Simon Cowell.

The wealth of one man who can enjoy his success, by just making fun of those who aspire to greatness. Its a sickness of the modern world.

I am befuddled as to from what source Cowell derives his "authoritative expertise".

I know Cowell as the tasteless idiot who, though back by plenty of money, handpicked and guided the popera group "Il Divo". Yes, Il Divo has a large international following, but I cannot understand why -- must be media hype.

All four singers in Il Divo are good singers, individually, but their voices generally do NOT work together, particularly wth the few and usually horrible arrangement styles provided them.

Though I'm no expert, my husband Samm and I do enjoy some crossover groups. 90% of the time Il Divo sends us racing for the mute button. The lack of "blend" in the voices is glaringly pronounced, especially with their repetoire of apparently a total of three arrangement styles.

If this is Cowell's idea of musical brilliance, I wouldn't invite him to judge my hound-dog baying contest!

(Apologies to Il Divo fans -- this is one area where our tastes differ.)

I close with part of a quote from a reviewer at Amazon concerning Cowell as much as Il Divo. The link follows the quotation.

"Here they are, ladies and gentlemen, the Limp Bizkit, no!- the INSANE CLOWN POSSE of the classical world! Assembled by Simon Cowell - that perpetually irritated Brit with hair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (is he sure AI stands for American Idol and not Artificial Intelligence?) - these four plastic-faced young lads can make you weep like a baby, though not from the soaring emotion in their voices (there is none), but merely from the immense pain they will inflict upon your eardrums. You see, Simon Cowell is an expert at crushing the dreams of youngsters hopeful of a career in music, and with Il Divo, he's successfully crushed my dream, as well - the one where I envisioned a world where music like this doesn't exist.

I can't quite decide which is the worst aspect of this music: the unsubtle, glossed-over arrangements; its shameless marketing angle which tries to pass it off as classical music when it is actually mainstream pop sung with operatic vocals, or Il Divo themselves, who, with each successive album, sound more and more enthusiastic about the fact that they are howling together like a quartet of banshees. Honestly, do they have to use a wind-tunnel's worth of vibrato with every single note they sing???? No, they don't - because when they do, and harmonize together with it, the composite timbre they produce wavers so much that they may as well be singing in different keys. Really folks, these guys are incisive as a Jimmy Buffett lyric - as soulful as a Heart guitar solo. Wait, did I call this "music," earlier? Note that I'm using that term loosely.

Also note that since Il Divo have rehashed the same basic album's worth of material three times now and simply slapped a new cover picture and title on it each time - failing at every turn to muster up any inkling of progress or creativity - that I myself shall replicate their incomparable lack of effort and repost this same review on all of their material! What's the difference anyway, ay boys??!!

And so now we must ask ourselves, where will Rocketship Il Divo finally land? What fate beholds this blindingly chiseled foursome who dare to call themselves "singers." Well, hopefully a few years from now, after the last scratched-up Il Divo CD lands in your local used record store's 99 cent bin, and after the last half-deaf grandma empties her change purse to buy it, maybe one or two of these guys will succeed in a semi-respectable opera career, still blasting a melody from their vocal cords, composed by someone else, still (for ever and always) a dangling puppet of the mainstream music machine.

One of the worst groups ever recorded. Period."

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Il Divo

rebecca

I bet you feel a lot better now.:bigsmile: