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Thought you might like this article located here: https://right-thoughts.us/index.php/weblog/comments/rock_star_supernova_week_10_performance/ Rock Star: Supernova - Week 10 Performance I’m about a half-hour behind the actual broadcast, so...time for TiVoblogging!  It’s week 10: Will Dramilana continue her meltdown?  Will Lukas not lick something?  Will Magni say anything?  Will Storm forget she’s on TV and blast the explicit version of her original?  Will Toby get another fourteen thousand teen girl fans?  Let’s watch! - The show opens with Pirate Brooke telling us that Ryan has the number one spot on MSN Downloads or whatever.  Good for him...his solo stuff is leaps and bounds beyond Supernova. - We move on to the recap of the reality episode, which i recapped in detail here.  They actually show Dilana saying that the song she wrote was a fuck you to the fans.  Good.  She deserves whatever she gets for that shit.  What she fails to realize is that every person who criticizes her is a FAN OF SOMEONE ELSE ON THE SHOW.  Ultimately, she will need those same people to support her if she gets into the final show or - and God forbid this bitch get rewarded like this - if she should win this thing.  Those same fans to whom she just said “fuck you” are now supposed to buy a ticket to see her? No, Dilana, fuck you. - I’m glad they showed her musical ignorance as well.  People should know who they are voting for. - Oh dear.  She “tore a calf muscle.” Am I supposed to feel sorry for her now?  If she tore this muscle, I better see some reality footage of her at the goddamned hospital next week, I tell you that much.  I don’t put it past her to hurt herself a little to get sympathy, or even to fake it completely. - Performance of Behind Blue Eyes starts.  Her voice sounds nice, but...umm...this arrangement is country.  In the reality episode, she SPECIFICALLY COMPLAINED that the part of the song she didn’t know (how the fuck do you not hear this song at her goddamned age?) sounded “country” to her, so she wanted to change it.  Well, now the whole fucking thing is a “new country” ballad!  Great job you musical moron. Again, her voice sounds great.  Ahh...here we go, the House Band salvages the arrangement somewhat, but it’s still a country arrangement. What a minute, she changed the voice.  No...that’s not right at all!  The sweeter, upper register was MUCH better!  Why?  Why does she do this?  It’s like she has a switch in her head that says “JimK is liking me, I better do something stupid right now.” That sweeter, upper register is actually the way Dilana has been singing for more than a decade now.  It’s her natural sound.  This deep, husky thing is an affectation, it’s NOT the way she sings. She’s just a total fraud.  Everything, I mean everything about her, is a front.  I wonder if she realizes that in achieving her “new sound” she lost the key to the song?  She’s off key. OK, I predict, based on my wife’s reaction, that there are others who have a problem with her changing the lyric to “No one knows what it’s like to be the bad girl” instead of “bad man.” I believe that when a woman covers a song written from a male perspective that mentions gender, they should change it if the word fits in the meter.  If you can change a “he” to a “she” without screwing up the meter, then do it!  “man” can become “girl” because they are both one-syllable words.  I have always found it jarring to watch a woman covering a song about a personal experience and call herself a man...it reminds me that I am watching a cover, and that the original was something else.  When Storm didn’t change the gender in Changes it threw me out of the performance. However… Dilana didn’t change it both times she sang the line.  That was just dumb.  Now you’re mixing the perspective, and not in a good way, it’s just dumb.  Dilana didn’t change the gender at the end because it was more artistically honest and made for a better immersive performance...she changed it because she is a complete narcissist and wanted you to feel sorry for her.  She’s an eternal victim and at her age, that’s not something that elicits empathy or sympathy from me - it’s just pathetic. Her original, called Supersoul, is up now.  She intro’s the song by talking about how it’s about what she’s been going through.  For fuck’s sake!  Hey, here’s a great idea, Dilana!  Remind me how shitty a person you’ve been the last few weeks. The lyric isn’t truly horrifying, it’s just kind of lame!  How the hell did that happen, did she steal from a mediocre song this time instead of one that is truly awful? This performance is so not good. So, who thinks she added the “Thank you” to try to counter her own words of “fuck you” to the fans? Well...that was...slightly less than average.  That song is what, in this house, we call alt.chicks.  There’s an entire musical genre of women with guitars, pianos, full bands, all kinds of instrumentation.  They write these personal lyrics, in the singer-songwriter vein, and they rock them out but in a soft-rock way, sort of like that Jenny Galt chick from early in the show.  