The MOAM song review, first impressions and afterwards

Confession time: The first time I got my Measure of a Man CD in the mail from Amazon sometime in mid-February of 2004, I listened to it and went WTF? The Clay Aiken I had just heard on my TV singing "Invisible" and "The Way" on Saturday Night Live had a far more rich and textured voice than what I was hearing on the record. Not that it was bad, and in fact probably far more listenable than most other CDs I've subsequently acquired, just not the same energy as Live!Clay--a problem I hope will be rectified on the next CD.

Songs I didn't care much for initially: "No More Sad Song" (what's with the lack of "s"?, even Clay would tack it on there sometimes). Listening to it back now and watching some of the old videos, I do appreciate it as the most rock-edged of the album tracks, however. I was also trying to figure out what these pseudo-Christian songs "I Will Carry You" and "Measure of a Man" were saying and if they were in fact actually Christian. I, incidentally, do not happen to be of the Christian faith and at first these songs kind of bothered me. I have since gotten over this; MOAM won me over pretty quickly for being so pretty, and though I never really got into "rocking" IWCY, when Clay did an acoustic piano rendition on Oprah I loved it:

Songs that were okay to me initially: "Invisible" and "The Way," which I loved on TV but came across a little flat on the record, but I'll always have positive associations with these songs as the first to introduce me to Mr. Aiken. "Shine" was quirky though I wasn't sure what to make of the lyrics. "Run to Me" didn't stick out in my brain at all in the first listen, but it's really become a favorite of mine since the melody is quite pretty and Clay's voice is incredible on this one. It's clearly a very challenging song and he couldn't sing it live without major vocal strain on his first tour, but when he worked it out for the solo tour in 2004, he sounded absolutely amazing and heartfelt. It's quite possibly now my favorite song on the album. Since there's no TV performance of this song and I'm too lazy to look for a good concert video, here's one that's already up on Youtube of RTM:


My favorite initial songs: "This is the Night," "When You Say You Love Me," and "I Survived You." TITN is the song that sounds most like Clay in these album track due to production. Not sure what I think of the cheesetastic lyrics, but I like that this sounds like him, and I nearly always like piano ballads. WYSYLM is a catchy little ditty, I always thought it should have gone to radio, even though it's probably the lest challenging song to sing--Clay frequently zones out and forgets the words on this one because the vocals don't require his concentration. He never took it very seriously in concert, talking on the phone to fans or bringing them up on stage to dance. writer of the song, Savage Garden's Darren Hayes, recording it for himself in Australia and it became a #1 hit. As for "I Survived You," I didn't know about the "damned" situation at the time of Clay's not wanting to sing "I'll be damned if ..." and it had none of the growly hotness that Clay performs the song now with in concert, but I still really liked it. Of course, now I love it exponentially more with the long held note and the growls. I flip-flop sometimes between RTM and ISY as my favorite performance songs overall, as I think they highlight his range best. Here's a lovely performance of ISY on Good Morning America:


Songs that made me WTF: Touch. So totally unlike the remainder of the record it's unclear why it was on there. I didn't mind the song though, it has a nice beat. I guess Clay doesn't care for it though, since he's never sung it live, so no video for this section!

Oops, it occurs to me that I forgot "Perfect Day." I always forget that song. :P

Tags: Clay Aiken, Measure of a Man, CD review

I prefer my pretend boyfriends brainy, thank you very much

Hee, I know this blog was constructed for my "music musings," but I wanted to squee and congratulate my other pretend boyfriend, Mike "Moose" Mussina of the New York Yankees for notching his 2500th strikeout this afternoon in the Yankee victory over the Florida Marlins. I've been a big fan of his since I was a thirteen-year old girl, which makes it half my lifetime that I've been following his career. He's a very handsome guy to be sure:

But what keeps me addicted to following his career has always been his brains, talent, and wry sense of humor. He doesn't have the 94 mph fastball he had ten years ago, but he's been developing new pitches and grips and is now having one of his most successful seasons this year at age 37. And being the total academic snob I happen to be, I also think he's awesome that for getting his degree from Stanford University in 3.5 years because he knew he would be drafted by a major league team at the end of his junior year (and he was a first round draftee by the Baltimore Orioles, having turned them down when they had wanted to sign him out of high school) but wanted to get his degree in economics anyway, and I have huge respect for anyone who values his education even with all sorts of money and opportunities being thrown at him. Mussina's also famous (or infamous) for being a brainiac crossword junkie, and in fact makes an appearance in the movie Wordplay, which talking about the challenge of solving crosswords in comparison with pitching the majors.

