Perez Hilton, Tila Tequila, Sanjaya Malakar, that guy you once saw on Comedy Central at 4:25 in the morning, and Kathy Griffin are just a handful of the mega-superstars on hand this weekend as VH1 takes a nostalgic look back at 2008: the first two days that were.
Yes, it's all here... the highs! The lows! The low-lifes getting high! VH1 is the place to be this weekend, rather than actually going out and experiencing LIFE, for god's sake.
Who could forget the time Ryan Seacrest (doing his best imitation of a man not itching for Dick Clark to pass on) introduced The Plain White T's, who, shockingly, chose to perform "Hey There Delilah" on Dick Clark's rockin' New Year's Eve? And who could forget the man who shot himself in the head immediately thereafter, mumbling something onlookers believed to be, "Not again, not again?"
Likewise, who could forget that classic-moment when "New York" of "Flavor of Love" held her very own January 2nd special to look back on the "I Love New York" reunion show from January 1st? You'll thrill to New York's fond recollection of the precise moment she found true love for the fourth time this season.
That's right, all your favorite celebrity moments from early-early-early 2008 come flooding back this weekend... so get your ark ready! After all, who doesn't get misty recalling the 905th time we ran a feature about Lindsey losing a dangerous amount of weight, immediately followed by our 906th "ultra-scalding hot-supermodel" swimsuit preview! And who doesn't get choked up remembering the time Britney smacked right into a stop sign... while walking?
Of course, it's hard to forget these things when we run clips of them 98 times a day under the flimsy pretense of "mocking them," but JUST IN CASE you had a mild stroke and lost some valuable celebrity-devoted neurons, here they are again, in all our painfully unaware self-aware glory!
Plus, we'll be featuring some awesome clips of the Republican candidates on the campaign trail in Iowa this week. During the clips, our retro-licious hosts will make some disparaging comments about the candidates' clothes, or their sex lives, or something else completely irrelevant to politics, because it's all the same anyway, right? Never let it be said VH1 isn't doing its part to reduce everything in this ADD-addled society to roughly the same post-modern status, where a potential leader of America might as well be the guy who sang "Chocolate Rain."
Yes, you'll get it all... the snide comments! The derision! The irony! The easy-reaches! The thinly veiled contempt! Or, as we like to call it, "affectionate nostalgia." For two solid hours, you'll hear celebrities get a good roasting from grade-A superstars like the chick who came in third on Survivor! You know, the type of person who will undoubtedly command awe and reverence when we look back on 2008 twenty years from now.
VH1: I LOVE THE FIRST COUPLE OF DAYS OF 2008 premieres this Saturday night, immediately followed by the 100 most crotchiest-crotch-shots of 2007! Check your local listings for more info. (Cemetery listings, that is. You'll definitely want to off yourself after watching this one.)
Showing posts with label American Idol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Idol. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
American Idol Lessons, Part 2
As Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis continue to pollute the airwaves with their new CD's this month, I thought we'd take a continuing look at some of the things I've learned from both watching American Idol and frequenting American Idol message boards, two activities I would not recommend to anyone without a strong grip on their own sanity.
Lessons Learned from American Idol, Part 2:
16) After making fun of someone's weight mercilessly, she becomes "our own so-and-so" once she goes on to win a golden globe and an Oscar.
17) Live (the band) was a lot more influential than you thought.
18) What hair products Blake Lewis uses is suitable news fodder for the "serious" news program that follows American Idol in your local market.
19) As long as your private parts are covered, then it's not possible for a pose to be suggestive. (From the American Idol boards)
20) If you just came in second place, it's great manners to tell the winner on national tv, "MAYBE WE'LL COMPETE ON THE CHARTS!" rather than letting the champion have their moment of victory.
21) The TV GUIDE CHANNEL can save you from a life of cooking french fries.
22) The best way to move musical artistry forward is by mimicking the trends and styles of artists who were generally regarded as hacks even 30 years ago.
23) If you glare at the camera like you just lost a member of your platoon in 'Nam, people will think you're "edgy" and "intense" and that you "rock," even if you're singing a song made popular by Celine Dion.
24) Any song recorded after 1991 is "edgy."
25) If you have more than 2 drops of color in your hair that is not a natural hair color, you must be "edgy" and have that "little wild thing going on" as well.
26) It's really, really happening to wear a suit jacket/ t-shirt combo 790 days in a row if you're the host of AI. Score extra points if you wear the t-shirt of a band that wouldn't be caught dead letting their songs appear on AI.
