Welcome to Pure America’s Got Talent

Simon Cowell isn’t my favorite person in the whole world, but it’s hard to argue with his ability to produce a TV show. Plus, he has an amazing skill as a judge on TV shows too. So, I was completely intrigued when I saw this article suggesting that Simon Cowell is planning a new TV show called “World’s Got Talent.” Sounds like the perfect spin off to his America’s Got Talent / Britain’s Got Talent shows.

Here’s some details from the article:

The show will feature acts from over 80 countries, with the winner receiving a prize of up to £1m.

A source told The Sun: “This has been Simon’s dream. It will be the biggest reality show the world’s seen. There is a huge wealth of talent out there. The best acts cross language barriers.
…
ITV and NBC are said to be involved and the show is planned to be staged at the Royal Albert Hall.

This could be really fun to watch. I can think of a lot of acts I’d like to see on this show!

One of my readers sent me the following update about Faryl Smith, winner of Britain’s Got Talent.

Faryl has been very busy this year, she has sung with Katherine Jenkins at a number of venues and on TV. She has duetted with Carreras at the Hamptont Court Palace Festival. She was the guest star at the opening gala at this year’s Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. She won first prize there at the age of ten.

She has sung in York Minster, The Royal Albert Hall. She entertained the 80,000 strong English and French supporters at Twickenham Rugby Football Ground. She sang the National anthem at the FA Cup Final in front of 92,000 football supporters. She opened the proceedings at the Classical Brits Awards Concert at the RAH. She has more concerts lined up before Christmas. She will be in a joint concert with Jonathan Ansell later this month. Then she’s off up north to sing at a charity concert in aid of muscular dystrophy sufferers in the beautiful settings of Durham Cathedral And a very big occasion in November. The National Service of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. An occasion always attended by all of the Royal Family. To be invited to sing there is a huge honour.

Through all of this she has kept going to school and has just finished her second album with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It is to be released in the UK on 30 November. There is no track list yet but there is information about it on her UK website. There is also a snippet of one of the tracks on it ” Somwhere Far Away”. The album is called “Wonderland”. If you visit her website mute the video and click listen. Also there are a lot of new photographs of Faryl and others. Click the gallery tab at the top left of the page. Not the one below the picture lower down the page.

Nice to see that Faryl Smith is doing so well.

Tickets are now on sale for the Las Vegas America’s Got Talent show. My only question is whether the winner of America’s Got Talent will get to perform all 60 shows or maybe just a few of them. In fact, last year, the Las Vegas show was a bunch of members of the America’s Got Talent top 5 and the winner was just the “headline” act. I’m sure something like this will happen again for the other people on America’s Got Talent.

I can’t help but wonder if they might even expand the cast of performers to include some of Britain’s Got Talent like Susan Boyle. She certainly would sell a lot more tickets. In fact, I’m guessing that she’d be a bigger headline no matter who wins America’s Got Talent 2009.

It will be interesting to watch. I know I’m getting my America’s Got Talent Las Vegas show tickets.

Looks like Susan Boyle is set to be on the today show on July 22nd with Meredith Viera. The 22nd is a Wednesday and so I’m sure this is part of the publicity for America’s Got Talent that evening. Smart move by Simon Cowell. I wonder if she’s getting ready to perform on the America’s Got Talent stage as well[see full press release below for more details on this]. I’m not a huge fan, but I imagine it will help the America’s Got Talent ratings and that’s always a good thing in my book.

Check out a short part of Susan Boyle’s appearance on the Today Show where Susan says “I don’t want it to end.”

UPDATE: Here’s the full press release from NBC and America’s Got Talent about the Today show appearance and also details on Susan Boyle appearing on America’s Got Talent as well:

In a worldwide exclusive, NBC News’ Meredith Vieira will sit down with Susan Boyle in her first interview since she became an instant global phenomenon on “Britain’s Got Talent.”

The exclusive interview will air on “Today” with an extended interview as part of a special edition of “America’s Got Talent” Wednesday, July 22 (9-10 p.m. ET), which will also feature the last round of auditions before heading into the live quarterfinals.

Boyle shocked the world this year with her incredible voice on the British version of the hit NBC series “America’s Got Talent.” But in the wake of her second place finish and questions about her health[Susan was admitted to a mental health clinic], she has not spoken out about her experience to anyone until now. Boyle will talk to Vieira about her improbable journey to international fame, her voice, her health and what is next for her.”

