Celebrating Siobhan Magnus
Admittedly, my vow to review Idol 9 regularly was completely hollow, and I apologize. For what it’s worth, it’s not because I’ve hated the season. People seem convinced that it’s the worst one yet, but truth be told I think it’s much, much better than last year’s disaster. Sure, ten of the top twelve are/were totally blah, but the fact (yes, fact) is that Siobhan Magnus and Crystal Bowersox make that all null and void. I can’t begin to descibe how great it feels (in case you have noticed, I get invested in these things!) to actually have not one favourite, but two. It’s not like last year, when I forced myself to support Allison/Kris/Adam due to there being nobody else to like. No, I actually care about these two, which makes this season great.
Now, you can probably gauge this from the title, but Siobhan in particular has emerged as my true AI9 favourite. From the Irish name to the glasses to the scream to the beautiful falsetto to the smile to the song choices to the general weirdness to the ACTUAL talent, everything about her is kinda perfect. Well, imperfect perfection, if that makes sense. She certainly isn’t pitch perfect with every performance, but who honestly cares? When you’re as talented as she is then it doesn’t matter that much. The point is that she sounds absolutely stunning when she sings slow songs (‘Across the Universe’ was my favourite performance of the season, followed by ‘House of the Rising Sun’), and in addition, she has just the enthusiasm and passion needed to pull off those Aretha/Stevie numbers. Is she soulful in the conventional sense? No. But she’s captivating, engaging and enchanting. She loves what she does, and she just goes for it. There’s no real pretense there – just a sense of love for both herself and her voice. She’s absolutely relative, which is a large reason for her success on the show so far.
Ranking her performances? Hmmm…
1) Across the Universe (Top 9)
2) Living for the City (Hollywood)
3) The House of the Rising Sun (Top 16)
4) Paint It, Black (Top 12)
5) Wicked Game (Top 24)
6) Think (Top 20)
7) Superstition (Top 11)
8] Through the Fire (Top 10)
Of course, I won’t deny that TTF was pretty terrible, but I actually think that might work to her advantage. A winner generally needs to mess up at one point or another, because otherwise they’ll become too consistent, and as a result ‘safe’. Safe in the sense that the viewers will consider them so, thus rendering them unsafe. Heh. I’m looking at you Crystal. Don’t get me wrong, I think Miss Bowersox is absolutely fantastic too, but I don’t want her to win. The Idol contract will do her no favours (Bo Bice anyone?), and as far as quality goes, I think her best bet would be to leave in Top 5/4/3, sign to an independant label and do her own thing. I mean, can you imagine how much worse Brooke White’s album would have been had she rushed it with a mainstream label. Instead she went in her own direction, and as a result ended up releasing the best Idol album EVER in ‘High Hopes & Heartbreak’. 
So yes, Siobhan for the win. Vote ScreamQueen, people.
Tags: AI9, American Idol, American Idol 9, American Idol Season 9, blog, Brooke White, Crystal Bowersox, High Hopes & Heartbreak, Season 9, Siobhan Magnus
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April 10, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Just got two things to say:
1) Didi wasn’t ‘blah’.
2) Siobhan’s Wicked Games was actually better than Paint It, Black. Also, Across the Universe is definitely NOT her best performance.
April 10, 2010 at 3:10 pm
1) She wasn’t blah on ‘Rhiannon’, and her Rolling Stones performance is debatable, but everything else was blah or below.
2) Well, they’re all brilliant.
April 10, 2010 at 5:38 pm
1) “Terrified”? Since you’ve counted Siobhan’s Living for the City.
2) Nah, only WG and HoTS were brilliant. Everything else was blah or below. Paint It, Black could have been brilliant if she wasn’t so darn pitch-y. Sure, her performances are always exciting (except for Across the Universe), but that doesn’t translate to perfect vocals – at least not for me. (Also, Living for the City was pretty good, too.)
I realise we’re just going to go around in circles, lol.
April 10, 2010 at 11:20 pm
1. Oh, well I didn’t even try to like that. I was still anti-Didi back then, because of the dead friend and the Brooke comparisons.
2. PIB wasn’t that off-pitch. She missed a few notes in the middle, but that was about it. ATU *was* excited. Like the other two slow ones, but even more exciting because of the awesome lighting and staging. Although I prefer ‘enchanting’ to ‘exciting’. <3
Yes, defo. Thanks for the responses though!
April 12, 2010 at 2:00 pm
2. Heh, yeah. One of the perks of being a producers’ favorite.
My pleasure, mate.
April 10, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Very well said! I agree with pretty much everything you said.