27) It's totally ok to be patronizing to people who just had their dreams crushed, as long as they're clueless and/or unattractive, and you're a happening tv host with gelled hair and a pre-selected wardrobe who acts really "concerned."
28) Rude, pretentious, callous, pompous, insensitive behavior is called “being right” or “telling it like it is” when you’re a British 40-something commenting on music he can't possibly hope to understand.
29) Middle-aged housewives have no lives. Ever. No matter what. (From the AI boards)
30) If you suggest a photo of an Idol may be in questionable taste, and possibly inappropriate for a younger fan base, then you must also be in favor of burning the Constitution.
31) If you sing a standard that has been around for almost 70 years, you are automatically copying off the person who sang it most recently.
32) If you can't come up with anything resembling a good song, throw more and more gospel singers on stage. At least 5,000 or so. Have them sway and move around a lot, and be sure to change keys a couple of times. Add balloons and confetti, then cross your fingers and pray to Clive Davis that no one notices your song blows.
33) Aliens abducted Rod Stewart and Elton John and erased their memories of who they were and what they did before 1975.
34) Since the AI producers hold chart success in such high regard, we can fully expect future contestants to be mentored by the likes of Carl Douglas ("Kung Fu Fighting"), Rick Dees ("Disco Duck"), and the surviving member of Milli Vanilli.
35) Making the disclaimer, "These people know what they're going into" gives you carte blanche to be as morally repugnant toward another human being as you can possibly be.
One month to go!
Lessons Learned from American Idol, Part 2:
16) After making fun of someone's weight mercilessly, she becomes "our own so-and-so" once she goes on to win a golden globe and an Oscar.
17) Live (the band) was a lot more influential than you thought.
18) What hair products Blake Lewis uses is suitable news fodder for the "serious" news program that follows American Idol in your local market.
19) As long as your private parts are covered, then it's not possible for a pose to be suggestive. (From the American Idol boards)
20) If you just came in second place, it's great manners to tell the winner on national tv, "MAYBE WE'LL COMPETE ON THE CHARTS!" rather than letting the champion have their moment of victory.
21) The TV GUIDE CHANNEL can save you from a life of cooking french fries.
22) The best way to move musical artistry forward is by mimicking the trends and styles of artists who were generally regarded as hacks even 30 years ago.
23) If you glare at the camera like you just lost a member of your platoon in 'Nam, people will think you're "edgy" and "intense" and that you "rock," even if you're singing a song made popular by Celine Dion.
24) Any song recorded after 1991 is "edgy."
25) If you have more than 2 drops of color in your hair that is not a natural hair color, you must be "edgy" and have that "little wild thing going on" as well.
26) It's really, really happening to wear a suit jacket/ t-shirt combo 790 days in a row if you're the host of AI. Score extra points if you wear the t-shirt of a band that wouldn't be caught dead letting their songs appear on AI.
27) It's totally ok to be patronizing to people who just had their dreams crushed, as long as they're clueless and/or unattractive, and you're a happening tv host with gelled hair and a pre-selected wardrobe who acts really "concerned."
28) Rude, pretentious, callous, pompous, insensitive behavior is called “being right” or “telling it like it is” when you’re a British 40-something commenting on music he can't possibly hope to understand.
29) Middle-aged housewives have no lives. Ever. No matter what. (From the AI boards)
30) If you suggest a photo of an Idol may be in questionable taste, and possibly inappropriate for a younger fan base, then you must also be in favor of burning the Constitution.
31) If you sing a standard that has been around for almost 70 years, you are automatically copying off the person who sang it most recently.
32) If you can't come up with anything resembling a good song, throw more and more gospel singers on stage. At least 5,000 or so. Have them sway and move around a lot, and be sure to change keys a couple of times. Add balloons and confetti, then cross your fingers and pray to Clive Davis that no one notices your song blows.
33) Aliens abducted Rod Stewart and Elton John and erased their memories of who they were and what they did before 1975.
34) Since the AI producers hold chart success in such high regard, we can fully expect future contestants to be mentored by the likes of Carl Douglas ("Kung Fu Fighting"), Rick Dees ("Disco Duck"), and the surviving member of Milli Vanilli.
35) Making the disclaimer, "These people know what they're going into" gives you carte blanche to be as morally repugnant toward another human being as you can possibly be.
One month to go!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Death of Music, Part One: American Idol
In this series of posts, ("The Death of Music") I will ruminate about music, both at the commercial level and at the meta level, and discuss factors I believe contribute to the death of music, and possibly even reasons why I think music should "die." I'd like to kick off the series with one of my favorite topics (what else?): American Idol.