Women like Beth Orton, Chantal Kreviazuk, Charlotte Martin, Amanda Marshall and even Tori Amos.  My wife is a freak for this genre.  We have well over a thousand tracks in my iTunes folder that are categorized as alt.chick.  It’s not the same as alt.rock or pure alternative, they have a specific vibe unique to themselves, so we created a category for them. My wife is literally the poster girl for that demo.  If she doesn’t love it, then it truly sucks, because she will forgive a multitude of sins if the song fits anywhere *near* that genre. She was completely apathetic toward Dramilana’s Supersoul.  I have had actual arguments with my wife over the high ratings she gives some of the crap in the alt.chicks category.  She forgives bad musicians if the lyrics are soulful.  She forgive horrifying lyrics if the vocal is powerful.  She just said she’d rate this at two stars.  Two stars means it gets kicked off her iPod forever. Blah...I’m looking forward to Dilana being in the bottom three again.  So what does the band have to say? Dave commends her for performing hurt.  Gee, I wonder why I think this is a sympathy ploy.  Hoo boy Gilby, don’t ever lecture on lyrics.  Tommy so clearly is in love with her.  Jason could not see her kicked off fast enough.  And we fade to commercial. - Brooke informs us that the House Band is opening for Suave Porn on tour with some of the Rockers coming back to sing thier “greatest hits.” Err?  If they were good, they’d still be here.  Way to keep be from wanting to see the show, sweety.  Also, the New Year’s Eve show is sold out so they added a New Year’s Day show.  Good for them. - Up next, the Iceman, Magni.  He’s doing Back In The U.S.S.R. from the Beatles Hmm.  What’s that voice he’s putting on?  It’s not bad, but it doesn’t sound like Magni.  Am I crazy?  It’s...off.  Also, the band seems like they are in a different key.  His performance is kind of lazy.  I’ve been seeing Magni as a solid, average performer, and this is less than that even.  Not bad, but not really even good.  I think Magni wants to go home. Original time.  It’s called When the Time Comes.  Ahh...the voice makes sense now, he was in the key and tone for his original.  It matches here.  Wow, either the House Band is rocking this the hell out, or Magni wrote a musically awesome piece here.  It’s rocking quite hard. Lyrically it’s a bit trite, predictable and full of cliches.  However, it’s better than any Supernova original, although that is kind of like saying that something is better than getting gang-raped in prison. Musically that was great...great sound, nice aggression.  I hope that if he records it in English he works more on the lyrics.  WHat did the couch have to say? Dave calls him molten hot. He picked up on the aggression as well.  Tommy picked up on the performance being identical between the two songs, which is a good point as they are so emotionally different, but...Magni wins this round for that awesome snarky reply… “Uhh, both of those songs were sung by me!” Magni for the win!  Gilby clears up what Tommy meant, that the original could have been more energetic. And we go to commercial. - Storm up next with Suffragette City.  Dave’s gonna play guitar for the song...and like a pro, Storm intro’s him!  Nice. Uh oh.  While her attitude and stagecraft is great, she sounds terrible.  I KNOW SHE CAN SING.  Why doesn’t she do it? Great interaction with the PPoD on stage. Dave, she wanted you to sing the “wham-bam-thank you ma’am” line WITH her, dummy!  ;) Well, I loved watching it, but the vocal was not good.  You may disagree.  I’m a Bowie purist.  If you can’t do it at least as good as him, stay the fuck away from it.  Not that it matters at all, because I know she’s doing my second-favorite Storm large original next… Her original is Ladylike.  There is an explicit version that originally was called What the Fuck is Ladylike? that rocks so hard I can’t even describe it in actual words.  All I have that’s worth listening to is a two-minute sample, but it’s worth downloading if only to hear the song in it’s original, swearing-filled glory. See!  She can fucking sing.  She’s a *little* fast...she’s ahead of the song for the first measure, but she slowed it down by the chorus.  She’s doing the explicit version, just replacing the word “fuck” with “what.” Now that’s the rocking goddamned warrior woman we were looking for.  I do wish she did two verses though, the song is really good and the second verse is lyrically interesting.  I would have chopped time off the Bowie song to get more time for Ladylike if I were her. I can’t wait for her to be free of the shackles of this show.  Let’s see what the panel thinks.  I bet Dave loved himself on the Bowie song.  I kid, I kid, I’m starting to like Navarro as an artist and a human being.  I tease. :) Wow, Navarro put her in the same category with some of the best front people he’s played with.  Well said, sir.  Tommy loved the original, as did Gilby.  Is Jason dead or something?  Have they forgotten to animate his corpse for the evening?  Why is he not speaking?  