10 Types of Open Mic Performers You're Sure to Encounter

1. OVERPLAYED CLASSIC ROCK GUY - Sure, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, James Taylor and Van Morrison are legends. But enough is enough! You might think you've heard "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Carolina in My Mind" enough to last you 889 lifetimes and a few millennia into your final death, but this guy sure as hell doesn't think so - you need to hear them a few thousand more times! Who cares if there are literally thousands of well-known, phenomenal songs in the history of Western music? Let's break out "Ohio" or "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" one more time! Yes, when you hear those wailing, plaintive harmonica notes, you know yet another rendition of "Heart of Gold" is on the way, tempting you to dunk your face directly into your scalding-hot, overpriced coffee drink.

Performing Skill: 6 out of 10
Creativity: 2 out of 10
Crowd Approval: 8 out of 10


2. WAILING, JAZZY, SUNDRESS GIRL - Holy crap! This girl can really sing! This open-mic performer is blessed with an amazing set of pipes and, by god, she's not afraid to use 'em. Her pitch is dead on, and she effortlessly belts out standards like "At Last" and "Unforgettable" LOUD ENOUGH to blow down the back wall of the coffee house. She's humble and sweet and makes you want to slit your wrists for ever thinking you could warble your way through any song with more than a 3 whole-step range. You won't mind the loud singing, but you may not hear the oncoming traffic as you walk home later in the evening.

Performing Skill: 9 out of 10
Creativity: 6 out of 10
Crowd Approval: 10 out of 10


3. RAMBLING, QUITE POSSIBLY MENTALLY ILL GUY - This is the "musician" that gets up and "sings" three "songs" which are completely atonal - and not in an experimental avant-garde sort of way. In fact, the words sound more like someone reading the local paper's editorial section backwards. Come to think of it, there's a good chance that's what it is. This fellow is the single most powerful argument against the democracy of the open mic, but no one will say anything because, well, they're scared sh*tless.

Performing Skill: 10 out of 10 - in creeping people out
Creativity: Maroon out of Chimpanzee
Crowd Approval: N/A - More like abject terror mixed with a singular desire to avoid eye contact.



4. THE BAD CHECKS - Three self-involved musicians and/or singers (x, y, and z) who arrive together and, by going up individually AND in every possible combination (x plays guitar while y sings; y and z both sing with no x; all three go up together, etc. etc.), manage to keep coming back, thereby turning the three-song-per-artist limit into a four-hour (albeit spread-out) Springsteen-final-night-at-the-Garden-length extravaganza.


Performing Skill: 5 out of 10 - but only when you add the three together.
Creativity: 3 out of 10
Crowd Approval: 7 for the first set, plummets to 2 by the time they hit the stage for the 6th or 7th time.


5. AMERICAN IDOL WANNA-BE - Her friends told her she should be on Idol! Her mom told her she should be on Idol! Her teachers told her she should be on Idol! There's only one small problem: She sucks. And you're the only one who knows it, so you get to listen to her bleating "Jesus Take the Wheel" heinously off-key to a grand total of 8 people (three who are her relatives).

Performing Skill: 1 out of 10
Creativity: Negative 8 out of 10
Ego: 578 out of 10
Crowd Approval: 7 out of 10, except for you


6. DEADHEAD OUT-OF-TIME - He's a young man of only 17, decked out in flip-flops, cargo shorts and a tie-dyed t-shirt. He sports trendy, barely-there facial hair, smells vaguely like oregano, and while he does enjoy more recent jam-band Phish, his heart truly belongs to the Dead. How this is possible, no one knows, considering the band passed their artistic zenith almost 25 years before he was born, but there he is, trotting out such chestnuts as "Casey Jones," "Ripple" and "Uncle John's Band." No "Shakedown Street," though.

Performing Skill: That's not what it's ABOUT, MANNNN
Creativity: Depends on what sort of a night he's having
Crowd Approval: 10 if they had some, er, "oregano" earlier that evening. 4 if not.


