The latest iMix has arrived, this one themed for February appropriately as a Valentines mix. I gave out the mix to folks at work and they LOVE it, I haven’t gotten such a positive response on a mix in a while. iTunes doesn’t seem to include ALL the songs, I am not sure why but the iMix has a nice selection, but missing a couple KEY songs… Look for Kris Allen’s “Falling Slowly” and grab that if you can, it is a must for this! I would love to get some ratings for my iMixes as well, so if you like them, rate them! Click on the “See All iMixes By This User” button to see the rest out there!
Plenty of people consider American Idol to be a guilty pleasure. I am not one of those people. I am a proud American Idol lover. Last year I was bored during a show of songs I didn’t care about though, so I decided to “live blog” during the show. Well, to my surprise people were amused by this…even my HUMOR! Got me… I decided to keep it up and continue to live blog on American Idol and it actually started to draw in quite a bit of people from around the net, and even world! Hundreds of people were reading it. How the hell did that happen? While it wound down towards the end, I decided that since this is Simon Cowell’s last year on American Idol, it was probably the last year it will actually be relevant, so another year of live blogging it is. +Continue Reading
So I really got into the iMix thing, one of my favorite parts of working at AOL music was my role as Music Director for Pop radio stations which included me picking the songs, how much they would play etc. I love putting together playlists and this actually lets me do them and get them out to the public through iTunes, what can be better than that eh? Every month I do a “Flavor of the Moment” mix which usually ends up in my car and I do share with others, well here’s December’s Flavor of the Month iMix.
Well I have been trying to think of the best way to wrap up my favorite songs of 2009 and I know many of them probably didn’t even originate in 2009, so I used Last.fm to check out what I exactly listened to and here it is. The artists in the top 10 won’t surprise anyone but the #1 artist MIGHT…..
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In honor of last night’s concert, here’s a video (not from the concert itself) of Kris doing a cover of Matchbox 20′s “Bright Lights” which is one of my FAVORITE Matchbox 20 songs. Its a random choice but it’s pretty damn awesome.
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I am fully fine admitting that I have been to two previous Idol tour concerts. This year was definitely my favorite. The finalists I considered “bathroom break opportunities” ended up being my favorites (after Kris of course). I might as well go through it like a regular Idol recap or I will be all over the place.
The folks obviously went in order from #10 to #1. First up was Michael Sarver who I had fully expected to bust out the country music but he opened the show with I’m “In Love With a Girl” by Gavin DeGraw and his other song was “Closer” by Ne-Yo. The first I believe he did on the show and his voice was really impressive, he has definitely been taking advantage of a vocal coach since he was voted off.
Next up was the crazy one, Megan Joy. I had lower than low expectations for her. On the show in the finals she was horrendous and I was not really looking forward to her performance. Wow did she surprise me, again she did one song she did on the show, ‘Put Your Records On’ by Corrine Bailey Rae which was awesome, again really cleaned up her vocals. I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it. As what I found would be a constant, she mumbled what her next song was, and of course I couldn’t understand a single word, but it was “Tears Dry on Their Own” by the amazingly crazy cracked out Amy Winehouse. Now I have publicly and constantly voiced my hatred towards Amy Winehouse. I loathed every second of “Rehab” and I can’t stand her being a part of the human race. With that said there are 2 of her songs I actually ENJOY. Yes, I said it… enjoy! One is “Back to Black” and the other is “Tears Dry On Their Own,” so I was pleased that this was on and enjoyed it significantly more than Amy’s version, I am not sure if this is because of Amy hatred, but Megan was really on her game and it looked like she was ACTUALLY TRYING, not like during the actual competition. To my surprise she was literally one of my favorites of the night.
Scott MacIntyre brought the excitement of the beginning of the concert to a screeching halt when he started his two song set with “Bend & Break” by Keane. I don’t love or hate Keane, but what a slow slow song that people don’t really know. Great way to kill the party Scott. Then Scott performed a crowd pleaser of Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles.” Now I could not resist the joke when the lyrics are “I would walk a thousand miles if I could just see you” as the BLIND person sang it. Ironic and couldn’t go without a few chuckles. He did a good job though he did hit a puberty moment with a bad voice crack in what I assume was his attempt at a notable high note. No thanks, this will be the end of his big time music career.
