Anyone watching Idol?

[rachel]

Thanks for reminding me that the "Big O" ( ) will be back on "The Apprentice" tonight. I've gone all day thinking today was Wednesday. Love to hate her!

I'll admit it; I watch American Idol just about every week, and I belong in the same "what the heck is John Stevens still doing up there, geez this is embarrassing to watch" camp.

I agree with Dan that Paula Abdul telling them their singing is a little "pitchy" is just, well, pure comedy.

Edited to add: Did anybody see Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live? I thought it was hilarious.

Edited April 8, 2004 by rachel

[RDK]

This is kinda weird, but... Diana Degarmo has been looking "chunkier" each week, and Paula mentioned that she was "sick" the other night. While watching the show the other night, my wife commented that she looked pregnant. Could that be possible?

[.:.impossible]

I heard a rumor that Kwame goes all the way.

[.:.impossible]

P.S. Jim, I looked. Twenty minutes later (awe, two minutes later) I forgot what we were talking about. Thanks for the link!

[JSngry]

You're more than welcome. It's really the same thing, only a LOT more honest...

[rachel]

I heard that Omarossa is Kwame in drag.

[LAL]

Hollywood theme this week.

Maybe John Stevens will do "Singing in the Rain".

[Dan Gould]

Does anyone know if there will be a jazz or big band theme week?

[RDK]

There's supposed to be a big band night at some point, but I doubt there'd be a jazz night - who would want to see that?

[jazzbo]

Darn! No show tonight! We get to see another amateur tonight instead!

[Dan Gould]

Someone, anyone explain to me why Freaking Quentin Tarrantino, that smarmy full of himself hack, is on the judging panel tonight?

Someone tell me tomorrow what happened, normally, the atrocious singing would send me away, tonight its a man who should be returned to that video store posthaste.

End of rant.

[jazzbo]

Well I think he did a good job on the show, and obviously I like his movies better than you do!

John Stevens sucked, but that's not surprising. Most others did quite well. George and Jennifer were the best for me, and the first two!

[.:.impossible]

Fantasia! And I'm looking forward to Volume 2! Friday!

[jazzbo]

I'm getting a little tired of Fantasia's "personality" and I really wasn't that knocked out by her "Summertime." Jennifer wowed me though. I thought George did well too, at least as well as Fantasia, but the judges felt differently. I get really really sick of the judges by the time the final group is picked. . . . That's why guest judges is a good idea for the most part. Gives you someone else to get miffed with!

[Dan Gould]

Speaking of Simon, interesting piece about him:

American Idol Chatter

Why doesn't Simon Cowell understand his own show?

By Matt Feeney

Posted Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 4:29 PM PT

Cowell: Oscar Wilde he is not

When you look at American Idol's Simon Cowell, his buff plumpness packed into his fancy T-shirts, you might find another figure coming strangely to mind—William Shatner. More specifically, you might be reminded of the original Star Trek Shatner, who, even in early middle age, had to be girdled into his Enterprise stretch-wear. Both Shatner and Cowell are known for their histrionics: Shatner as Kirk looking into the alien heavens and tossing his head from side to side in B-movie despair; Cowell massaging his temples or rubbing his eyes in a hammy semblance of aesthetic displeasure. It took Shatner maybe 15 years before he began trading on his kitsch legacy by giving Kirkified poetry readings in cafes and punk clubs. So, with allowances for our tightening cycle of nostalgia and self-reference, we might give Cowell half a decade or so before he gets in on the joke that he is.

Like Anne Robinson of The Weakest Link before him, Cowell has benefited from the weird TV conceit that, perhaps out of some sense of our own cultural inferiority, Americans should enjoy seeing other Americans derided by sarcastic Brits. And yet an indispensable part of the American Idol experience is watching the imperious Simon flounder in his own show. In the competition's early rounds, the bizarre comedy of the flamboyantly "bad" singers sails far over his head. He's like a figure-skating judge bitchily scribbling down low scores without looking up to realize he's at Wrestlemania. But more interesting are the later rounds, in which Simon tries to impose his own rigid ideal of Idolness—a dull combination of capable singing and synthetic sexiness—on the voting audience. And the audience, animated by its own far-from-elevated biases, rejects it.

One vivid sign of Cowell's floundering: His famous putdowns, which—despite the stagy malice of the intent behind them—are toothless, indeed witless, in their execution. They are, in fact, more consistently cringe-worthy than the singing that provokes them. Cowell, who comes third in the line of judges, has even more time to hone the gist and syntax of his insults and these are what he comes up with:

"It was like The Exorcist."