Mike's taken a lot of flack over the years for being a somewhat mentally fragile hired gun that hasn't won a championship by the New York media and fans, but I think he's finally come into his own this year and essentially saved the Yankees' season with his cool effectiveness in the first two months when their other pitchers were having some problems. Plus he's shown a lot fire this year, as you can see from this video, where he yells at manager Joe Torre to keep him in the game, and then nonchalantly tells reporters that yeah, he kinda wanted to finish the ballgame, LOL:

The month of June has been a bit rough for Moose and surprisingly the NYY fans haven't jumped all over him as they had in the past (and as they continue to do people like Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez) and were actually giving him the benefit of the doubt. I guess he's finally earned his pinstripes. And today he had a good outing and earned another win (career win #233), so yay!

Topic: Pretty boys come and go when it comes to catching my fancy, but it's the smart ones who keep my support for life. I've stuck with being a Mike Mussina fan for more than a decade now, and I expect no less for my fandom of that other talented, savvy, intelligent guy I love, Clay Aiken, and I hope to be celebrating Clay's milestones in the very near future. Soon. *g*

Tags: Mike Mussina, Clay Aiken, milestones

Revisiting Clay Aiken on JKL 2003

I rarely watch any Clay Aiken appearances from before 2004 because I am so accustomed to seeing Mr. Aiken as a seasoned professional that the "old Clay" that looked like a shy sixteen year old (thanks, AI appointed stylists) makes my analytical left brain go all haywire trying to make that image congruent with MY vision of mature, confident Clay Aiken. Luckily, Clay has an incredible learning curve and by November 2003, he was cheerfully sparring with talk show hosts and even a very famous pop star, as can be seen in this funny video:



Tags: Clay Aiken, skit, Jimmy Kimmel Live

2006 Albums Chatter

So two or three months ago, RCA records had listed (mistakingly) that Clay Aiken's new album was due today, June 20. And we're here now today with still no official news on that project, but I have been listening to some CDs on AOL First Listen, and I really like the new Nelly Furtado CD, Loose, and the new Keane CD, Under the Iron Sea. I tend to like albums that aren't "all sound same" and are fairly eclectic such that the tracks are distinguishable from each other, and both albums definitely fit that bill, although I didn't expect them to. Can't say I'm too impressed with Furtado's live voice, but the beats and melodies on the recording are pretty funky that I would consider picking up her album.

I actually haven't bought a CD all year, although I toyed with getting the Pink album, I'm Not Dead, which is actually a fine album with more solid tracks than most, but unfortunately cursed with an awful album cover and title. Usually at this juncture I would go link the cover art but then I would have to actually go seek it out and I just don't want to because ick. I rarely buy albums that have covers I consider hideous (exception: Evanescence's Fallen, whose booklet I have turned backwards, but I really wanted that album for "My Immortal," and Wind-Up Records does not release albums or singles digitally so I had to get the album) or with dumb titles. I know you shouldn't judge a book (or album) by its cover, but if I have to live with it in my house and look at it from time to time, you bet I'm going to care what the CD art looks like. Plus the politicking Pink does on her album doesn't thrill me either.

I'm a liberal for free speech and all that jazz, but I don't particularly care to have politics mixed in with my music. I have Green Day's American Idiot, but I have to say I pretty much don't listen to the lyrics at all, I just like the guitars and the beat and the vocals. The Dixie Chicks' posturing I don't care for either, but it doesn't really matter affect my buying or not buying their album, since Natalie Maines's voice kind of grates on me after a while. There's a sharpness to her vocal that I can't listen to continuously. I also thought about picking up Jewel's new album, Goodbye Alice in Wonderland, but again I listened to it and the songs are just a little to same-y between tracks to hold my nanosecond attention span.

Upcoming albums for 2006 that I have an eye on:

Back to Basics by Christina Aguilera, August 15th. I'm not sure if I'm going to like this one. I tend to favor her more pop/rock songs like "Fighter" and 30s/40s soul style music doesn't seem to be really my cup of tea, but her single, "Ain't No Other Man," has really grown on me the more I listen to it. Still not crazy about her image, but I didn't like her Stripped image either. I wish just one of these girl pop stars would have a normal hair color and natural looking makeup instead of looking like a mannequin. She does have a great voice though, probably the strongest of the current female pop artists, though in country there are some superior female voices IMO. LeAnn Rimes and Martina McBride in particular. Unfortunately I don't like country music much (though I like Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban) so I only have LeAnn's inspirational album and Martina's Christmas album, but I guess I am now way off topic. Good thing it's my blog.

