HE Pennypacker

I thought Ty, Jordis, and Marty were the best tonight. It'll be interesting to see tomorrow night's show since it'll be the first time certain people perform INXS material.

A-aron

If the ratings were that poor with it coming on Monday at 9pm EST, I can only imagine they will be worse for Tuesday (since it came on at 10 est - AND against the All-Star Game).

FrozenMetalHead

How bout Rockstar: Guns N Roses. Course, it could be a pretty long show, with Axl having to pick a few guitarists, a bass player, a drummer, a keyboardist, a few horn players, fire a guitarist and bass player, pick a few backup singers, repick guitarist and bass player...

fuzzbox

I've only watched the first episode, but am I the only one who thinks that a LOT of this show is 'beefed up" for TV?

Firstly, I'm amazed at the reactions of all the singers. They make it seem like they're going to be the lead signer of Metallica, or No Doubt, some other band that's huge right now. Maybe I haven't been following the music biz much, but wasn't INXS' last hit song 15+ years ago? maybe they're huge in Australia or something, but I couldn't help laughing when someone made the comment about how it would be bad if one of the singers forgot the words to a song in front of 50,000 people. Where are they planning on finding 50,000 people to play in front of?

Things just seem a bit too predictable- when Ty came out on stage, my wife, in a complete joke said "what, is he gonna do a Living Colour song?", and then he did! In fact, are we really supoosed to believe that the house band just happened to know how to play each of the singers choice of songs perfectly, without any rehearsal?

all this show seems to be is American Idol, without the call-in aspect, and replacing Clive Davis with INXS...

I could go on, but then I'd just be doing more threadcrapping.

-jason

cdollaz

Being a fan of INXS in the past, I checked out the episode last night and...what a freaking trainwreck. Is INXS actually obligated to have one of these jokers as their lead singer? First of all, there shouldn't be any women on here. You can't go from a male singer to a female singer. Second, all of these hopefuls' stage presence has American Idol written all over it. None of them had any "rockstar" qualities. If I went to see a band and their singer acted like the p*****s I saw on stage last nite, I would be laughing thru the entire set. Regardless if any of them can sing (I'm sure they have some ability since they are on the show), none of them have any business fronting a legitimate rock band.

Gil Jawetz

This is a mess. Burnett dropped the ball for the first time. Too much like Idol. The singers are mostly too slick for INXS. I listened to Kick this morning. Hutchence was great because his voice, while really excellent, was unadorned: It was straight-forward but flexible and evocative. And of course, his stage presence puts these kids to shame. These singers are mostly just Idol-types with tats. I'm not overly enamored of Ty, either. The best ones are probably the skinny guy who did the Stones and CCR and the guy with the 10 O' clock shadow. I could potentially see them pulling it off.

In the end, however, INXS should have pulled a Velvet Revolver / Audioslave and hooked up with a peer, if they could arrange that.

Roto

Yes, but Neal did exactly what I feared. Give him a Creedence song and he still goes out there and does Mick Jagger moves. He's good at it, but if he does that for every song, it's going to get him eliminated at some point.

megashock5

So far Ty is my pick. I'd like to hear how he handles some INXS songs, but he has enough of his own style that it wouldn't seem like they tried to find a Michael Hutchence clone.

Roto

They could definitely go with a female singer. I could picture Jordis winning the competition. They'd get bigger publicity for picking a woman.

I really disagree with the trainwreck comment and American Idol comparisons. Almost every single one of them are better rock singers than anyone who has been on Idol. The only big problem I've seen is some of them go over the top and just spaz out.

uteotw

I think Marty is fantastic and does, in fact, have a "stage presence" that's good but not overblown. I'm not sure what INXS is obligated to do, exactly, with the winner, but so far I think the show rocks.

BDLOU

I don't understand the bashing of this show. It's excellent if you ask me. They actually have some great talent here. Jordis is freakin awesome. Apparently, if you loved INXS back in the day then you can't like this I guess. I was an INXS fan but admittedly only really listened to Kick. The show is not about replacing Hutchence. That can't be done. Watch this for what it is for. American Idol done correctly.

iggystar

Me too. There's no way I'm listening to a girl sing "Need You Tonight".

cdollaz

I see absolutely zero difference between this and American Idol.

If they want to do it right, have a bunch of legitimate musicians do 2 things:

1. Perform some of their own material
2. Perform INXS songs with INXS


No cover band or cover songs. No silly stage presence. NO PUBLIC VOTING.

Just get up on stage, show your shit, and get off.

Seeing these people prance around stage is just funny.

HE Pennypacker

INXS' last hit was in 1997, the title track off the album ELEGANTLY WASTED. Naturally, if you didn't listen to much music during that time you would assume their last hit was 15+ years ago!

As far as the comparisons to American Idol go, Rock Star blows that crappy show out of the water. First of all, Rock Star doesn't depend on sub-par singers and the William Hung's to generate talk and boost up ratings. All the contestants are legitimate performers with some actual talent. Secondly, it is good to not have irritating judges constantly spewing out dreck. At least Navarro and INXS members dish out constructive criticism to the contestants.