Poor Lil Rounds definitely took a beating during the season as not having much of an identity. I didn’t really agree with the judges but she definitely picked the right songs for the show. She did a medly of “Be Without You” and “Just Fine” from Mary J. Blige which are 2 of my favs of Mary J and do hit my top songs of all time list, and her voice was on fire so she nailed it. Next was “No One” by Alicia Keys which again was a slam dunk. Lil Rounds had me until she whipped our her last song. Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) by Beyoncé. This song couldn’t be more annoying if it tried, PLUS it lasted about 10 minutes. I literally wanted to jam something in my ears to stop it. I am however pretending that didn’t happen so I can give props to some solid Lil performances.
Anoop Desai. You bore me. I have no love for my nicknamed “Apoop.” His set consisted of Always On My Mind, Ne-Yo’s “Mad” and “My Prerogative” (I STILL like Britney’s version the best). None of it was entertaining for me but if I only knew what was next. Matt Giraud. Song choices, horrendous. Voice, horrendous. He sang with some type of slur so the two songs I KNEW, The Fray’s “You Found Me” and “Georgia on My Mind” I couldn’t even clearly hear the words! But before those crowd un-pleasers he sang “Hard to Handle” by Otis Redding which I have never heard of and was utterly boring. Bye Matt.
This brought us to the intermission time so that means everyone who has performed comes out for some big production together.Megan & Lil sang “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” Scott & Matt did Billy Joel’s “Tell Her About It” with dueling pianos, and Michael got to do his own rendition of Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds” which was awesome. Anoop and the rest of the crew got back on stage for Beggin’ which is apparently a Four Seasons/Madcon song. Never heard of it. They did a good job but not knowing the song kinda made it a little more anticlimactic for me.
Act 2 begins. I really am now just on my Kris high, ready for him to come on. My second favorite from the season Allison Iraheta kicked off part 2 with “So What” from Pink, Joplin’s “Cry Baby” and ended with Barracuda. She had amazing energy and she definitely kicked ass. Perfect songs for her voice and she definitely ruled the stage.
Danny Gokey wins the award for most random set with two songs that just DIDN’T belong and two he did fantastically. His delivery of all of them were good but “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” by Michael Jackson and “Maria Maria” by Santana were just REALLY bad song choices. WHO let him do this. Bad move Danny. The last two of his set were a dual run of Rascal Flatts songs, “What Hurts the Most” and “My Wish.” Both were spectacular. I wish he had a better first two songs but the ending was enjoyable.
No one expected me to like Adam Lambert at all. Not a second of it, and if you know me you would be certain to say that with out doubt. AAAAANNNND you’d be absolutely CORRECT. Adam was horrible. He hasn’t gotten the hint that he does NOT have to SCREAM for every song, he was dressed in a way that may give me nightmares and just did some horrendous songs and with his screaming I couldn’t really make much of them. I wont go into to much detail but this was his set list:
Whole Lotta Love, Led Zeppelin
Starlight, Muse
Mad World, Tears for Fears (I hated it the first two times, this made #3.)
Slow Ride, Foghat (with Allison Iraheta, THANK GOD, she made that 5 minutes somewhat barable)
Life on Mars/Fame/Let’s Dance, a David Bowie medly. The worst part of the entire evening was after ruining anything good about “Life on Mars” he ripped his studded floor length “diva coat” and STOMPED not even pranced, around the stage with a light blue feather boa to “Fame.” I could not hate you more Adam. Nope. Not a bit.
Finally. My time has come. Kris Allen. Breaking it down:
Kanye West, “Heartless”
The Killers, “All the Things That I’ve Done”
Bill Withers, “Ain’t No Sunshine”
Matchbox 20, “Bright Lights”
and lastly Hey Jude with the other 9 joining him at the end.
Phenomenal. His guitar playing, song choices, and most of all singing. The RIGHT MAN WON. He was great, and my bias doesn’t even matter. I loved it. I wish he would have performed ‘Falling Slowly” from the movie Once which was my favorite performance of his from the show, but he picked songs perfect for his voice, and RANDOM but songs I love and just killed it.
For the Group Idol Finale everyone burst into the ever so popular “Don’t Stop Believing” with a random sprinkle of “Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye” in the middle. From the year of Jordan Sparks, they really made a big deal for the very end for her as the winner, which wasn’t really the case so I felt Kris got jipped a bit, but all in all a great show!