Today I was really sad to read a blog that said that Susan Boyle had been admitted to a mental health clinic. I can only imagine the exhaustion that Susan must be experiencing. Talk about a shock to go from a relatively anonymous person to global stardom like she did. I don’t think she had any idea what she was getting into. I think that Piers Morgan describes Susan Boyle’s challenge quite well.

I’ve had my own criticism of Susan Boyle, but I think I’ve taken a fair approach to analyzing her performance just like I would have done with any other performer on the show. What is disappointing to me is all the truly hateful people out there that just want to smear someone. I’m all for sharing opinions about talent. That’s part of the fun of watching these shows. I even want to share strong opinions. That’s why I think people visit this site. I try to provide something of value and interesting. However, I don’t ever try to make things personal and I never want to demean a person in the process. That’s just unfortunate and wrong.

My heart goes out to Susan. I hope that she can quickly learn to deal with the crazy people out there that have nothing better to do with their life than to try and hurt other people. The same blog I mentioned earlier says that she has signed a music contract and will record her first album in Prague. I look forward to its release and will do all I can to help promote it for Susan as well. Granted, I don’t think she’ll need much help promoting it.

I’m so happy about who Britain voted the Winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2009. They are incredibly entertaining, incredibly talented, incredibly unique and provide something unique, interesting and different every time they’re on the stage. The winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2009 (in case you missed it) is: Diversity!!

Diversity absolutely deserved to win Britain’s got Talent 2009. They’ll be an excellent representative of BGT 2009 at the royal variety show before the Queen. A number of people commented on my site that Flawless was better than Diversity, but I’m glad to see that Britain agrees with me.

Check out the Britain’s Got Talent finals performance by Diversity and tell me it’s not worthy of being crowned BGT 2009 winner:

I’m so happy for them. I hope that Simon Cowell does keep his word and brings Diversity to perform on America’s Got Talent 2009. Congrats to Diversity and thanks for entertaining us all at home. You definitely deserve the crown of Britain’s Got Talent 2009 Champions!!

I’ve been following the various performances of Susan Boyle for a while and tonight was her final performance on the BGT 2009 stage. There’s no doubt that Susan Boyle has been through a whole lot in these 7 weeks. Certainly more than she bargained for when going on this show. It’s a lot of pressure that she’s gone through and she kept her head up and was quite the lady.

I should say that her performance tonight was excellent. Unlike in the semifinal where she missed some easy notes and looked really nervous, Susan Boyle’s final performance on BGT 2009 was excellent.

My only knock which isn’t necessarily specific to her is when they repeat songs we’d already seen before. I didn’t like it when Donald Braswell did it on America’s Got Talent and I didn’t like it when Susan Boyle did it on BGT. I think about half of the acts on the BGT finals actually did it, but I still don’t like it any more.

Regardless, here’s the video of Susan Boyle’s finals performance on Britain’s Got Talent 2009 to the song I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables

Now we have to ask ourselves where Susan Boyle will go from here with all this fame? Can you say book deal?

2 Grand really touched a heart string with me. The daughter really has a nice voice. However, for some reason tonight’s performance was one of the most touching things I’d seen on TV for quite a while. I’m actually completely surprised about it all. I always thought the daughter was a star, but the connection between the 2 of them was really quite extraordinary.

Check out the video of 2 Grand’s performance in the Britain’s Got Talent semi finals.

On a side note, you can see 2008 BGT winner George Sampson’s performance on BGT. I’m not sure what I think about the TV screens. Reminds me a bit of blue man group. He’s a good dancer and was fun to watch. Just the dancers on So You Think You Can Dance are better.

Callum Francis was a bit of a disappointment for me in the semi finals. He excuted his routine really well, but I just think he could have done so much more. What about him singing one of the songs from Newsies? That would have been awesome. I just think the song BGT forced him to use he chose to perform just didn’t do a good job showcasing his incredible talent.

All of that said, there’s absolutely no doubt that Callum Francis has an amazing future in singing and performing and will be highly successful.

Check out the video of Callum Francis doing his BGT semi final performance:

Julian Smith honestly rallies Kenny G on the saxaphone. I’m not sure how they compare technically (although I hear that Kenny G isn’t that good technically either). What Julian Smith has that Kenny G will probably never have is that he’s such a cool cat. Julian absolutely deserved to go to the finals.

Enjoy the video of Julian Smith playing his sax in the BGT semi finals.