The American Idol Thread

[Eric]

Disagree about Bo, but that goes without saying, and that's probably because I've been familiar with him since before American Idol.

What? How?

[dws1982]

I didn't think Anwar was that bad last night myself Eric. Although, watching the tape back, it became clear that he (and Vonzell) got a ton of mileage out of the backup singer, just like Carrie did on her (overrated) performance of "Alone". But to me, even when he's good, he's still mediocre.

Disagree about Bo, but that goes without saying, and that's probably because I've been familiar with him since before American Idol.

[anonymous1980]

My rankings for this week:

01. Vonzell (Took on a difficult song and passed with flying colors. She's definitely the most improved)
02. Bo (His best in weeks.)
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03. Carrie (The impressive last note saved an otherwise merely okay performance of a bad song.)
04. Anthony (I agree with Simon: pleasant but a little insipid.)
05. Anwar (The very definition of mediocrity)
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06. Constantine (he regressed back to the qualities I dislike about him. Was he wearing eyeliner?)
07. Scott (Please go home already).

WHO SHOULD GO: Scott

WHO WILL GO: Anwar or Scott (Please, God!)

[Eric]

Bo, who sang the song, seemed to me the most real of the contestants...

This statement sort of encapsulates everything that bugs me about the way this AI is shaping up. Bo's schtick seems as contrived, to me, as Josh's did a few seasons ago (he was the Marine/Navy/whatever kid who rode the Alan Jackson beat straight up to the top 4), but unlike with Josh, everyone appears to have been seduced by Bo, to the tune of saying he's a frontrunner for the top 3 or 2. Why? Because he holds the mike stand up to his hip? Because he sounds like a cut-rate Scott Stapp?

No, I think he's coasting to fairly universal laurels because the throughline of this edition of AI propositions a fantasy world of pop that was never exposed to hip-hop. I like "MacArthur Park" quite a bit (because it's legitimately insane -- camp in the Holly Woodlawn sense, not the Ethel Merman disco album sense -- and I have a weakness for disco songs that move from minor-key verses to major-key choruses, like Earth Wind & Fire's "Can't Let Go" and Fantasy's "You're Too Late"), but even the use of that had me itching at the anti-popism of this season. So you wanna sing a Donna Summer disco song and you're mostly a country-type girl, so hardcore-disco and R&B-flavors are sort of out of your range. You can still choose Anthology selections like "Love's Unkind" ('60s girl group-style) or "Heaven Knows" (maybe her whitest hit and still passionate), but no. She goes and picks the singer's nod to prog-rock.

Meanwhile, Anwar's performance last night continues my long streak of finally coming around on contestants the very week they're most likely to be eliminated. He wasn't impressive last night as a performer, though I did note that he seemed far more laidback than I'd ever seen him in the prelims... which was absolutely the right route to take when performing what is probably the ultimate top-down disco tune: "September." I'll admit my bias here. I can think of only ten or twenty songs that I like more than "September," so anyone who chooses it and doesn't completely mangle it (and he didn't; no trace of those "meaningless high notes," to swipe dws's weekly mantra) immediately shoots into my number one slot for the week. But by this point, nearly everyone knows he's gay, and he'll end up in the bottom tomorrow along with Vonzell ("I'm Every Woman"; her rendition wasn't as good as Treynece's in S2). Because they're singing R&B and the genre is too busy being strangled to death by Scott to the delight of AI voters.

Anyway, one non-rant loose end. Anthony has become my other favorite, not because he's an interesting performer (he's adequate), but because he's pulling off the Clay Aiken transformation with a much more attractive "after" shot, and where did those guns come from? Suddenly, that frail little boy-special case has become a real heartthrob. He's got my little girl vote.

[Eric]

I'm with you, Ace.

This weeks episode, the first I watched more or less in total since the start of the actual competition, highlit a lot of anger trigger points that I'll probably come back and rant about, unless I come to my senses and realize it's not worth the effort.

[Aceisgreat]

Voodoo curses on all of you!

*storming off with my Donna Summer records*

[Damien]

By the way, my beloved had American Idol on in the other room tonight, so I heard much of the proceedings. Only in the world of American Idol could a cover of a top 40 single from 1970 -- "Vehivle" by one-hit wonders Ides of March -- come across as cool. Bo, who sang the song, seemed to me the most real of the contestants, but he seemed no better than an above-average bar band singer. (Of course my taste and Callow Simon's have nothing in common.)