The Open Door by Evanescence, October 3rd. I'm pretty curious where they are going to go now that Amy Lee has dumped Ben Moody's "commercial"-loving tendencies. She seems to favor the more inaccessible melodies and their material might be too hard rock from the sounds of it, but no lady out there has a prettier recording voice than Amy Lee, IMO, although some have greater strength, power, and range. Her voice is just so pretty, but there's no point if there aren't pretty ballads to showcase it.

FutureSex/LoveSound (or something like that) by Justin Timberlake, September 12th. I'm not actually considering buying this album in any way shape or form since I can't stand JT's boyband voice, but I do plan to chart watch this album very carefully. He charted four singles in the Top 5 at CHR/Pop (plus whatever rhythmic and urban play that I don't track) with Justified but only sold 3.5 million domestic and 7 million overall worldwide. Not that those are small potatoes numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but considering all that radioplay it's not that great compared to some of his contemporaries who also had substantial heavy airplay. He's been away from the music scene for a long time and also had the Janet Jackson fallout, so it will be very interesting to see how he does.

Untitled by Katharine McPhee, December 2006 (probably). I voted for Katharine all season (except for some clunker performances) on American Idol, although I'm not entirely sold on her future prospects in the industry and may or may not buy her album. If she's going the Celine Dion route, forget about it, because her upper register is completely lacking that kind of strength to belt. I might give it a chance if the songs are mostly in her non-screechy range though. I suspect that like Carrie Underwood she will be better in studio than she was on the show because of the nerves from live performance, but we'll see.

???? by Clay Aiken, "soon." If only national security was as diligent at keeping secrets as Team Clay... I'm still really hoping against hope that the remakes on the album that supposedly constitute the majority are relatively obscure and can become hits associated with CA like "Bless the Broken Road" and "What Hurts the Most" have become for Rascal Flatts, but I don't know if that's in the cards since again the fans know nothing. :P But anyway I just hope the album really showcases Clay's voice in all its many dimensions and backs it up with some eclectic sounds. And world domination wouldn't hurt either. *g* I would love for Clay to break into the international market in a big way with the new album. I believe the pieces are all there, with Aiken's force of personality and incredible voice--it takes something damn special for Clay to have 10K fans in Korea, a country he's never been to and has only had a commercial jingle played on air; I just hope the marketing plans back him up!

Tags: new music, Nelly Furtado, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Evanescence, Justin Timberlake,Clay Aiken, Katharine McPhee, Green Day, Dixie Chicks, Keane, Jewel

The Bachelor

So apparently People magazine has named this year's American Idol, Taylor Hicks, as their "Hottest Bachelor." Here's a scary picture from the photoshoot of TH surrounded by what appear to be sixteen year old groupies. To which my reaction was: WTF and ROTFL. I guess they wanted to try something different. Me, I'll be passing on this particular issue and waiting for them to do an Orlando Bloom with beautiful cheekbones cover because I am shallow. ;)

Anyway, the whole bachelor thing just reminded me of this really funny skit I read a while back, written by Jude at the Clackhouse, which cast Clay Aiken as the celebrity bachelor and his various internet fans as his dates. Here's the link for those who want to revisit for a good laugh: Celebrity Bachelor by Jude.

Tags: Taylor Hicks, bachelor, Orlando Bloom, Clay Aiken, skit

Changing Perceptions

I consider myself a fairly avid fan of Carrie Underwood. Wasn't a huge fan during her Idol run, but her charm and intelligence in the interviews after her win last year really won me over, and when her album came out I was doubly impressed that her vocals had improved markedly over her Idol days; I even went to her first headlining concert this year in January in Portland, Maine, and I had never traveled to see anyone in concert save Clay Aiken. Great voice, lovely young woman, but somewhat reserved and awkward even in front of an adoring crowd. My associations of her are basically lookswise, a innocent fairy-tale ice princess sort of girl; singing-wise, probably the heir apparent to Faith Hill as a sweet, blonde, pretty, big country-pop ballad belter.

And then today I saw this picture of her:

And suddenly my mental image of Carrie and her future in music shifts dramatically. Maybe she's going to go an entirely different direction than that which I had previously imagined. Instead of sweet and innocent, she now looks hot and rocking. Wow. I'm now wondering if it's possible that she's going to go after the massive Shania Twain audience of being more entertaining, saucy attitude-driven music with a hot look. She has a long way to go in stage presence but she's come so far in so many ways that it's no longer out of the realm of my imagination that it could happen. But I would have never thought of it without seeing that picture.

