Norman Lebrecht on Susan Boyle

I've been following the Susan Boyle phenomenon all the way down to today, when she placed second in the final of the Britain's Got Talent competition. I was disappointed when her singing on both the semi-final and today's final didn't seem to me to be up to the standard of her first performance. That's easily explained on the basis of nerves, though, after what she's been through in the last few weeks with all the public attention and even harassment. I'm not sure how much it had to do with her losing in any case. This is a call-in public vote competition and it's hard to know what moves people to vote. The dance group Diversity, the winners, were in fact very good and very entertaining. But Boyle is still expected to go on and have the career she's always wanted. It's possible her loss was a blessing too, since it may take some of the glare of the public eye off her for a while.

I don't have the expertise to judge her voice but its richness when she really belts it is wonderful to my ear, and she also has that richness in quieter songs like "Cry Me a River" and "Killing Me Softly" -- old performances of hers that have been found and posted on the net. None of it is my kind of music but I really enjoy the sound of her voice in them.

People who say, rightly or wrongly, that there are other voices better than hers are missing the point. She's been a contestant on an amateur talent show, someone who always wanted a career and is good enough to have it. She doesn't have to be the best who ever lived to qualify for that.

I appreciate what Norman Lebrecht had to say about her voice recently, in his colorful prose:

...a voice as full as Loch Lomond in flood.

...a voice that seemed to come from nowhere, delivering show tunes like a pro.

...Boyle, with a voice that is reputedly untrained, works with comfort within a contralto range, taking the top in her stride and delivering arias with little dynamic variation. The vibrato is well controlled and the pitch is, unlike the still-touring [Paul]Potts, pin-point.

...She could pass any professional audition without difficulty, provided it was a blind audition and the judges weren’t influenced by her middle-aged, dull looks.

His assessment of her voice is to be trusted I think, because he's a music critic by profession.

But then he sums up her talent as "small" which leaves me wondering.

Millions from Kenya to Korea will be rooting for Boyle to win on Saturday night, not because they admire her small and very specific talent but because they live in hope that her dream could somehow be theirs. Boyle is the first heroine of the Yes We Can universe.

He goes on about the fantasy of success her story seems to have generated across the world and I suppose there's a lot to that, and he's not the first to say it. But it's still her voice itself that I enjoy the most, that to my mind not-so-small talent that is "as full as Loch Lomond in flood."

Miss California lost Miss USA because she opposes gay marriage

OOPS UPDATE, 11/05/09. Turns out Miss Prejean had made some sort of explicit sex tape that was produced during the legal battle in which she sought damages from the pageant administrators for her loss over an unfair political question. It WAS an unfair question, or at least an unfair judgment of her answer, but there are more important issues involved here. I said already (below) that a supposedly Christian girl shouldn't be exposing so much of herself in public anyway, but it turns out she'd already exposed even MORE of herself than the string bikini displayed. I really don't get this. How can so many people THINK they are Christian but act this way? It seems to be an epidemic of sorts these days. I'm assuming of course that she considered herself a Christian at the time of the taping too. Perhaps I'm wrong about that but I haven't heard otherwise yet.

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(original post) Here's a link to the story at a well known liberal site, the Huffington Post, where they are calling Miss California "bigoted" and "intolerant" for saying she believes marriage is between a man and a woman. A more conservative sourceFox News has more showing how many are against this girl for having the guts to give her true opinion, including the co-directors of the California pageant. Here she says "God was testing my faith."

My feelings are mixed but not about the main topic. I really don't think Christians should be parading around in a tiny string bikini in front of the world in the first place, and Miss Prejean claims to be a Christian who is praying for the judge who asked her the question about gay marriage.

But accepting the terms of the beauty pageant, nobody should be judged on their political opinion. In ANY context really. Opinion should be a matter of personal right. So much for our Constitution. Well, it's been getting trashed for a long time and it's only going to get worse as self-appointed judges of what is the ONLY right opinion for anyone to have, the truly bigoted ones, are allowed to determine the fate of people who believe differently -- just as in any fascist state. In case you haven't noticed America is no longer free and it's getting worse all the time.

My opinion is that the judge should be disqualified and Miss California should be reinstated to share the win with Miss North Carolina.

Most likely it won't happen. Read the angry self-righteous opinions of those who are now vilifying Miss Prejean. They aren't going to give an inch.

But good for her. She says she's not sorry for what she said. It's what she believes and although it cost her the crown it was worth it.

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June 10
Now she's been fired from her position as Miss California, on the ground that she's failed to live up to her contract to make appearances for the organization. She claims she's made all the appearances she was asked to make.

What this is all about, it seems to me, is the sea change in the moral climate. It's about how the moral climate has now been reversed to the point that it's traditional morality that is denounced in tones of the same deep moral outrage that was once directed against violations of that traditional morality, by those who have the power to enforce their views. I think that only a few years ago they couldn't have done this to her. Of course this is the way things have been going more and more for years now, the calling of good evil and evil good as the Bible puts it. But when it has the power to triumph as far down as a beauty contest I think we've reached the watershed.

Susan Boyle gains the world

Susan Boyle always wanted to have a singing career and it never worked out. She sang in school and in the church choir, she sang karaoke at the local pub, she sang in local competitions, she won trophies, she even cut a couple of records, one at her own expense, but none of it brought her the career she wanted. Then two years after her mother's death and in honor of her mother's encouragement she applied for Britain's Got Talent and there is now no doubt she will have the career she's always wanted. She showed she has the voice for it, which she always knew.

She doesn't even claim that her voice is particularly outstanding, just that it's a good voice and should be her career. Most of the rest of us do think her voice is outstanding. When I went to other You Tube videos to compare her sound to various singers who were mentioned in comparison to her I didn't think any of them measured up, except Vera Lynn who was famous during World War II. On one of the many TV interviews about Susan Boyle, Amanda Holden, one of the judges at BGT, said what I thought too, that Susan's voice is actually better than Elaine Paige's, the singer Susan said has the success she'd aim for. Ms. Paige's voice is beautiful, but Susan's is extraordinary. Is it as good as Streisand's or Dion's? I can't really judge that because I don't really like their music overall, but I'd have to say it's in that general category of superstrong voices. In any case I'd enjoy hearing Susan sing more than either of them myself.

What about her being such a simple dowdy unattractive woman? That's what got her all the attention. If she'd had the spectacular voice but also the glamorous image of a singer she'd no doubt have received less attention.

But Susan is now famous for her personality as much as her voice. "Guileless" someone rightly described her. She seems to have no interest in living the life of a big star, in doing anything but singing for her living while living the life she's always lived. She's not much interested in having a makeover though she leaves open the possibility. "What's wrong with looking like Susan Boyle?" she asks. Her ambition goes as far as singing for the public, period.

Of course she's in for so many new experiences in the next months and years you have to expect her to rethink things as time goes on. We'll see if things look different to her down the road a ways.

She's thrilled and amazed at all the acclaim but all she really wanted to do was "show them" she could sing and that her appearance didn't matter. "It's not a beauty contest" she said. Well, she showed them. She showed the whole world.

I like a Cinderella story, we all do. I'll be watching for her next appearance on BGT, which I've heard is scheduled for May 23rd, which of course will be immediately all over YouTube and the news headlines.