Aldobrandini's channel

The makeover with the ultra-modern short hair and the short skirts was just the thing to take her career to the next level. Just earlier that same year, and with the same song, she was still looking very wholesome. The new look was super, super cutting edge at the time and the inspiration for ton...

@arsoys Many great moments, but actually Worlds 89 and 90 were better: Here, she tripped and nearly fell after her triple flip, and then she singled the triple loop. But still, phenomenal!

So much bloom on her voice, so much control, so much Verdian style still present at 58! It's a gift sopranos 25 years younger can only imagine having, and here, at an extremely emotional event, one of the repertory's most difficult and exposed arias is done without batting an eye. Marvelous at an...

Performances like these remind us just why she became the superstar she did. Extremely hard to sing, the tessitura is up and down and everywhere in between, and she sings it relatively effortlessly. Few people could hope to come close to this in terms of sheer vocal ability.

The best ladies FS ever. Ever. Not a flaw. (And the music, Sheherezade, suited her perfectly as well.) None of Mao's triple axels come anywhere close to power or quality.

The crowd is completely lacklustre, which is a comlete joke -- as if they had fare like this on any given day to enjoy. Please.

Hope they miss this level of jumping ability and overall personality, because there hasn't been anyone like Midori Ito since.

I love late 70s / early 80s soft rock, and this is a gem of the genre. Love the whole soft-and-breezy vibe; memories of great summers as a kid.

A magical and very underrated song from the early 90's. Paula Abdul sings it OK, but she really doesn't have the voice or depth to match such a larger-than-life composition Would've been perfect with either a big-voiced diva (Gladys Knight), or, an artsy voice (Kate Bush). But still, very nice.

As so often with MK, beautiful skating to beautiful music. It takes a lot to pull off so many good triples and make them look so easy, yet I find myself thinking how much farther she could have gone if she'd only embraced the athletic side more, i.e. triple-triple combinations. Sad but true: In b...

One of my favorite Tebaldi recordings -- and one of my favorite Puccini recordings in general. So much bloom in the voice, esp. in those first 45 seconds. This is definitely preferable to the version on the full recordning of Manon Lescaut, and this one recording explains easily why Renata went o...

@ynkisno1 "Shut up?" How pathetic is that? Anyway, get some manners and deal with your anger issues while you're at it. I'd said that lu chen's FS here was the best FOR ME, not for you. Anyway, it's just skating, so calm down.

I remember being underwhelmed by this; poor choice of music, choreography was lacking. But yet there was grace, and most of the jumbs were nice. Nice spins, too. But I remember even more being so OVERwhelmed in 1995 and 1996 by the best artistry since Peggy Fleming and Caryn Kadavy; she just expl...

Katy Perry has nicely copied various aspects of Xanadu for her "Fireworks" video -- Olivia's hair, the flowing dresses, the aura/fireworks. Great tribute to Xanadu -- kitschy, yes, but iconically so!

Coolness par excellence. Saw them in concert that same year. Fabulous. And this live version is almost better than the iconic original xylophone-based recording.

This is the first time I'd ever seen this freeskate, and it is her very, very best, i.e. better than her 89 Worlds win, and better even than her 90 Worlds silver (which had the better triple axel compared to 89 Worlds, but only featured a double salchow). Here, she hit all 7 triples PERFECTLY. Th...

One of the 5 all-time great free skates, my favorite ladies' skates being:

1. Lu Chen, 1996 Worlds. Artistry!

2. Midori Ito, 1990 Worlds. Despite the doubled Salchow still the finest-ever technical program; her triple Axel was the most perfect ever jumped.

3. Midori Ito, 1989 Worlds

4. Lu Chen,...

I'm sorry, but the two double-footed landings on those first two jumps -- not Olympic in quality at all. Oksana was brilliant in the SP as regards charm and speed and a breathtaking double axel, but yet the judges did have to mark her down for that two-footed landing on the 3 Lutz. Here, they sho...

This guy is so obnoxious, but whatever. Anyway: Sorry to say, but YuNa Kim is a bit overrated; what's all the fuss about her Olympic performance? Doesn't hold up at all in comparison to the artistry of Witt in 1988 (yes, over 20 years ago), to the artistry of Arakawa in 2006, and Sarah Hughes in ...

Ito's dazzling triple axel here makes Mao Asada's triple axels look like frail, lifeless little things in comparison. With Ito, there's so much flow going into and out of the jump; with Mao it's just all lethargic, with no flow whatsoever. But then again no woman but Ito or Harding has ever done ...

The original late 70's recording was already one of THE most perfect, senusal expressions of Dionne's art, and this live performance shows how Dionne the entertainer never, ever just slacked off; she was very aware of this particular song's sensuality and knew exactly where to vary this phrase or...

One of the most atmospheric, poetic songs in recent years. Visionary! Kudos.

@socalmuscleboi168 Just goes to show that two triple axels does not a good programme make, at least when not of the Ito quality, and esp. when the overall effect is as leaden and dull as it is with Mao. I've rarely seen such a dull skater, with such lethargic jumps.

toller and scotty both said we wouldn't see another jumper like midori in 50 years. well, it's 20 years down, 30 to go, and they were so right. on a good day, tonya could come close, but there was just something about midori's jumps -- so tight, so on axis, so fast, so high -- that made them the ...

Obviously, someone with Gheorghiu's gifts and temperament would find the role of Liu far too limiting; this lady needs to take center stage, so why not Turandot? She wouldn't be my first choice in that role per se, but there's more power in Gheorghiu's voice than one might guess. But my favorite ...

She was very obviously the best jumper ever; nobody could plausibly argue otherwise. Yet some of the comments below claim that she should/would have won every competition if it hadn't been for the compulsories. Well, in 1992 there were no compulsories, and yet it was Midori's nerves that cost her...