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March 12, 2008
I GOT SEACRESTED
Plastic – Any material that has plasticity
Plastic – The fourth and final single released from Alanis Morissette's 1991 debut album Alanis.
Plastic – the general term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products
Plastic – Inferior or not the real thing; ersatz (especially when made of plastic instead of an alterate material).
Last night was the first and last time I watched an episode of American Idol. This statement is and will be true. I have never watched it before, was unfamiliar with the format (though it was everything I predicted it to be), and will never watch it again. A friend was in town who wanted to see it, so I DVRed it and we watched it after dinner, while I graded papers and made prototypical sarcastic comments.
Here are the problems I had with American Idol™ before watching it:
1) It represents everything I hate about culture
2) It represents everything I hate about music
3) It represents everything I hate about style
4) It represents everything I hate about television
5) I was five feet from that Taylor Hicks dude at the Liberty Bowl and he seemed like a tool obsessed with his look and his celebrity.
6) It is a plastic model of plasticness watched by people who are either oblivious to its plasticity or in a state of hipster self-awareness about it.
7) I want to punch that Simon guy.
I have to say that I now have the same problems after watching it, along with these:
1) It is more plastic than I realized.
2) They do bad things with great songs (I had never considered this aspect before; for some damn reason, I honestly assumed they sang their own music); in this case, eleven amateur singers (and, I assume, their legions of handlers – who don’t get their own featurettes, another aspect of the plasticity) decided it would be a good idea to rearrange songs by one of the greatest bands ever. Lowlights: Eleanor Rigby and In My Life.*
3) There are now four people I want to punch, and one of them is a woman who once danced with MC Skat Cat.
But here is the real problem. For some reason, I assumed that the three extremely rich dorks who judge this thing used a lot of music lingo and showbiz jargon to judge these wannabes. Apparently, they do not – they make baseless criticisms and even more pointless praises. They should have no authority – two of whom have built pathetic but lucrative careers as talent judges, and the other who should be enjoying some distinct stage of being washed out and a lunatic – but they command a large stage.
Here is my imitation of their criticisms:
“You were off pitch at the beginning, and then you got better, but I wasn’t feeling it.”
Here are their praises:
“Girl, you so totally GOT it!”
When I grade my students’ papers, I try to avoid what we in academia (snicker) call “copia” – buzzwords for “good” or “bad” that often betray the fact that I may not have read their paper carefully. I try to make pointed, specific comments, because I want them to become better writers.
When these judges do their thing, it’s pure copia. There is nothing they, music professionals, can say that I couldn’t say. Their comments are random and arbitrary, yet I think there’s something more sinister going on: I believe all three are pawns of the network and the record company, promoting the amateur singers who are more TV friendly and marketable. We assume they know what they’re talking about, so we don’t expect to say anything thoughtful or insightful. Their subjective tastes are all that matter, yet they vocalize as though it has some objective authority. In a better culture, we would have disposed of this quickly and painlessly. Yet it lives, eats, consumes, vomits, reproduces, etc.
It has nothing to do with talent. It has everything to do with money.
It is, to use a word I haven’t used yet, plastic.
* By the way, voters (who, I am aware, don’t read this blog) – please vote for the dude who sang ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. I know that the dorks who judge this thing like it when amateur singers do creative things with songs they did not write, but that guy at least sang the song kind of like John Lennon did.
** This was hastily written and informed only by my own judgment. I'm sure it seems unoriginal, but I really have never read any criticism of the show before; in the past, I just rolled my eyes whenever I heard anyone talk about. If you have any great articles that expose this phenomenon for its plasticity, please send it to the Andytown.com direct office along with the URL and I will post it in 7-10 days. Andytown.com cannot respond to every email directly, but I'll put one of my interns on it.
If all this is too, I dunno plastic; here's thelegendary singer/songwriter I'm currently obsessed with.
| By Andytown | 06:30 AM
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Comments
i just read this and realized that i wrote that last paragraph as though I was breaking a news story. i'm sure that everyone who hates, and some of those who like, AI believes the "sinister" intent i wrote about in the same breathless style that woodward and bernstein wrote about deep throat. i guess i will not be winning that pulitzer this year.
Posted by: andytown at March 12, 2008 12:40 PM
Andy,
Although I am glad you will probably teach my kid some day, my only response to this is take a deep breath and calm down. As a lover of music I enjoy seeing what some of these kids do with the music/songs. It is light entertainment.
See you at church.
Mike
Posted by: Mike at April 10, 2008 05:45 PM