A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: kendall
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 08:52 PM

What a low down disingenuous remark that was... Caledonian karaoke queen indeed! Look, I dont give a rodent's rump if she is as phony as a three dollar bill, she has a dynamite voice.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Alice
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 09:40 PM

From another article with more details:

"Last Saturday night the whole street turned out to wish her well after the programme ended. All the doors opened and everyone piled out shouting congratulations to her."

But family friend Elaine Clarke, 47, is worried the attention may be too much for Susan, who has lived in the same village all her life, sheltered by loved ones.

"Susan is shy around people she doesn't know until she sings – and then she loves an audience. She is well known in the village for her beautiful voice and sings regularly at the pub. She sings all the time and when she has the windows open we can hear her all over the street.

"When we have barbecues in the summer she goes from garden to garden singing. She's safe here in this village but she needs to be properly managed with all this success. I hope she's looked after."

link... click here

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 10:46 PM

Dinner date planned for Susan. Be very nice, Piers!

SRS

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:41 AM

"She had much the same training Elaine Paige got - just didn't do anything with it for a long time. Voice production, acting, the lot. That's a long step up from a few lessons with a local guy who advertises with a handwritten index card on the supermarket noticeboard.

"She's being presented as a naive untutored talent making it against a hostile world, when in fact she had exactly the skills required to do the job the media industry wanted done. . . ."

Jack—and others—let me explain a couple of things. I spent a three years at the University of Washington School of Music and another two years at the Cornish School of the Arts, a sort of intensive instruction conservatory. Around me were dozens of students who were taking lessons, practicing, learning music theory, studying up a storm with sight singing, ear training, performing in student ensembles—the works. Considerably more intensive than the kind of training that Susan Boyle may have had. Many of my fellow students had dreams of concert careers.

Some of the people I went to school with, I heard of later on, making their way down their chosen musical path. But the vast majority of them vanished into obscurity. Became church organists or choir directors, teachers, or just plain couldn't cut it in a music career.

Training can only polish what you already have. The moment of truth comes when a performer gets up in front of an audience. So regardless of whatever training she may or not have had, and regardless of whether or not the television show was a carefully stage-managed phony set-up—when the time came and she was out there, alone, on the stage, Susan Boyle delivered.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 01:01 AM

I agree with Don.

When you watch that video and she finishes the song, what does she do? She turns to leave the stage. I think this is because that song was her goal. Who knows where she thought this would go after she sang, she probably didn't have a clue as to the response. Perhaps she expected her non-show-biz looks to exclude her from going further. But she did what she went there to do.

SRS

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Genie
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 01:28 AM

My take on it exactly, Maggie.   Susan had 'won' the moment she got the awe-struck reaction from the judges and the crowd.   So she proudly and happily walked off, neither expecting nor, really, needing more. Whatever else comes of it is icing on the cake.

I do hope she isn't exploited at her expense. E.g., I'd like to think she'll find a nice chap who really cares for her - if that's what she wants - instead of having someone like Piers Morgan or Simon Cowell plant some sort of 'mercy smooch' on her as her first kiss.

She does in some ways seem to be a bit of a naïf - a delightful one. But I wish the media would quit calling her a "spinster," dammit!    That's so 19th Century. Oy!

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 01:39 AM

If she were a Mudcatter then Jacqui could tell Piers and Simon "cellar!" and that would be that!

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 10:58 AM

I have just re read this thread , and now appreciate why a lot if 'Good' people no longer bother with MudCat ! A HELL of a lot of interesting comment interspersed with such intense Negativity from a small minority !
Ms Easby is obviously of the opinion that ANYTHING that a lot of people enjoy cannot POSSIBLY be worth listening to .
And Mr Campin obviously thinks that people who are more interested in 'Show' type songs OUGHT to be taking them to the Linlithgow Folk Club !
Lord Give Me Strength !

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Emma B
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 11:37 AM

Mark Blankenship is an award-winning critic and reporter.
He contributes to internationally recognized publications like The New York Times and Variety, and his hundreds of reviews and features have covered everything from avant garde theatre and classic cinema to popular music and trash television.

He writes... 'I have a theory on why Susan Boyle has become such an instant and inescapable internet star.'