7. THE POET - Ah, yes, we DO all try to indulge the poet, don't we? Haha! That cute little limerick about coffee was sort of cute, but uh oh, now he's doing his magnum opus... oh no... he's got reams and reams of pages... how long does this thing go on? Are we going on 10 minutes for one poem here? Is this supposed to be profound? I guess that part was important, he just used a really bad curse word... oh, there it is again. Maybe it's the name of the poem. Sigh. What's all this stuff about birds in maple syrup? Man, I really need to read more poetry... maybe I'd appreciate this stuff more...people are laughing, I guess THEY get it. Damn it!


Performing Skill: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 8 out of 10
Crowd Approval: 8 out of 10, because we don't want to look like idiots


8. MEGA-MONSTER-EXTENDED -VERSION GUY: Closely related to The Bad Checks (See #4), this is the cat who was told there's a "three song limit." (as opposed to a time limit) so he's going to turn every song into "Inna Gada Davida," even if it kills him and you. Sure you'll be sitting there thinking, "I could have sworn `Take It Easy" only has 3 verses, not 27," but that's your tough luck.

Performing Skill: 5 out of 10
Creativity: 2 out of 10
Crowd Approval: They're usually on the verge of rioting by verse 22


9. INSTRUMENTAL GUY - With rapturous intensity and a nuanced touch, he executes beautifully sculpted and tender lead lines on his classical guitar, breathing new life into vintage melodies. With each delicate note, some say it's as if this virtuoso is channeling the gods of music themselves. In other words, bathroom break.

Performing Skill: Off the charts
Creativity: 10 out of 10
Crowd Approval:  6 out of 10, the philistines


10. THE SENSITIVE SOUL - He trots out every top 40 love song (or quasi-love song) from the last 10 years - stuff like "You're Beautiful", "Your Body Is a Wonderland", and "Apologize." If things get really rough, he'll whip out a "She Will Be Loved." Anything with the wavering, aching falsetto in the chorus will do, really. As long as it gets him laid.

Performing Skill: 9 out of 10
Creativity: 1 out of 10
Crowd Approval: 10 out of 10 (women) 0 out of 10 (men)


Photo by: Brian Richardson

The Death of Music, Part 6: iPod Is Dead

You know what you never see anymore? You never see a guy (without any gadgets) just walking along humming a song to himself, or whistling a little tune. At the very least, you don’t see anyone born after the release of “The 10 Commandments” engaging in that kind of musical self-entertainment. What ever happened to that?


And I’m not talking about an insane guy belting out “Love Is in the Air” while wearing yellow footie pajamas in the middle of Times Square. I’m talking about regular joes and joe-esses like you and me, just bopping along happily to our own private soundtrack in our heads.


Nowadays, you’re more likely to see people gliding silently around with those omnipresent earbuds growing directly into their heads like parasitical vines, presumably rocking out to their favorite tunes. Strangely, their faces are almost always ashen and lifeless, as though they’ve been listening to an endless loop of “The Complete History of Carpet Tacks, Volume Five” as read by a heavily doped up Alan Greenspan. And they’re hardly, if ever, singing.


Oh sure, once in a while you’ll still see a lone subway rider jamming out to Joe Satriani like he’s having some kind of freak-a-delic hard-rock meltdown, but more often than not the iPod legions move in stealthy, icy silence.


You would think the technology that allows us to listen to a steady stream of music would enhance our ability to appreciate the stuff, and maybe even make us more artistic, creative individuals. However, the iPod seems to primarily serve two functions: (1) turning music into a totally passive, background experience, which requires little imagination, attention or exertion, and (2) locking us inside our own heads and making us oblivious to the world around us, so we can continue living on our own insular “islands” without engaging the world in any meaningful way.


While it is true that music has always been used to varying degrees as background fodder (in the car, for example) the iPod has made the “background” experience the PRIMARY way many people listen to music. Instead of focusing on music, they’re engaging in all sorts of other activities: they’re texting; they’re talking on cell phones; they’re buying crappy overpriced coffee; they’re getting in everyone else’s way. Basically, people are doing a jillion and a half other things while allegedly “listening” to music. I’ve experienced music this way, and I can tell you there is a big difference in how much you get out of a song playing on your car stereo vs. a song coming out of your iPod as you cross a busy city intersection with a taxi cab bearing down on you.