So if a mere picture could make me rethink about what Ms. Underwood is capable of in her career, I can only imagine the seismic shock that two minutes on TV with a brand new look is shifting musical expectations of Mr. Clay Aiken.

In a related tangent, today at the bookstore I was leafing through the book, Blink , which presented some thought-provoking theories on "first impressions," why sometimes they're right on and other times they're dead wrong. The author presented a case of an aspiring musician who was raved over by music industry executives and live audience alike, but couldn't catch a break because of marketing research, as callout on snippets of his songs were terrible. Basically, what it came down to was that the execs and the live concert audiences could see a slice of the whole package of what the artist presented and loved it, but when they broke his music down to sparse pieces of information, it translated poorly because the testers had the wrong slice of information. This case was presented as analogous to the Pespi/Coke taste test. Pepsi (the sweeter drink) consistently rated higher on sip tests but when people drank whole bottles at home they preferred buying Coke because of brand image and a flavor that held up better when you had to drink a whole can instead of just sipping a taste. It's all very interesting.

There was also an anecdote that I found particularly provoking; that of an art collector who dissects art so much that it's difficult for him to judge what appeals to him after so much analysis that he would have the art locked away for a while and covered in black and then some time later would suddenly uncover the art and instinctively judge based on that flash reveal whether the art was really good or not so great, and then go with that piece of information to decide whether he ultimated wanted the piece or not. Sure made me think a lot of Clay's dramatic reveal after months of nothingness. Here he is, presented in 3-D, judge for what you see in front of you and not based on all your preconceptions that have faded away. I wonder if the people at Strategic Artist Management have read Blink? LOL.

Tags: Carrie Underwood, Clay Aiken, Blink, perceptions

Resistance is Futile

A few days ago I blogged about How I discovered Clay Aiken, but I must admit that it was very difficult shaking off years of being a pop music hater. I grew up playing classical piano for twelve years and classical was the only station my mom ever listened to in the car. When I had my druthers, I would switch to sports talk radio, because I was the teen sports trivia queen utterly obsessed with statistics and sports history. Popular music? Feh. I spent my childhood rolling my eyes at my contemporaries who loved Paula Abdul or NKOTB and my teenage years strongly resisting my best friend obsessed with country music's pleas to accompany her to concerts. My college years, I joined in with the file-sharers who had no respect for record companies. In short: Number of CDs purchased in my first twenty -two years of life: 0. Number of concerts attended in my first twenty-two years of life: 0.

So along comes this Aiken guy with all his charm and wit and talent to turn my world upside down when I saw him on the Tonight Show, but I still couldn't quite take the plunge to buy that CD, because I just don't believe in buying CDs, you know? I was watching the message boards pretty intently by this point, however, and knew that Mr. Aiken had an appearance coming up on Saturday Night Live, and I decided if he could wow me again then, I would *takes deep breath* buy his CD.

And then this happened:

Wow, those clothes look nice on him. What is he doing with his eyes? Gah! And the mic stand moves? OMG! Is that a growl I heard? Squee! You get the picture. I was beyond impressed that not only was this Clay Aiken guy smart, funny, talented and professional, he was most definitely sexy too. Ordered that copy of Measure of a Man from Amazon.com in a jiffy after that. :)

ETA after watching again: How could I forget those eyelashes! And his bopping along while acknowledging the band was too cute.

ETAA to add another video of "The Way:"

I LOVED the lipbite and wide-eyed wonder he shows at the end of the performance here. He's in full pop/rock star mode while performing but just drinks in the crowd appreciation with this incredulous "I can't believe I'm here" look that's positively swoon-worthy.

Technorati Tags: Clay Aiken, Saturday Night Live

More Cute Clay Fan Interaction

I like lots of music, but the main reason that Clay Aiken remains my favorite singer by a long shot is because he is so fun to watch on stage, regardless of whether he's singing or not, and his concert banter is always so funny. This is a memory from my first concert ever, when I made my mom drive me to the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as Kingston, RI). At this concert, Clay responded to a young fan's sign in the audience asking to pet Raleigh, Clay's dog, and Clay brought the puppy and the fan on stage to meet. I think the little girl got more than she bargained for when Raleigh started licking her face! Also funny: Clay asking Raleigh to say "Nice to meet you" on the microphone and then having to wipe down the mic on his shirt after Raleigh licks that too.

Video compiled from footage by SecretlyLovesClay and buzztechie:

Technorati Tags: Clay Aiken, Raleigh