David Archuleta, Murray, UT, age 17. The new Donny Osmond?
Any additional thoughts on dropping the opening verses? He kept them here, when he was only 13:
Marketing like that + talent like that = shoe in shoo in? [Ed: oops.]
Whatever the case, that’s a risky song choice, for any number of reasons.
Dig a little deeper? Here’s his take on Alicia Keys’s “Falling” at age 12 — that would be Junior Star Search.
Man, it’s like Josh Groban all over again. For once I’m slightly relieved that there’s nothing to download. Where/how did you find this guy, Bryan? You’re my YouTube Obi-Wan.
…And since Stephanie is probably still asleep out on the west coast, I’ll ask for her: do you mean “shoo-in”?
and no religion too.
good question. i’ve never really thought out the shoo-in/shoe-in divide. i’ll google it later when i have a minute.
i found him because we still watch the show. the kid is this year’s frontrunner.
#2 — the Des News claims him as a member of the fold, but his parents look a little Jack.
of course it’s shoo in. i supposed i’ve spelled it wrong my whole life.
file under “nutshelves and escape goats.”
I’d heard about that performance, but I’m trying not to watch the Idol these days. Thanks for posting it. Now we can know what to expect form our new pop overlord.
In other video goodness, here’s the famous clip of the late (yay!) William F. Buckley, Jr. calling Gore Vidal a queer on national television. Vidal’s “proto-crypto-Nazi” epithet stung a bit, you see.
The kid’s got a great voice, of course, but the currently popular style of overusing melisma just drives me to distraction. Playing out every other syllable for everything it’s worth is so showboat-y, in my book. It just calls attention to the singer’s capacity to control his/her voice, instead of focusing on the song itself. I found his version of “Imagine” almost unrecognizable, really, because he departed from the melody so much to slide all over the scale.
If asked, he and the Am. Idol people would probably say that he skipped the “no heaven/no religion” verse for the sake of time, but it has to be because they didn’t want anyone complaining that the show is godless. They chew up so much time with extra footage on that show that it’s impossible to believe that they couldn’t have found an extra minute or so for the verse.
He’s the only stand-out voice.
And, they need some new judges to spice it up. The judges are like sit-coms, you can predict what they will say before they even say it.
So I find three things beyond troubling: the fact that Paula wants to “hang him from her rearview mirror,” Arsenio’s hair, and doesn’t it look like for Star Search, he has a different set of parents?
nah. they’re just younger and the dad doesn’t have facial hair. but they are so jack.
i loved paula’s reaction.