NOT A RECAP, BUT IT BEARS REPOSTINGKEEPINGFAITHThere are many good reasons why I love Clay so much as a singer and entertainer, and there are some intangibles that exist and I don't know why, but the one thing that melds the knowns and unknowns are the risks he takes. He goes for it. He sings difficult to sing songs ... because he can pull it off. I hear singer after singer doing repetitious stuff. They have a thing that they do, or a bag of vocal gimmicks, and they do those things over and again until people get tired of them. Then they're done. Clay, on the other hand, is an amazing artist pushing the boundaries for a popular singer in the age of fake music. The fake music requires no talent or skill and it's the formula du jour. I think TPTB prefer the assembly-line performer who can be created, exploited and thrown away. Planned obsolescence is the subtitle of the industry now. Clay Aiken can't be discarded, and the sun ain't going down on him. He's just begun to shine in his own right and his own light. He's unique. Some people like the singing of Josh Grobin and Andrea Bocelli with their quasi-operatic styles, and there is a market for that. But there are music lovers, myself included, who are bored with the trained voice that only goes certain places, even though it goes there with ease and expression. For me, it's not enough. A song or two and I'm moving along to something with more life in it. And I can enjoy a silly song, something with a big beat and throw away lyrics, but after a couple of those I need something substantive, something with musical integrity. Clay, on the other hand he sings deeply and vibrates everything I've got, and then goes to the heights without falsetto. He makes very difficult transitions and varies the dynamics of his singing in an exciting way. He can rephrase a lyric and give it new meaning. He's only getting better. I don't know if I can stand it. But he is, and right there on stage before us he's becoming even more than he ever has been before. And he does this by not playing it safe. He's plays it for all it's worth. That's why someone like me, who never has been a fan of pop singers, preferring instead rock bands and singer-songwriters, beginning with the The Beatles and Dylan, LOVES Clay Aiken. He's expanded pop music as a category that finally includes me. Nobody else ever did that. It says everything that there were two birthday girls in the audience the other night, one 13 and the other 94. That's his target audience range. There's a reason he's doing "Who's Sorry Now" to every genre that we can think of - rock, grunge, a capella, opera, etc. etc. His voice can do anything, and he's determined to prove it.