"If your lifeguard duties were as good as your singing, a lot of people would be drowning."

"You had about as much passion as a kitten mewing."

"You sang like someone who sings on a cruise ship. Halfway through I imagined the ship sinking."

"I think you're amazing ... amazingly dreadful."

"That was extraordinary. Unfortunately, it was extraordinarily bad."

It's one thing, and a fairly benign thing at that, to venture a croaking imitation of Luther Vandross or Celine Dion. It's another thing to present yourself as the next great wit-misanthrope, a combination of Oscar Wilde and H.L. Mencken, when your verbal dexterity is more akin to that of Regis Philbin.

Simon's odd belief that he's a wit isn't the only fascinating bit of cognitive dissonance on display on American Idol. Another is that, on a show in which three judges purport to be tastemakers, nobody—neither singers nor judges—has any taste. It's not just that the judges are playing at being profit-conscious record execs, suppressing their own quirky predilections for the sake of the bottom line. Neither Randy nor Paula nor Simon even seems capable of a real aesthetic misgiving. Just once I'd like to hear a judge say, "You know, your singing was pretty good there, but that song, 'I Believe I Can Fly,' I hate that song. Points off for choosing an insipid song." When the biggest hits from the last year were OutKast's "Hey Ya" and Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love," it's bizarre to pretend that pop success has everything to do with competent singing and nothing to do with the quality of the songs. On Idol, the fixation on singing is itself so reductive it verges on, if not mechanics, then athletics. The judges occasionally feign an interest in style, but when it comes down to it, they want belters—contestants adept at loud, clear, identifiably melodic yelling, with vibrato if possible.

Simon also clearly has Spice Girls on the brain. That is to say, none of the judges is what you would call not shallow, but Simon is the one most likely to size up a contestant who has just performed in satisfactory compliance with American Idol vocal standards and say, "You just don't look like the American Idol." Simon has forgotten, apparently, that last year's American Idol finalists, Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard, didn't look much like the American Idol, either. Or, anyway, he's unwilling to accept that this was no accident.

That's because, no matter how reductive his, and the other judges', pop aesthetic is, it isn't reductive enough. The voting audience is animated by something even more elemental, more reptilian-brained. Watching the later rounds of American Idol instills in the viewer a subtle but potent type of fear—empathy-fear, stage-fright-by-proxy. You can't help identifying with contestants you've seen over several weeks, whose life stories you keep hearing in ever-greater detail, whose stunned parents and disoriented younger siblings you've seen sitting in the waiting room and absorbing the judges' criticisms with visible winces. And, when the contestants hoist the mic to their faces and begin squawking the opening lines of their song (even the good ones start off badly), you can't help identifying with them even more—especially the ones you already kind of identify with.

That's why, despite Simon's preference for contestants who "look like the American Idol," the audience continues to impose its preference for contestants who look like America. At the end of one semifinal round, all three judges lathered heavy, insistent praise on La Toya London, an attractive-by-numbers belter from Oakland, and Leah LaBelle, a pretty redhead with an able voice and a model's body who defected to the United States from Bulgaria with her musician parents when she was a child. "You are a star," Simon cooed to Leah.

The voting audience went along with the judges on La Toya, but they shoved the lithe, stage-named Leah aside in favor of Amy Adams, a plain, wan, country-voiced beautician from Bakersfield who, as Simon had pointedly observed, does not look like the American Idol. The thing is, Amy Adams may not look like the American Idol, but she does look like a demographically meaningful slice of America (or at least, with her beautician's dye job, like someone who does her hair). And, leaving aside Leah LaBelle's other alienating features, like the émigré stage parents and the porn-star name, you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more resonant analogue for "foreigner," for the telephone-voting American public, than "Bulgarian."

In the end, the smart money might still be on Diana DeGarmo, even though she was a candidate for elimination last week. (I'm guessing this was because she sang first on a marathon show, and since voters can't dial in until the show is over, they had forgotten her.) She's an irrepressible combination of Shakira and Shirley Temple from the town with the Dr. Seussian name—Snellville, Ga. With her Anglo-Latin ethnic vagueness, her perky Georgia drawl, and her megaphonic vocal style, she has all the bases covered. But don't be surprised if, advancing far into the competition with her, is John Stevens. Stevens is a redheaded kid who, with the innocent squinch of his pale face and his preference for Sinatra, appears to have time-traveled to his Idol audition from 1954. He's inspired a passionate following despite the fact that he can't, actually … what's the word I'm looking for? … sing. Indeed, his thin crooning relies on his retro appearance and his swingin' moves to maintain the pretense that he's singing and not just talking funny.

