This is going to change my family’s life.<\/p>\n
That’s what a number of contestants said after winning a ticket to Hollywood last night.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I’ve been woodshedding, my dream is to be backed up by Jeff Beck and Jim Keltner, to jam with John Mayer, but that if all goes well, I’m going to make a lot of money.<\/p>\n
Somebody’s going to win.\u00c2\u00a0 But how much money is he or she going to make?\u00c2\u00a0 In an industry where the true stars are thrilled to reach a two million sales plateau and most people have no idea what the number one record is?<\/p>\n
"American Idol" is a television show.\u00c2\u00a0 First and foremost.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s bigger than any contestant.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s glorified karaoke at best.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s fascinating to watch because it perpetuates the myth that there’s a singular filter, a gate, which if you can pass through, solves all of your problems.<\/p>\n
This used to be getting a record deal.\u00c2\u00a0 If only a label would sign you.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d hound A&R men to come to your showcase, even though, over time, they didn’t even have signing power.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you got a major label deal that meant someone believed.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like being in elementary school and getting a gold star on your paper.\u00c2\u00a0 You walked proudly and felt that the company was going to take care of you.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the company can’t take care of its own employees.\u00c2\u00a0 Wall Street is reeling.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t give a shit about you.\u00c2\u00a0 Labels sign very few acts, want a ton of rights and most fascinatingly, break very little in a world where few are paying attention.<\/p>\n
So you turn to "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll go straight to the people, plead your case.\u00c2\u00a0 And your case is usually, I’m beautiful, I can sing like Mariah Carey, this is America, I get a chance, don’t I?\u00c2\u00a0 I’m ENTITLED to my chance!<\/p>\n
The English bluesmeisters, who still do sell-out business today, spoke through their instruments, because they were so shy, they could barely speak themselves. Sure, they took up playing to get laid.\u00c2\u00a0 How else would they connect?\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to ask someone for a date, and keep up conversation, they couldn’t do that. And it was the only way out.\u00c2\u00a0 The factory or top of the pops.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you did make it to the top, if your record did go to number one, it was just a momentary thing. Then back to your hometown, to watch some football, drink a beer in the pub, go to your day job.<\/p>\n
But music blew up.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only can Paul McCartney still play music for a living, but the Stones and Peter Noone too.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a magical time.\u00c2\u00a0 The music came to represent the time.\u00c2\u00a0 Records told you which way the wind blew.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Dylan would be laughed out of an AI audition, but he set the course for so many in the sixties and beyond.\u00c2\u00a0 You had to say something.<\/p>\n
It’s hard to say something if you don’t write the material.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re just grist for the mill.<\/p>\n
That’s what everybody is fighting for on "American Idol", to be grist for the mill.\u00c2\u00a0 Please, use me, abuse me, make me into whatever you want.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the opposite of classic rock, the sound that is still filling arenas.\u00c2\u00a0 Classic rock was about doing it your own way, giving the man the middle finger.\u00c2\u00a0 But now Simon Cowell gives the middle finger to you.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the businessman is the star.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’ve got to hand it to Simon, at least he’s honest.\u00c2\u00a0 More honest than anybody appearing in front of him.<\/p>\n
The rest of the judges?\u00c2\u00a0 Thrilled they’re along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Randy Jackson can stay off the road and pitch lame reality shows to MTV.<\/p>\n
Paula Abdul can forestall a life of boredom in the San Fernando Valley.<\/p>\n
Kara DioGuardi can finally be famous.\u00c2\u00a0 After failing as a performer and writing utterly forgettable songs.<\/p>\n
We used to have Doc Pomus.\u00c2\u00a0 Leiber & Stoller.\u00c2\u00a0 Now we’ve got Kara DioGuardi?\u00c2\u00a0 Can you envision a "Smokey Joe’s Cafe" of Kara’s tunes opening on Broadway ten or twenty years from now?<\/p>\n
Hope you didn’t ruin your computer screen by spitting up your morning coffee.<\/p>\n
You see Kara DioGuardi is part of the myth.\u00c2\u00a0 That statistics make you famous, make you not only worthwhile, but legendary.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s got tunes on forty five Top Ten albums!\u00c2\u00a0 And those are..?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe at best, chest-beater Celine Dion’s?<\/p>\n
But Kara’s a good judge.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s not quite the new Simon, but she adds some life to this TV show.\u00c2\u00a0 Where they manipulate the people and the interactions to generate audience reaction.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, AI is not reality, not even a facsimile, but an entertainment.\u00c2\u00a0 Fake, just like America specializes in.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than show the nitty-gritty, we’ll pull your heartstrings, will make you laugh, you had a good time, right?<\/p>\n
But it’s like eating a Twinkie.\u00c2\u00a0 You think you want one, but it’s never as satisfying as your desire.\u00c2\u00a0 You desire something more real.\u00c2\u00a0 But there are playlists to fill, tours to sell, we’ve got a whole industry that refuses to put on the brakes and ask if we’re going in the right direction.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re Detroit, with just a lot fewer zeroes.<\/p>\n
And the plethora of people who line up to play our game, to be contestants on "American Idol", delivers the hope that people still care.\u00c2\u00a0 But they don’t, because winners on the show become fourth rate celebrities that most people just don’t give a shit about.\u00c2\u00a0 Kelly Clarkson made it when MTV was still a viable hitmaking machine, she could be sold far and wide (and she was the beneficiary of a great Max Martin\/Dr. Luke track.)\u00c2\u00a0 Carrie Underwood is living in the old fading sausage factory known as country music.\u00c2\u00a0 Where titans with tight fists believe terrestrial radio and CDs will rule forever, however deluded they might be.\u00c2\u00a0 But the newly-minted idols, they’re entering a world where train-wrecks are posted all over the Web, almost instantly, and are then forgotten.<\/p>\n
If you want to last, you’ve got to build slowly.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to be selling something beyond your desire to be rich and famous.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to get fans yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 And, you’ve got to be satisfied when you can give up your day job, because today, even if you’re on the cover of "People", you may still have to work 9-5.\u00c2\u00a0 Being famous is easy.\u00c2\u00a0 Making people care is much harder.<\/p>\n
So "American Idol" is a perpetuation of the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s as if TRL didn’t go off the air.\u00c2\u00a0 As if boy bands still ruled the earth.\u00c2\u00a0 As if albums still had diamond sales. Contestants want some of that nineties fame.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s the twenty first century.\u00c2\u00a0 And to the degree that old paradigm works, it’s marginal, it’s a very small mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 But there is no new mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 So people hold on to the old.\u00c2\u00a0 But true seers, performers who want to survive, are trying to figure out the new world, trying to become the new classic rock acts, famous for their material and their chops, however difficult that may be.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re like the Claptons of yore. They’re driven to do this.\u00c2\u00a0 They just want to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll be stunned if they ever become rich and famous.<\/p>\n
Because if you put being rich and famous first, you’ve got nothing that makes you attractive, that makes you desirable.\u00c2\u00a0 And we need more.\u00c2\u00a0 A pretty face is not enough.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is going to change my family’s life. That’s what a number of contestants said after winning a ticket to Hollywood last night.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I’ve been woodshedding, my dream is to be backed up by Jeff Beck and Jim Keltner, to jam with John Mayer, but that if all goes well, I’m going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-ps","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}