The Death of Music, Part One: American Idol
Woo-hee! Only a month to go before the public, televised execution of American music resumes on national tv! Yes, that's right, American Idol will be back, and I will once again get my perverse jollies (is there any other kind?) watching American pop culture slide down a slippery slope of genre cannibalization, diminishing returns and safe, amorphous, blobs of balladry. You can confidently let your two-year-old run around the AI original songs for hours without fear he will fall and puncture his tender little noggin on a sharp corner.
As far as the covers, most of the songs that American Idol so gleefully plunders were spawned by genres (rock, disco, new wave) which were the result of a confluence of factors and came into being for very specific reasons at a very specific time in the ongoing narrative that is/was popular music. American Idol strips away any contextual meaning these songs might possess, and does so without a whit of irony, commentary, or artistic innovation. The result is usually either unwitting parody or a pointless pastiche. In other words, AI brings nothing to the table other than some (questionably) pretty voices. AI has an awful lot of singing, but, ironically, not a whole lot to say.
There’s only room for SO MANY pretty voices, and you need something more than vocal chops if you're going to endure and have a long, meaningful career outside of Vegas. You need either (a) some kind of artistic vision, (b) some kind of compelling, innovative style, and/or (c) super-phenomenal songs to sing. So far, there haven’t been many of those attributes coming out of the AI camp, and that is precisely why most of these “idols” won't have music careers that last beyond 5 years or so (unless they shrewdly divert into film, broadway, journalism or fast food).
But the big picture is even bleaker than that. American Idol, by design, is a self-defeating venture, doomed to implode on itself, or just make American music worse and worse. Without artists and pioneers to push music forward, music becomes stagnant, irrelevant, and non-vital. If every artist in the 70’s was exactly like Barry Manilow, where would music be today? Nothing wrong with Barry, but eventually, something (like punk and rap, for example) will always come along and make waves. American Idol, by constantly looking back and distilling musical history down to its blandest, safest elements (without adding anything new to the mix) is a dead-end enterprise.
Sure, they claim they’re being “edgy” from time to time by superficially mimicking (the worst) trends of “only” 10 years ago or so, but if American Idol continues to dominate the music industry and the billboard charts, who will the AI contestants of 2017 mimic? Chris Daughtry? Shudder to think. Chris Daughtry is ALREADY a watered-down amalgam of Fuel, Live, Nickelback and a few other latter day grunge-lite bands. Can you imagine an even MORE watered-down and derivative version of Chris Daughtry? It’s like getting a copy of a copy of a copy.
Without the true artists, you can’t have listenable or remotely amusing imitators. The problem is, American Idol is trying to dominate the landscape and a lot of potentially interesting music is getting short shrift. If AI has its way, the landscape will be littered with metaphorical Barry Manilow’s, and it doesn’t matter if they’re wearing “edgy” clothes or singing country tunes or shaving their head to disguise their Manilow-like status.
Yes, Chris Daughtry is the Barry Manilow of 2007. In a very, very real sense (except I think Barry probably has a little more talent, to be honest). Don't agree? Think about this: The guy won the adult contemporary award at the AMA's this year. That was something we used to give to people like Celine Dion. There's no shame in that, per se, but if this guy becomes the template for music's future, then man oh man is music dying.
On the one hand, that makes me sort of sad.
On the other, it just tickles me pink.
The Death of Music, Part One: American Idol
Woo-hee! Only a month to go before the public, televised execution of American music resumes on national tv! Yes, that's right, American Idol will be back, and I will once again get my perverse jollies (is there any other kind?) watching American pop culture slide down a slippery slope of genre cannibalization, diminishing returns and safe, amorphous, blobs of balladry. You can confidently let your two-year-old run around the AI original songs for hours without fear he will fall and puncture his tender little noggin on a sharp corner.
As far as the covers, most of the songs that American Idol so gleefully plunders were spawned by genres (rock, disco, new wave) which were the result of a confluence of factors and came into being for very specific reasons at a very specific time in the ongoing narrative that is/was popular music. American Idol strips away any contextual meaning these songs might possess, and does so without a whit of irony, commentary, or artistic innovation. The result is usually either unwitting parody or a pointless pastiche. In other words, AI brings nothing to the table other than some (questionably) pretty voices. AI has an awful lot of singing, but, ironically, not a whole lot to say.
There’s only room for SO MANY pretty voices, and you need something more than vocal chops if you're going to endure and have a long, meaningful career outside of Vegas. You need either (a) some kind of artistic vision, (b) some kind of compelling, innovative style, and/or (c) super-phenomenal songs to sing. So far, there haven’t been many of those attributes coming out of the AI camp, and that is precisely why most of these “idols” won't have music careers that last beyond 5 years or so (unless they shrewdly divert into film, broadway, journalism or fast food).
