#1 Shooting baskets
Boston Herald

#2 Leaning on the NBA Fionals trophy
Boston Herald

I wanted to share the pictures, but can’t download them.
For the DC fans, check these out.

Argh, I swear I did in fact look and just failed to see. *facepalm* I think maybe I skipped a page of comments by accident or something. :/ Sorry for the repeat (and for whatever I contributed to the dead-horse-beating). I did find it a big difference myself, so I thought it was of interest.

Actually, my bad. The HQ video was posted on the blog, but not in this thread. I believe it was posted and was discussed in yesterday’s daily thread.

So, no worries…

Somebody already posted that version about 1 page ago. The sound quality is better, but it doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t change my perception of his performance at all.

Argh, I swear I did in fact look and just failed to see. *facepalm* I think maybe I skipped a page of comments by accident or something. :/ Sorry for the repeat (and for whatever I contributed to the dead-horse-beating). I did find it a big difference myself, so I thought it was of interest.

We all know that David Cook is very talented and is capable of changing the arrangement of the song. But he didn’t. It’s obvious that he uses his brain. He knows what ought to be altered and what ought not to. For eg., he didn’t change the arrangement of Music of the Night in AI because it is timeless & to honour Andrew Lloyd Webber. NA should be sang simple and straight, in which he did. One shouldn’t embellish the NA. He did hit the big note and hit it strong! Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m certainly proud of him.

And I don’t find him looking scared either. He was just honouring his country by looking intensely at the flag. That’s the way it should be sung, like a warrior!

I have seen even multi-platnuim artists mess it up. There is no one, and I mean no one, who can maintain perfection 100% of the time.

It is my belief that the average American Idol fan wanted David Cook to do a GOOD job because he may be the first exposure for many basketball fans to the TV program – American Idol. Having an outstanding performance would “prove” he’s a terrific singer and a bright light for AI.

OK, so some fans (both AI and basketball) weren’t pleased. Let’s move on and hope David will have another opportunity before a national audience to show that he can do a nice job. I wish him the best.

Screw you mj, your a fine one to be calling people uber fans.

Wow. I wasn’t even responding to you. But, whatever. Thanks for stopping by.

I think it’s time to bury the horse. LOL

This conversation is becoming really tedious. There’s only so much dead horse beating I’m willing to allow. And just so you know, the minute this thread degenerates into a fan war, I’m closing comments. Enough.

but those who do not watch the show think it is absolutely ridiculous that he won and I am a bit ashamed.

Amazing! How do “those who do not watch the show” even know what David sounds like, let alone care enough to form opinion of his win? It boggles the mind! I wish I could form concrete opinions about shows I don’t watch, I’d never run out of things to talk about!
If what you meant is that your dad formed his entire evaluation of DC based on the NA, then all I can say is – too bad for him. He’s probably missing out on some great things if he makes all of his judgement calls based on so little.

unfortunately for David Cook, this performance will always à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“followà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  him.

Please. It’s only been two days, and already it’s not “following” him. Tonight he’ll have a new public appearance on Leno, new interviews and articles have already surfaced to capture the fans’ interest. The only ones still harping about this are the haters. I’m sure some would love to think this is some crashing blow, but really? Don’t kid yourselves. It’s a blip, and it’s already fading.

David Cook is a great performer, but those who do not watch the show think it is absolutely ridiculous that he won and I am a bit ashamed.

Have you conducted a scientific poll? I’d love to see the results.

Two years ago, Elliott Yamin sang the National Anthem for the NBA Finals. He began the song a little too high, and wound up riffing and running his way through the high notes rather than hitting them cleanly. Changing up the NA can be a very controversial move, and it was. At the time, people went batshit on the boards. I do believe I had a few boardacides that night, things got so heated. LOL.

Since then, he’s sung the National Anthem at other events and has done a great job. He can hit the high notes when he starts the song properly. Also, in the two years since then, Elliott has had a hit song on the charts, and a successful album. He’s still considered one of the best voices to come out of AI.

