Idolatry

Now I stoop to blogging about American Idol. By request, I might add.

I rarely get to watch American Idol when it comes on. Thanks to the DVR, I can spin through the vocals on the weekend. But, as usual I’ve picked my early favorite.

The first time I saw Jordin Sparks I said that we would be entertained by her for a long time to come..

That was followed by 2 men with guitars. David Cook and Kris Allen charmed America because, well America loves men with guitars.

This year it looks like the media darlings are guitar-strumming women – Crystal Bowersox and Lilly Scott. The male favorite is Casey Price, another strummer. Most think they’ll be the final 3 left standing.

So, of course I’m going to go on record with my darkhorse. My pick is Siobhan Magnus. Her voice and stage presence has blown me away, and I think she’ll be entertaining us for years to come, win or not. She’s a pure singer, shows no fear, and sings whatever she feels like. Don’t miss her. Who knows how long she’ll last.

Here’s the irony. I’m getting the feedback that Idol has jumped the shark.

Maybe it's the addition of the 4th judge that has done it. Kara played the spoiler role last year, but she’s grown on me, even though I think when her mouth is moving it’s just Randy’s opinion getting sterilized. This year Ellen Degeneres has been an intelligent upgrade to Paula Abdul, who’s not missed at all. Or maybe it's her unpredictable wackiness that's actually missing.

The problem is there’s no diversity of opinion. Except for Simon Cowell, the judges parrot each other. Meanwhile Simon seems to be advancing an agenda rather than judging singing. Last year I got a little frustrated with him for his constant undermining of Alison Iraheta as the finals neared. He constantly derided her with non-performance related critiques like “I don’t think you think you can win.” He gets a theme going on a contestant and he hammers away on script.

He’s started down the same road with Siobhan. He obviously doesn’t want her in the finals. His pick is Crystal and I say, “not so fast.” Crystal’s been very good so far, but let’s see what she does when she has to come out from behind the guitar. His comments this week that Siobhan didn’t do anything different with “House of the Rising Sun” were ridiculous. Maybe it’s reverse psychology. I don’t know. For years he's been the whole show, on the mark most of the time. He looks bored and he's become as Johnny-one-note as any of the contestants.

The thing to appreciate about American Idol is that it has brought back some great old music. They constantly say it’s a singing competition. It’s not. It’s a performance competition. They yammer on about song selection, instead of the delivery of the song. “We don’t know who you are,” etc. etc.

Too bad.
It's the most popular show in the history of television, but so far this year it's old, it's stale, and it's fading. The contestants are not up to par, and the judges are even more boring.
It's a little pitchy.
It just doesn't work for me.

At least not yet.