But the big picture is even bleaker than that. American Idol, by design, is a self-defeating venture, doomed to implode on itself, or just make American music worse and worse. Without artists and pioneers to push music forward, music becomes stagnant, irrelevant, and non-vital. If every artist in the 70’s was exactly like Barry Manilow, where would music be today? Nothing wrong with Barry, but eventually, something (like punk and rap, for example) will always come along and make waves. American Idol, by constantly looking back and distilling musical history down to its blandest, safest elements (without adding anything new to the mix) is a dead-end enterprise.
Sure, they claim they’re being “edgy” from time to time by superficially mimicking (the worst) trends of “only” 10 years ago or so, but if American Idol continues to dominate the music industry and the billboard charts, who will the AI contestants of 2017 mimic? Chris Daughtry? Shudder to think. Chris Daughtry is ALREADY a watered-down amalgam of Fuel, Live, Nickelback and a few other latter day grunge-lite bands. Can you imagine an even MORE watered-down and derivative version of Chris Daughtry? It’s like getting a copy of a copy of a copy.
Without the true artists, you can’t have listenable or remotely amusing imitators. The problem is, American Idol is trying to dominate the landscape and a lot of potentially interesting music is getting short shrift. If AI has its way, the landscape will be littered with metaphorical Barry Manilow’s, and it doesn’t matter if they’re wearing “edgy” clothes or singing country tunes or shaving their head to disguise their Manilow-like status.
Yes, Chris Daughtry is the Barry Manilow of 2007. In a very, very real sense (except I think Barry probably has a little more talent, to be honest). Don't agree? Think about this: The guy won the adult contemporary award at the AMA's this year. That was something we used to give to people like Celine Dion. There's no shame in that, per se, but if this guy becomes the template for music's future, then man oh man is music dying.
On the one hand, that makes me sort of sad.
On the other, it just tickles me pink.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
American Idol Lessons Part One
In my somewhat shameful past (in direct contrast to my extravagantly and illegally shameful present) I used to watch a little known tv show called American Idol. I was drawn in by morbid curiosity and my disdain for modern pop culture more than anything else. I loved watching the egos of the future mall entertainers and fry clerks of America (FMEAFCOA) grow to wildly unwieldy proportions like vines on Kong Island, threatening to entangle, smother, and ultimately pulverize everything in their path.
I marvelled at (most of) the would-be idols' abilities of self-delusion as they convinced themselves that anyone would care about them 8.4 seconds after they fled the stage, let alone purchase large numbers of CD's filled with their overwrought bleating. I had a perverse desire to watch these no-talent hacks have their dreams dashed to pieces week after week. Slowly, steadily, I watched them march toward their inexorable fate of elimination followed by abysmal album sales . If their careers didn't founder right away, I knew it would happen eventually, if only because the greedy producers had over-saturated the market. The contestants reminded me of movie-goers filing into the latest Adam Sandler or Vince Vaughn vehicle on opening weekend. OH how quickly the looks of glee and delight turn to sheer terror as the metaphorical slaughter begins en masse!!!
However, it cannot be said that I have not learned some valuable lessons from my time spent watching American Idol, and even lurking about the American Idol message boards (before I had to stop for fear of a self-induced aneurysm). As the new season approaches, I thought I would share some of these valuable lessons with you all.
Things I Learned from American Idol and AI message boards, Part One:
1) If you don't like someone (especially an Idol), no matter what reasons you give, no matter how sound your logic, you must be jealous of them.
2) Artists who made a million dollars last year and scored one of the most high-profile record deals in the country need defending on a message board they will never read, and care even less about, by someone who had to save two months’ salary just to go to one show by said artist.
3) If someone posts anything against your favorite Idol, even if it is less profane than the average ABC FAMILY special, be sure to report it immediately (usually for reason number 2 given above). Such a post could cause the media empire of said Idol to crumble, and scorch the eyes of all who behold it.
4) Mean-spirited posts or disguised bad language are not tolerated on AI message boards, despite the fact that mean-spirited judges and disguised bad language run rampant on every audition show since season one of AI.
5) A guy who played bass on tour with Journey way past their heyday, produced a bunch of schlocky dance records, and fell hindquarters-backwards into a hit tv show is better equipped than most to recognize true talent.
6) You can be completely 90 sheets to the wind and people around you won't even notice or comment.
7) If you run into the audience enough times, people will actually believe you're doing something exciting.
