Kara DioGuardi sings about song choice

Anyone who has watched "American Idol" -- even for 10 minutes -- has heard the judges nattering on about the importance of song choice.

But it's an indescribable critique, right? Because would we have thought, if asked, that Kris Allen singing Kanye West's "Heartless" was a good idea? No, we would not. And yet, it seems that it propelled him into the finale.

So we posed the question of what makes the right song choice to one who should have an answer: a judge, Kara DioGuardi. This was part of an interview for story about DioGuardi coming to the cover of this Sunday's Calendar, which has been posted on latimes.com today. 

Not a word of this part of the discussion made it into the story -- which is about DioGuardi's experience of this season. But considering that she actually did have an answer, and that it actually made sense, made us want to share it with you.

Also? She sings a bunch in order to explain -- and that was a new experience. Listen below, and enjoy.

-- Kate Aurthur

(Photo by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

Comments

[MonaLisa1985]

What about the coronation song?

http://americanidolexposed.wordpress.com/

[Charles]

If she spoke well, she COULD explain. The woman is really stupid. This is someone who is supposed to be musically astute -- musically educated/trained -- and all she can speak about are short and long melodies, personal suitability, and crescendo. LORD! On these basic points alone, any thirteen year old in the hood could extrapolate with more musical prowess. Did I say LORD?

[Cindy]

it's irritating to hear Kara being criticized for not giving a deeper musical analysis. This interview is supposed to be regular-people friendly and everything Kara does say in this interview, makes sense even to those who don't really know music! When I go up to a friend who's music experience is limited to top 100 pop hits and I want to talk about music, I can't even talk about something as simple as a cadence or the basic idea of transposing music without getting a blank confused expression.

I felt that Kara gave an even better answer to the interviewers question by singing what she meant. That's how she expresses herself. Does she need to work on how to change this expression to words for Idol? Yes. But she HAS improved over the season - cut her some slack. It's not like the other judges having had their share of screwing up over the seasons.

Plus, if you are criticizing Kara for knowing less than the average 13-year old, what about Paula? She has absolutely no idea what she's talking about in terms of music and actually, pulls your random music terminology to sound like she's making any bit of sense.

Kara knows her stuff when it comes to music and deserves more credit and less criticism.