Also: Hi Noah! Hi!! (I got distracted by all of my Susan Boyle feelings that have been bubbling up...)

You only get to be famous when you're a good singer AND good-looking and/or charismatic AND lucky.

Yeah, I think these days the good singer part is optional when it comes to becoming a famous singer. (Example: Britney "Six Cats in a Blender" Spears)

Well, she's got charisma plus lucky plus drive(n family).

I am reminded of the Giles line about young male singers selected for their ability to dance.

It is really ridiculous how much Drew Barrymore looks like Little Edie Beale in that older makeup. In the ads, at least.

See I always think Drew Barrymore looks likes Jess.

ION, I really need to leave the office.

See I always think Drew Barrymore looks likes Jess.

Yeah, I can see that.

Listening to SB, I can hear where she needs to improve, but she still gives me chills and I think that with additional training she could be even more phenomenal.

I think she has the voice and the personality (woman is SASSY!) and it got me to thinking as how a person with that kind of voice wouldn't already be signed to something, and that maybe it was the looks. And for that, AI et al are good for giving exposure to folks who wouldn't get a second glance from agents, etc., bases simply on looks. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I got.

And there ain't no Susan Boyles in any of the church choirs I ever heard. But Southern Baptists tend to be a dreary lot (from what I've experienced).

And there's also that distinction of those that Can but don't care to do so professionally, and those than Can and Do. And it's the latter category that get sorted by looks and personality.

I enjoyed the performance, I enjoyed the judges and the entire audience eating crow, and I enjoyed SB.

I think she sounds (a) like millions of church choir singers, and certainly not amazing and (b) like she's imitating a recording of that song. I don't think she would shine in a performance of a song she doesn't know as well. Some of the qualities she could be trained out of -- like the scooping, her articulation, and maybe overuse of vibrato -- but also she's often flat and her low notes are cringeworthy. She swallows most of them.

ETA: I also think they edited the piece to be Paul Potts part 2 (who was also overrated).

I'm a big sap too, but what I like is that she had the nerve and gumption and got recognized for having a talent without being your usual starlet. One of those teaching moments.

This one was about our beagle Fenris.

That's a fantastic, rather Gertrude Stein bit of writing.

She has a lot more emotion in her voice than the bulk of even really good church choir singers I've known. It strikes a chord in a lot of her listeners.

She deffinately sounds like the les miz recordings but that makes sense -- she hasn't been developing pieces as her own. Why would she? She's like almost every high school singing 'star' that I've ever heard in that way.

The emotion is pretty special. The producers worked it to be certain, but its deffinately real.