Friday, December 5, 2008

David Archuleta Revisited - 'Stand By Me'


I got caught up in the seventh 'American Idol' - as you do. And with everyone else thought David Archuleta was just the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And I was wondering if I'd think the same today - and so decided to YouTube 'Stand By Me'.

Blew my fuckin' socks off!

A great arrangement that somehow didn't disturb the musical spirit of the original. Sung with a great 'classical' sense of proportion, pace, taste and restraint - that can't be learned. With the right number of thrilling vocal high-lights.



David seems to 'have it all' (ack. Samantha 'Sex and the City') - can't wait to see how his career takes off!!!

13 comments:

  1. Love Archie and am amazed how the CD gets better and better with more listening unlike the David Cook which is just 2nd rate Nickelback.

    Would love to be the one to take Archie's cherry. Mmmm Mmmm Good.


    Alan down in Florida

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  2. I have to agree with you. This kid not only has a great voice, he knows how to get the feeling of the song his singing. Not bad looking at all too. Hope you're having a great holiday season.
    wit from Louisiana.

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  3. too bad he is reported to be Mormon... what with Prop 8 and all... but haven't heard his feelings on it... but I do agree he sure does have the talent!!!! oh, yeah, and the hotness factor!!! YUMMY!!!!

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  4. hey alan

    haven't heard the CD - see lots of it on YouTube so u'd better potter off and start listening!

    think it might be a currant rather than a cherry - know what i mean!

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  5. hey wit

    when i listen to him, i get absolutely right into the meanings and feelings of the song - he has that ability to make it totally alive

    hol's are boucing along - just got a birthday and xmas invite ... so the season seems to be taking off!

    have a great one too - hope things are going ok with you

    take care

    nick

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  6. in sydney and not sure what Prop 8 is - i guess some anti-gay piece of legislation?

    and yeah, he's the total package!

    and cute in the non-sexual sense (for me)

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  7. Archie's rendition of "The Long and Winding Road" is what did it for me. His voice is just perfectly suited for the song, which really is one of the best Beatle tunes of all.

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  8. yeah, i love his 'long and winding road' too - so tender and sorrowful - touching, very.

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  9. sorry, Nick... Prop 8 is the initiative in California to ban gay marriage that WON in the last election. It was heavily backed by the Mormon church... (constitutional amendment perhaps?) anyway there is a HUGE backlash saying that it is unconstitutional for this to have passed in a public vote so the appeals continue... btw I like his long and winding ... whatever!!! well I'm sure I'd like it when and IF it is ever seen HA HA HA I know I'm terrible :-)

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  10. hey kevin

    ok, thanks for enlightening me - i suspected it was something of that sort

    we're getting the ice cold wind of re-emergent conservatism here too

    not absolutely sure it's going to be that long and winding - but i live in hope - the eternal optimist! tho reckon it'll be a while before he appears on the front cover of 'The Advocate' or some more visually-oriented mag. but again i am hopeful!

    best

    nick

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  11. But .. errr ... is he straight?
    Won't get on my soapbox about the weirdness of gay men lusting over straight ones, I've said enough stuff already! lol

    Not bad of a rendition of that song, but the classic still sounds much much better.

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  12. hey greg

    don't get the gay after straight lust thing - never had it myself but i've known those who do/did whatever. it's a kind of self-dislike ... but now i'm getting on y soap box about it !

    LOL

    the more i listen to A D's version the more subtle i see the arrangement - but the classic is always a classic

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  13. He has said in interviews that he supports the likes of (finally Out)Clay Aiken's right to live "however he chooses" (missing the point that choice has little to do with it)... the Mormon connection is suspect but many of them DO reject the Church itself (my partner's mother, for one) and Dustin Lance Black (screenwriter 'Milk' and the 'Big Love' tv series), for example, comes from a Mormon background. What concerns me more is that you were unfamiliar with Proposition 8. Nick, hundreds of thousands of LGBTs and supporters rallied last month (November) in simulatneously staged and organized protests around the world - INCLUDING Sydney. I had a set-to with another Aussie blogger about this (the 'Speedo Junkie' dude who really pissed me off by saying that as it - the passing of Prop. 8 - took place in another country he couldn't care less). Well as the USA began the Gay Liberation movement post-Stonewall, you could say what happens here is a bellwether for what will happen in the rest of the 1st world. Prop. 8 was the most damaging, vicious, piece of voter-motivated-and-approved anti-Gay political action in 40 years. Yes, really. It allowed the religiously-motivated Conservatives to strip a definable minority (that's us) of an established legal right (the right to marry under the Constitution's Equal Protection clause). The implications are chilling; it has paved the way for a theocracy setting law rather than the judiciary. And we are opposing it with every means at our disposal. My friends in Europe were onto this at once; why not Australia??? And it is also worth noting, as you speak of chill winds, that of all 1st world countries, it was the US and Australia that just this past week opposed the EU's efforts to write sexual orientation into the United Nations' Human Rights Charter. In lockstep with the USA is NOT something Australia needs to be right now, Obama notwithstanding (or have you not heard exactly WHO he has invited to give the "spiritual invocation" at his Inauguration?)... do I have to come over there and shake you!!!!???? Having said all that, best wishes to you over there for the Holidays :) and STAY ANGRY!

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