american idolatry

for the first several years of american idol i disdained the show on principle. it was not the idea of a talent show that bothered me. it was the idea that the masses would hold sway and somehow stamp a winner with some sort of seal of the masses as if the masses could possibly be right about anything much less something that involves taste.

i harbored a certain internal struggle over the whole thing. weekly at work in staff meetings i would listen to my boss and most if not all of my colleagues talk about these young singers i knew not one iota about. names like: kelly, justin, ruben, clay, fantasia and william and bo, were bandied about as my peers expressed their tastes and formed a club of inane troglodytes with nary a clue about music or sophistication or complexity, to say nothing of art.

one day a woman i worked with who was in her 50s came into the conference room and announced her devotion to american idol contestant bo bice. i had seen the guy on a talk show the night before. bice had pranced out onto the set of letterman or some night time talkie, in bare feet, confirming all of my suspicions that the american idols were a musical cast of neanderthals hell bent on taking every sniff of a 5-year-old trend from the clubs of west hollywood or the pages of la weekly or the airwaves of 'morning becomes eclectic,' to the streets of omaha and montgomery and cheyenne in some kind of bastard, milquetoast form. bare feet? seriously, bare feet? was this to make him seem an artist? was it to grant him cache with the uber-chic? was bare feet his street cred with the hippie crowd?

this woman i worked with raved on about how handsome this moron was, as if he might come through the conference room door at any moment to discover her singing his praises at which point he would glide up onto our conference room table and wiggle his bare and glistening toes in her adoring grill bestowing unknown blessings from a tribe of backwards, bare-footed, black holes of talent, buffoons bent on beating america over the head with the cheap, the mundane, the unoriginal and finally the unbearable. blech!?!

in these early years of american idol i did catch glimpses of these fabricated pop stars on the e channel, at awards shows, on conan or craig or at halftime of the pro bowl. i saw ruben and was non-plussed. for me he was just another r&b singer doing what all r&b singers seem to do, (save for the good few,) croon in soulful voices about love: lost love, hott love, love gone bad, cheap love, psychotic love, sexual love, angry love, love triangles, self love or taboo love. i saw kelly clarkson and thought she was very listenable even if i would never buy her record. i figured with an entire nation to audition it made sense the show, with its boffo ratings, had come up with some talent.

still, i could only mock these budding stars. i imagined their parents in orlando suburbs braggin to their friends about their child's success over a triple play sampler and cokes in the bar at chili's. i thought of their brooding siblings angrily traipsing out onto the set of tyra or jerry or ellen to tell their monstrous stories of stolen fame and siblings gone wacko. i saw malls full of children ipodding their way around hot topic to the tunes of clay, confusion brewing just beneath their artesian teen spirit. over beers with friends i coolly predicted the number of years before the idols i knew would dissipate from the public consciousness. (fantasia, two years tops. carrie underwood, five years. bo bice, six months.) bice was extra despicable because he seemed to be selling the genre of music i preferred but on closer inspection he was no better than and no worse than the crap-acts of the day such as creed or nickelback.

season five was my first year watching idol. i did not watch every episode or anything but i saw enough and even rooted for taylor hicks. hicks, the eventual winner of season five, looked like he was 40 and conveyed a genuine sense of joy when he sang on american idol. part of me thought his childlike behavior was phony but that part gave way to the part that believed and so i came to root for hicks to win the contest. well, that is until i noticed katharine mcphee. this girl sang like nobody's business and was super cute and so i switched my allegiance. other contestants included elliot yamin who seemed like a nice guy and who sang well. kelly pickler was good for a country singer. ace young was an interesting singer, too, but chris daughtry became the breakout star of the season. he has since sold millions of records to adoring fans of bland, electrified, 4/4, blues-based rock music with weak lyrics and zero imagination or originality. daughtry was every bit as bad as bo bice, even if he did seem a nice enough fellow when he was on the show. eh, two steps forward and one step backward for my american idol sensibility.

thanks to daughtry, (and his boring rendition of u2's 'sunday, bloody sunday,') i tuned into the following season sparingly. not even sanjaya captured my imagination, (though i could not figure out how his sister did not make it onto the show as well as another girl i had seen early on who was an opera singer and who confessed to being in trouble for even auditioning. Whatever happened to that girl?) the eventual winner was jordin sparks who is apparently having a great beginning to her career. blake lewis had a certain jamiroquai thing going on and seemed like someone who would have a career but by all accounts that has stalled.

i returned for season 7 and watched regularly. finally, the formula had penetrated my gruff exterior and i became yet another sycophant, glued to my television most tuesdays and wednesdays. jason castro sang buckley's version of hallelujah. brooke white betrayed all the conventions of the show and was not punished for doing so. michael johns was somehow despatched super early. (i thought he would be the winner for sure.) i gained a non-pervy, old-man crush on syesha mercado and near the end of the season cast my first ever vote on her behalf. i liked carly smithson and ramiele malubay as well, and had to admit david archuleta sang well, even if i despised his songs, his look, and his fans. as for the winner, david cook, he is a good singer with a nice sense of what he is doing. last week he appeared on season 8 and as usual, he was self-deprecating and humble in his success. his musical style is altogether palatable as well. i would not be surprised if he evolved into someone whose music i would pay for.

(michael johns)

and so i have come full circle. this season i do not think i have missed more than one episode. like everyone i know i fully expect adam lambert to win if only because he is like a seasoned pop star already. he sings like a cross between ronnie james dio and freddie mercury. his choices have been consistent with his broadway background in as much as they have been theatrical and inventive.

i'm sold. i am an avid viewer of american idol now. in part, it may be because there has been a shift in the show. it seems to me more coldplay and jeff buckley and chris cornell songs are making it into the show. i think one day a nuanced singer in the style of a tom waits or even bob dylan, (in other words, someone who does not necessarily sing so sweet you can get a cavity from listening to it,) could advance within the a.i. structure.

in a way it actually seems like america is evolving as seen through the prism that is american idol. the singers have not only gotten better they have become more interesting, more artistic and more polished.

some of my friends think i've gone looney. they think by watching american idol i betray leonard cohen and thom yorke and dylan and dengue fever and cordrazine. i think as the show and the talent therein evolve and improve it is just silly to remain opposed to the kids of american idol just for the sake of being opposed to them, just to remain somehow ultra-cool or sophisticated. a talent show is a talent show after all. it is as good as the talent therein and as evidenced by lambert, the contenders nowadays are as good and better than the established talents of the day, (if not the artists.)

(adam lambert)