Don't get me wrong: it’s fine if you want to chill out with some music on a long bus ride, or listen to your favorite band while you jog on a lightly traveled back road. There’s also nothing wrong with using music to relieve stress, and no one doubts that music can, under certain conditions, benefit human cognition. However, people who spend their whole lives plugged into an iPod diminish both their experience of music and (sometimes unwittingly) the world around them.


If you’re constantly listening to an iPod, you can’t pay enough attention to actually glean any meaning from your music. Likewise, you can’t engage the world or avoid looking like an annoying, self-absorbed fool if you’re always cutting off 1/5 of your sensory input. (People who wear iPods inside crowded buildings are particularly irritating.)


All of which brings us back to our singing/whistling friend. When you see someone singing or whistling (who isn’t mentally deranged), you know you could say “Hi” to him and he would hear you. He wouldn’t raise a finger as if to say “Hold on” and then spend 10 minutes tugging at the intricate network of musical diodes protruding from his noggin. He’s at least semi-aware of the world around him.


Not only that, but I strongly suspect he is more mentally active than the the average iPod addict. At least the lone hum-man is using some part of his brain to recall the melody and recreate it through his lips. He's not just passively listening, letting a steady stream of meaningless notes erode his consciousness like waves slapping lazily against a mushy, pliable shoreline.


In short, people need to turn off the iPod's, turn on their brains, and get back in the real world already. Hey, if I have to live on this ridiculous planet we call earth, then they should have to live on it too.

The Death of Music, Part 5: No One Likes "All Kinds of Music."

Hey there music mourners! Put away your tear-stained hankies, ‘cause it’s time for yet another installment in our bile-filled series devoted to the never-ending public execution of music. Which makes me wonder, couldn’t we just get this over with already? I mean, why don’t we just grab music from behind, strangle it with an iPod cord, and bash it over the head repeatedly with the latest Fall Out Boy CD until its lights are snuffed out for good?


Do we really have to keep protracting this grisly murder with near-fatal blows (and new releases) by Madonna, Weezer, Mariah Carey, The Raconteurs, White Snake, The Rolling Stones, Ashlee Simpson, Louis XIV and many others? Do we need to stand by helplessly as yet another musical “savior” shows up, trots out some semi-competent but derivative melodies, and then promptly slips into obscurity within a year or two? (By the way, this week’s semi-competent contenders are Vampire Weekend, with their English Beat/Joe Stummer-ish rock/Caribbean sound. And if you’re sitting there thinking “Vampire Weekend is so 2007!” then that just kind of proves the point, doesn’t it?)


Sadly, it looks like we enjoy torturing music’s once-vital and robust form way too much, so music won’t be COMPLETELY dying off anytime in the foreseeable future. With that in mind, I’d like to offer a little friendly advice in case you ever find yourself in the awkward position of actually having to DISCUSS the damn stuff.


If anyone ever asks you, “What kind of music do you like?” Never, EVER answer (with a playful toss of your bountiful locks) “Oh, I like ALL KINDS of music!!!” unless you want to immediately slay a conversation deader than the buzz surrounding the Arctic Monkeys. In fact, it is better to profess your undying devotion to the complete works of L.A. Guns before you utter something as mindlessly tiresome as “I like all kinds of music!”


Why? Well, first of all, nine billion out of nine billion-and-six times it’s patently not true. A lot of people think their musical proclivities are the metaphorical equivalent of a Save the Children necktie just because they groove around to both the White Stripes AND Led Zeppelin on their iPod shuffle. Either that or they view themselves as “audiophiles” because they have the audacity to listen to melodic, whispery rockers like Snow Patrol back-to-back with anthemic, blow-hard rockers like U2. You heard right; not even a Travis cut between them to buffer the blow. Holy god, I almost had a massive coronary just contemplating the chocolate-in-peanut-butter-lunacy of it all.


In truth, there is an infinite number of styles and sub-genres of music on this planet and Western pop music only comprises a tiny fraction of that music. The music that is aggressively marketed and made available to most Westerners is an even smaller amount, as you are no doubt marginally aware. So when someone says, “I like all kinds of music,” he usually means all the music currently in “hot” rotation on his favorite radio station.


