'Tardy for the Party' Live Will Give You Nightmares
Yesterday Real Housewife of Atlanta Kim Zolciak sang her hit song "Tardy for the Party" live for the first time. It is the scariest thing to happen on television since Britney Spears crashed an burned at the VMAs. Worse even!
Anyone who has watched the show knows that Kim can't sing. She couldn't perform in the recording booth and she couldn't learn when she got voice lessons. Instead she just sort of makes a croaking noise like a sorority girl that is about to puke up those seven beers next to a tree on the quad. It was a bit shocking when the track came out and it wasn't that bad. Catchy, fun, and AutoTuned within an inch of its life thanks to fellow Housewife Kandi Burruss, "Tardy for the Party" became a campy hit in gay bars and for anyway who has a TiVo season pass for the show.
While everyone was just about sick of it, the one thing that Kim can do to further interest in the track was sing it live, without the aid of computer tricks to make her voice sound good. This wasn't like watching a train wreck, because sometimes in a train wreck there are survivors. This was like watching a massacre. Kim couldn't sing, even with a back-up track that was doing most of the work. She couldn't keep up with her stilted back up dancers. She couldn't get the look of pained concentration off her face. Someone give this girl a glass of chardonnay and a shotgun, because she needs both.
But the oddest thing was the reaction of the Housewives, none of whom would say it was the biggest turd they have ever seen. They all said they "liked the song" and it "had a good beat," but none would mention the wigged elephant in the room—it was an earth-shatteringly bad number. It was like when you see your friend's baby for the first time and it's really ugly and you say "What a baby! Look at the baby!" because you can't say "Your baby is ugly," but that's what you're thinking and you're just looking for something to say that won't be a lie but won't be insulting either.
In fact, the whole two-part reunion special was like that. Even host Andy Cohen seemed clued in that the ladies must have gotten together beforehand and decided that they weren't going to trash each other and instead pretend to make nice and keep Bravo from getting any juicy footage to exploit. It made the two hours very sad and somber indeed, with characters like NeNe Leakes and Lisa Wu-Hartwell keeping their opinions to themselves for a change. Well, if we can't have our favorite girls behaving badly, at least we can have them performing badly. And Kim's epic flame out is one for the reality television record books.