Sonic Youth wrote:I don't mean to provoke, but honestly! I don't get what everyone is so upset about. It's American Idol, that's all it is. It's nothing serious! It's meaningless! It's meant to be taken in good fun. If someone loses, it doesn't mean their career is necessarily inhibited because of it. I'm sorry Melinda lost, but you don't think Clive Davis isn't drooling down her neck right now? She'll be fine.
When Melinda was voted off, I was upset. Now, I'm just slightly annoyed. No, it's not because I think her career is over, which like you Sonic, I think she'll be just fine.
it's just one of those things where I'm responding as a TV viewer. You know, you have your favorite horse at the beginning, and I became invested in her winning. Period.
No, it's not anything as tragic as a Barbaro losing when everyone's money was on his winning. It's just one of those things where you grieve because your favorite horse/contestant didn't win.
Is it silly to invest emotionally in such a contrived and trite show as American Idol? Perhaps, but isn't that the point of watching week after week?
Taylor Hicks was a mistake. TPTB pimped him because they thought he would be a novelty contestant. Good enough and popular enough to reach the Top 12 for ratings but whose popularity would eventually wane and be voted off mid-way but the hype and the popularity just kept getting bigger and bigger and blew up in their faces. They tried and tried but just gave up after Chris got voted off.
W - Kelly Clarkson - 8.2 M records sold, 2 albums, 7 platinum albums
W - Carrie Underwood - 5.48 M records sold, 1 album, 6 platinum albums
L - Clay Aiken - 4.77 M records sold, 3 albums 4 platinum albums, 1 gold album
L - Chris Daughtry - 2.53 M records sold, 1 album, 2 platinum albums
W - Ruben Studdard - 2.44 M records sold, 3 albums, 1 platinum album
W - Fantasia Barrino - 2.07 M records sold, 2 albums, 1 platinum album
L - Bo Bice - .83 M records sold, 1 album, 1 gold album
W - Taylor Hicks - .67 M records sold, 1 album, 1 gold album
L - Josh Gracin - .65 M records sold, 1 album, 1 gold album
L - Kellie Pickler - .53 M records sold, 1 album, 1 gold album
Aiken and Daughtry have sold more records than 3 of the previous winners. Even Bice sold more than Taylor Hicks (biggest joke the producers ever made...and I saw somewhere someone was upset that Clive Davis seemed to be dissing Hicks on the finale...)
Then, let's look at the Awards:
W - Kelly Clarkson - 4 AMAs, 12 Billboard MAs, 2 Grammys
L - Clay Aiken - 1 AMA, 3 Billboard MAs
W - Fantasia Barrino - 3 Billboard MAs
L - Jennifer Hudson - 1 Oscar
W - Carrie Underwood - 1 AMA, 8 Billboard MAs, 2 Grammys
Need we look also at Gold and Platinum Singles sales?
W - Kelly Clarkson - 1 platinum, 6 gold
L - Clay Aiken - 1 platinum, 1 gold
W - Ruben Studdard - Gold
W - Fantasia Barrino - 1 gold
L - Josh Gracin - 1 gold
W - Carrie Underwood - 3 platinum
L - Bo Bice - 1 gold
W - Taylor Hicks - 1 gold
L - Chris Daughtry - 1 platinum, 1 gold
#1 Albums:
W - Kelly Clarkson - Thankful
L - Clay Aiken - Measure of a Man
L - Chris Daughtry - Daughtry
W - Ruben Studdard - Soulful
#1 Songs:
W - Kelly Clarkson - A Moment Like This
L - Clay Aiken - This Is the Night
W - Fantasia Barrino - I Believe
W - Carrie Underwood - Inside Your Heaven
W - Ruben Studdard - Change Me
L - Elliot Yamin - Movin' On
W - Taylor Hicks - Do I Make You Proud
I know that winners do so well because they're famous, but Of all the AI winners and losers that have made multiple albums, Kelly Clarkson's the only one to have her second album out perform her first.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Anon wrote:She was even a bit rude to Larry King at certain points.
I like her already.
Let's not forget, her professional football-playing father had acheived a level of fame back in the day. Because of that, she may be better equipped to handle all the attention and public adulation than most seventeen year olds are.
Hey, I liked the finale! Or at least the first hour was entertaining, before it fell off a cliff somewhere at the half-way point. This is the first American Idol I devoted a whole season to, but I've seen a few of these finales, and they're always so elaborately produced. Overall, it wasn't a good show, but I admire the effort they put into it, like this was New Year's Eve and everything preceding it was a build-up to this.