'By now, it's an unavoidable trope: The unusual-looking, weirdly-mannered outcast shambles on stage for an audition on a show like American Idol or America's Got Talent and promptly makes a fool of herself. Her embarrassment is played for tawdry laughs, and viewers are encouraged to feel superior to her and so feel better about themselves.

And obviously, the producers of Britain's Got Talent know that.

They introduce Boyle with the goofy music reserved for the usual freak, and they show her talking about how she's never been kissed and how she lives with a cat.
The audience audibly mocks her as soon as she takes the stage, which encourages all of us at home to sharpen our claws.

After that, her singing—which is very good, if not quite excellent— naturally causes an uproar. We've been primed for dog food, but we get a burger, so it tastes like steak.

This narrative is just as manipulative as anything else on reality television, of course. Boyle could have been presented as a winner from the very start, but that would've ruined the drama.

But as fabricated as it is, her on-camera arc is undeniably moving.

That's partially because Boyle herself seems so lovely, but it's also because this clip enacts a story that we want to be true.
No matter how much we mock those we consider beneath us, it's much more satisfying to be reminded that everyone has dignity.'

full report

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Genie
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:00 PM

"We've been primed for dog food, but we get a burger, so it tastes like steak."

I think that's a bit of an underevaluation of Susan's talent. I'd say we were primed for dog foot, but we got a steak, so it tasted like filet mignon.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:03 PM

I am waiting for the first "kiss and tell" story in the Sun.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:06 PM

I've always wondered at a society which has to have everything it does analysed. The articles are all well and good and I know I've not been shy about putting in my two cents worth, but why can't we just watch and enjoy, or not, without having to go on and on about it, quoting the pundits to back us up, etc. I am not targetting anyone specifically, just pondering.

A while back I was going to say she is benefiting from the "Obama effect"...she has struck the same deep down chords of hope, elation, let's-hear-it-for-the-little-people that he did in his campaign and that some of us believe he continues to do...she had that same audacity of hope. And, no, I do not think she should go into politics. How pathetic is it that I feel a need to even say that; that I believe someone will come in and denigrate what I've just expressed and highjack the thread? *sigh* I would like to have a hope of civility, at least.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:12 PM

Nicely put Kat.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: kendall
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:22 PM

Been trying to remember when I agreed with a critic last....

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:24 PM

It basically boils down to this, Kat. A lot of people (well, most people...) simply love to here themselves talk. It confirms and strengthens their own sense of their identity.

So, no matter what is ever being discussed here, a variety of people will drop in and do that...and their opinions will always vary. A person whose opinion diverges widely from the majority will generally feel that they are considerably smarter than the majority, and they will enjoy fighting over their differing opinion with the majority. The majority, on the other hand, will generally feel much superior to the lone outsider (or two) and they will enjoy ganging up on those outsiders and thoroughly castigating them...hopefully driving them finally off the thread. The more the these two sets of people fight, the nastier it gets, the more stubborn they all get, and the greater becomes their emotional investment in defending their chosen position (whatever the heck it is), and the lower sinks their respect and courtesy toward those they are contending with.

And there you have the Internet! ;-) It's a battle of flaming egos, conducted at a safe distance, with a singular lack of regard for the kind of restraint we might all normally show when dealing with others face to face.

On the other hand, to look on the positive side, it can be quite mentally stimulating and entertaining at times if you don't let the rancour get you down too much. ;-D

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:35 PM

here is agood reason why people dont bother with Mudcat,they dont like to be called Pedants,and Humourless,neither do they like to be called certified assholes,or any of the other unneccessary insults,that people on this forum heap on each other.
we are all entitled to different opinions,and we should be able to respect that without insulting someone because they take a different viewpoint.
if every member of this forum gave themselves 30 minutes before they preesed the message button,this would be a better place
The best thing about this FORUM,imo,are the threads where people pass on musical knowledge.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 12:50 PM

You're quite right, Captain Birdseye, but to change that situation, this forum would have to be moderated according to a whole new set of rules, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

At least, though, the behaviour here is generally a lot more reasonable than the comments you see on sites like YouTube. I think that's probably because the membership here is not on average nearly as youthful as on Youtube...where a lot of people behave in an extremely ignorant fashion toward one another, as if they never learned one thing in their lives about manners or consideration for others.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 01:02 PM

This has been a fairy story for our time. However, I fear for Susan's privacy now, for her dignity. Being silly on stage, giving the grind and the quick-step to the mouthy audience as a "here's back at you" retort seems to have opened the floodgates of speculation. There will be parties out there who wish for big headlines to sell their stories, whether in print or online, and will get those headlines at her expense.

