Susan Boyle

What an amazingly beautiful woman.

I would.

We truly live in a strange world where if someone is ugly the expectation is they won't be able to sing.

Where as Britney Spears / Girls Aloud et al' habitually have to mime on many tv shows as there is no certainty they will be able to reproduce their own recordings live ( and risk losing sales as a result)

However I still don't get the appeal of those shows Diccus ...yes there is snobbery involved if I'm honest ....it's ITV Saturday night Chav TV and I couldn't care less whether the acts can sing or not ...they do nothing for me even if they do hit the right notes.

Too many simply want to be famous for it's own sake rather than indicate any real love of the music they sing.

Each to their own though eh?

and Piers Morgan has offered to take her for a romantic meal so she can get rid of the kissing 'duck'............ poor woman.

Morgan is a reptile and is another good reason to avoid BGT at all costs!

Well I suppose now that Jade's gone we've all got find someone else put up on a pedestal.

OK, she looks like the back of a bus and should make a good living on cruise liners but she's hardly Barbra Streisand, is she?

Sister X

That's exactly the point, Sister E. When she came on she was jeered at by the entire audience and the judges too, especially when she said she wanted to be a star like Elaine Paige. Then she sang - and what idiots we were made to feel. I hope she goes far.

....... and apparently Elaine Paige has said she will be happy to do a duet with her

quote:

Originally posted by Sister E.:
Well I suppose now that Jade's gone we've all got find someone else put up on a pedestal.

OK, she looks like the back of a bus and should make a good living on cruise liners but she's hardly Barbra Streisand, is she?

Sister X

Reminds me of an item on Woman's Hour last week.

Are women increasingly finding fault with each other?

In this month’s Vogue magazine Alex Bilmes, features director for GQ magazine, asks why women can't be nice to each other any more. He claims that in the last ten years he has seen a marked increase in women griping about girlfriends, swiping at celebrities and being catty about colleagues. So how fair is this claim and are men really any different? Jane Little is joined by Alex Bilmes and columnist Jan Moir to discuss.

That Les Dawson, mind, he had the face of a bulldog chewing a wasp. Did he have talent? Ask his mother in law

quote:

Originally posted by Sister E.:
but she's hardly Barbra Streisand, is she?

Sister X

That's a BAD thing?

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:

quote:

Originally posted by Sister E.:
but she's hardly Barbra Streisand, is she?

Sister X

That's a BAD thing?

OK -Streisand in the 60's!

Just because this woman(Boyle) can seemingly hold a tune the world starts creaming itself . I'm sorry to tell you that looks DO count and have always counted, unless you just want a recording career and once the novelty of an unattractive woman(I'm being polite now)who doesn't sound like one of the Fat Sl***s wears off we will all get bored with her.

Looks do count unfortunately, and, unfortunately, because it simply shows how shallow the world is increasingly becoming ...

ATB from George

Well they DO count George if you want to be a star of musicals or broadway , or the opera for that matter.

Now lets see what roles she could do on stage -none come to mind unless they turn "On the Buses" into a musical and she could play Olive.

Yes, it is sad. We do live in a world that values things almost at skin depth alone in so many cases.

There was a time when at least in opera looks were secondary to artistic talent, but that may also be over ...

I just wish I had been born 87 [or more] years ago, rather than 47. There are many things that I would have felt more comfortable with had I been of my grandparents' generation rather than my own ...

ATB from George

Even then George, you needed looks as well as a voice to succeed on stage.

Artistic talent is still a prerequiste -it's just that producers are now unwilling to cast singers who look like Sherman tanks in roles such as Violetta and Mimi. I would rather see someone who can act AND sing rather than just a fine voice, a huge frame and a non actor. That said, the decline in great singers is to be regretted.

I have certainly no desire to be transported back 87 years or more....2 world wars, appalling living conditions for most people, hypocritcal values and the rest...I don't believe in the Good Old Days....they never existed.

I really don't think that all that much has improved except medical treatment.

Hypocracy is certainly in the best of health.

Of course it may be argued that working conditions have improved for most people, and life expectancy has risen, but so has stress and mental ill-health, which I believe tells another story than one of splendid progress in every aspect.

Familly values have all but disintegrated.

Okay, in the field of musicians and singers then perhaps one may welcome the fact that there is some expectation that the opera singer might have some physical resemblance to the character being portrayed, but it does not stop there does it?

Where would such people as Clara Haskil be in today's dolly bird world, or the blind and none too handsome organist Helmut Walcha be today, when record cover photos are so much more important to artistic success [ie. the chance to at least pursue a chosen vocation wilst making enough to live and eat] than the actual artistry.

In my lifetime, I have seen things get less fine in the humane sense [since the sixties and seventies]. Reminiscing with three of four of my grandparents [all dead now], I can only take it that though they did not have it easy, they certainly had every chance to turn sheer hard work, and talent into success.

This gets more and more difficult in an increasingly glabalised world, where other thngs distort any of our chances more than any individual effort or talent.

Yes, I am right out of my time ...

ATB from George

I'm sure many of your grandparents generation thought exactly the same about their "Brave New World"

ATB

Sister x

Not one of them thought that there was a better time to be an adult than the post war world period after the defeat of Nazism.

They all thought the fifties generally represented the Zenith, and that the decline clear to me since the seventies had been obvious to them since the fifties, but that in practice the twenties and thirties were less egalitarian than what was there for all to enjoy after 1945.

I think the cult of individualism has destroyed any possibility of getting things moving the right way again, and for me at least, the decent is not just palpable, but terrifyingly fast.

ATB from George

It really depends who you talk to George?

For many people the post war period and the 1950's was a time of stultyfing conformity and greyness. A Britain, unable to come to tems with the loss of Empire and terminal decline, a teenage poulation bored out of its brains. An immigrant population frightened for its life with the return of Oswald Mosley and his fascist boot boys .

But it you were white, heterosexual and fitted in with suburban life with 2.2 kids and then I'm sure it was fine. God help you if you were an "Individual"

No wonder the 60's exploded with ferocity, bringing good things as well as bad.

Well there you go! How many assumptions can you make in one go?

I am an individual, and all my gradparents were individuals, and it is entirely possible to be a powerfully individual individual within a firm framework of social expectations.

Personally I would prefer that firm framework myself, and find its erosion to be the main reason I for the general decline in standards of behaviour nowadays.

Everyone has rights nowadays, but seemingly no one has responsibilities anymore ...

Yes I wish I was forty years older all right ...

ATB from George

quote:

... someone is ugly ...

What are you talking about Jet? She's absolutely gorgeous!

Interesting thread drift George and Sister E

I'm reasonably sure that pretty much every generation of human beings, of every culture, has always looked backwards with misty-eyed nostalgia and forwards with the belief that things will get better.

It appears to be human nature never to be happy with what we have got. People have a far worse time for that.

My customers are amongst the wealthiest, most privileged people on the planet. None of them seems happier than any other strata of people I meet.

To return to the thread, I watched the clip on Youtube and I suspect some fairly cynical marketing going on - Cowell clearly knew she had an amazing voice (someone auditions these people) and I imagine "America's Got Talent" is soon to be his next money-spinner if it isn't already.

I hope Susan Boyle makes enough money to be happy and realises and enjoys the exploitation of her beautiful voice/unbeautiful appearance dichotomy. She seems like a canny Scot, so I think it's likely - and good for her.

Personally I cannot stomach programmes like that though. Although I am hooked on the Apprentice - more fool me.

[edited for typo]

quote:

Posted Mon 20 April 2009 19:45 Hide Post
Interesting thread drift George and Sister E

Indeed - I'm just watching the Forsyte Saga again to remind me of "The Good Ol'Days"

Bit late for this mebbe's but a rather cynical view nicked from the beeb's web site...



Why all the surprise and astonishment? No-one walks onto the BGT stage un-auditioned. Cowell knew long before Susan Boyle emerged on stage in Glasgow that she had an untutored but incredible voice... His research briefing notes told him so. His "spontaneous" reactions are scripted. His fellow judges might conceivably be kept in the dark, but this is Cowell's company, remember?

The Svengali of mediocre performance had already calculated that he needed another "Paul Potts" moment to boost ratings and to manufacture the illusion this is a true talent show. "Find me someone awkward and gawky, but with an incredible voice..."

Susan Boyle had been auditioned several times before this - as with the 99% of auditionees that never make it in front of Cowell et al. She was also probably advised to wear her most inappropriate, unflattering outfit - just to make the conceit all the more "surprising"

This is just an artfully crafted, laboriously edited piece of slick TV. There was nothing "unlikely" about this "surprise" hit. It was a manipulated, manufactured piece of television hokum. Nothing wrong with that, really. It's only telly. but please spare us the Guardian-earnest analysis and portentous moralising.

Surely not I can't believe that nice Mr Cowell would do that!