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Kevin Skinner Wins America’s Got Talent

The Winner of AGT, Season Four is Kevin Skinner, the former Chicken Catcher from Kentucky.  Skinner’s win was unsurprising based on how much he’d been hyped by judges. He also has a very modest attitude that in the era of Kanye West was quite appealing.

As the judges stated in the finals, Kevin didn’t have the greatest voice in the competition. Lawrence Beaman took that honor, but didn’t connect with Americans. And yes, Barbara Padilla, who finished second had a better voice, but America just chose an Opera skinner.  Skinner might need vocal coaching, or perhaps he might need to get his nerves in check. His peak performance really was his audition without all the lights and magic of a big Hollywood performance. Write good songs for him in the Garth Brooks-style he’s most comfortable in and he can get a string of Gold Records.

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Final AGT Semi-Final and Predictions

Tonight was the last America’s Got Talent Semi-finals. However, thanks to last week’s cop outby the judges, all the drama was manufactured. There was no judge’s choice after the judges abdicated last week by sending both the 4th and 5th place acts through. Thus, AGT had to build drama by having Nick Cannon have two acts step forward and saying, “America has spoken, one of you will go home…And we’ll find out who right after this.”

Cannon did this twice. The most interesting part of the results show was when they showed a behind the scenes look about the Judges’ decision (or should I say indecision) the week before.  At one point, Piers Morgan said, “We’re the judges, we can do whatever we want.”

With an attitude like that, you know that it’s only his British citizenship that has stopped Morgan from getting on the Supreme Court. 

Thoughts on the five who made it, the five who didn’t, and how the final shakes up.

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America’s Got Punting

Coming into last night’s Semi-final, it was announced, the top 3 acts would move on to the Finals, and #4 and #5 would face the judges.

America cast some interesting votes that suggested perhaps the show might need to be renamed, “America Lacks Good Taste”  and #4 and #5 standing before the judges were young singing group Voices of Glory and cloggers The Fab Five.

After a three minute break, the judges came back and Sharon Osbourne declined to make a decision. Then so did David Hasselhoff. The whole thing went into a huddle and Piers Morgan announced that there would be no judge’s choice and that both Voices of Glory and Fab Five would go to the finals. A happy non-competitive soccer ending to the whole saga that played out on national television.

As happy as I am for both groups, this leads me to think that America’s Got Talent Examiner Michael Ross may have a point when he calls for all the judges to be fired. Or get sacked as two of them would better understand it. Fundamentally, the judges abdicated their only basic role at this stage of the game.

As successful as the show is, it pales in comparison to Britain’s Got Talent.  Other than Kevin Skinner with a Cockney accent, it’s hard to imagine any of the acts that will compete in the Finals from tonight’s show making it through to the final on Britain’s Got Talent.  BGT has more the feel of a genuine talent contest, while on AGT, the whims of the judges reign supreme, and it’s a circus of egos. The sad thing is that there are talented people whose time is totally wasted by the judge-inflicted nonsense.

Putting that aside, I do understand why it was hard for the judges to pick between Fab Five and Voices of Glory (though I believe making tough decisions is what they’re paid to do.)  Both will make interesting Finalists. Fab Five is-well-fab, at what they do. But I don’t think any clogging will be victorious.

Voices of Glory do have a shot at winning this thing. Their problem has been that one of the things the judges have told them they need to do, they’re not willing to do. After their Quarter Final, Piers Morgan told them that they needed to let the younger Sister, Nadia take the lead on the singing. In the semi-finals, they split up the vocals pretty much evenly, and they ended up falling behind Kevin Skinner and the Texas Tenors.  The boys voices are not up to the level of their little sister on these big songs they’re performing. Their harmonies worked great on, “God Bless America” in the audition. But, they’ve gotten so far on her talent, and they’re chemistry. In the finals, the brothers need to step back if they want to win this thing in two weeks.

More thoughts follow on the rest of the evening’s contestants. 

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The appeal of Mad Men

After another great episode Sunday night (Peggy smoked marijuana!), it is clear Mad Men is wholly appealing. It appears to have reached the collective conscious of America. Jon Hamm, playing the lead role as “Don Draper”, an ad executive at Sterling Cooper, is, perhaps, the most interesting character on television.

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