Huh. I seem to be a minority of *1* here.I agree with several of your points, but I do think a good portion of the band's comments are valuable. Certainly more clear and constructive than anything we hear on AI. I can't remember alot of them specificlly -- I'll take better notes next week -- but many of them did make sense to me.
First off, I don't think it's out-of-line for them to expect the contestants to view their previous bands as a reference-point in Supernova's style. "Dirty Rock Band" actually gives me a fairly clear picture. I thought Zayra made an arse of herself with her childish & defensive responses to them. It looked to me like she was very deliberately trying to 'cop a rocker attitude' both then, and last night when they asked if she was surprised to be in the bottom 3. I didn't believe her "cockiness" for a moment. (I also think she sang the same song because she has zero in her repertoire, but that's a different thread.)
Dave, Gilby & Jason in particular give usable critiques. I get the impression that Tommy has deliberately chosen the role of DAW Clown-Pig. I WISH I could remember the comment, but (I think week 1, not this week) at one point, Tommy made a really interesting comment that made me think "oops, his clown-face slipped" and it reminded me that even though he's probably the biggest DAW in the known universe, he's still an experienced, established musician (and clearly a savvy business man as well, hence the "established" part).
Dave was 100% right to call Jill on her Courtney impersonation (I only wish he had also done it last week with her Janis impersonation). She went beyond stupid when she lied about it. And the 'authenticity' he was trying to explain to Chris is a difficult concept to get across in 10 seconds - it's like the It Factor that people talk about...but I do think that someone in the biz (Chris) should be able to understand what he meant.
Jason's advice to Phil about taking a firm stance reminded me of some of the very first, and most valuable, acting advice I ever got. I liked it, and I think Phil needed to hear it.
Lukas absolutely needs advice about the way he screams & growls. It's never the healthiest thing to do, but there are ways to do it that are less damaging. I particularly liked Jason's comparison to his guitar strings -- it's true, you can't replace the tiny little muscles in your throat. Lukas was a snot with his comments about having sung the same way for 15 yrs. He's only 29! 15 years ago he was only 14 years old. I don't care who you are, you do not sing the same way you did when you were 14. Your voice isn't even physiologically the same as it was when you were 14. So he has NOT been singing this way for 15 years. Then Jason made the very points I was thinking -- how frequently does Lukas sing? For how long does he sing? Probably not as frequently OR as long as someone on a major tour. To me it was (yet another) very bad sign that Lukas is too cocky to allow himself to learn anything.
Regarding song choice, I agree - some of the songs they have to choose from are questionable (Tainted Love?). And I wish there were fewer (or no) repeats from last year.
But I think that the band's comments to some about their song choices were more about whether or not the song was right for the singer - not for the competition. And maybe they're throwing in things like Tainted Love & Ring of Fire specifically to see what these folks do with them. Remember last year when INXS assigned a Britney Spears song to Marty? That was cool.
While practically everything Tommy does is likely designed to get attention (making his intentions here suspicious), I haven't seen anything from Gilby & Jason to make me think that they're being unusually DAW-ish. Or any more DAW-ish than you need to be to do a reality show. The two of them are only known for their music -- so I'm going to assume their intentions are as up-front as INXS's were last year. I don't get the impression that they just want to be on tv.
I am bothered that they kept Zayra & booted Chris. I have no clue. I was stunned. I can only assume the conversation went like this: "None of these 3 are going to make it all the way, so it doesn't matter who we boot tonight. Zayra will probably make a fool of herself again next week, and that's good TV, so let's boot Chris." That disappoints me.