Unless you actually ARE getting down to French film scores in the evening, atonal 20th century classical in the morning, free-form jazz in the afternoon and meringue dance mixes on the weekend, it’s better to just admit your unhealthy fondness for bleating Diane Warren-ish pop ballads or tepid southern-rock-boogie and be done with it.


Which brings me to the second reason you should never say “I like all kinds of music!” In my experience, there is nothing more dish-water dull than a person who can’t get fired up about one type of music, at least once in a while. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with EXPOSING yourself to many styles of music - in fact, I highly recommend that you do - but if you’ve never been moved enough to feel “loyalty” for one type of music, then I believe you’ve never fully experienced the power of music.


While there ARE definitely people who can glean profound meaning from a myriad of musical forms, I believe these true musical connoisseurs (and I am not one of them) are few and far between. More often than not, the people who listen to a large variety of music and then profess to dig “all kinds of music” are really pretentious Paste-subscribing poseurs who want to impress people with their mind-blowing cultural acumen. Their listening may be wide and varied, but their “hearing” tends to be cursory and superficial. Sorry, not impressed.


Similarly, I have a hard time taking seriously any band that lists more than 600 other bands as major influences on their sound. Are they really that non-discriminating? Because I have a hard time believing ANYONE could be that diverse, or immerse themselves fully in that many bands without losing something along the way.


For god’s sake, man! If you’re listening to THAT much music (and you’d have to have it wired into your head while you sleep, if you believe these guys) you should be riled up enough to single out SOMETHING!!! Does nothing jangle your ganglia or make your limbic system want to do the limbo? There’s no style, genre, or artist that makes you want to profess your undying allegiance from the highest mountain top? No? Then you, my friend, have never really been moved by music.


So, let’s review: On the one hand, it’s not a good idea to say you like “all kinds of music” when Clear Channel’s hot AC consultant has your musical knowledge in a triple-head lock, or you own exactly 3 CD’s, and at least one of them is “The Eagles’ Greatest Hits.” On the other hand, it’s a sad state of affairs when you seek out every obscure beat ever committed to digital media and then claim to love them all because you can’t FULLY appreciate any of them, or you don’t want to risk looking like a musical philistine.


Take a stand! Have a viewpoint! Feel the passion! Don’t be a poseur! When someone asks you what kind of music you like, don’t just toss out some nebulous non-committal non-answer. Instead, have a thoughtful response ready to go. Trust me, if you’re trying to flirt with someone you just met, he or she will respect you more if you express your opinions and stick to your guns.


Yes, even if they’re L.A. Guns.

The Death of Music, Part 3: Myths and Fallacies

A lot of music out there just flat out blows. I can make such a scientific, iron-clad, empirically-based claim because I think about this stuff a lot. In fact, while you're wasting time sleeping, I'm probably thinking about music. That's right; after you go to sleep, I put on the face paint and camouflage pants and cut myself across the chest with a bowie knife, and then sit there and think about music. I'm that intense when it comes to this stuff.


During my many hours of silent rumination, I've often wondered what is going through people's minds (or not going through their minds) when they create some of the god-awful aural pestilence they mistakenly label "music." In my more Socratic moments, I entertain the notion that no man willingly creates a 4/4 turd-jamboree and calls it a song, any more than a man can knowingly and willingly do wrong.


Perhaps, I muse benevolently, these deluded souls aren't TRYING to produce crap, but are merely the victims of wide-spread misconceptions that have slowly seeped into the public consciousness and are killing music from the inside out. Some of the more prevalent myths and fallacies about music have become so ingrained in our culture that we just take them for granted and don't even notice them anymore.


It's sort of like our skewed value systems: we recognize that rampant materialism (for example) is probably a non-viable and damaging mindset, and yet materialism informs a lot of what we say and do. So how do we deal with this? We live in denial; we try to pretend it's okay. We keep believing the system can somehow sustain itself even though it's built on a seriously shaky foundation. The same thing goes for music: we've built an elaborate house of cards with dubious principles and wrong-headed ideas about what constitutes "good" music, but Tiger's charging through the living room with shampoo all over his fur, and that house of cards is about to come crashing down on us pretty hard.