After a semifinal round a few weeks ago, when it was Simon's turn to guess the audience's three finalist selections, he offered his two favorites (La Toya London and Leah LaBelle) and then, after a bitter pause, added John Stevens to his list. His spite was audible, but he guessed right. A week later, to the astonishment and outrage of Randy, he actually complimented Stevens after a comically undersung version of "Lately." "This guy," Simon said, "is Middle America." These were moments of insight, however grudging, into the real cues that guide Idol voting. It'll probably take a little longer—maybe a half decade or so—before Simon has an equally unpleasant moment of insight about his own hambone persona.

[RDK]

Fantasia and La Toya are so ahead of the rest of the pack it's not even funny. George is the only guy who really has a chance, at least based on talent.

[jazzbo]

Hmmm. . . just have to beg to differ. Nobody seems to be breaking any new ground if you ask me and there are a good four or five who are good solid singers and ahead of the others in my opinion, and I have (different) favorites of those top four or five. . . .

[RainyDay]

Fantasia was wonderful last night, head and shoulders above everyone, including Latoya. I was very moved by her Summertime.

As for Quentin, I am beyond fed up with his black hipster doofus routine. It's contrived and it makes him look like a phony and a fool. He made everyone else on the judge's panel look like geniuses.

[jazzbo]

Now you just credited the doofus with an impossible task, making the judges appear geniuses!

Hmm. . . that Summertime did nothing for me. Guess I'll have to make a doctor's appointment.

[AfricaBrass]

I haven't been a big fan of Fantasia (her attitude), but I thought it was smart of her to perform "Summertime" - I know I love that song so much that I give automatic points to anyone singing it. I thought she did a pretty good job with it, and it was nice to see her soften up.

I hope George wins. He seems like a good guy.

Poor John! Someone needs to put him out of his misery.

[RainyDay]

I'm curious about the Fantasia attitude you refer to. I think she is kind of refreshing. I tend to like Laytoya's singing better but last night Fantasia knocked me out. I'm with Randy, probably the best performance ever on that show. Certainly the best I've seen.

And none of the guys do it for me. George is just okay. Ruben really had an ability to sing just about anything thrown his way but George is just okay with me. I was a Clay fan as well.

Know what I like best about this show? It has just about eliminated any credibility given to the singing style made popular on Star Search--the soulful yodel. I can't stand that. Mariah does it now and Christina A and anyone singing in that dreadful hip hop drone. Ladies who have real singing chops sound just awful with all those vocal gymnastics. The ones that can't sing just sound silly. That style is not embraced on Idol and I'm grateful for that.

[Dan Gould]

Not embraced?

I hear plenty of melisma on that show, maybe not as much as Mariah and Christina but still ...

[AfricaBrass]

I'm curious about the Fantasia attitude you refer to. I think she is kind of refreshing. I tend to like Laytoya's singing better but last night Fantasia knocked me out. I'm with Randy, probably the best performance ever on that show. Certainly the best I've seen.

I guess the turnoff I had to Fantasia is that she just seem really hardened. To be fair, I should realize she probably has good reason to be.

I thought her performance was really nice. It had a feeling of a classic torch singer, yet she modernized it a bit. It was cool.

I know George isn't the greatest singer ever, but I remember Simon saying how he didn't have a chance to be the winner. He wasn't enough of a front man. I think George has stepped up and had some nice performances. But, I love to see the underdog win.

[Rooster_Ties]

Missed the "who got voted off the Idol island" show tonight -- so who got the axe???

By the way, have you ever seen them wring more nonsense out of half-an-hour of television, than the "who got kicked off" Idol shows?? What a total waste of time. I mean, it's like 60 seconds to really say who's gone, but somehow they drag it out into 30 minutes!!

Anyway, who got the boot??

Edited April 16, 2004 by Rooster_Ties

[RainyDay]

Too early here to know. I usually don't watch the 30 minute elimination round. Right now I'm pissed that the Daily Show no longer comes on at 7 PM. Who's brilliant idea was that?