I don't mean to provoke, but honestly! I don't get what everyone is so upset about. It's American Idol, that's all it is. It's nothing serious! It's meaningless! It's meant to be taken in good fun. If someone loses, it doesn't mean their career is necessarily inhibited because of it. I'm sorry Melinda lost, but you don't think Clive Davis isn't drooling down her neck right now? She'll be fine.
And if someone wins, it doesn't mean they're any good... obviously. I saw some of those previous winners the other night, and yikes! How old was Ruben Stutters when he won AI? Because he looks fifty now. He wasn't a bad singer, but he looked terrible, and I can barely recognize his name. And Taylor Hicks is a disaster. (Kelly Clarkson, on the other hand... if that type of song is the reason she's fighting with the producers over her new album, then I'm on her side. An American Idol as riot grrrrl? Love it.)
And why is poor Bette Midler getting all this flak? No, she wasn't very good. But neither was Smokey Robinson. Or Gladys Knight. And age finally caught up with Tony Bennett, who sounded TERRIBLE. (And Haley sounded worse than all of them combined, but I give her a pass because her legs are 3 stories high.) But at least they got up there and SANG, unlike Lipsync Stefani who should have her career taken away from her.
Damien wrote:America voted and the new American idol is the dewy-eyed Jordin Sparks. A 17-year-old girl with a big voice and a melting smile...
I read these words and think, wow! How did the AI machine pull off this illusion? Either the viewing public didn't pay attention or the show's producers really went out of their way to promote an ideal that just doesn't exist.
This is all in response to watching Larry King Live last night. He had on the winner and all the top 10 finalists. I tuned in, waiting for a glimpse of my girl, Melinda, who I saw too little of. I can't wait till she has a career independent of this show because, yes, she is that shy (perhaps the only authentic personality that we witnessed) and, like all shy people in a group, she quickly faded into the background. It was also clear that both Jordin and Blake won the competition on their gregarious nature alone. The other contestants struck me as just barely more outgoing than Melinda (I guess they will all need to get some media training).
But, of all the people to annoy me the most is the winner herself: Jordin Sparks. She is beyond self-absorbed and suffers from talking too much. She was even a bit rude to Larry King at certain points. This is supposed to be America's sweetheart?
The only good thing about such a self-absorbed 17-year-old who has grown up believing she is all that and then some, is she can withstand all the fat jokes that have already begun at her expense. In another interview, when asked about her weight, she responded in typical adolescent kiss-off: "That super-thin stuff, Hollywood sooooooooo needs to get over it!"
Heehee. You're an annoying lit brat, Miss Sparks, but I will forever respect any plus-size, big-boned giant who can tell all of Hollywood to kiss her big you-know-what.
Looking forward to her "problem child" status getting way out of control with the producers. Would serve them right for cramming her down our throats.
INSTANT STAR, JUST ADD HYPE
By Stephen Holden, May 25, 2007
America voted and the new American idol is the dewy-eyed Jordin Sparks. A 17-year-old girl with a big voice and a melting smile, she sings more from the adolescent heart than from the grown-up head.
My grown-up heart was broken. I was rooting for Melinda Doolittle, the phenomenally gifted, stylistically adroit 29-year-old former backup singer from Tennessee who was voted off last week. A Gladys Knight-Tina Turner hybrid, she brings a compelling honesty to every phrase she sings.
But I wasn’t fooling myself. What chance did a humble, not as pretty 29-year-old woman have against a radiant but artistically undeveloped teenager?
My only consolation is that Ms. Doolittle will not be forgotten. As Chris Daughtry and Jennifer Hudson have shown, there are multiplatinum records and even Oscars in the future of a worthy also-ran.
As for this year’s runner-up, Blake Lewis, he deserves credit for bringing a rare taste of hip-hop into the show.
As he exchanged beat-box clicks with Doug E. Fresh on Wednesday’s two-hour season finale, I detected the beginnings a dialogue between “American Idol” and rap: beginnings that, I fear, given the show’s conservative, middle-of-the-road aesthetics, may lead nowhere.
Like many “American Idol” devotees, I have a love-hate relationship with the show, which is often inspiring and infuriating at the same time. In Wednesday’s blowout it was apparent how tight its co-dependent grip has become on an increasingly desperate record industry. What other phenomenon has minted so many instant pop superstars? Its commercial impact recalls Elvis’s teenage-idol phase, Beatlemania and the heyday of Motown.
