S06.E31: Two Teams, Two Studios Part 1

[OnceSane]

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Part 1 of 2. The elite team leave the ALDC for Abby's rival after being fed up with their coach. Later, Abby puts more pressure on the minis and gives three dancers their first solos; the elites are challenged by new choreography; and Kendall and Nia are invited to perform with a famous musician.

[cali1981]

Best line of the night: Kalani,  when Abby showed up at the bar "and she's here"  with heavy sarcasm.  Gotta love that kid. 

[BusyOctober]

So, as with their "competitions", this "concert" was so staged.  Filmed in a bar in the middle of the day and the seats filled with children and their moms.  Not exactly the same "rock star" vibe as if Nia & Kendall were making their debut at the Stone Pony, but props to them for getting up in front of the crowd. I really wanted to hear those two sing without benefit of a track or auto tune, but I couldn't really hear their voices.  I suppose it doesn't matter if you can truly sing anymore since most pop/rock songs are over-produced in the studio.  I think Nia definitely has more stage presence than Kendall.  She looked more comfortable.  Kendall still had that deer in the headlights mile long stare going.

Of course Abby was going to show up!  The show runners wouldn't miss a chance to a) make Abby look like a pathetic soul crushing bitch b) give the moms an opportunity to whine about anything.  Face it, if Abby didn't show up, Jill would have been running her mouth as usual.

Yolanda's cross eyes and inability to look straight into the camera are too distracting so I FF through her TH's.  I know make up application is not a strong suit of any of these moms, but I wish someone would help Yolanda pick out a better shade of foundation.  She looks so chalky and like she's wearing a white mask with whatever shade of Maybelline's Vampire makeup she's got in her purse.

I am looking forward to seeing the new choreography next week.  It will be interesting to see more age appropriate dances and to see if the girls can handle advanced moves after being with Abby for so long. 

Gotta say, I am still not missing Jess or JoJo.

[dmmetler]

Does Abby really think Sesame Street (at least, that's the only "I love Trash" I know of) is age appropriate for a 7 yr old? I just can't imagine a kid who has started kindergarten being OK with that. 

[spidermiss2426]

I love the way this was edited.  When nia sang the line "because I'm a winner" (or whatever that line was) they showed Abby with a "if looks could kill" expression.  The editing on that was great.  I laughed. 

And if I had children, they would not perform wearing that trash costume either (and I live with a garbage man, so I don't mean trash is a bad thing) because that Mom was absolutely correct-- some of the stuff on there was really big and flappy, which could get in the way of dancing and could injure the dancer.  It isn't like she is a pro who HAS to grin and bear it.

[WildFlower87]

This episode was kinda boring, I fast forwarded through most of it except for the dancing stuff.

These girls cant sing. Why do they keep making them sing? Nia sounded awful in the recording booth.  Jill and Holly are so delusional thinking that Nia and Kendall have any future in music. They're dreadful. Brooke and Mack Z when absolutely nowhere. JoJo can't sing for shit. That Boomerang song and video is atrocious.

Really bad editing to get weird Abby reaction faces during and after the Nia/Kendall singing.

I can't wait to see Brynn and Kalani's solos next week and the group dance. I hate watching boring Kendall dance so I don't care about her solo.  I'm  also excited to see Elliana's solo because she is the best dancer on the mini team.

[hellohoping]

The singing is incredibly cringeworthy. I'm surprised they actually aired that footage of Nia in the recording booth, it was terrible, and the note she was trying to hit wasn't even particularly high, ouch. There are so many incredibly talented kid singers out there, while Nia & Kendall sing like teens in their bedroom/karaoke singers. Their deluded mothers are putting them in embarrassing situations on national television. 

Other than that the episode was slow like they didn't really have enough going on to drag it out into two episodes so thought they'd show us waaaaayyyy too much mediocre singing footage. I am looking forward to seeing all of the dances next week.

[Absolom]

Ratings:  923K viewers and a .33 rating.  We'll find out just how low Lifetime tolerates pretty soon. 

[Rylee]

I agree, this episode was boring. I barely looked up at the TV from what I was doing on my computer. Only two things popped out at me...

1) Jill proclaiming Kendall's confidence has been damaged by Abby's abusive teaching style. Ya think? That Jill... she's sharp, only took her four years to question what that type of learning environment might be doing to her precious snowflake. Or, maybe, once again, it's just an excuse she's offering for her daughter's lack of talent. I actually agree with Abby's assessment of Kendall, (Kendall is not on this show because of her dancing, she's on this show because her mother is such a character) but I would never have any of my children spend time in that type of environment. I'm all for rules, high expectations and being strict, but it can be achieved without being cruel and abusive.