His hit song, his successful album, the great work he’s done on behalf of diabetes, his ever-improving performance skills on the touring circiut–these are the things that people think of and discuss when Elliott Yamin comes to mind–not his SSB performance from two years ago.

The performance is merely a flash in DCà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s career. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll move on.

Thank you immensely for being objective.

Heh. Someone asked who is singing the National Anthem at tonight’s game, and clearly no one knows or cares. LOL. David should be proud.

I do think that even though it was in the past, it will always be a direct comparison to other AI performances and other singers in general… so for that, unfortunately for David Cook, this performance will always “follow” him.

Oh, the fanatics will continue to argue on the boards, but the casual fan? Won’t care a bit. I’ve been following AI closely for 3 years, so I know this.

But, at least we now have the SBB to do direct comparisons, and these will always be made, from here on forward.

For the uber fans to continue and perpetuate fan wars, maybe, but otherwise? Not so much.

What’s going to matter in the long run are the records that the Idols put out and how successful they are–not some versions of the SSB that a few people made a point of watching.

The performance is merely a flash in DCà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s career. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll move on.

Thank you, mj. It’s good to see some level of proportion in this discussion.
This performance is now a thing of the past, good or bad as it was, it’s not anything which will impact DCs career in any way. It certainly brought out the vultures who were just waiting for DC to have a bad day to pick at him, but that’s OK, it makes no difference in the long run.

FWIW, the davidcookai7 LJ and twop threads have turned up another version of the SSB that sounds WAY better (and corresponds to my own experience watching the HDTV version). So, thereà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s some explanation for the wide discrepancy of opinions (other than that half of us are crazy Cook fans and the other half are crazy Cook h8rs) *g*

Somebody already posted that version about 1 page ago. The sound quality is better, but it doesn’t change my perception of his performance at all.

I’m a fan of David Cook, but I accept the fact that he’s not always going to be The! Most! Fantastic! Singer! Ever!

His version of the SSB was OK. He was clearly nervous, it had some rough spots and he sounded hoarse. He sang in tune, remembered the words and he hit the high notes, which is good. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t fantastic–just another average version of the SSB. I don’t think it’s a big deal. The performance is merely a flash in DC’s career. He’ll move on.

And yes, this song is hard, but it’s hard for the other people who have sung it better, so again… this is not an excuse for him not singing it well. Unless he’s just not good enough of a singer to sing it well, which is the only thing I get when I hear that it’s just “a hard song to sing.”

As for the hq version.. I watched it and it didn’t sound any different, really. I did hear some more cheers at the end but it was super short. He didn’t look too happy with it when he walked off either.

Here’s the HQ youtube version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdo9rusQt2o

(click on ‘watch in high quality’)

I didn’t personally love some of his enunciation choices, and those first three notes were bad, but it’s a world of difference from the streaming version. You can also hear him get a ton of cheering. So, for anyone who listened to just the streaming version and have since been wondering why the entire MSM and half the listeners seem to be on crack, or those who listened to the good one and have been wondering wtf everyone is complaining about, try a swap and see.

I would guess that the official streams have very lossy audio encoding to minimize the filesize and ensure smooth delivery — you don’t exactly need a ton of audio quality to follow a sports game, and you do need to devote all your resources to following the high-speed video action. I’d bet on a 16 or 24 Kbps encoding rate (compare to 128 Kbps for a decent MP3). Hence the yuck.

I also watched Syesha and DA’s national anthem performances. I think I like DA’s better but don’t like he added some of his signature runs and changed some notes in the song (call me old-fashioned but National Anthem should not be modified for whatever reasons. It’s America’s National Anthem, not DA’s National Anthem). Syesha gave out one that everyone expected the Anthem should be sung but somewhat unimpressive (somehow, she kept reminding me of Whitney Houston and I kept saying “not as good”).

If we’re going to have a SBB pool then I need to go look up Archie’s rendition as I haven’t heard it. LOL

I doubt he’s had that much down time because he looks exhausted. He needs a tan like a fish needs water. Dave, this is Los Angeles – just go buy a tan.