Comments on: This Kid's Got Talent

This Kid's Got Talent

VelvetHellvis — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 19:17:47 -0800

Look out Aretha, here comes Joanna Levesque --an eleven year old, R&B prodigy, who has been wowing 'em since age two. She has major recording labels knocking at her door but hasn't signed with anyone yet. I discovered Joanna's music by accident browsing on CD Baby. Her voice is amazingly mature and oh-so-soulful! LISTEN. Do you think she's the next and future Queen of Soul?

By: Ayn Marx

Ayn Marx — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 19:44:29 -0800

No.

By: Stan Chin

Stan Chin — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 19:51:33 -0800

She can jam with Tony Royster Jr, supposed 18 year old drumming prodigy. This kid was mentored by Dennis Chambers, for godssakes.

By: suprfli

suprfli — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:03:10 -0800

Nope.

By: thebigpoop

thebigpoop — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:04:35 -0800

Let me join the chorus. Nyet.

By: mcsweetie

mcsweetie — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:09:04 -0800

naw.

By: VelvetHellvis

VelvetHellvis — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:20:11 -0800

I have to agree with the "No" vote after posting this. I just have a weird fascination with child prodigies. My biggest talent as a kid was whistling through the gap in my two top front teeth.

By: bradth27

bradth27 — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:33:07 -0800

VelvetHellvis- I vote No - There's just nothing unique about her voice, although she sounds decent enough for an 11 year old.... On the other hand, Gwen Stefani, Sheryl Crow, Queen Spears, Pink, Christina Aguilera, and a butt-load of other mediocre gals made it to the top, so what do I know....

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:49:47 -0800

I'm going to have to go with 'sad,' and 'I hope her parents enjoy the ride.' God knows I'm glad my parents didn't make me do things like that when I was two.

By: LittleMissCranky

LittleMissCranky — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:53:56 -0800

She's fine, but not anything special.

By: mazola

mazola — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:17:34 -0800

Nein, non, and no.

By: bingbangbong

bingbangbong — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 22:01:10 -0800

I've watched my fair share of Behind the Musics, and seen any number of present-at-the-creation testimonials. Yeah, Shania Twain r00lz. Good talent show, but the talent involved is more imititation than empathy. She might be succesful, but Aretha never won no talent shows... ...or maybe she did. Link?

By: malphigian

malphigian — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 22:04:18 -0800

i call gimmick, and say no. Great blues/jazz vocalists have a unique voice and bring their own, real emotions to their songs. If you want to pull off real emotion with youth, you need to have some billie holiday style cred: Billie "Lady Day" Holiday was born in Baltimore in 1915. She endured a hard childhood -- her musician father left the family early, and her mother wasn't able to keep her consistently which resulted in Billie often being put in care or relatives who abused her. She was raped at age 11 and grew up in poverty. She sums it up best in the first line of her famous autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, "Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three." In 1929, she moved to New York, where she worked as a maid and then as a teenage prostitute. According to legend, in 1930 (at the age of 15), to keep her mother from being evicted, she sang Body and Soul and reduced the audience to tears. (source) Apocryphal or not, I'm willing to accept a billie holiday at 15 bringing an audience to tears, whereas this girls music reeks of obsessive parental manipulation and purely manufactured music -- combined with a creepy Jon Benet air to the whole thing. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say a good voice has very little to do with good music (christina aguilara and kelly clarkson both have good voices, they don't make good music). There's no soul in this soul.

By: essexjan

essexjan — Wed, 18 Dec 2002 04:56:28 -0800

Call me old-fashioned, but I think it's inappropriate for an 11-year-old girl to be singing "Chain of Fools" and if her parents are marketing her to an adult audience by putting songs in her repertoire that are about love, sex, adultery, etc., then I think their motives are even more dubious.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Wed, 18 Dec 2002 06:21:14 -0800

More kiddie music an gimmicks. There are plenty of genuine candidates for Queen of soul out there, you know.

By: LittleMissCranky

LittleMissCranky — Wed, 18 Dec 2002 07:55:52 -0800

Malphigian, that reminds me -- In my formative years, I sang professionally to help get me through school. I went through a period of trying to sing some hard-core jazz. My godmother, who is (or used to be) a pretty famous singer with a whole lot of cred, came to see me sing at a club. When I took a break, she gave me a sidelong glance and said, "shit, honey, you ain't even on the horse. You want to sing jazz, you got to go to jail first."

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:13:35 -0800

Maybe when she gets old enough to actually understand what the song's about ... but not right now.