and not one ounce of talent.

When will these talent shows realise that talent is ALWAYS original and NEVER a photocopy?

And TV is not the place to find it. Expose it, yes, but discover it, no.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

I always felt Madonna was a clever ripoff of the more talented and original Cyndi Lauper.

Discuss.

It`s very desperate TV indeed.
At one point I felt that the public was being treated to a glimpse of stardom by attending one of these shows, it seems , that probably not as intented, TV is in fact revealing the quirkiness(quite polite of me, I thought) of the genre of the Elvii.

People are/were not being entertained, they are on the whole laughing at a guy in tinsled pyjamas in a wig 90% of the time.
It`s horrendous,for once, I`m grateful for work on a Saturday night.

JK2006 wrote:
and not one ounce of talent.

When will these talent shows realise that talent is ALWAYS original and NEVER a photocopy?

And TV is not the place to find it. Expose it, yes, but discover it, no.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

I always felt Madonna was a clever ripoff of the more talented and original Cyndi Lauper.

Discuss.

I can see what you mean by Cyndi Lauper - but she never rose to the dizzy heights that Maddy did, so perhaps just inventing a style is not enough - it's the development and promotion that matters most?

As for Elvis .... perlease ! I've never understood some TV talent shows - eg Stars In Their Eyes. Who wants someone that looks and sounds like someone else?

Moving slightly over.
Lets not forget the officially endorsed lookalike/soundalike acts.
Off the top of my head, The Bootleg Beatles are official as are the Australian Pink Floyd I think.
Most of it is just bottled karaoke though.

Yes, Madonna was (at first) nothing more than a Cyndi- Lauper-clone. It was the old record industry game: Warner copying Portrait/Epic.

Her first german TV-apperance, "dancing" to Holiday (?) on Musikladen (formerly known as Beat Club) shows, how bad she was.