It is my belief that the first step to recovery is recognizing some of the more damaging and widely held beliefs which serve only to undermine music. Hopefully, by analyzing these "myths," we can shine a little light on their illogical or harmful nature, thereby debunking them and loosening their vice grip on both musicians and listeners alike.


With that in mind here are some of the "music myths" that really need to HEY HO! LET"S GO!


1) Serious musicians/artists only sing about serious things.

Hands down, one of the most wide-spread and potentially stifling beliefs out there. This is why we have so many people singing about pain and suffering and trying to sound either melancholy, enraged, or just plain "deep," even when they don't feel that way, or have nothing interesting to say. Somewhere along the line, we got the idea that to be a real "artist" you have to only concern yourself with "weighty" matters. But the secret to being a great artist is being serious about your art, NOT making "serious art" just because that's what you think you have to do.


2) The more stripped down the production on a song is, the more "real" it is.

More romantic nonsense. One man squeaking away on his acoustic guitar strings and singing in a barely audible whisper about how he spotted your yellow sun dress out of the corner of his eye at the local library is no more "real" than the 11 man band with 5 synthesizers, a vocoder, 3 oboes, an accordion, and an electric violin. First of all, all the musicians involved, if they're guys, probably just wanna get laid. And if they can do that by making you think they're "rootsy" or "avant-garde" or "able to play a flute with their butt cheeks" or WHATEVER the hell it takes, they'll do it. Second, there is nothing more intrinsically "real" about one sound over another. What matters is the "intent" of the lyrics/music and how effectively it is conveyed in the context of the artists' unique vision. In other words, I'll take Kraftwerk over Van Morrison any day.



3) True artists never let "commercial" considerations taint their art.

In a perfect world, maybe. But we don't live in a perfect world, and people are a mass of conflicting interests and desires. To expect music to be some holy, pure entity untouched by lowly human concerns such as putting food on the table is unrealistic, and I would even go so far as to say damaging. Not only that, some of the greatest songs ever written were designed with the explicit intent of creating great art AND having commercial success. In some cases, the goal of commercial success can even bring out the best in some writers. The Brill Building staff and Motown writers spring immediately to mind. Hence, the issue is not whether or not you care about commercial success, because there is no one who plays music for a living (other than some of the millionaires and masochists) who doesn't crave SOME degree of success, even if it's just enough to enable them to keep playing. The issue is whether or not you allow an unchecked or unhealthy desire for success to compromise your artistic decision-making, rather than enhance it.



4) The more notes a musician plays, the better he is.

Also known as the "virtuoso" myth or fallacy. There are tons of TECHNICALLY proficient songwriters/musicians who can make their fret boards or drum sets literally burst into flames with their crazy, animated, frenetic playing. Usually these musicians send aspiring, would-be musicians into fits of glee. And 99 out of 100 times I could care less. Someone once said that the notes you choose not to play are just as important as the notes you choose to play, and this is 100 percent true. Crazy soloing may have its place, in moderation, as a vehicle for demonstrating a musician's dexterity from time to time. However, too many people look up to these performers simply because they are doing something they can't. It is not enough to play thousands of notes: the secret is to select the most effective notes that communicate the feel of the song. Otherwise, you're just talking and talking, and you're not really saying anything.



Well, that's it for now. I'm not really sure if this exercise will actually accomplish anything; more likely than not the problems endemic to modern music are merely symptomatic of questionable thinking on a larger scale. For example, would you honestly be surprised to learn that a culture that pathologically venerates "the individual" and "doing your own thing" (as opposed to, say, promoting the common good) was also responsible for some of the most self-indulgent, narcissistic, and frighteningly average music ever heard by man? I know it sure as hell wouldn't surprise me. (The fact that evil people can often appreciate and create good music is neither here nor there.)


Still, if you'd like to send me some more myths and fallacies for our next installment, feel free to do so. Maybe together, we can rescue music yet.


But I'm not holding my breath.

Song Commentary: "Imaginary Man" by Ray Davies

AKA: God Save Ray Davies!