Maybe he ran out for new fingerless gloves. (Yes, I know he was there and they edited him out...I’m just being wry and amusing.  OK, at least I’m amusing myself, dammit.) Annnnnd - commercial. - Lukas is up, doing Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer.  This is either going to be great or suck so hard it’ll be worse than a blowjob from Paris Hilton. WTF is it with these goddamned sound engineers?  I can’t hear him at all.  The only reason I know what he’s singing is that I know the words to this song like I know my own name.  Every time this has happened, people who were there live said the room sounded far different than TV.  They’ve killed his mix like four or five times. I’m not a huge fan of this arrangement.  However, he’s singing the shit out of it.  Wait, let me correct that.  I actually hate this arrangement with the fire of a thousand suns.  If this arrangement were a cute infant child, I would put on golf shoes and still stomp it in the face until it died. Am I being clear?  I fucking hated the arrangement.  However.  But.  Allow me to say this: He sang the shit out of it.  He did every vocal thing he’s known for in one song, including opening up to hit that note that only he seems to be able to hit.  He was all alone on stage and drew my attention.  I wanted to know where he was going with the song, and I didn’t even like the song that much.  Kid’s a rock star.  As Tommy said and Storm imitated..."One word: Rockstar” *throws mic down*. Let me explain further about my feelings for the arrangement.  I don’t mind when someone changes a song.  Example; I expected to hate Zayra’s punk 867-5309, but the arrangement turned out to be genius.  The thing about cover songs is, you have to keep something of the original.  It’s possible to radically change the musical arrangement of a song as long as you keep some element of the core of the song, and in Livin’ on a Prayer - as with so many Bon Jovi songs - the soul of the piece is the vocal melody.  Lukas basically ignored it.  He could have slowed down the original vocal melody, added his own guitar and had himself a piece of magic.  This song is actually poignant and depressing as far as the actual words go...it’s only in the chorus where any hope at all comes into play.  Instead of truly feeling the down aspect of the song, I was a little pre-occupied with 1. hating the arrangement and 2. wondering where it was going. I did not hate the performance, and I give him the huge brass balls award for taking such a risk.  Maybe with more work, this would be a magical cover...however, I think Lukas will probably want to go his whole life without ever singing a Bon Jovi sing again!  :) His original is Headspin.  I’ve been impressed with this track for a long time.  I’m looking forward to this, I think the House band will really rock this track out. OK, now at the beginning the mix is ass-backward.  I can’t hear the band.  He’s rocking it out though.  This is going to totally polarize the fanbase.  You either like the Lukas way of singing or you hate it.  I happen to like it. Jesus he’s out of his mind onstage.  :) Jason was singing along!  It’s a catchy hook, that chorus.  It gets in your head.  I can only hope that the band saw what I saw...kid’s a rockstar.  The television audio mix was absolutely unprofessional and dreadful all the way through the song, by the way.  I swear to God I think someone in the control room hates this kid. The couch speaks.  Dave says it’s powerful and emotional.  He’s right.  Ha!  The lighter/cellphone thing...so true.  We’re getting old, man!  :) They cut Tommy’s full comments. According to someone who was at the taping, he was speechless.  It seemed that he was crying he was so affected.  He put the mic down and couldn’t talk...then he said something about the fact that he’s been a huge fan of Kiss and other bands.  Ever since then, he’s “always had dreams of having a lead singer that looked and sounded just like you.” I suspect that while Tommy wants to fuck Dilana bent over a bass drum, he wants Lukas as the lead singer of this band. As a fan of Lukas as an artist, I hope that he does not get chained to this train wreck.  As a fan of him personally, I hope he does whatever he truly wants and makes a boatload of cash doing it. By the way, Gilby tried to mitigate the Tommy comments by saying that the competition wasn’t over, and Tommy jumped to agree.  That’s why those comments were cut from the broadcast...they showed way too much bias.  I think they would make the Lukas faithful an insanely rabid voting bloc (moreso that they already are!) and the Lukas haters would be so angry it would become a problem.  So cutting the comments was probably smart.  They left in the part where Gilby said he gets inspired when he seen Lukas perform. If they truly want this guy in the band, they will have to let him re-arrange the band’s music.  Since so much of it is already recorded, that would mean scrapping months of studio work.  They have no choice.  It will mean months of rehearsal time for the band to learn new arrangements.  They have no choice.  