I have to admit, I have never been one to buy into hype, so I avoid most pop-culture phenomena and reality TV like the plague. However, for the first time ever, I was ‘forced’ into watching this piece of network television programming known to the masses as American Idol.
The episode where I lost my Idol virginity was evidently one of the first of the season—where they weed out the “bad” and the “ugly” and allow the “good” to move on to the next round, referred to by the panel of questionably credible judges as “Hollywood.” I mean, seriously, what does Paula Abdul know about good music? And Randy Jackson? Come on now, he played bass in Journey, possibly one of the top five worst bands of all time. As for Simon Cowell, the only reason FOX decided to put him on the show is because insults get great ratings.
After witnessing contestant after contestant get booed off the show by the judges for their lack of talent and seeing countless souls get crushed by the verbal abuse of Simon, it became clear to me that the show is not even looking for actual talent at all. They are looking for a particular image, for a carbon copy of every other crappy pop star in the industry today in an effort to further destroy the art of music.
The whole purpose behind music is for an artist to express him/herself through the majesty of song and to present to an audience a particular emotion or idea in their own words and melodies. But institutions like American Idol are stabbing the art of music in the throat by taking no-talent karaoke singers and turning them into over night (or over season) pop sensations.
I saw only one contestant that I found remotely talented, and the judges only reluctantly let him through to the next round. Why? Because he already had his own defined image. He idolized the Rat Pack and had a 50’s-esque style of croon and dress that made him unique in the competition. Paula and Randy thought he was trying too hard to fit a certain image, so they didn’t want to let him advance. But isn’t form fitting contestants into an approved pop singer mold what they try to do throughout the entire remainder of the competition? This young man knew who he was and what he liked, so he was almost rejected for having a personality. Is this really what America is all about? Taking the soul and personality out of art?
All image issues aside, how does singing a-cappella solely determine talent, anyway? I want to see an Indie Idol where the talents are judged on their talent for playing their instruments and their artsy appearance and the quality and literary merit of their lyrics. I would even be pleased to see a Hip-Hop Idol where a rap artist proves his or her worth by the strength of his or her rhymes. I’m sorry, America, but just because someone can sing and listens to three idiot judges about who he or she should be and what he or she should look like doesn’t make him or her a credible musician. It just makes them a replica of every other hack that makes more money than truckloads of starving musicians that have more credibility in their guitar picks than all the Idols combined.
Even the name of the show is indicative of its poison. American Idol. Is conformity really something that America idolizes? Is this what we stand for? Recycling all the musical garbage that has come out in the last 15 years into even worse crap with even less soul and talent?
Despite my immediate hatred for this wretched piece of programming, I realized how easy it would be to become just as addicted to this visual form of crack as the rest of America, even if it is just because it pisses me off. American Idol is television’s equivalent of a hideously fatal car crash: it’s the worst thing that could ever happen, but for some inexplicable reason, you can’t stop staring.
