


Have you ever heard Leann Rimes sing it? She does a beautiful rendition IMHO.


Yes, I loved his high note!

Have to say the best version I've ever heard of UM is by George Benson but hardly anyone seems to have heard it. Its classy though, as you would expect from such a master.

Btw the last 3 cd's I bought were Justin Timberlake, Ashanti and a compelation called Nu Soul.

charleah,

are you more clay or ruben ?? i`m guessing ruben but i may be wrong here !!

I prefer Rueben. I admit Clay has a good voice but he leaves me cold tbh.
Rueben has got the voice and potential to be a pretty sucessful artist but I see him more as a soul / r&b singer than a 'pop idol'.

I must admit the Vincent was not one of Clays best performances but having read an artilce which I found on a different forum link the random pick was not very random at all!!

On the show you saw each one delve into a huge bowl filled with bits of paper supposedly with loads of song titles in it.......but in fact there was only four song choices.

Also in the article Simon Cowell said he down played his comments on Ruben and up played the criticism on the other two particularly Kimberley Lock inorder to try and make sure Ruban was in the final - so much for honest judging.

I do think that Clay came back strong to give outstanding performances for both Mack the Knife and Unchained Melody. A song that has been done to death he still was able to fine that little bit extra.


I'm a little confused by the choice of songs for their first release. Particularly Flying without Wings it is one of my all time favour Westlife songs ........ please can someone explain to me why they have given it to Ruban to sing????? that song requires a high voice range, which sadly Ruban does not have! I hope to god he won't be releasing it the UK!!!!!

I'll just finish with this last comment - its now down to the wire so please, please, please America do the right thing .........
[SIZE=3]vote for CLAY!!!!!![/SIZE]

Well the last three albums that I bought were:

Incubus
Marylin manson
and Metallica.

Not your usual american idol type songs I suppose. I'm more of a rock/metal girl. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy American Idol though.

Anyway, I thought that Justin was terrible singing unchained melody and made clays version look amazing. I really didn't like Justins version at all. It was very bland. It also looked ridiculous with Clay singing Unchained melody and then Justin.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/914098.asp?0cv=KB10

The conjecture started again last week, when the three contestants each sang a song chosen at random from a bowl containing hundreds of choices. Kimberley miraculously chose “Band of Gold,” a number she’d performed on the show before. What are the chances of that? It turns out that the “random” round was much more stage-managed than it appeared. Despite all those papers in the bowls, there were only four songs per contestant, all carefully chosen to suit the singers’ vocal style and range. “There wasn’t ‘The Macarena’ in there or anything,” says Lythgoe. “It wasn’t going to be stupid.”




http://www.wral.com/news/2211326/detail.html

RALEIGH, N.C. -- He hasn't been named the American Idol. But Raleigh's Clay Aiken is already topping the charts. Amazon.com is taking orders for singles from both Aiken and his American Idol competition, Ruben Studdard. So many people pre-ordered Aiken's CD single that he's Amazon's top seller. Studdard's single is No. 386 on the Amazon sales list.

Word.


And aje245 that's interesting you should mention Simon Cowell's comments about playing down his comments towards ruben, my mum noticed this on the night that he was saying rather avgue comments about Ruben having already done enough to put him in the finale and not actually commenting on the song he'd just sung.

And from me too about the Amazon sales!

Amazon sales aren't that surprising simply because of the different markets Ruben and Clay will be targeting - Ruben's fans aren't typically going to be the sort who buy CDs over the internet (I wouldn't have thought).

And to keep this going, the last three albums I bought were:
Blur - Think Tank
Macy Gray - The Trouble with being Myself
Cerys Matthews - Cockahoop (ordered, out tomorrow in all good record shops )

I'd just like to say I was gutted when Kim was voted out. In my opinion she was head and shoulders above everyone else. My spine still tingles when I remember her version of "New York State of Mind", one of my favourite songs. I'd buy a CD of hers!

Does anyone else agree with me that the song choices throughout this series have been old-hat and pretty boring as a result? I know some of them were classics (as per my comments re. Kim), but why didn't they have them singing some modern, contemporary stuff, like they did week after week on Fame Academy? After all, they are supposed to be pop singers of today, not karaoke singers - and successful pop stars today have to be able to come up with something new and original if they are going to appeal to today's market for more than 5 minutes. I say this as somebody who's only just the right side of 50 myself - so I'm being realistic rather than sentimental. I thought FA got it just right with the mix of oldies and new stuff.

As for the final 2 - well, IMO Clay has a great and powerful voice, but his mannerisms are so old-fashioned! He strikes me as a "showman" in the Barry Mannilow mould, not your next pop sensation. He'd do brilliantly on the stage, or in some old-fashioned variety-type TV show - but I hope he proves me wrong and makes it big in the pop world - after all we haven't heard him singing anything really new yet.

Ruben has a lovely soul voice, but I feel he's offering nothing new - we've heard it all before in Barry White and co - but good luck to him, I think he's very sweet and it's great to see someone of his (and my!) size doing so well in such an image-obsessed world.

For what it's worth, my last 3 CD buys were Darius, Jamiroquai and Lulu (duos). Yes I know - don't ask! I know I'm weird!

According to the MSNBC article, the rights to older songs are cheaper and easier to obtain.