[Damien]

No! Really? You gotta be KIDDING! What is good about that song??? Because Donna Summer sings it? It does her no favors. Because it's camp? There's so much better camp out there, much of it sung by Donna herself. Or am I misreading the smilie?

I think that "MacArthur Park" is ultimately a Richard Harris song, because he had the original hit with it. This was back in 1968, when he was riding the sucess of Camelot, and Middle Ages romanticism was very popular. (His album was called "A Knight Shining" and the theme from Romeo and Juliet was also a big deal, and the Stones and Donovan and others were doing stuff with mandolins, and Paul Mariat's huge instrumental hit "Love Is Blue" also fit in.)

Harris's version is pure kitsch, but Donna Summer's is just crap, and is one of the worst records ever, not even a good dance record.

[Sonic Youth]

Donna Summer's MacArthur Park, one of the worst songs ever.

No! Really? You gotta be KIDDING! What is good about that song??? Because Donna Summer sings it? It does her no favors. Because it's camp? There's so much better camp out there, much of it sung by Donna herself. Or am I misreading the smilie?

[dws1982]

I think "MacArthur Park" is one of the worst songs ever too, whether Donna Summer, or Waylon Jennings, or Richard Harris, or its writer Jimmy Webb, or Carrie The Singing Corpse, is singing it. (Jimmy Webb did write some terrific songs though--"Galveston" and "Wichita Lineman" are my favorites--but "MacArthur Park" will always be his worst and most famous.) But it did give occasion for the funniest line of the night, when Carrie admitted onstage that she didn't have a clue what the song was about: "It's a great song, despite the lyrics".

I didn't think tonight was as bad as I had feared, but it was so boring that I don't think it even deserves ranking. Carrie probably was the worst though, although her performance was kind of fascinating in a can't-look/can't-look-away manner.

[Aceisgreat]

Donna Summer's MacArthur Park, one of the worst songs ever.

[Sonic Youth]

I'm tired of this new pope already, so I decided to see a little American Idol. They have this chick Carrie singing Donna Summer's MacArthur Park, one of the worst songs ever. Her voice is all wrong for the song, she can't walk in her heels, and she has no idea how to bring herself across like a diva. Horrible! One of the most awful things I've ever seen! And the judges are all praising her. And this gets the highest ratings every week?

[Eric]

I don't necessarily disagree with any of that. But mostly because there seems to have been an unusual amount of people attempting (and failing) to sing Stevie Wonder songs. Nice try, kids, but you're all out of your league.

[Damien]

Stephen Holden in today's New York Times (in an article about Barbara Cook):


I thought back to the Broadway anthology unleashed on the April 5 edition of "American Idol," whose nine contestants struggled to articulate fragments of songs like "The Impossible Dream," "People," "My Funny Valentine" and "Hello, Young Lovers." The paradox of this toxic singing contest, which is the rough equivalent of the old "Ed Sullivan Show" in suggesting the median level of mass musical taste, is that it has the power to canonize songs, which its clueless judges then go on to treat as stunts in a gymnastic competition that rewards crude physical prowess.

To listen to Simon Cowell dismiss the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "Hello, Young Lovers" as a "mind-numbingly boring" song that belongs on "a washing powder commercial in 1965" was to hear an ill-willed philistine sneering through a cloud of his own noxious vapors.

The contestants are urged not to be "pitchy" (the program's favorite pseudo-technical word for off-pitch, which they usually are), and are congratulated for their high notes and telegenic appeal. ("I admit I'm falling in love with you," Paula Abdul gushed to one. "When you smile you melt America's heart," she blubbered to another.) The third judge, Randy Jackson, doesn't know the difference between a dude and a "dogg" (his two favorite words).

Let's not kid ourselves: the ascendance of "American Idol," and its turning of music into sports, signals the end of American popular song as we know it. Its ritual slaughter of songs allows no message to be carried, no wisdom to be communicated, other than the screamed and belted song of the self.

[OscarGuy]

That is very sad. Nadia was a fantastic performer. I hope that America realizes that they won't have a winner worth anything with her gone.