2) No matter what chaos was taking place, or who was trying to talk over the others, I could hear Jill's annoying voice.

Wait, make that three things...

3) I still didn't miss Jess and Jojo, either.

[cali1981]

Nia has stage presence but an average singing voice at best.  Kendell has no presence at all and nothing that remotely resembles a good singing voice.  Keep on enjoying your delusional fantasies Jill.  Either you gots it or you ain't and your daughter ain't gots it.

Edited November 17, 2016 by cali1981

[Chewy101]

Holly needs to stop being delusional about her kid having singing talent. Nia sounds wretched. No way would I wreck my own gig by letting two no talents perform with me. So obviously a fake show, and Holly probably paid them. It's obvious this band just wanted to get their own exposure on Dance Moms. When she called them "stars" at rehearsal, I burst out laughing. The egos on these two girls is incredible. They can't even tell how bad they are, and that people are getting paid to tell them they have a chance.

Holly inviting Abby "because she wanted her to see how good Nia is" was laughable. Like this whole thing isn't on TV and will be seen by Abby either way.  If I were Abby I would have told her to bite me. Abby might be a bitch but she is not wrong that Nia and Kendell are not strong enough singers. Auto-tune and an army of publicists and self promotion is the only thing getting these two girls to the top. 

Jill and Holly went from being afraid of Abby wrecking professional gigs for their girls (video shoot), to inviting her to come to the show and make a scene. It's hard to comprehend that much stupid. Abby has no investment in Nia's singing career, so it affects her none if the kid makes it. The problem for Abby is, she isn't a great dancer either. 

I don't read these idiots' social media stuff, so I don't know anything about why Jo Jo left, but could it be possible that Jess wasn't liking her own edit and pulled Jo Jo out? You can tell the producers hate every one of them and do their best to make therm all look as terrible as possible.

I continue to have zero interest in the minis, so if the show goes that way, I guess I can stop watching. Those moms look so rough. And they are too rude and snippy considering they all just got there.

[Chewy101]

On 11/16/2016 at 5:44 PM, hellohoping said:

I'm surprised they actually aired that footage of Nia in the recording booth, it was terrible, and the note she was trying to hit wasn't even particularly high, ouch

Exactly. It wasn't high, the girl just has no pitch. And she doesn't take lessons to improve, because she really she just wants to be dolled up and be a video star. Let the poor producers figure out how to make her sound good. Yuck.

[holly4755]

seriously how many good singers are out there without auto tune today?   Autotune used to be done rarely to get a perfect song of vinyl or tape or what ever media, but once the song mixers got instant auto tune, it was a whole new thing to autotune people singing live on TV.  Can J-lo sing on TV without lip syncing?  I Know she does so much with her dancing, why is she not called a dancer instead of selling records as a hyper autotuned person? Maria Carey was a fabulous singer, but how is she now after all that booze and coke? The X factor, the voice and America got talent were all caught autotuning some people better and others worse to justify their critiques at least the first year or so.  How many singers just lip synch in their concerts? I think we are over 20 years now with instant auto tune. 

So I will say maybe Nia and Holly thinks that is how it is supposed to go, but there is no excuse for Kendall K.  I think  Nia might improve with lessons, although I heard if you are not singing well by 10, it is too late to learn to be really good.  

 

I think these mothers would have done well to go to a concert by a really good professional singer, I went to one of Mel Torme's concerts, he was fantastic, but stopped immediately when he felt the feed back speakers were not turned to give him the best feed back, stopped and moved things around. This was in a small Synagogue with less than 100 people there. And he even hit one or two clinkers, but saved them by changing his mouth shape and sound. It was like the best ever music lesson for me  and a great concert.  

[hellohoping]

10 hours ago, holly4755 said:

seriously how many good singers are out there without auto tune today?  

Hundreds of thousands. Granted it's becoming the done thing to use autotune more often than necessary but that doesn't change the fact that there are gorgeous singers out there. And many amazing child singers - I can point you towards a lot of youtube channels that will show you the talent out there, which is what makes it so hard to see Nia and Kendall being brainwashed into thinking they've got something. But yes, their army of publicists will get them around the people who will say the right things.

[Chewy101]

There ARE still tons of real talent out there, being upstaged by stylized wannabees with momagers or good publicists. 

If you want to see a raw talent these girls age, check out Grace Vanderwaal. That is a kid who doesn't need all the hype to distract you. She is what these dance kids want to be.

[holly4755]

Sorry I didn't mean there are no good singers, it is just that many of the "stars" of today would be lost without autotune.  That this has changed in my lifetime makes me more sensitive to it.