Our small sleepy little site has been bombarded here at Scowl Central from World Idol fans all around the world… and from getting a handful of hits a day, there are over 30 comments on the entry I wrote regarding cover bands alone.

Though I posted this entry originally as a comment to everyone else’s comment, I have decided to also post it as an entry. Why? Why not.

Here goes.

Everybody – please remember one thing: The best SINGER won, and it is comical to see how poor of a sport Kelly was compared to the rest of the idols when the scores were read off.

Regardless of your allegiance to Kelly or Guy, realize that in the rest of the world, substance is more important than style. Overproduced pop-queens like Kelly and gimmick singers like Guy are less important to the non-English speaking world than actual singers with passion. That’s why even the mighty media machine behind Kelly couldn’t do more than push her into second place.

As a native English speaker, I had to watch the contestants from the English Speaking Nations, and realize, is this the best that they can offer? Guy was, of all of them, probably the best, putting a little bit of emotional investment into his music. Canada seemed barely interested to sing, and Will from the UK took a song loved in most of the world and made it a bland, pale mockery of it’s original self. That brings us to Kelly, who for all of her handlers and her production team, walked on stage and was passionless and bland. With her singing, it was apparent that she didn’t really give a damn. Did she hit the notes? Yes, at least most of them… but she also served to make “Natural Woman” feel, well, plastic and artificial. George Carlin made a great comment when talking about the blues – it’s not enough to know where to put the notes, you have to know WHY to play them. Kelly at the best knows what, but has no understanding of the why (sorry for the bad paraphrasing there, George).

In the end, even though I was not impressed with his choice of Nirvana, the two singers who seemed to pick a song not because it was “sure to win” but because they seemed to have an emotional investment in it, placed first and third overall. That sort of passion communicates to the crowd, and in the end, musical skill triumphed over “sellability”.

Remember, everybody can have an opinion, but it’s my site, so I am always right 🙂

It wasn’t looks. It wasn’t overproduction. It wasn’t the American Media Machine.

In the end, it was sheer talent.

12 points to Kurt Nilsen, World Idol.

After having fun reading through the old Scowl forums, I have decided to go and put up the Scowl Forums once again. I know that there are only a few topics right now… go to the “recommend a new topic” and I’ll add them. Here is the deal: use it or lose it. If we get some traffic, then we’ll keep the boards up and running. If they die a hideously boring death, we’ll shut them down.

Here goes nothing, folks!