America's Got Talent (Season 9)

Inside the theatre you're welcome to discuss your favorite television shows, musical artists, video games, books, movies, or anything popular culture!
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bookworm
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Post by bookworm »

Pretty neat opening. The perspective of a contestant.





Emily West, wow what a voice. I'm actually looking forward to her next performance. I don't know the last time I've felt that about a singer.



That impressionist was absolutely great!



This was so cool!





What even is this?

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Yet another post for the Literate Invertebrate. :mrgreen:

You're up.
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Wow, Valo & Bobby really did do something we've never seen before. When they said that I was skeptical, we've seen many variations of balancing and aerial acts, but never something where someone is on an apparatus that is actually on another person. That has to be so difficult, and so dangerous.



I really wish they had shown the full performance of this instead of just a quick clip in a montage; it's very captivating.





This was very impressive.



Similar to David Garibaldi in that he's able to create such a great piece so quickly, but with an added element of awe that he can't really see what he's doing until the very end and he either got it right or didn't.



What Jonatan Riquelme did should not be physically possible! That was one of the greatest balancing performances ever on the show! We've seen the rolling cans multiple times, but never on a surface that was itself moving, let alone one hanging an insane height in the air! And if that wasn't enough (which it was!) he passed through that tiny hoop while doing it which constantly moved his weight around. An all around mind blowing performance.



I completely agree with Howard's assessment of Juan Carlos, but I actually agree with Heidi's choice to give him one more round. I personally think there's nothing here. As Howard said, the act wore out quickly and we've now seen all he has to show. I don't see him bringing anything new to this to make him worthy to stay around. Howie's thing about how he's likeable and will win over hearts is irrelevant; however likeable a personality the performer is they still have to have a variety of performances to give their act merit. But Heidi was right that since there was so much discussion about whether or not to keep him, neither side being a definitely clear right choice, go ahead and give him one more shot to prove the critics wrong. Maybe he can bring something new; I don't see it happening, but it could. We'll see. As I've said before, at this stage there's no reason not to be conservative in making cuts; if you're not sure about someone give them one more go and see what else they do.



#CellosThatRock indeed. Pretty much all that needs said.



It shouldn't have taken Howard begging for Mel to give the choir another chance; as I just said at this point in the competition if it's not a definite no then it should be a yes. Give them one more chance to show what they have. She was right about keeping in mind the end criteria of being worthy of the million dollar show, but from one performance you can't definitely tell who is and isn't. She said herself they picked it up half way through, you have to give them another shot to see if they can have it right from the start next time. If they're still not at the level you think they should be next round, then you cut them.



That spider thing isn't a talent really, it's just something he did. Broke a world record right there on the show apparently though, that was cool I guess.



This wasn't the bizarre act it was made to look like; people didn't get it. It wasn't their fault though, I had no idea what to make of it myself when watching it.



I had a feeling there was something here that was being missed though. I didn't get the ‘what is this’ feeling I usually do when an act is just a big nothing, like The Voice Doctor for example, for this one I felt there was an actual substance to it that was just not being understood. So I looked it up on the AGT Wiki and sure enough there was a genuine premise to the act, and a pretty interesting one at that. She created a device that somehow turns plant bio-emissions into sounds. I would have liked a clearer display of what was going on, it really shouldn't have been presented as an outrageous fail like it was.



And then the two world record attempts. Cool, but I hadn't realized they were going to be separate planned things, I was under the impression that two of the actual auditioning acts would be going for records with their performances. And one did, if the spider thing was real. So I guess actually three record attempts on this episode?

     

Professor Splash returns. Too bad the second one didn't work out; he probably could have made it, it looked like the last car didn't start going when he wanted it to.
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Post by ~JCGJ~ »

I'm very much behind. I'm attempting to catch up, and I shall post my thoughts once I have done so.
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Howie used his golden buzzer, and wow was he passionate about it. He really sees something there. And the audience did as well, or at least sure acted like it. I didn't, but maybe I'm missing the point like he said Howard and Heidi were.



I had never seen an actual trick roping performance before; it was a lot more entertaining than I would have thought.



Howard said exactly what I was thinking about Sal, "Thank god you were good." After his story there was no way he wasn't going to be supported, even if he wasn't a great singer. As Howard said, you really need to judge on the talent, but as he also said for people like this it can be really difficult. Fortunately there wasn't an issue this time.



I love that bird! So fun. I think it's the first actually good parrot act I've seen on the show; I know there was at least one other on a recent season but as I recall it didn't go well at all. As much as I liked it though, I doubt it's win worthy. You can't make a talking bird an hour show, however good it is. But bring it back at least once more for sure.



