Welcome to Pure America’s Got Talent

Melissa pointed out in the comments how this season of America’s Got Talent has done a MUCH better job of not “pimping” various acts over other acts. Sure, they give some acts more exposure than others, but last year it was sad how much they promoted certain acts like: Voices of Glory and Kevin Skinner. It was so unfair!

This year, they’ve done a pretty great job not doing this as much. Probably the person who comes closest to it is Alice (Precious’ Mother) getting a little extra promotion. However, that kind of makes sense that the show would want to piggyback the popularity of Precious.

While there’s been a lot of complaining about the top 48 acts that they’ve chosen for AGT Hollywood, I want to also give props to the show for decreasing the pimping that was so ugly and distasteful last year.

Well, the wait is over. Tonight Kevin Skinner was announced as the winner of America’s Got Talent season 4. This wasn’t too shocking for me since I’d already predicted Kevin Skinner as AGT winner earlier today. Sorry, I couldn’t help but brag just a little. Although, a lot of the credit goes to the readers of this site that participated in my America’s Got Talent Winner poll. I’m happy to say that it predicted not only the winner, but pretty much got the top 5 right. Nicely done all of you!!

I really can’t believe that Kevin Skinner won. Somehow his humility and story got into the heart of America and he had them. I’ll be interested to see how much Kevin Skinner improves now that he’s going to have a show in Las Vegas. I’m sure that those producing America’s Got Talent Live in Las Vegas won’t want him to be a headliner in Las Vegas and sing the way he sang in his last 2 performances on America’s Got Talent. A bunch of people in Las Vegas who might have never heard of Kevin Skinner might boo him off stage if he sings like that. Some might think this is harsh, but I live in Las Vegas and at the prices they’re paying for the show there is a high expectation by the audience.

Of course, I think the best thing that Kevin Skinner could do is to take his million dollar prize (really $25,000 annuity every year for so many years if I remember right) and go back to where he knows and love and live a great life. He’s actually the one person on the show that could live very happily on $25,000 a year I think. Maybe that’s why America likes him so much.

I’m not trying to say that Kevin Skinner can’t or shouldn’t try to make it in the music industry. If that’s his dream go ahead and go for it. However, I have a strong feeling that he’s going to end up disillusioned and unhappy working in the spotlight and ugly world we call the music industry. I guess time will tell. Maybe the taste of fame he got on the show whetted his appetite for more. However, my feeling from when I interviewed Kevin Skinner was that he’s enjoyed the experience, but just mostly missed a lot of things from home.

All of this said, I’m sure many Kevin Skinner fans will come on here and tell me I’m wrong. However, I think they’re just trying to say that they love Kevin Skinner and want to hear more of his music. That perspective sounds like its more about them than it is what’s best for Kevin.

It will be fun to see what happens. At the end of the day, Congratulations to Kevin Skinner!! America voted you for the win and so enjoy your time in the spotlight and everything related to the win. I really think Kevin is a good guy. Best of luck to him in the future. We’ll certainly be watching!

I’d been thinking this for a while, but the voting on my poll for the America’s Got Talent Winner just confirmed what I was already thinking and just didn’t want to admit publicly. I think I can safely say that the winner of America’s Got Talent season 4 will be either Barbara Padilla or Kevin Skinner. Everyone else has either fallen off the map (Lawrence Beaman), not had enough exposure (Drew Stevyns), or they just don’t have the wide ranging popularity of these two.

Don’t ask me why these 2 are so popular. They are both really really nice individuals, but they are far from the most talented people on America’s Got Talent. However, they’ve done what you have to do most on America’s Got Talent which is win the hearts of the American people.

Since I’m in the predicting mood, I’ll even go on to predict that Kevin Skinner is going to win America’s Got Talent 2009. Yes, it stings for me to say that since he’s a pretty bad singer. Yes, I couldn’t even bring myself to type that he was a pretty good singer. I had to stick with pretty bad. I think people just love Kevin Skinner’s chicken catcher story. I know I laughed really hard the first time I heard it. I like many Americans also love to see someone come from a chicken catcher to shocking America with a win. That’s the beauty of America and Kevin Skinner seems like a really good guy so at the end of the day I don’t have a problem with him winning. It’s just unfortunate that other talent couldn’t have won.

My question for all of you is assuming I’m right and Kevin Skinner wins, will you be coming to Las Vegas to see Kevin Skinner perform in America’s Got Talent Live? Should we all plan a day to go to the show and we could throw a Pure America’s Got Talent party somewhere in Las Vegas? I’m game if enough people are interested.