8) If an Idol contestant comes out with a bold, fresh style that the public immediately responds to and embraces and votes for every week, the best way to reward them is by releasing a sub-par pop album devoted to the worst trends of the day and sounding nothing like what people were voting for in the first place.
9) One year is not nearly long enough to come up with songs better than "My Destiny" or "Tatoo," even when the best songwriters in the country would kill to have a song on the show, and even though acts like the Beatles used to crank out 10 killer songs in one week.
10) Middle-aged housewives have no lives. Ever.
11) The 2 words "Soul Patrol" can actually control minds and force people to dial phones against their will.
12) If you suggest a revealing photo of an Idol may be in questionable taste, you are against the United States.
13) If you sing a standard that has been around for almost 70 years, you must be copying off the person who sang it most recently.
14) If you are a finalist on AI, don't bother to keep your ego in check while the world falls at your feet for 6 months. Your star will surely continue to shine even once the NEXT season rolls around. That guy who was 8th runner up in season 2 and pumping gas for Simon Cowell's limo when he drives through Arkansas isn't going to be YOU.
15) Dressing in leather, throwing your hair around, and looking "hot" is the equivalent of "ROCKING" if you're female on AI. Sometimes, just dressing in "hot" clothes makes you "ROCK."
More lessons to come.
I marvelled at (most of) the would-be idols' abilities of self-delusion as they convinced themselves that anyone would care about them 8.4 seconds after they fled the stage, let alone purchase large numbers of CD's filled with their overwrought bleating. I had a perverse desire to watch these no-talent hacks have their dreams dashed to pieces week after week. Slowly, steadily, I watched them march toward their inexorable fate of elimination followed by abysmal album sales . If their careers didn't founder right away, I knew it would happen eventually, if only because the greedy producers had over-saturated the market. The contestants reminded me of movie-goers filing into the latest Adam Sandler or Vince Vaughn vehicle on opening weekend. OH how quickly the looks of glee and delight turn to sheer terror as the metaphorical slaughter begins en masse!!!
However, it cannot be said that I have not learned some valuable lessons from my time spent watching American Idol, and even lurking about the American Idol message boards (before I had to stop for fear of a self-induced aneurysm). As the new season approaches, I thought I would share some of these valuable lessons with you all.
Things I Learned from American Idol and AI message boards, Part One:
1) If you don't like someone (especially an Idol), no matter what reasons you give, no matter how sound your logic, you must be jealous of them.
2) Artists who made a million dollars last year and scored one of the most high-profile record deals in the country need defending on a message board they will never read, and care even less about, by someone who had to save two months’ salary just to go to one show by said artist.
3) If someone posts anything against your favorite Idol, even if it is less profane than the average ABC FAMILY special, be sure to report it immediately (usually for reason number 2 given above). Such a post could cause the media empire of said Idol to crumble, and scorch the eyes of all who behold it.
4) Mean-spirited posts or disguised bad language are not tolerated on AI message boards, despite the fact that mean-spirited judges and disguised bad language run rampant on every audition show since season one of AI.
5) A guy who played bass on tour with Journey way past their heyday, produced a bunch of schlocky dance records, and fell hindquarters-backwards into a hit tv show is better equipped than most to recognize true talent.
6) You can be completely 90 sheets to the wind and people around you won't even notice or comment.
7) If you run into the audience enough times, people will actually believe you're doing something exciting.
8) If an Idol contestant comes out with a bold, fresh style that the public immediately responds to and embraces and votes for every week, the best way to reward them is by releasing a sub-par pop album devoted to the worst trends of the day and sounding nothing like what people were voting for in the first place.
9) One year is not nearly long enough to come up with songs better than "My Destiny" or "Tatoo," even when the best songwriters in the country would kill to have a song on the show, and even though acts like the Beatles used to crank out 10 killer songs in one week.
10) Middle-aged housewives have no lives. Ever.
11) The 2 words "Soul Patrol" can actually control minds and force people to dial phones against their will.
12) If you suggest a revealing photo of an Idol may be in questionable taste, you are against the United States.
13) If you sing a standard that has been around for almost 70 years, you must be copying off the person who sang it most recently.
14) If you are a finalist on AI, don't bother to keep your ego in check while the world falls at your feet for 6 months. Your star will surely continue to shine even once the NEXT season rolls around. That guy who was 8th runner up in season 2 and pumping gas for Simon Cowell's limo when he drives through Arkansas isn't going to be YOU.
15) Dressing in leather, throwing your hair around, and looking "hot" is the equivalent of "ROCKING" if you're female on AI. Sometimes, just dressing in "hot" clothes makes you "ROCK."
More lessons to come.
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