The appearance this year of performers like Bono, Madonna, Annie Lennox, Green Day and Gwen Stefani, who in earlier seasons would probably have given “American Idol” a wide berth, lent the show a hip imprimatur. No one dares shun “American Idol”; the mass exposure it affords is irresistible. As a pop marketing tool, it’s bigger than “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
To cheer or to boo: that is the question. The show’s charity fund-raiser, “Idol Gives Back,” was a noble idea carried out with the heavy-handed touch of a bad Disney movie. As the judges were photographed cuddling poor African children, some of whom were shown weeping a single tear positioned like a glycerine prop, the shameless sentimentality was nauseating. Yet $30 million dollars was raised.
At the end Ms. Sparks and Mr. Lewis were both obliged to sing “This Is My Now,” a piece of boilerplate kitsch that won the show’s songwriting contest. This faded carbon copy of “A Moment Like This,” Kelly Clarkson’s hit from Season 1, suggested that the show’s heart was still made of polyester.
But whether by accident or design, “American Idol” answers a mass hunger for consensus in a time of political strife and niche marketing; it presents a wishful teenage vision of the world as one big happy family. To be sure, there are squabbles, but they are resolved with group hugs. Strict but loving Papa Bear, Simon Cowell, enforces discipline; weepy, all-forgiving Mama Bear Paula Abdul, who can’t bring herself to say an unkind word to her brood, offers comfort and encouragement. Kindly Uncle Randy Jackson, with his pseudo-hip argot of “check it out” and “dog,” offers a calmer perspective when Papa Bear gets mad.
Most important, the kids rule the family. The parents may advise, but the children get the final say. Giving viewers voting power is also ratings insurance. Sanjaya Malakar, this year’s novelty sensation, is the boy you wouldn’t want your daughter to date because his head is in the clouds and his report card is all C’s and D’s. The kids kept him in the running. And in the end the family is indivisible. Older brothers and sisters return to visit after graduation, aglow with triumph.
There is enough reality in all this stage-managed hokum to make me a partial believer. More than half a century ago, however, Arthur Godfrey’s shows exerted the same mystique. Only later was it revealed that he was a tyrant. Undoubtedly “American Idol” has its own dark side.
In its six-year existence on Fox, the show has done much to codify the second chapter of the Great American Songbook: the one that begins in the late 1950s and extends to the present. The songs aren’t as literate as the standards of yesteryear, but the American public isn’t as literate either. Popular music has moved out of the head and into the body and become a competitive sport. The public may not know much about American history, but millions can recite pop and rock ’n’ roll history like catechism; it may be the only history most Americans really know.
And the appearances of guest coaches like Diana Ross, Barry Gibb, Rod Stewart and Tony Bennett reinforce that notion of a continuity between now and then. In the world of “American Idol” there is no generation gap, only the loving perpetuation of tradition. Never mind that the oldsters’ voices have deteriorated to the point that the contestants usually out-sing them. And never mind that the contestants’ versions of beloved hits are usually half-baked imitations of the original recordings.
Late in the finale, fragments of songs from the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a sacred rock relic if ever there was one, were slaughtered by several contestants. Did anyone notice or care? In a commercial climate ruled by buzzwords and hype, dropping the name is what counts.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Hmm. All these second-guessers who either knew it was going to turn out the way it did and are gloating, or watched something else instead and had to tell us about it. Hmm.
dws1982 wrote:Good luck to her, though, for winning a seven-year indentured servitude with 19E.
Though I haven't watched much of the show, I do have a theory as to why it is now having so much trouble attracting good singers. The contract screws over at least the winners, if not all the top-12 participants, so much that many great singers simply decide not to audition, or, if they audition and are selected, back out once they read the contract.
Alright. I admit it. It was a very good, if crammed-in, jam-packed show that ran overtime. There were definite highlights at the beginning: The top six men doing aTake 6 arrangement; the top six women with Gladys Knight( Melinda's hero) Still say Melinda is a better singer with more mature pipes that Jordin, the good Christian, right-wing, pro-lifer. There was too much of everything in this show, but it certainly was entertaining. Notes: Sanjaya--why pander to him? Taylor Hicks: No. Kelly Clarkson: getting fat. Carrie Underwood: beige. And Bette Midler, who is NOT the greatest singer, has more stage presence in her little finger than all the Idol winners--even with that saccharine song.
Thoroughly nice way to spend an evening. Even my wife enjoyed it, but we turned it off during "This Is My Now". Too bad that the series took so long to arrive at a finale. Still: 13-year-olds got them their final choices.
Blake has always been--interesting--but that little teeny mouth! I would really like to have seen a showdown between Jordin and Melinda. Producers missed that great combo.
Sorry your cable went out , Damien. That's what you get for living in NYC!!