What was the piano guy all about? From the brief clip they showed it looked like a nonsense act, spill paint all over and then the piano explodes, but there must have actually been something to it because he not only went through, but the judges had rave reviews.



I liked this.





And that's the last audition show. They seemed to go by really quickly, but there weren't less than usual this season.

Now that we've seen all the acts and we know the eventual winner is in there somewhere you try to start guessing who it will be, but I really don't see any stand out acts this year. I know I said that last season too, but then I meant that there wasn't one I could single out from the very start as a possible guarantee. There were still a few, such as Kenichi, that at least stood way out in front as ones to watch. But this time, there isn't even that. For me at least. I don't have any in mind that really jump ahead in consideration right now.
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Post by ~JCGJ~ »

I have only seen one of the live performances thus far... I always seem to have something going on Tuesday nights...
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An interesting topic that has been raised many times before on the show but I never really put much personal thought into was brought up again this episode so I decided to finally determine where I stand on it.
Should musical acts perform original songs, or only do covers?

I don't know if there's a definite right answer. The general basis of the advice against it is that to evaluate the performance we need to be familiar with what they're singing. And I agree with that. If we're judging how well they sing, we need to know what the song is 'supposed' to sound like so we can compare their performance to that metric.
But then again, a lot of people put their own spin on songs they cover, and they are praised for that because it allows us to see their personal style or interpretation of the piece and that kind of thing. So really, is the judging metric actually how they compare to the original rendition? Or is it simply how they perform what they choose to sing, assuming their vocal quality is acceptable?
Whichever of those it is though, it remains important for the audience to know the material because that is required for the analysis either way. If you're comparing to the original, you need to know how the original sounds so you can see how close they are. If you're contrasting to the original, judging their personal take on the song, you need to know how the original goes so you can see what they changed and how they changed it.
But this is all assuming what we're judging is their singing ability. If someone performs an original song, does that add new criteria we are obligated to consider? Now possibly we don't only judge the musical talent, but the creativity as well since they compose their own pieces. If we go that route though, how to we balance our analysis? If they're a little weak in the performance talent, do we treat it as less of a negative by allowing the talent of writing the song in the first place to compensate for some of the lack?
And if we're unfamiliar with the piece they are performing, are we actually able to judge the performance talent at all anyway? We don't know what it's supposed to sound like. Are we to just assume everyone doing an original song gets a perfect score in that area because they wrote it so they must know how it should be? If that's the case, perhaps original pieces should get judged solely on creativity merit, as covers get judged solely on vocal merit.
In the end it's all really up to each individual's personal opinions on multiple aspects, including what exactly you're analyzing and how you go about those analyses. My personal opinion on the matter, if I had to officially choose a side, would be to agree that original songs are a bad idea. It's just easier all around to judge an act that's covering a song you're familiar with because you have an accessible baseline to start with and you can then decide what it is you want to use it for.
I think at the very least your audition should definitely be a cover, because the first thing people look at before considering what you're actually singing is whether you have musical ability in the first place. As I said it's easier and quicker to be able to gauge that when you know the song, so you should really build your initial impression on that. Then as you go on in the competition, once people know 'Yeah, you sound good' you can throw in an original piece if you want the thoughts to expand from just your singing talent to 'Ah, and they write too' for people to consider your creativity and that kind of thing.
And also in the Vegas/Judgment round if you're performing there, it needs to be a cover. Especially then. There it's just the judges, you need them to be able to easily and comfortably evaluate you without any distractions or questions so you can continue on.
So I would say a rule of thumb should be stick to covers until you at least make the live shows.
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Post by ~JCGJ~ »

Personally, I don't have to know the song to know if a person is a good singer or not.
However, I don't really care either way, since I'm making it a point not to vote for singers at all this season.
I can almost guarantee you that a singer is going to win this year, simply because of the sheer amount of singers still in the running.
Besides, they have at least three other shows they can audition for, instead of bumping out other, more original acts, just because America seems to have a fetish for singers.
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Post by bookworm »

Interesting that they made a whole episode of just reviewing auditions and a little behind the scenes. They usually do that kind of thing as filler for the elimination shows. I guess they needed a placeholder in the production order for some reason.



Why in the world did it take this review episode to show us Alyssa and David?! That should definitely have been a full feature in one of the audition episodes; we've never seen anything like it!



I'm also surprised we hadn't seen Psycho Jack until now. That was a pretty cool trick, it should have been shown before. At least this brief bit they showed here as part of a magician montage in one of the audition episodes if they didn't want to do the whole performance.
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