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idolatry: Obsessive analysis of American Idol.

Bring on the Freak ShowBlogging the new season of American Idol.

By Jody Rosen
Posted Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007, at 5:49 PM ET
Illustration by Jason Raish. Click image to expand.

Season 6 of American Idol began on a triumphalist note, with a montage of past winners and images of a nation gone Idol-mad. "Together, we've created a phenomenon," said Ryan Seacrest, trying hard to sound stentorian, like the voiceover guy from NFL Films. "You caught McPheever, and turned Katharine into America's Sweetheart," he intoned. Did we really? I'm not so sure. Still, as the new season kicks off, Idol's pop-culture preeminence is undeniable, as is its music-biz clout. (Among the astonishing statistics reeled off by Seacrest is the fact that Idol contestants have produced "over 100 No. 1 CDs.") The industry held its nose for the first couple of seasons, but now superstars vie to appear as guests on the show, and last year's finale, with performances by Prince and Mary J. Blige among others, felt like as much of an event as the Grammys. This year, producers are promising more A-list guest stars—Mariah? Macca?—and big midseason twists. And while highbrows continue to sniff at Idol, the show's track record of anointing worthy new talent is very solid indeed. Exhibit A in 2006 was Season 4 winner Carrie Underwood, whose debut, Some Hearts, was an excellent country-pop record, not to mention the year's best-selling CD by a solo artist. Did I mention that an American Idol runner-up is about to win an Oscar?

None of which has much to do with Red. Red is the nearly toothless, flame-haired giant who croaked a pitiful version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on last night's broadcast, a two-hour-long compendium of clips from Idol's Seattle auditions. (Tuesday's show focused on the Minneapolis tryouts.) Red was mesmerizing—in a creepy, hillbilly Charles Manson kind of way—but in general I find the audition phase boring. Six years in, the formula is familiar: a parade of the freakish, the tone-deaf, and the delusional, interrupted, roughly every half-hour, by a talented singer who gets a ticket to Hollywood. Occasionally, the bad singers are funny and revealing. On Tuesday night, a lesson in the larynx-shredding aesthetics of post-grunge vocal style was supplied by a pimply young "rocker," whom Simon sent off to learn an Abba song. I laughed at (with?) the big girl who mumbled her way through the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha"—and was excited beyond reason to learn that she'd co-authored an Idol-inspired "novella" with her mother. (Hello, publishing world? Where's Judith Regan when you need her?)

Overall, though, the freak show preliminaries are tiresome, and I find myself itching for the beginning of the competition proper. It's the post-William Hung effect: For every genuine would-be superstar, there's a would-be über-geek anti-star. Watching the first two episodes, you couldn't help but suspect that most of the "bad" singers were actually savvy performance artists, angling for a few minutes of airtime. Thus the Jewel super-fan (quite possibly the last one on earth), who sang a wounded water buffalo version of "You Were Meant for Me" to a panel that included guest judge Jewel herself; the dude dressed up as Uncle Sam; the fellow in the Apollo Creed outfit; the "cowboy" who mauled "Folsom Prison Blues"; the tiny Justin Timberlake wannabe, whom Simon cruelly (but accurately) likened to "one of those creatures that live in the woods with those massive eyes"; the "urban Amish" guy; the juggler; the girl with the pink arms; etc.

The American Idol judges. Click image to expand.

These acts mostly ring false, and when they don't, Idol veers into the icky, exploitative territory of lesser reality shows. (Last night, the program lingered for several uncomfortable minutes on a fat kid who was clearly developmentally disabled.) Really, how many more bug-eyed Simon Cowell reaction shots can we see before the joke ceases to be funny? On the other hand, I am enjoying the leitmotif of rejected contestants trying to exit through the wrong, locked door—a priceless bit of old-school slapstick punctuated, each time, by Simon's drawling, "Other door, sweetheart."

One of the big questions heading into Season 6 is: Will Idol get with 21st-century innovations in pop repertoire and vocal style? Back in Season 2, I wrote an article complaining about Idol's domination by Mariah Carey wannabes, and the overuse of flamboyant Careyesque melisma in pop and R&B singing generally. What I didn't take into account was the groundbreaking new singing style—speedy and tensile, weirdly syncopated, clearly influenced by rap—that was being pioneered right then by R. Kelly, Usher, and, especially, Beyoncé. In the years since, Idol has seen its share of country and rock singers, and even some old-fashioned crooners. But circa-1992 Mariah- and Whitney-style belting remains the most prevalent—this despite the fact that Carey herself has moved on to channeling Beyoncé. Will Season 6 bring a post-hip-hop R&B vocalist, a singer representing the definitive contemporary style? When is someone going to step forward, braving the wrath of Cowell, to do a version of "Ignition (Remix)" or "Ring the Alarm"?