The performances are over and now it’s time to vote for your favorite America’s Got Talent season 4 finalists. No, this isn’t official. It’s just for fun, but should give a pretty good idea of who are people’s favorite talent on this season of America’s Got Talent. So, vote for who you want to be the winner of America’s Got Talent.

Of course, no matter who is the winner of America’s Got Talent, we’re going to see most of the above list at the America’s Got Talent live show in Las Vegas.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or in the comments, then you know I had a chance to be able to interview the finalists of America’s Got Talent. It was interesting, because originally they said it would be all the finalists, then they told me it would just be Grandma Lee. So, I just prepared for Grandma Lee. Then, when I was on the call Grandma Lee, Barbara Padilla, Kevin Skinner, Drew Stevyns (and they said some other name, but I couldn’t make it out) were on the call. Very cool experience.

Of course, the biggest problem was that they only gave me 7 minutes for the interview. Yes, that’s right. I had 7 minutes to interview 4-5 finalists for America’s Got Talent. Plus, I’d only planned questions for Grandma Lee. So, basically I was pretty flustered with what to do. You’ll hear below, but I rushed through Grandma Lee so I could talk to Barbara and Kevin. Listening back I acted like such a fan boi of Barbara and Kevin, but what can I say. I only had a few minutes to think what to say.

All in all, I think you’ll enjoy hearing from some of the America’s Got Talent finalists. I need to find a better way to embed an MP3 file (maybe I’ll make a video out of it), so until then here’s a link to download the AGT Finalists interview. Please excuse the bad recording at the very beginning. I promise it gets better. Also, I’ll put a quick summary of my thoughts from the interview.

Grandma Lee – It was interesting that she’d already toured the country as a comedian. They make it sound like she’d never done this before until America’s Got Talent. Another storyline ruined;-) Granted, if you’ve read this blog for any time, then this is nothing new.

Barbara Padilla – She was so gracious and kind and her accent was beautiful. I almost felt bad for discounting her previously. I guess maybe it’s just not me being a huge opera fan. It is interesting that I think she’s going to get a good part of the women vote, cancer vote, hispanic vote and opera junkie music fan vote. That’s a lot of good people backing her.

Kevin Skinner – I loved talking with Kevin. He really is what you see on TV. I loved when he talked about bonfires not happening in LA.

Drew Stevyns – I had to dig him for kicking out my EriAm sisters. Like he says, it’s entertainment. Sadly they cut the interview off as I started with Drew. He’s very personable though.

Overall Impressions – Interviewing these people was a lot of fun. Far too short, but still worthwhile. Talking to them like this really made them real to me. I guess when you see them on TV the show kind of makes them what they want them to be. Talking to them gave me a feeling that these are good people just trying to do what they do.

Let me know what you think of this interview. Just be kind. I was shooting from the hip and I don’t do this very often. Also, I’m really subconscious about hearing my own voice so take it easy on me.

Well, last night was kind of the end of the lameness that has been America’s Got Talent this year. Let’s just say that the show is trying far too hard. They need to just sit back and let us enjoy the talent and the built in drama of the good and bad. Free the judges to say what they really think and get some judges unlike the Hoff and Sharon who can’t tell us what they really feel about the acts for fear of backlash.

Ok, now that I got that out. Here’s the first 5 finalists:
Fab Five – Definitely deserving of the finals. They were spot on. It was a little cruel of the show to try and act like they were going to be eliminated. Sharon did a pretty nice job, but Piers and Hoff made it look totally scripted. Oh well, at least the Fab Five made it and they deserved it.

Grandma Lee – I can’t say Grandma Lee was all that good, but I’m ok with the token act to make it in when they’re as cute as Grandma Lee and they’re living such a special dream for them. Grandma Lee has never been as good as what the judges have said. However, we can all love her for being there and doing her thing. So, I’m cool with this one.

Kevin Skinner – This is a shame for me. I know a lot of people who read this site love Kevin Skinner and have made up all sorts of excuses for why he sucked in his performance. I’ve never been a fan of him and so I don’t know why I’d start now. However, as I said in one of my comments on this site, he’s got 2 thing that America loves: humility and a great story.

Texas Tenors – I actually have mixed feelings about this group. The blonde guy is a star and once they start singing together it’s a hot mess (I stole that description from one of my readers since it described them so well). So, the Blonde guy should be in the finals, but the other 2 shouldn’t.

The Voices of Glory – I’d have kicked these guys off just for being dumb and not forcing the producers to let the sister sing the whole time. Piers said it before and he was right. The sister has the potential to be a star. The brothers are nothing but a drag right now.

