May 12, 2006

"Chris Daughtry to become lead singer of Fuel."

Booted 'Idol' contestant gets new job/Chris Daughtry to become lead singer of Fuel says the headline to this CNN article. But the text of the article doesn't support that headline.

And while I'm doing a Chris Daughtry post, let me note that there is an awful lot of analysis out there saying that his fans got complacent and would have called in more votes if they'd suspected he was in danger of going. Chris himself is saying that in a quote in the CNN article. But, as has been demonstrated time and again on the show, voters respond to the performance on a given night, and Chris's performance last Tuesday was not strong enough to wow people who weren't already blinded by idolatry. Chris leaving was like Tamyra leaving in Season 1. Both of them had been great in earlier shows, but fell short one night -- a night when a person whose turn it seemed to be to leave stepped up (as they say on reality shows). Elliott Yamin, like Nikki McKibben in Season 1, felt the danger and performed. And "America" heard it.

(And Katharine McPhee has a female body. And "America" saw it.)

MORE: From The Anchoress, including what folks backstage think of Chris.

14 comments:

Jennifer said...

Interesting. Odd headline!

I'm a little turned off by the Its-the-voters-fault line Chris seems to be taking. Learn from Kelly Pickler - a little humility goes a long way!

Laura Reynolds said...

Chris: Of course its the voter's fault you got booted. Duh!

Chris: Its your fault you gave them no reason to keep you. At this point you can't survive just on the good will you establihed 6 weeks ago.

You were up against a very attractive female, Taylor Elvis Clinton Hicks and someone fighting for their life.

Ann Althouse said...

Re busy signals: DialIdol.com bases its predictions on the busy signals. On that calculation, Chris and Kat were at the bottom. Anyone who checked the website was expecting either Chris or Kat to leave.

Laura Reynolds said...

In hour two of voting from here in the remote MDT zone I called four times for Kat and got through each time.

Next week three songs: personal choice, judges choice and Clive Davis' choice (and critiques). I've always liked this set up although I was hoping for a Madonna or Cher theme night.

Karen A Wyle said...

My own guess is that Chris shot himself in the foot with his bragging about all the gifts he was getting by mail, and his "boxer brief" comment. He came off looking full of himself, which turns some people off -- and the underwear business probably drove away some male fans.

tiggeril said...

Seven machos: I can't speak for anyone else, but for me it's the "so bad it's good" factor. It's nothing but big heaping dollops of pure cheese, and if you look around online, you'll see that watching the fans of the show is sometimes even more entertaining than the show itself due to the amount of insane overinvestment in the contestants.

tiggeril said...

(And by cheese I don't mean a nice sharp Cheddar, I mean neon orange Gubmint Cheez.)

michael farris said...

"McPhee is very, very good technically. She is almost always on pitch, has a very attractive voice, a big range and is far better trained than anybody she was competing against on Wed."

That's not what I hear (I only listen to the mp3s at rickey.org, I don't watch at all. I hear a singer with some classical training trying (mostly in vain) to apply it to pop songs and not quite hitting the mark. She seems to attack everything from below or from above and has to shift registers too often.

Goatwhacker said...

I thought Chris was annoying. I guess I'm in the minority but I didn't think any of the vocalists were particularly stellar. Chris' microphone stand thing was hokey although I did watch closely on the chance it might go flying into Ryan Sechrest.

tiggeril said...

Seriously. It's amazing y'all made it through the audition rounds without your heads exploding like that guy in Scanners.

Sloanasaurus said...

My wife dropped her support of Chris at about the same time Althouse did. She said that Chris was too much of the same thing over and over and that he also had a big ego... By the last show, these negative traits did him in. He is good, maybe the best of this season. But, talent isn't everything. The crowd also has to love you.... and the Chris was boring the crowd.

michael farris said...

"If you feel that way about McPhee, then you must find the rest of the singers unlistenable."

My rundown for the rest of the final five:

Elliott's very, very good (despite some soulifying excesses and over reliance on vibrabrabrabrato). But great, sweet phrasing dead-on pitch and good instincts as to material. Compared to the rest of the final five, he's Tony frickin' Bennet, I'm not sure how he compares with the competition in the real world.

Chris has good instincts but an interesting basic timbre and a _very_ narrow stylistic range (and I only enjoyed him when he was two degrees from blowing his voice to pieces).

Paris is a work-in-progress, she should drop the Whitney/Mariah aspirations and develop her relationship to the text more.

Taylor's not a singer. He's a peformer, I can't even get upset at the tremendous holes in technique and execution because he's not even pretending to be a stylist. He's equal parts Bill Clinton, William Shatner, middlin' Elvis impersonator and office guy blowing off steam at a karaoke bar. Not my trough of slop, but most people can't seem to get enough of it and oink for more.

verification word: kuarbij, actual given name of an Indonesian born member of the lower Dutch parliament.

Jennifer said...

Interesting...Fuel may be backpedaling.

We are entertaining the idea and the offer to Chris was that we would be willing to entertain him as an option. However, there is a lot to discuss and be decided. Is it right for us? Would it be the right thing for Chris? Would he even be able to get out of the contractual obligations to Am Idol? Would we be able to get things squared with Sony? So nothing is cut and dry, even if both camps thought it was right thing to do, it still might be impossible to work out all the details.

Fuel

VekTor said...

Hmmm.

The new headline / subheadline are:

Booted 'Idol' hopeful may have new job

Chris Daughtry offered gig as lead singer of Fuel

Looks like they are backing away from the sense of certainty they initially ran with.