As far as picking a female lead is concerned, I agree with the poster who hinted at the absurdity of that. Even though INXS did perform a few gigs with a female lead (her name doesn't come to mind) years back, I honestly don't see their music working with a chick's voice. They should have replaced a few of the women with more talented men, at least INXS would have a better crop to select from.

With that said, here are my favorites to date:

Marty--- I can really see him doing well with the band.

Ty---Excellent rocker, if not for INXS.

J.D.---Apparently he is a long-time INXS fan, that could be a plus.

Jordis---Not for INXS, but she has some great potential.

DRG

I'm sort of confused how the elimination system works. On the premiere INXS eliminated a contestant, but now there's voting. Is the lowest votegetter going home, a la Idol? Or is INXS just going to use the votes as a guideline to help gauge popularity?

HE Pennypacker

Apparently after the Tuesday show, the public will vote for who they like best. The three people who get the LEAST amount of votes will then be forced to perform an INXS song on the Wednesday Elimination show. INXs will then let go of one person depending on how they perform their own songs. Not a bad method to eliminate people if you ask me.

Therefore tonight's show should be interesting.

superdeluxe

My top two are Jordis and Ty

Ty brings a crap load of energy..and Jordis...not sure if this is right for her..should have a recording contract..

She reminds me of Amy Lee...with better vocals.

Holy crap on TY: Dude got a full scholarship to Carnegie Mellon for drama/music

He also had two top 10 hits with dakota moon..and was a singer on the QUEEN musical in vegas.

BDLOU

How about some patience? They need to weed out the people that just don't have the talent. Once they do this, they will then start to jam with the band and see which singer fits best. As far as the contestants own music, that may also be part of the show but I can imagine why they would leave it out. They have to play to the audience. There are some of us that would like that but the majority would not. There are plenty of differences as HE Pennypacker has shown. The show has actual well rounded talent which blows AI away. I also doubt you will see INXS force these people to sing something that they wouldn't be singing if they won. This is just a refreshing view at the modern rock scene.

DRG

Thanks, HE Pennypacker.

And about performing their own material.... I agree with BDLOU. I don't think they would grab a big initial audience with "original material". Once the show has its foothold and people have started picking their favorites among the contestants, then I could see it.

mlemmond

I really like this show and I don't usually watch reality tv.

Gil is probably going home tonight.

Gil Jawetz

I go home every night, baby.

cdollaz

I disagree without just about everything you said, but that's just differing opinions on what talent is I guess.

None of them that I saw have stage presence that fits in with INXS music in my opinion. Yes, Ty may have a lot of energy and a cool haircut, but he looks silly jumping around stage and over-emoting. Just because someone has energy and a good voice doesn't make them rockstar material. It's like these guys are trying too hard.

As far as well-rounded talent goes, how can you tell after they have each performed a couple of rock songs. First, if you can only sing, you are not well-rounded talent-wise. Second, I don't watch American Idol but don't they at least have to sing a few different styles of music on that one.

If this is a refreshing view of the modern rock scene, then we music lovers are in trouble.

Gil Jawetz

Exactly. It's the star search version of the rock scene. It's not even really the fault most of the performers. Rock is not pop and the environment doesn't work. Rock is (supposed to be) personal. I was hoping in typical MB fashion that this show wouldn't have live USA-TEXT-MESSAGE type shenanigans but would be more like the fantastic Contender where the musicians live in some proximity to the band and they help them develop their talents together. That would have been great. This is just mugging.

The Smells Like Teen Spirit performance was only the most obvious example of what is wrong with the whole process. As Navarro said, that song and that band are sacred and using it in this sort of Star Search kind of way is a betrayal. The way the guy waved when he sang "hello hello hello" was just too pathetic for words. The show kind of died a little bit for me in that moment.

fuzzbox

hmmm. looking at inxs.com says that that song was #1 in South Africa and top 20 in Australia and the UK. Doesn't mention any chart placement in the US. Looks like their last US hit was in 1990 (suicide blonde) or 1991 (shining star). Not bad off the top of my head....

-jason

HE Pennypacker

Having seen INXS a total of three times over the course of 12 years (2 with Hutch and once a couple years ago with Jon Stevens), I can honestly say a couple of the guys are definitely INXS material. I think Marty, J.D., and Ty can due a fantastic job at the helm. None of them will ever get to the level of Hutchence, but I think they can hold their own.

There is no doubt that EVERY contestant on the show has talent. The audition process wasn't like American Idol, the15 people were selected from all over the WORLD, throughout six continents. These people aren't the teens who seem to think they have talent because they can sing wonderfully in the shower (see American Idol). If you read the bios for the 15 people EVERY SINGLE one has some extent of musical experience. Most of them have even opened for well known bands such as Aerosmith & Velvet Revolver, among others.

I agree with BDLOU, you must have patience for a show like this. We're on episode three of approx. 40 episodes. I'm sure they will start singing "different styles" when the time comes. I have a feeling that once the show narrows down to the final 3-5 contestants, it will seriously ROCK. I can't wait for that moment.