I hope that village of hers has the good sense to help her when she needs it. Help protect her privacy.

SRS

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Emma B
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 01:02 PM

'why can't we just watch and enjoy, or not?'

The original video link appears to me, to be, at least, about the cynical manipulation of emotions to attract a viewing audience at least as it is about a woman's singing performance and I feel this is a valid topic of discussion.

As certain kinds of 'trained' voices and material tend to leave me unmoved I usually rely on those with much greater experience than myself to comment on how 'very good' or 'excellent' they are; I can only form a subjective view.
Personally, I prefer to hear a folk song sung by someone with an affinity for the simplicity of the lyrics and melody - probably why I'm a folk fan!

Whether you agree with a critic or not is down to personal tastes and quite often whether it's yourself that's the subject of the critic :)

What did move me about the clip however was the reason that I never watch these kind of stage managed so-called 'reality' shows and served to reinforce my opinion not to change that decision.

I wish Miss Boyle the very best if she wishes to persue a career in singing this kind of show song and the very sincere desire that she remain outside the influence of Max Clifford and the pages of the Sun

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 02:06 PM

I'm sorry, Mark Blankenship may be an award winning critic, but in this case, he's a horse's ass way off base.

After he sets it up in a manner that is just as cynical as he accuses the show of being, he says, ". . . her singing—which is very good, if not quite excellent. . . ." demonstrates that, as a music critic, he ought to seriously consider taking up plumbing.

I mentioned above that ever since high school, I have known people who are involved in musical theater, although I have not been a direct participant myself. And I've known personally, and heard, singers with all kinds of voices, from completely untrained all the way to opera singers, and all points between. Music theater is not my major musical interest, but I've heard a lot of it and I enjoy it when it's well done.

Susan Boyle has an excellent singing voice, especially for music theater. Her singing voice has a quality to it, in all senses of the word, that is right up there with the best of the seasoned professionals. All she really needs is a little polish, which would come with a bit of experience and with the guidance of a good director.

This fledgling has fully developed wings, and she's ready to fly.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: caitlin rua
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:34 PM

I fully agree with Don. I was disgusted by the grudgingly-qualified praise, as though he can see things more deeply than everybody else. "Very good, if not quite excellent"?? Hamburger but not steak?????????   

If he had been watching some pretty young dolly bird playing Fantine in a professional production of Les Miz who could sing half as well as that, I don't think such damning with faint praise would even occur to him. The fact that the context was an amateur talent contest has obviously coloured his judgment. You HAVE to find fault. It goes with the territory. Look how much money Simon Cowell has made just for dissing people. Everybody on the internet is shouting Hooray For Susan? Well, cut her down to size. Show them all what a perceptive critic you are.

What he is, is a twerp. Those comments are more about Mark BlanketWet than about Susan Boyle. And they reveal more than he counted on too. It's not that no one can dare criticise her. But those remarks are unconstructive and dishonestly self-serving, using Susan to show us all what a clever clogs he is for seeing what we've obviously all missed. In his dreams.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: kendall
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 03:44 PM

Captain B, I have no problem with an opinion different from mine; it's when the other person not only states his/her opinion but also has to try to invalidate mine or change what I said.

Hawk, if you knew me you would also know that I don't say anything in the forum that I wouldn't say to someone's face.

As far as Diane Easby goes, there is an old Jewish proverb: "If a man calls you an ass you may ignore him. If TWO men call you an ass, buy a saddle."

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 04:14 PM

I suspect that the "awww" factor regarding Susan Boyle's appearance is due mostly to her homeliness and her statement that she's "never been kissed". I find her singing, while technically accomplished, to be quite strident sounding, with a sort of trumpety quality. Not someone whose record I would buy.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:28 PM

And Mr Campin obviously thinks that people who are more interested in 'Show' type songs OUGHT to be taking them to the Linlithgow Folk Club !
Lord Give Me Strength !

