In episode 4 of Gospel Dream 2009, we saw the male contestants take the stage. Just like the female contestants before them, the male contestants also had a vocal coach. This time Michael Tait had the job of getting the men ready to perform.
Let me get this out there in the beginning. Overall, the male contestants clearly outperformed the female contestants. In fact, I would argure that it wasn’t even close. For the most part all of the men gave solid performances.
Here are a couple of my observations:
Poor Song Selection
NeVar Massey opened the show by singing Tye Tribbett’s “Bless the Lord”. As soon as I heard the intro music, I knew NeVar was in trouble. “Bless the Lord” is a good song, but it is completely the wrong song for this competition. While NeVar’s energy was good, the background singers did most of the singing. This is not a competition to find America’s Best Ad-libber.
Once again I asked myself if these contestant have ever watched a singing competition in their lives. J. Moss and Michelle Williams seemed to love the performance. Mitchell Solarek definitely did not like it.
That is Not a Gospel Song
I only have one expectation when I tune in to watch a Christian music competition. I expect to the contestants to sing Christian music. Is that too much to ask?
Robert Matui sung Eric Clapton’s “Change the World”. It is a nice song, but it isn’t gospel! When the song lyrics say “Baby, if I could change the world”, they aren’t referring to baby Jesus. It was a good performance, but please stick to singing gospel music.
When Will It Ever Be Good Enough
Tim Stylez gave a really good performance of Marvin Sapp’s “Praise Him in Advance”. Well, at least I thought it was good. Michael Tait and Kimberly Locke thought is was good too. Unfortunately for Tim, J. Moss didn’t like his performance. J. Moss thinks Tim sounds like most singers you hear at church on Sunday morning. I don’t know what the deal is between these two, but given his comments, you would think that Tim Stylez owns J. Moss some money.
Elimination Time
The judges placed LaVar Bowman, Travis Lindseth, Tim Stylez in the bottom three. The female contestants voted to keep LaVar Bowman. It was a tough decision to make. They really could not have gone wrong with any contestant.
So now 6 contestants remain. I had my doubts, but this show is starting to improve slightly. I hope we see some great performances next week.
Did you see the episode? Let me know what you think.
