Rock Star: INXS
Posted in General / Music by CujoAugust 10th, 2005 - 10:10 PM
At the risk of being “shunned” by my “Rock Star” friends (see links on the side under “The Music”) I need to show my affection for this new “reality” series currently on.
Now why in the world do I like it so much and what makes it actually stand out? I think there’s a quite a few reasons for it.
- The “main judge” is Dave Navarro and then the rest INXS.
- The judges are truthful, if someone sucked they all say it and don’t try to be “nice” about it.
- The song selection simply kicks ass (more on this later).
- Even though they allowed “world wide” voting, INXS still is able to make the decision on who they boot.
- You can watch the performances online if you missed them — unfortunately you need stupid Internet Explorer.
- INXS (or someone I don’t know) picks a number of songs for the “competitors” to sing the following week. Basically there’s the same number of songs as people so they have to make agreements with each other on who can sing what. It’s a good combination I think and makes sure that they are singing good songs.
And well there’s probably more but you get the point. The song selection is an awesome change compared to shows like American and Canadian Idol. Basically every week I’ve seen so far (or can remember) there’s been a Nirvana song (and they are either done really well or really bad). There’s also songs that cover a wide spectrum but all absolutely rule. This week in itself had No Woman, No Cry by Bob Marley; Layla by Eric Clapton; Come As You Are by Nirvana and a pretty solid solo acoustic performance of the Killer’s Mr. Brightside as well as many others. Last week the “top performance” as chosen by INXS was sung by a contestant named Jordis who sang David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” but in the style of Nirvana’s Unplugged version. All these performances are available at http://rockstar.msn.com. The only downfall to that site is you need IE to be able to view the videos — everything else however works in your favourite browser (Firefox, Opera, Konquerer, Safari etc).
Basically if you want to turn your TV on Tuesday nights (if you’re not at Musician’s Night at Loplops and listen to some sweet music unlike those other shows) Rock Star: INXS is definitely something to check out. They have a “reality” show on Monday which I’ve never watched so don’t know what goes on there but the performances are on Tuesday’s with eliminations on Wednesday’s.
Basically I’ve only seen the full show on TV once (this week) and seen parts of all the other shows (since they started performance) but was able to watch all the performances online which I liked.
Also for the Canadian music fans out there as a point of reference Tara Sloan was booted from the show last week and for those of you in the know she fronted the Canadian band Joydrop who I believe played in the Soo a couple years ago but then again I can’t remember a couple of years ago.
I really need to learn to be more concise too I think. Shut up idiot, shut up.
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August 11th, 2005 at 1:44 am
frig, i’ve heard about this, but i just can’t make that kind of commitment to TV anymore. It’s failed me on so many levels.
Alas, a book nerd i shall remain.
August 11th, 2005 at 6:31 am
That’s part of the joys of the Internet though Rab — you’re able to watch the performances online. Each one is about 2 minutes, you don’t get the comments but they have them all back logged all the way from Week 1 till now. They have the perforances as well as the result show songs (the INXS ones).
August 11th, 2005 at 11:05 am
I really enjoy this show. The performances are usually all really solid, as these are all professionals aready, not kids with stars in their eyes (not that there is anything wrong with that). I really enjoyed that solo acoustic performance by Marty this week. He’s a fellow I probably wouldn’t look twice at on the street, but when he’s performing…wow.
August 11th, 2005 at 11:22 am
Yeah his solo was awesome (I actually watched it twice again last night HAHA). When they were showing the clip of him singing with the band I was thinking “this is going to be bad” but then he switched up and went solo and it was sweet.
August 11th, 2005 at 11:45 am
If you keep on watching Reality TV, it only enourages TV networks and producers to make more reality tv shows.
Stop the evil, turn the channel
August 11th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
I do enjoy the show a bit, but I find it sad that one of my favourite bands from the 80’s is whoring themselves out to network television. And it has also made me lose a little respect for Dave Navarro…my two cents….
August 11th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Yeah. Something I keep realizing when I’m watching (and not to sound rude or anything but) are they really going to pick a girl to fill the role? I mean it’ll be weird enough with a guy singing the older stuff but having a female lead will really throw some of those songs off (okay, I’m young so I don’t know “all the songs” but still).
Also let’s face it, everyone is a sell out now. Heck I’ll sell out for money — I did just go take a job at a call centre and you can consider that selling out — Comp Sci degree laying down and working at a call center :S.
Also on the reality show thing. I haven’t watched the “reality” show part of it, or the part they are saying is that, even though all 3 nights are. Mostly I’m in it for the songs and performances. Plus they can’t repeat this? Or can they?
Rock Star: INXS — Year 2
August 11th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
About the female lead thing…a female friend of mine is a rock singer with her own fairly sucessful band. It’s been a long tough road for her though. She pointed out to me one day that there are not many really well known rock bands with female leads.
A few weeks ago a radio interviewer actually had enough gall and poor taste to say that my friend is too beautiful and intelligent (sounds good so far, right?) and suggest that if she makes herself a bit more like Brittany, folks would accept her more. Blech! So…will INXS choose a female lead? A bit chancy perhaps, but by having so many female rockers on the show, they’ve already done a good thing.
August 11th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
I think female leads are good and can be pulled off and be very successful — No Doubt anyone? But my only qualm here is the fact that it was a pre-established band with world wide fame and “known” songs sung by male. It’ll just be a “weird” change for the masses. I think the top “female” on the show is probably Jordis and any time I’m watching clips I watch her The Man Who Sold the World clip, I also noticed late last night she sang another Nirvana tune “Heart Shaped Box” and did it pretty well as well.
August 11th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
Of all the female singers I do think Jordis is distinctive and unique enough to take the old band and make it into something new and very interesting, while keeping the old appeal. The Man Who Sold the World was riveting.
This has put the spotlight on some very talented artists. No doubt all are in a better place right now because of it, no matter who wins the prize. I worry that though these people are talented, and the band is fab, that after an initial accelerated popularity it will all die down into “gimick” mumble. Hopefully the new band can survive that. Quite the audition process.
August 12th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
I think it is quite likely they have already chosen the new singer, and this is just a really effective PR campaign. Reality TV is just not that interesting to me. Mind you, I have not seen any episodes of this series, so what do I know. Tuesday nights at Loplops are much cooler.
August 12th, 2005 at 3:51 pm
Yeah I assumed a couple of times that they already had someone picked who they really liked or had it narrowed down to 2 or 3 anyway and the “we choose who we boot out of the bottom 3″ saves them from having to get rid of that person as they can just keep sending them back to the main pack.
I’m so so with the reality stuff there’s shows I can latch on to then others that are too ridiculous but hey everyone has preferences right.