Well, I’ve avoided it for six-odd years now, but I knew, sooner or later, I’d have to sit down and watch “American Idol.” (I feel like Scrooge waking up on Christmas morning and rushing off to pick up a turkey to take to the Cratchits.) I’ve been watching a lot of J-pop (Japanese pop music) lately (more than usual) and wondering why there’s no American equivalent to Morning Musume and this train of thought inevitably leads to “American Idol” and the need to see what they’re doing there, if only for comparison’s purpose. And today, there it was, a front page article in the Arts section of The New York Times on tonight’s 2-hour live telecast of 12 contestants each doing a song. I figured that 12 was a good round number to get a sense of what these people were like, so I determined to watch it. And then a conversation with my daughter arguing over J-pop (she doesn’t get it at all), led to her asking, “Well, why don’t you watch ‘American Idol’?” So there I was tonight.

The night’s theme was the Beatles, which meant that each contestant had to choose a Beatles song to perform. At first, I was pleased by that because it meant they’d be singing songs that I knew and liked. Afterwards, I realized how hard that was on the contestants, esp. where I’m concerned, because I’m so attached to the original versions and don’t take to new variations very kindly. Three of the contestants did original and highly skilled takes on the songs they chose. The best, and the one I’d vote for, was by a young Nigerian-American man from Southern California who goes by one name, Chikezie, and who did a rousing let-it-loose rendition of “She’s a Woman.” He clearly had fun doing it and I had fun listening. Others among the contestants showed some skill but didn’t really move me. Others gave mediocre performances which added nothing new to the songs, e.g. the cute blond “cowgirl” who did a country take on “Eight Days a Week” that underwhelmed all three judges.

I’m not sure what to make of all this. For two hours of viewing, I was really entertained by only three of the numbers, about a quarter of the show. Sure, three of the others were sung by very beautiful girls, including the cowgirl, which is always a plus for me. But from a musical standpoint, I’m not sure I was impressed. Granted, I think the program is a valid showcase for finding musical talent and I was pleasantly surprised by the sincerity and basic…niceness?…of most of the contestants, at least from what little we saw of them. And, they’re all talented in varying degrees. Two of the younger guys, however, came off just a tad full of themselves. Maybe when it’s down to just a few contestants it will get more interesting for me. Of course, I have no idea if the ones I most like will even stay in the contest. Will I even pay a return visit if they don’t? I’m not sure I want to invest that much time in this. Maybe my curiosity has been satisfied, maybe I'll want to see more. We’ll see.

Interestingly, my only immediate point of reference for this was the way Morning Musume, the J-pop group I follow, holds its auditions. Those auditions are held in front of a very small number of people with no audience, and are videotaped, but only for use as excerpts in the TV show, “Hello Morning.” Anything else would be too much for the girls, who are way too young and inexperienced and too vulnerable for a live audience and live TV. And only one man, the producer of the whole thing, gets to choose who the finalists are and who wins. I’ve witnessed two of the audition processes, one which occurred in Spring 2005, before I’d even become a fan and which I caught up with through back tapes of the TV show, and one which I followed as it happened in late 2006 and early 2007. (They hold auditions all over Japan.) How they’ll handle future auditions on TV is a mystery since “Hello Morning” went off the air not long after the 2007 audition process, replaced by a shorter, newer model with a different format and no room for audition footage. Not that I know when the next audition will be. So it’s a bit different from “American Idol,” but it did prepare me.

I have a film buff question about one of the “Idol” contestants. His name is David Archuleta and I wonder if he’s related to Beulah Archuleta, the Indian actress who played the Comanche woman, Look, in John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS (1956). She was the one that Jeffrey Hunter found himself “married” to. The brief bio segment on the show said that David’s father is a Utah native and there is a bit of a family resemblance. Just curious.
(EDIT: I just checked on IMDB and the actress I'm thinking of spells her name differently, with two "t"'s. Never mind. :huh:)

The auditions for 'American Idol' are actually initially held in front of a small group of people (Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson- the judges) with no audience; this is followed by a second round of auditions in a larger theater amongst all the contestants, followed by the first live-on-TV performances in a small theater in front of family, friends, the judges...oh, and an audience of millions on TV! Last night, the round of 12, was the first night in a huge, packed auditorium, and I think several of the contestants were clearly nervous. Some of the poorer performances last night were from contestants who had been front-runners in the weeks prior (including David Archuleta, who was terrible last night). Last years winner (Jordin Sparks) had several up-and-down weeks before finally putting it all together, but this is to be expected given the lack of experience of most of them and their relatively young age (Archuleta, for example, is only 17).

