JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum America's Got Talent

Well, as someone who has traveled a lot and stayed with musicians all over the US, Canada and around Europe last year as well I have heard some truly horrendous stories of how people grew up and what they had to overcome. Things like extreme physical and emotional abuse (which he didn't claim or suggest), things like extreme poverty where even having food was a challenge on a day to day basis (which he didn't suggest), where the parent(s) didn't love them at all (which was clearly not the case with his mom), where they were sexually molested and/or prostituted out (again, doesn't apply to him), or where they had serious health and disability problems (other than his weight, that didn't seem to apply either) and those folks wouldn't use their upbringing as a tool for sympathy on a talent show. But he chose to take what I suggest was sadly far more common of an upbringing (i.e. single mom who has to work a lot) and try to milk it like he overcame what some of the above had to. Sure, I am sure that interacial issues were likely difficult, there's no doubt. But he barely touched on that in his recounts of life. It was focused on having a single mom. Big deal.

He certainly is talented though. But if you listen to grads from schools with Opera/Classical Vocal programs, you'll hear a lot of other really great singers there as well. There's no doubt that compared to the really weak competition, he seemed amazing. He was the reasonably smart kid in the class full of dullards. As for those they put forward, they did show snippets of them and nothing seemed very interesting, let alone entertaining. And the ones they did show that got put forward were not very talented. At least some of the crazy performers were funny.

America's Got Talent has always been the worst edited and produced show of it's kind. Simon Cowell has been Executive Producer since day 1. It's part of his deal to keep doing American Idol. They have definitely improved it over the first year and bringing in Sharon Osbourne and Jerry Springer surprisingly upgraded the show a great deal. (Yeah.. hard to consider Jerry an upgrade over Regis, but Regis seemed totally miserable over the train wreck first season).

I am sure they'll find a few other talented folks. The guy who won last year was really just a seasoned pro getting ready to launch a new vegas show who used the show as a summer long preview of his now 100 million dollar act. If anyone believes all that came about because he was discovered on that show (as if he wasn't a known entity already) is probably the dream viewer of this show. You have to suspend disbelief a bit to watch it without seeing right through most of it. That said, I did find stuff to enjoy in previous seasons and I am sure there will be some things to enjoy this year as well.

Brian