Now to those who were sent home…

Acrodunk really deserved it. So much for variety.

Paradizo Dance was cute, but had kind of run their course.

Drew Thomas Magic did kind of disappoint, but I’ll admit I’m a bit surprised that his daughter’s cuteness didn’t pull him through. She’s a star in my book for sure.

Tony and Rory. Seriously, do I have to talk about this one? Shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Arcadian Broad will be remembered for a long time to come. I hope we find out if there was any fall out from his comments. However, I don’t think we will. I hope he keeps dancing and we’ll see him on So You Think You Can Dance once he’s old enough to compete on it.

I’ll admit that this week I was a little preoccupied with the finale of So You Think You Can Dance. So, because of that I wasn’t able to watch the results from the first week of AGT quarterfinals until tonight. Sure, I’d actually seen the results online and I’d even posted the videos for Terry Fator and Mariah Carey, but tonight I was actually able to catch the whole episode and experience the drama of how they sent people home.

First off, I should say that I really enjoyed Terry Fator. His jokes were good and the singing was awesome. The judges reactions to his jokes were a little off, but the guy is a great talent. Mariah Carey did a stand up performance. No real complaints there. Although, I have to admit that Nick Cannon’s oogling over Mariah was even better. That was a lot of fun.
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Tonight’s episode of America’s Got Talent confirmed all of my fears. I didn’t see any really amazing talent. Something was just missing from the show. Don’t ask me what it was. Nobody made me say, WOW! Just a bunch of pretty goods and what are they doing there?

BreakSk8 performed to “Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson. I think I’m with Piers in this being too slow. However, my biggest issue with them is that they had some ugly girl come out center stage to start their act.

Thia Megia Sang “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus. This was a most disappointing act for me. Thia had a couple awesome moments, but this was just the absolutely wrong song for her. I still stick with my assertion that Thia is like Charice Pempengco, but she needs her David Foster to give her the right song.

The Platt Brothers were one of my favorite acts from the auditions. They were unique and interesting. The mouthing of the words wasn’t that interesting. However, they still had a few creative elements. I actually loved the twists from slow to fast. They also had a couple other nice tricks, but I’m still not sure what they’d do for a full act in Las Vegas.

The Diva League should have never been brought back. Piers was dead on with this one. They weren’t even good at lip syncing. Oh wait, that’s because lip syncing is never good. Just get them off the show already.

Manuela Horn looked really nice, but that was about it. What was she doing not yodeling? She’s a yodeler and so I expect her to yodel. I don’t want her to sing poorly.

Grandma Lee had some good jokes. She didn’t have one as good as her previous Krispy Kreme joke, but probably overall was a little better than her audition.

Mosaic Sang “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder. I thought this was a good performance. The percussion person is really good. The singers and instruments are only so so in my book. So, it was just an ok performance. Man, it’s hard to write about a bunch of acts that were so so on this episode of America’s Got Talent.

AcroDunk actually surprised me. I thought it would be more of the same, but they did bring something different and nice. It was like a nice mix of trampoline and dunking. I like it. The only complaint I have is that it would probably be a lot more entertaining Live than it was on TV. They don’t know how to do the camera work for this type of act.

Arcadian Broad Played the piano briefly, then danced to “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins. Arcadian made an absolute mistake playing the piano. He just looks amateur compared to the other pianist on the show. Imagine if they were on the same show. His dancing is where he shines. He’ll probably make it through since he stopped playing and danced, but what a bone head move.

Drew Thomas Magic had a nice trick, but missed some stage presence. I needed some music or something to add the drama. I needed some explanation, some jokes, some something. However, I was surprised that those were the girls. I’m definitely going to have to watch the trick again to know how good it really was. I still generally hate magic on TV.

Kevin Skinner Sang “Make You Feel My Love” by Bob Dylan. I’m still unimpressed. However, I think he did enough for all of his passionate fans to pass him through. It wasn’t horrible, but a few parts of it were quite bad. I wish that he weren’t such a fan favorite, because I’d have liked to hear Piers and even Sharon’s real thoughts on Kevin. My favorite was that his voice kind of cracked. However, we’ll be seeing more of him, and I do love seeing people like Kevin live their dreams. So no hard feelings if he makes it through.

Lake Houston Performing Arts Center Performed to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” as covered by Miley Cyrus. I thought I wasn’t going to like this act. However, they actually were possibly my favorite act of the night. They had a ton of energy and the choreography was good. The judges thought there was too much, but since we’re only watching it through the camera, I think it was great. We missed a lot of what they would have seen with it being live. I loved it and I didn’t think that I would have.