My family and I have been watching since the 1st season, and I find it consistently entertaining, although some year's crop of contestants are better than others. If you watched a few more performances I think you'd find that there's some decent talent this year. I would agree that they're all pretty likable, and definitely a few that are easy on the eyes :rolleyes:

I'm surprised that you have a daughter and you've been able to avoid 'Idol' this long! I've got 2 daughters myself and it's their favorite show.

So, it might be worth following to see how people do from week to week, to chart their progress. I can see that.


I have a question arising from all this: who is Ryan Seacrest? I don't mean from a biographical standpoint, but from a show biz one. Is he Dick Clark? Ed McMahon? Regis Philbin? Or a game show host like Jim Lange or Bob Eubanks? He's too wiry and high-strung to display the kind of gravitas and professionalism those guys had. He wore a dark 3-piece suit and tie last night, but it looked like it wasn't too comfortable with him, like it wanted to get away from him as soon as the credits finished rolling. His main function is to schmooze the contestants and he's young enough and sexually ambiguous enough to comfort the younger ones, both boys and girls, without looking at all creepy. (I.e., non-threatening to the girls and like a big brother to the boys.) He's not a sidekick, but he's certainly not going to upstage the judges, esp. Simon, the only actual star of the show until the next winner. (The forced banter between Ryan and Simon tended to slow the show down.)

I call the show - which I don't understand the popularity of - "Glorified Karaoke."

If they showcased people playing their own songs, while actually playing instruments, I'd watch it.

Until that day, a show combining American Gladiator and American Idol will suffice. :o

I'd definitely watch that! :blink:

Once upon a time, songwriters wrote songs and singers sang them. That's how we got Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, to name a few, on one hand and Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Billie Holliday, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Nat "King" Cole, to name a few, on the other. We now call it "The Great American Songbook." And to bring it to a later era, we had Motown because Holland, Dozier and Holland wrote songs for the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson to sing.

Now imagine what would have happened if Sinatra, Crosby, Garland, et al, were told they had to write their own songs and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin et al were told they had to sing their own songs. The American popular music landscape would have been vastly different for much of the 20th century. We would have had way more Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger than we could have tolerated. :o

When did it become necessary for a singer to gain credibility by writing their own songs? Granted, Bob Dylan and Lennon & McCartney could pull it off. And Carole King, who initially wrote for other performers before starting to finally sing her own songs. And I'm sure many of you have favorites from the years since, but for me, I've been driven away from American popular music since the early '80s by, among other things, the countless wannabes with a guitar or a keyboard whining about their personal problems and not coming up with a single memorable song in the process.

You've got a point there, though, Brian Wilson and Jimi Hendrix didn't do too bad either, nor Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Stones, Cream, The Allman Brothers, The Band, The Byrds, Leonard Cohen, Steely Dan, CSNY, The Neville Brothers, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Sir Douglas Quintet, The Mamas & The Papas, The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Flying Burrito Brothers, David Bowie, Neil Young, The Grateful Dead, Nick Drake, Sonic Youth, Iggy & The Stooges, The Kinks, Los Lobos, The Blasters, etc., etc., just to name a few (relatively speaking) of the folks writin' and a playin' their own songs.

As far as American popular music is concerned - though there are admittedly a few Brits above and a couple of Canucks - I guess I'm much more a DYI rock and Be Bop/Free Jazz Jazz listener than a popular music acolyte, and now, gracias to American Idol - from what I've gleaned from my infrequent exposure to the show - we can add countless uncreative wannabees - who may or may not have a voice - and many, I'd hazard to guess, that can't even write, much less play, their own songs to the mix of your guitar & keyboard wannabees, who at least were, and are, puttin' out their own point of view.

I guess what it really all boils down to is, I'm much more interested in the inventors of a song than the interpreters. And if the inventors can also play their music, ala your Carol King example, or 1970s Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, so much the better, IMHO.