You know perfectly well that I meant no such thing. Cut the bullshit rhetorical tricks.

In practice LFC gets all sort of stuff at the many and various kind of events they run. I could well imagine somebody turning up to one of the Black Bitch singarounds and doing Cry Me a River. The Lloyd Webber thing is a lot less likely.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Alice
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:53 PM

I wonder if Claude-Michel Schonberg is really tired of having his composition credited to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 07:01 PM

Oh, I should think there are rather more than two men (or possibly also women) who are even now extracting the poster of the Caledonian Karaoke Queen from yesterday's Sun and blue-tacking it to their bedroom walls.

Whether they consider those whose musical aspirations are more elevated and thus somewhat different from the overblown, bombastic, MOR drivel emanating from the pens of C-M Schönberg or A L Webber and others of similar ilk to be "asses" is incalculable and supremely irrelevant.

There are those whose musicality comprises sublimely magnificent works resonating down through the ages and of genuine musics chronicling people's experience and endeavour rooted in some sort of tradition. And then there are those whose musical horizons rise no higher than piles of "asses" shit.

I know which I'd choose to discuss music with, whether on a virtual forum supposedly devoted to aspects of the former or in real life.

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 07:17 PM

Digressing for a moment, surely "middle of the road" should be MOTR. If "the" is considered to be too insignificant to bother with, then why include the even shorter "of" –why not just use MR.

It's no wonder I get confused. Proper English is much more understandable.


DC

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Alice
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 08:26 PM

From the Scotsman, today's news:

--
... "And yesterday Ms Boyle's singing teacher revealed that she was a serial talent show failure who had previously auditioned without success in the late 1990s for My Kind of People and abandoned the auditions for The X Factor when she realised people were being chosen for their looks. Fred O'Neil said that Ms Boyle's audition for Britain's Got Talent was her final throw of the dice.

He said: "I remember a phone call late last year when she said she was too old and that it was a young person's game."

Mr O'Neil urged her to reconsider and attend the auditions in Glasgow."

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: kendall
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 08:40 PM

Diane Easby, then why in the hell don't you start your own thread and lay off this one which you obviously hate? Do you think that your continuous ranting is going to change anyone's mind about you?

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 09:15 PM

And in my perambulations through the halls of a couple of music schools, I've met a few narrow-minded musical snobs like Diane Easby, who, when they learned that my main interest was folk music, rolled their eyes not unlike the judges and some of the audience members on BHT before Ms. Boyle began to sing. "When," they would ask me, "are you going to give up these trashy hillbilly songs and take a serious interest in music?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: A Most Heartwarming Performance-Susan Boyle
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 01:01 AM

Okay.

Let's take this to the next level.

Susan won the first round, hands down. Now what is she going to sing next? Here's another thread for helpful suggestions for Susan.

Maybe she's very very lucky and someone has turned her onto Mudcat. One of our UKers. So here's your chance--what would you like to hear her sing?

SRS

Subject: RE: Caledonian Karaoke Queens
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 02:24 AM

---

Added later per request from Diane. -Joe Offer-

. . . change anyone's mind about you?

Oh, very telling. I'm not the one singing crap on trashy telly talent shows and this thread's not about me. Besides, not one contributor to this thread even knows me and has, thus, no right to an opinion about me in the first place, even if this were an appropriate place to voice it.

What I am looking askance at is why this inconsequential, off-topic froth is even mentioned on this forum. Imagine a newcomer with an interest in trad and roots looks in? They'd quite rightly be off like a shot to seek a forum that stuck to its remit.

At the weekend I was at the Folkworks string event alongside people entering their ninth decade (Tom Paley) and under-10 learners at workshops on the Karnatic violin of South India, Klezmer, Romanian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Scandi as well as English styles. Each participant was passionate about the worth of their music and eager to learn from world-renowned tutors and from each other.

That's my sort of music and it's what this forum should be highlighting. Not the dregs of reality television.

---

I think maybe it's a good idea to continue the discussion on the next thread.
-Joe Offer-