So, what do you think? Any other thoughts about tonight’s show? Oh yes, I also loved how Nick Cannon was wearing a pimp suit while he pimped his wife on America’s Got Talent. Although, I have a feeling that her coming on the show is more about helping the show than it is helping her. Go Mariah (even if it will probably feel awkward to have you on the show).

I haven’t had a chance to do a writeup about tonight’s episode of America’s Got Talent where they finalized the America’s Got Talent top 40. However, just because I’m behind I didn’t see any reason that I should post the full list of America’s Got Talent 2009 top 40.

Pete Peterkin (impressionist)
Arcadian Broad (13 year old dancer)
AcroDunk (acrobatic basketball dunkers)
Platt Brothers (Pantomimers, dancers, and acrobats)
Recycled Percussion (percussion group)
David Johnson (Hasselhoff singer)
Thia Megia (14 year old singer)
G Force (dance band of young girls)
Erik & Rickie (8 year old dance couple)
Mosaic (a capella singers)
Texas Tenors (singing trio)
Manuela Horn (yodeling dominatrix)
The Fab Five (clogging sisters)
Drew Thomas (illusionist)
Hairo Torres (break dancing contortionist)
Lawrence Beamen (bass singer)
Kevin Skinner (singer)
Paradizo Dance (acrobatic dancers)
Ishaara (bollywood dancers)
FootworkKINGz (dance group)
Jeffrey Ou (pianist)
Eleisha Miller (singer and pianist)
Mario & Jenny (chainsaw juggler)
Marcus Terrell (singer)
BreakSk8 (break dancers on roller skates)
Voices of Glory (singing trio)
Barbara Padilla (opera singer)
Chris Allison (ate a lightbulb)
Rockin’ Rory (flying disc dog act)
Pam Martin and Viva (dancing dog)
Carol Lugo (62 year old dancer)
Charles DeWayne Dorsey (singer and pianist)
Pixie Mystere (preteen gymnastic troupe)
Grandma Lee (standup comic)
African High Flyers (acrobats)
Alizma (triplet violinists)
Anthony Morigerato & Matt Lucas (guitarist and tap dancer duo)
EriAm Sisters (trio of sisters)
BRI (singer and pianist)
Mia Boostrom (singer)

I think this will be a pretty interesting group of performances. I still think this is a bit of a down year for America’s Got Talent. I don’t see many (if any) real superstars in this list. However, it should still be quite entertaining and fun to hear their stories and see these people live their dreams.

Time for some quick thoughts about the good acts on tonight’s America’s Got Talent: Carol Lugo, Thia Megia, Kevin Skinner and Jay Mattioli. Plus, the America’s Got Talent video of each performance in case you might have missed it.

Thia Megia (14 year old singer)

I really liked this girl. She was the highlight of the night for me. Wow, I really hate to say that a singer is my favorite, but it was good. My wife and I both just looked at each other when she opened her mouth. Also, I don’t know how to say this the right way, but I’ve never seen such a big black woman’s voice come out of a little asian girl. Nick Cannon’s comment was dead on “Where’d she get that voice from?” Actually, Thia Megia reminds me a little bit of Charice Pempengco who was on Oprah and is David Foster’s new project (look her up on YouTube). They have different qualities to their voice, but as far as little girls with big voices it’s a nice match.

Carol Lugo (62 year old dancer)

I really don’t know how to comment on Carol Lugo. She is something else. The way she snapped her head at the beginning I thought for sure that it was going to snap off. Carol Lugo has a ton of energy. She actually reminded me a bit of the old man that did some break dancing on Britain’s Got Talent. The only question I have for Carol is if she’s like this at 62, what was she like at 20?

Jay Mattioli (Magician)

I had a little problem with Jay Mattioli, there was a little extra piece of stage when he was doing his trick. However, it was still a nice twist on magic that I hadn’t seen before. Piers was right about the second trick being not as good since you know it has to be mirrors or something like that. He was entertaining to watch. Assuming he has some good tricks he might be the first magician to really make it far on the show. Most magicians wow us up front and then get kicked off later with some sort of lame trick.

Kevin Skinner (Chicken Catcher Singer)

The chicken catcher was a little too scripted. He asked if he had a job and Kevin responded that he was a chicken catcher. Anyway, it was good exposure for chicken catchers everywhere. I don’t think Kevin was all that good. He wasn’t horrible either, but when you’re singing a Garth Brooks song you better bring it. Certainly he deserves to go to Vegas and I look forward to seeing him perform again, but I think they love the chicken catcher story as much as they like Kevin.