We'll keep an eye on that and other intriguing musical and sociological questions in this space, in addition to the more pressing issues—Paula Abdul's fragile emotional state (she's been disappointingly sane and sober thus far), the smoldering sexual tension between Simon and Ryan, Randy Jackson's gratuitous mentions of his own session work with Journey and Mariah Carey. (The tally so far: 1.) In the meantime, my early votes go to the absolutely adorable Malakar siblings, Shyamali and Sanjaya (who killed "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" in his audition); to 16-year-old Denise Jackson, who, we were informed in a heart-jerking interlude, was a "crack baby"; and to the extravagantly moussed beatboxer Blake Lewis, who, despite his hair, came across as genuinely charismatic and talented. (You can sample his vocal stylings on his MySpace page.) Then there's the developing singers-in-arms subplot, with two members of the military already advancing to the next round. Rachel Jenkins, an Army reservist from Minnetonka, Minn., whose husband is currently in Baghdad, might be the stronger vocalist of the two. But the smart early money is on Jarrod Walker, a Naval intelligence specialist with a pleasant Andy Griffith air about him, who won the USS Ronald Reagan's "Reagan Idol" competition, and sailed through to Hollywood, singing the Rascal Flatts weepie, "Bless the Broken Road." Might Americans purge their guilt about souring on the Iraq war by "supporting the troops" in the Idol competition?

Until next week: other door, sweetheart.

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Jody Rosen is Slate's music critic. He lives in New York City. He can be reached at .
Illustration by Jason Raish. Still from American Idol by Michael Becker, copyright Fox. All rights reserved.
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Remarks from the Fray:

What is it, like, the 7th season already? Remember the very first one? That shabby little Gong Show/Star Search knockoff with a has-been, a who-again?, and a never-was?

Well, Tuesday's 2 hour premier of AI blew the roof off the joynt in a spectacle worthy of an Emmy. Ironically, using "Baba O'Reilly" as the backdrop during the opening montage/retrospective was a stroke of genius. I wonder how much that check to Pete Townsend was? "Baba" was genius because while it wasn't used in American Beauty proper (I don't think, anyway – the last jogging scene was "The Seeker"), they did use "Baba" in the special features featurette which I believe was called "Look Closer". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The open was picture-perfectly edited. AI could quite possibly be the only reality show that actually learns from its mistakes and capitalizes on its strengths. I.e., the video and music editors are actually listening both to you and to pop culture at large. Here's how I know this.

•Prince was highlighted, very tastefully, having performed (and killed) at last year's finale, and it was an ideal transition into the first round of auditions being held in his hometown of Minneapolis.

•Speaking of which, starting off the auditions with a complete and total meltdown is almost never a good idea, unless the contestant is being judged by one of her idols, in this case Jewel, whom I love. Not so much the music as the gal. So you've got this chubby chick from rural Minnesota basically channeling Meryl Streep's character from A Prairie Home Companion, and she's got the temerity to sing a Jewel song. And it's, well, not very good, which she's told by her idol, Jewel, whom I love. And right there, right there in front of us, in the span of about 45 seconds, we're treated to nothing short of the 5 stages of grieving:

"Really? Really? But… but… Really? No… No…"
"Yes, I can sing, I can, I really can!"
"Wait, please, let me do another song, please."
[uncontrolled public sobbing on primetime national television]
"I'll continue to sing for my own enjoyment while I'm ice fishing and being cold a lot, or whatever it is exactly that we do in rural Minnesota."

That segment should be required viewing for every Psychology 101 student, not to mention people who think they can sing but can't.

(•I really love Jewel. She looks great. Didn't she marry like a rodeo dude or something? Did they break up? Is she available? One thing I really like about her is the fact that she didn't get her teeth fixed.)

•Then, a black guy comes out dressed as Apollo Creed in Rocky 3, complete with matching boxing gloves, and sings an aria. Apparently our beloved judges are fans of neither the Rocky franchise nor opera.

•Cue crack baby. Damn. In comes this 16 year-old black chick with a sad story and an even sadder mother, apparently. As the judges are chatting her up I'm muttering, "Oh please, dear god, please let her be able to sing, please." Emotional pornography in one of its more pure forms, because she can, and she's going to Hollywood.

•Like 6 rejected kids in a row pushed the wrong door upon exiting, at which point the judges say, "It's the other one." Hey, dickheads: put up a sign or something. They don't know that. Assholes. They can't read your minds. Fortunately for them.

•Not quite enough emotional manipulation yet? Let's bring in the enlisted guy in his sailor uniform. "Oh please, dear god, please let him be able to sing, please." He can. Tears streaming down my face.

•"Pitchiness", like "truthier", is, thanks to AI, one of those words that's not actually a word, yet everyone knows what it means. Thanks, Randy. Retard.

(•This is the point at which I switched over to CBS's The Unit, a pretty darn good little show itself.)

•Then all of a sudden in sweeps the gay orphan dude with the thing on his nose, he launches into "California Dreamin'", I chime in with the authentic Mamas and the Papas harmony parts, and it turns out all 5 of us are going to Hollywood. (Gay orphan dude, me, dog 1, dog 2, and cat.)

(•I love Jewel. I love her.)

•Still not emotionally drained? Bring in the short chubby soldier girl. "Oh please, dear god, please let her be able to sing, please." Ka-ching!

•I guess, rundeep, since what's-her-face ripped off Monheit's arrangement of "Somewhere Over The Stairway To Flower People", we're going to have to listen to it all season long. Again. Okay.

•Switch back to The Unit, which jars me back to reality because there's a bunch of oriental men with guns standing by a goat. Weird.

That's plenty for now, don't you think? Maybe even too much.

It'll be tough to top last season, which to these ears and eyes was one of the better ones. Let's hope the house band's as motivated as they were the last go-around. Oh, and just think about it: There's another 2 hours of the shit on Wednesdays! I love this time of year! (Sad, really. See? Not just because the holidays are over and I'm not dead. Again.)
Let the games begin!

--Tom_Robbins

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