I watched American Idol last night. The biggest flaw, well, maybe not the biggest, is that they don’t show the actual results. I would like to know the margin of victory of Trisha Yearwood over Chris Robinson. And I saw again that this crop, and all crops other than the first season, are marginally good. Let’s review the previous winners and runners up.
Season three. Winner was Fantasia Barrino. Terrible. Sounds like a young child trying to scream as loud as they can to bug the living crap out of their siblings. In fact, a screaming child probably sounds better. Like listening to a baby seal being clubbed to death, without the bloody mess.
Runner up was Diana DeGarmo, which I can’t remember a thing about. Surprise there.
Season two. Winner was the giant fat black guy, Ruben Studdard. While Fantasia winning made a mockery of the show, Ruben winning started the joke. Nothing against his style, but if he is the best this country can produce, then maybe pop singers are not our thing. England actually does it much better as shown by my brother-in-law’s obsession with bubble gum pop music when he lived there. And my brother-in-law makes George Bush look like a left wing socialist mamby pamby.
The runner up was the delicate flower Clay Aiken. Again, nothing against this guy, but Michael Bolton and Kenny G at least had some talent. Please shoot me for saying that. But if you want to be the soft, sensitive, wimpy girls-best-friend kind, at least have a voice like Barry Manilow or sex appeal like Neil Diamond. Please shoot me now for saying THAT.
Season One. Winner was Kelly Clarkson. Kelly, Clarkson. When she won the whole thing, I thought American Idol was a winner. This girl has got a great voice and a little bit of visual appeal. I might get beat up for this, but she really can sing. She continues to do pretty good stuff and if she were a little more attractive would be a huge success. Saying the other winners had the same amount of talent as Kelly Clarkson is like saying all countries in the UN have the same amount of influence as the US. As much as Cameroon might like to believe they have an equal voice, it’s just not true. Kelly Clarkson is the only American Idol winner to have any real chance at being a sustained pop idol.
Runner up was poor Justine Guarini. This guy’s 15 minutes of fame ended with a screeching halt. Wonder why? Could it be that he has no talent and he got as far because of his hair, which, by the way, he has cut off and looks like a parolee. The only redeeming quality in this guy was that he tried to move to Broadway and didn’t subject the world to any more attempts at radio.
The show last night was 1 hour, 55 minutes of total nonsense, 1 minute of announcing the winner, then an awkward few minutes of people on stage and a quiet audience. It was strange. It’s like the kid in high school who wins the ‘Most School Spirited’ award on senior night. It was like she won a cupcake for being the most caring Care Bear or something. And while I sat through the rest of the show to torment the horizonless landscape which I call my life, I realized that the best part of the series was anything but the ending. With Survivor, the end brings some closure. With American Idol, kind of like the Apprentice, the end left me feeling flat and empty.
And one other thing. No one wants to hear these people sing original songs. We want to hear them do renditions of songs that we all know so that we have something to compare it to. Listening to BoBi or Trisha sing something they made up while sitting on the crapper means nothing to me. It forces me to use the 30 second skip-ahead feature on my DVR remote control.
I say, like Brian from Watertown, let the audience vote off the worst person each week. Show the results. And bring in a panel of true experts, not just the three judges, to make a decision before they open up the voting to the general public. Oh, ha, before I forget. Why in the world did they bring that heavy black girl on to sing the national anthem? It was almost cruel. She obviously can’t sing and not only did the show totally embarrass her once during the season, they replayed it again last night and then paraded her out on the stage all dressed up to butcher that song again. What’s next, take a blind kid out on stage and throw baseballs at him? Maybe take a mentally handicapped person out and make them answer difficult trivia questions. It was awful, cruel and mean and the show should be ashamed for doing it.
I usually don’t watch this show until the final 12 or so are involved. I think next season I’ll watch up until the final 12 are chosen. While I think Simon did a much better job this year with being honest and direct with the singers, I find that the end result of the contest is way off the mark for what most people would find fulfilling.
Comments