Ray Davies of Kinks fame has recorded a new CD called "Working Man's Cafe," which is out now in the UK, but won't be out in the US until February 2008. I've already heard it, and I can tell you it has a lot of stirring tracks. "You're Asking Me," "Working Man's Cafe," "No One Listen," "One More Time," and "Voodoo Walk," are all thoughtful, well-crafted, tuneful numbers with interesting themes and chord progressions.


However, if you are a long-time Ray Davies/Kinks fan, there is at least one track that you absolutely owe it to yourself to listen to. If you're a fan who sat enraptured by songs like "Waterloo Sunset," "Days," "Celluloid Heroes," or just about anything off of Arthur or The Village Green Preservation Society, then I'm telling you that you must listen to the song "Imaginary Man."


This is not because the song necessarily SOUNDS like those tunes. If anything, it sort of sounds like "Still Searching" from 1993 (with a pre-chorus that quotes "This Strange Effect'). No, the reason you need to listen to this song is because of the themes it explores and how damn moving it is, especially if you're a fan of Ray's famous band The Kinks.


Ray, who turned 63 this year, quite craftily jam-packs several of his heavy duty themes all into one song. The song explores, in no particular order:

1) Mortality (his own, and by extension, everyone's)

2) Reality and Existence: What is real, what is unreal

3) Existential longing and regret

4) Memory/Nostalgia/Loss

5) Identity/Self-doubt

6) The meaning of celebrity / relationship between the performer and the audience


So, in about four minutes, Ray covers a lot of ground and pulls no punches. Basically, the song plays (at various points) like a heartfelt letter to the fans, an apology, a rumination on life and a heartbreaking journey through the past.


The thrust of the song (if I have this right) is that Ray is entering his twilight years and is looking back on his life. He's saying it's been great and it's been fun, but at the same time he's saying his life has gone by like a dream, and in a sense feels "unreal" or has an intangible quality to it (hence "imaginary"). He's saying, "What does existence mean? There's nothing to hold onto once the past is gone so in what sense did I exist? What sense, if any, will I continue to exist once I'm gone?"


At the same time he's dissecting his own "unreal" status, he's intersecting this theme with the idea that he has existed, from the fans' perspective, primarily in our heads. He is only "imaginary" to most of us; he only exists in our heads. We may feel like we know/knew him, but in a very real sense, he is/was only a figment in our heads, brought into being by his songs.


Ray then gently tells the listener "I offered my very best to you" and that he took us to all sorts of places in his songs. He sings about walking down to the Preservation Hall and looking for the "old trad band", an allusion to his musical past. He wonders who he is, who he was, what it meant, and where it's all gone. He employs musical phrases (the aforementioned "This Strange Effect") that invoke past glories. Listening to this, it's easy to conjure an image of Ray walking past empty town squares, weather-beaten gazebos, deserted music halls and the now-overgrown "Village Green" he once fought so hard to preserve. This time, however, it's not the Village Green that Ray wants remembered, it's himself. Heady stuff.


The tone of the song is contrite, intimate, reflective. One of the most striking features about it is that Ray is almost speaking directly to the listener/fan, which is quite disarming. Ray employs characters and situations to convey his inner life so effectively it's sometimes easy to forget that he rarely uses overtly direct tactics. Here, it's almost like the defenses and some of the layers have been stripped away, and the effect is twice as powerful since it's so seldom used.


The song is almost like a Ray Davies version of "My Way," if that makes any sense. However, where "My Way" was about a proud man looking back on his life and re-affirming his belief in himself, "Imaginary Man" is a re-affirmation of all the insecurities and doubts that (we assume) have plagued Ray Davies throughout his life.


The song ends with Ray's fragile voice repeating over and over "I'm the imaginary man, I am." His voice strains to hit the high notes like a man railing against his destiny, longing to be remembered, longing to be heard in the void. Which is, when you get right down to it, what we really all want, isn't it?


All this adds up to an extremely touching moment in a career that's been loaded with tons of tender, poignant moments. Hopefully, there will be even more in the future.


Kinks fans: Check this one out.


The songs from "Working Man's Cafe" are available now on iTunes, and the full CD will be out in the US in February, as mentioned earlier.
There are also some clips on Ray's MySpace.

http://www.myspace.com/raydaviesofficial

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.