Lionel Ritchie flips the concept of confusion, when a former contestant, Adam Sanders, returns to audition in drag as Ada Vox. As Gay Times put it: "Vox then slayed the mother-tucking house when he performed a stunning rendition of House Of The Rising Sun by The Animals."
Come on, The Animals didn't write "House of the Rising Sun." There was another contestant (Zach D'Onofrio) who said he was singing "'Cry Me A River' by Michael Buble." This is crazy talk. "House of the Rising Sun" is an old folk song. The Animals recorded a fine and memorable rendition, but unless you're them you're not singing "House of the Rising Sun" by them... or unless you mean to say I intend this to be heard as an Animals impersonation, which was certainly not the case here. Vox intended to be heard as a female and not as the unusually macho Eric Burdon:
And it wasn't The Animals who dug "House of the Rising Sun" out of the old folk archive. It was Bob Dylan, getting the jump on Dave Van Ronk [correction below]:
In late 1961, Bob Dylan recorded the song for his debut album, released in March 1962. That release had no songwriting credit, but the liner notes indicate that Dylan learned this version of the song from Dave Van Ronk. In an interview for the documentary No Direction Home, Van Ronk said that he was intending to record the song and that Dylan copied his version. Van Ronk recorded it soon thereafter for the album Just Dave Van Ronk.
So there's no reason to attribute "House of the Rising Sun" to The Animals. No good reason. The bad reason is, the show tells contestants to introduce the song that way to maximize the chance that its (presumably dumb) audience will have a glimmer of familiarity.
"I had never heard the phrase. I just liked the combination of words... Instead of 'Eat your heart out' or 'I'll get even with you,' it sounded like a good, smart retort to somebody who had hurt your feelings or broken your heart." He was initially concerned that listeners would hear a reference to the Crimea, rather than "..cry me a...", but said that "..sitting down and playing the melody and coming up with lyrics made it a nonissue."
The Michael Buble recording was a minor hit in 2009, and many people have recorded the song over the years, including Shirley Bassey, Dinah Washington, Barbra Streisand, Lesley Gore, Joe Cocker, Crystal Gayle, Diana Krall, and Etta James. That is, it's more of a song for a woman to sing. Which is maybe why Zach D'Onofrio didn't make it through (and I don't give a damn about Michael Buble). Aerosmith also recorded "Cry Me a River."
Hey, that reminds me. We have already seen an "American Idol" performer in drag:
It was Steven Tyler, a former judge on the show, doing a faux audition for comic effect.
All the performers are wearing costumes, even the guy in khakis and a checkered shirt. As RuPaul said — and I quoted here a week ago — "We're all born naked the rest is drag." And speaking of RuPaul, his show is really popular these days, so it's not surprising that the struggling "American Idol" wanted to get in on the action. I think Adam Sanders as Ada Vox seems old-fashioned and depressing compared to the drag queens on "RuPaul's Drag Race," but Ada Vox has a good vox, not to my taste, and who knows what TV pseudo-drama they'll crank out of that story? They already did drag as burlesque comedy with Steven Tyler, which, as I said at the time, was a throwback to Milton Berle, who was the biggest star in the (short) history of television, back when Julie London was thrilling us with "Cry Me a River."
... Julie London was my father's favorite singer. As a child, I had reason to believe that she was the most compellingly beautiful woman in the world. As I heard her singing, she was whispering. That was the gimmick: Whispering. Listening to it now, I hear how sexy it is intended to be to a man. I'm not sure whether it's completely subtle or a sledgehammer of sex. It's trying to be both in a way that would seem ridiculous or naive today, unless you could convince yourself that it's ironic. But it's not ironic.
CORRECTION: I should not give Dave Van Ronk credit for dragging "House of the Rising Sun" out of the archive. He deserves credit for a distinctive arrangement of the song, as a careful reading of the Wikipedia article I've already linked to would make clear. Woody Guthrie recorded the song in 1941, and Lead Belly recorded it in 1944 and 1948. There are also recordings by Glenn Yarbrough, The Weavers, Pete Seeger, and, yes, Andy Griffith in the 1950s. And there's also Miriam Makeba and Joan Baez in 1960. So it was standard for folk singers before Bob Dylan's famous supposed affront to Dave Von Ronk.
Scroll down here for the Top 100 Albums they've been counting down over the last few weeks, so you can see which artists they're getting to (but not which album cut).
UPDATE: "If I can't hear a rap about a woman's heavy period in the morning I'm not up yet," says Crack, highlighting the line in the song that jumped out at me: "My attitude is bitchy, cuz my period is heavy." That's Missy Elliot (in "Funky Fresh Dressed").