If they really want to be relevant and successful, they need to let Lukas fuck up all their tracks.  He can do things to music that they haven’t even thought of.  It’s not always perfect.  But it’s always interesting.  Supernova needs someone to make them interesting.  They need him to inspire them to break out of this ripoff/retro old fart rocker thing they have going on. We just rewound the song and we’re watching it again.  It’s better the second time.  I will pay money for this song and be glad to do it.  I want to see more.  I want to hear more.  Lukas has engaged me as an artist.  Check out Headspin for yourself and if you like it, buy it when it’s released for sale. And we go to commercial. - Toby is up next, and I think Toby is really Lukas’ only competition now.  Toby fits the vibe Supernova has right now.  Again...I know I insult Supernova’s music, so I want to be clear - I am not insulting Toby when i say he fits.  I think Toby’s a great frontman with a good sound.  What I mean is that he’s a laid-back kind of “go with the flow” guy, and he can make this work with that sort of “frat-boy” party vibe Supernova seems to be after.  With his stage presence, he can force the crowd to love whatever he’s doing.  He’s a stadium rocker, someone who can lead a crowd wherever he wants them to go. When I read that last sentence back to my wife she said “So can Lukas but with a totally different vibe.” Yes.  Very true.  The difference is that Toby leads you to some kick-ass party where everyone is having a great time and doing body shots off a stripper’s ass, and Lukas wrings emotion out of you until you’re drained and feel like you just went ten rounds with your own angst...and you won. The way Donna put it was more about stagecraft...she likened Toby to David Coverdale or Vince Neil, they make you watch them because they’re having a great time and encouraging you to join them.  Lukas is like his obvious idol, Marilyn Manson.  He makes you watch him by sheer force of will, by being oddly engaging and tapping into that darker, angst-riddled side that we all have (even if someo us don’t admit it). Having had a personal history with MM as a private individual, not a rock star...I think I can safely say he’d like Lukas.  I think he’d see exactly what Lukas was doing and appreciate the theatrics and the emotion of it. OK, performance time!  Jesus, all of that was before I even say Toby play.  :) His cover is The Killers Mr. Brightside.  It’s right up his modern alt.rock vibe. While I like his performance, can I complain about The Killers ripping off The Sex Pistols?  Thanks.  Just had to get that out there.  I don’t mean inspired by...I mean The Killers fucking ripped them off.  OK, back to Toby! He’s doing it right...he built to the fan interaction...he’s really a great frontman.  He’s all about the audience.  And once again, the ladies frickin’ LOVE him.  Never, ever, EVER discount how important that is in rock & roll. WOW!  Nice ending!  Way to kick it up there Toby!  Nicely performed. Toby’s original is up next.  It’s called Throw It Away.  HA!  Check out all the fans with “EVS” written on their hands! This is the kind of Britpop vibe Supernova could use.  It’s similar without being a ripoff.  Agressive but fun, light and heavy at the same time.  Great song and the House band is killing as usual. He’s owning the room again. It looked like he wanted Tommy to sing with him and Tommy bailed… :) Dave Navarro had the song figured out by that point, he should have gone to him.  :) Nice...it was a great song, I would pay money for that as well.  Toby is already a Rock Star.  So here’s the big dilemma: Does Supernova want to work their ass off creatively with Lukas, or do they just want to plug Toby in and go with what they have? Now the couch reacts.  Navarro points out how “EVS” has caught on, and he pointed out how the room picked up on the song because it’s so memorable.  I agree.  Tommy said it was bad *bleep*in ass.  Gilby talked about how Toby is a fun performer...true as hell.  He seems on the Toby train.  Oh my God Jason Newsted is still alive!  Maybe his power comes from the gloves.  He requires fresh fingerless gloves in order to be animated, otherwise his lifeless body will just sit there motionless.  Like his hair.  :) Jason’s comments seemed like those of someone who was impressed but not a fan.  It was like a polite thing you say to someone when you don’t want to tell them that you just don’t like them.  That’s what I got from it anyway. I love that Toby worked the room one last time before he left the stage. So I’m voting for Toby and Lukas this week.  Lukas because I think he deserves it for a good performance and Toby because I think he’s the right guy for this band. Bottom three: the early results are useless I don’t care.  Bottom three tomorrow will be Storm, Magni and Dilana.  See you then! OK, maybe the early results aren’t useless!  They ranked them in order this time and Dilana is at the bottom.  I don’t think they’ll kick her off though, you need her to implode for one more week, she’s good for ratings.  I predict Magni being let go.