Then they were talking about this blog and the commenters here, specifically what's going on in the comments on yesterday's Hurricane Carter post. The verb "to spew" is deployed.
Now, they are making fun of people who like Bruce Springsteen, who's next up on the countdown. "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle” is #51, and Ray said he picked the cut he picked because it's the shortest.
UPDATE 2: They spend a lot of time talking about the extreme ugliness of Joe Jackson, who Crack said, elicits gasps from the live audience who have seen photographs but are still stunned at the real thing.
UPDATE 3: The topic is The Rolling Stones and Crack says "Brown Sugar" is "one of the most racist songs ever." Why does that get "a pass"? Ray asks if they have "a ghetto pass," and Crack's answer is "Jagger got big lips." They proceed to discuss whether other big-lipped stars have "a ghetto pass" and they are emphatic that the answer is no for Carly Simon and yes for Steven Tyler.
UPDATE 4: Crack sort of tries to read this comment from me (in the comments on this post):
Crack, a sometime commenter, goes on the radio, I blog about that, people comment, then Crack on the radio talks about the comments, and I comment in the comments about Crack the commenter on the radio commenting on the comments. Now, if they talk about that on the radio it's the ultimate new media moment.
So that must have been it, the ultimate new media moment. Have you achieved transcendence?
I'm still waiting for Crack to pronounce my name right. He seems to enjoy saying "Outhouse," even as Ray spells my name and questions the pronunciation. But Crack proceeds to mention Meade's blog, so that's nice.
That's "Bandit the Border Collie." And I've got to walk back "ultimate new media moment," because for me the ultimate and endless new media moment is Meade.
UPDATE 5: Crack announces that he's got a job in case you are "emotionally invested in that." And he says that the picture of the dog that I put embedded in Update 4 is the very same one he'd just shown to Uncle Ray. The races are in alignment, says the Ebony-and-Ivory dog, Bandit.
Said Steven Tyler, one of judges on "American Idol" last night who "sounded like the characters in that kids book 'Guess How Much I Love You,' competing to be Ledet's biggest admirer."
The poor judges had peaked too soon and run out of superlatives. They had little left to offer Sanchez, although, as she stood before them, trembling and weeping, they had scraped together what they could.
Beyonce appeared to be in hell while singing a hellishly awful song. Steven Tyler got to follow Bono. Jennifer Lopez's husband had a whole big number because he's Jennifer Lopez's husband. Tom Jones showed up and sang "It's Not Unusual." Besting him in the oldest man competition, Tony Bennett was there. He's 85! He sang with Haley. Like they're a couple. Judas Priest deigned to appear. "American Idol" is not something they scorn. Who can scorn "American Idol" now? They sang with James Durbin. And Jack Black sang with Casey Abrams. That was ugly. Jacob Lusk got Gladys Knight and they sang about Heaven. Lovely. Scotty McCreery did a duet with Tim McGraw who, we're told, is the most-played artist on the radio of the last 10 years. And Lauren Alaina did her duet with Carrie Underwood. And Lady Gaga sang about being "on the edge" while standing on a scenery cliff, which I was worried she'd fall off of, and then she did intentionally fall off in the end, onto some hidden foam, no doubt. I'm sure she'll be back to howl at us on future occasions.
Off the top of my head, that's what I remember from tonight's big "American Idol" results show.
But, he's right of course. Everyone who checks out DialIdol knows it and has known it for weeks. It's not some special inside knowledge. The finale show last night was terrible, mainly because they were desperately trying to make us believe it was a close competition. And they weighed Scotty down with 2 songs that had him speaking like a child — the original song "I Love You This Big" (ugh!) and some other song about schoolchildren. The guy is only 17, but his main feature is a deep voice that makes him seem much older. Why fight that with lyrics from the point of view of a child?
Anyway, speaking of old and young, the show tried to rejuvenate this season, with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler (and without Simon Cowell), but somehow it ended up even more old fashioned. Maybe that's what happens when you don't have Simon there insulting the kids for seeming old and old fashioned.
Tyler, the first new judge Seabiscuit announced, bounced out on stage like a rat terrier hot on the trail of something rodent-y, grinned, and began to sing/scream "American IIIIIIIDOL," in his adorable, screechy, Steven Tyler way....
Shortly after Tyler skipped off stage, Jennifer Lopez rose from under the stage in a cloud of white faux-smoke.
"It's all about concentration! You have to concentrate -- and just live!" J-Lo advised auditioners in the audience....
You have to concentrate -- and just live.... Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do.
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