American Idol > President?

Supposedly, over 100 million votes were placed last night for American Idol. That’s ridiculous.

Why?

That’s almost as many votes that were cast in the 2004 US presidential election. According to Wikipedia, 122,267,553 votes were cast for president.

On another note, it’s now obvious who the judges and producers want to win this year. Archuleta sang well last night for the most part. But so did Cook.

I feel the judges were very unfair in their assessments of David Cook. For example, all along the judges have stressed being original, making songs their own, and essentially “thinking outside the box”.  Apparently this doesn’t apply to the crappy winner’s song. His performance of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was amazing, but I would tend to agree that he should have chose a different song than The World I Know. He performed it well, but I would have rather seen something bigger and better. I loved his little dig against Archuleta though about performing something new.

David Archuleta did exactly what he has been doing all season — he sang slow, sappy ballads. He has shown absolutely no originality, improvement, or versatility. Is that not the point of having theme weeks?

David Archuleta, if crowned the winner, will falter just like all of the other male American Idol winners. David Cook will excel and follow in Chris Daughtry’s footsteps.

Maybe Idol producers will fix the show in time for season eight.

Fixing American Idol

No, I am not saying American Idol is fixed. There are so many conspiracy theories out there concerning the outcome of American Idol, and this is not going to be one of them. What this will be, however, is my thoughts on how to “fix” the show and regain the ratings it has lost this year.

1. Limit the number of votes from a single source. In other words, one telephone vote per phone number and one text message vote per mobile phone. Once the lines close, rank the contestants in numerical order based on the totals.
2. Make Simon, Randy, and Paula part of the rankings. In my opinion, Randy and Simon are usually spot-on with their evaluations. Paula is, well, Paula. Require each judge to rank the contestants each week.
3. Selling the studio recordings on iTunes this year was genius. Take those sales into account. Again, rank each contestant based on sales. This would require more than 24 hours between the performance and results shows. Additionally, it would require the studio singles being released immediately following the performance show. Why do this? Simple. The ‘tweens’ texting 42,983 times for their favorite contestant will not necessarily translate to album sales. Incorporating sales figures will provide an actual indicator of which contestants truly are selling records.
4. Theme weeks can be killer. You can’t make a rock singer sing great Broadway or Mariah Carey. Sure, David Cook somehow pulled it off and truly showed his versatility. That is not the norm though. The goal of American Idol is to find the ‘next big star’ — and there is no way David Cook would attempt to put out an album of Broadway hits. This week’s theme though (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) was perfect. It allowed the contestants to pick, from a wide variety of songs, two songs that ideally fit them. Eliminating the superfluous themes will better allow the public to see the true artist and what kind of album they would record.

There is one final change that would legitimize the show again — publish all rankings, vote totals, sales figures, etc.

As for this year’s show, it will definitely be a David vs. David finale. Let’s just hope that David Cook is victorious.

“Undiscovered” American Idol?

So, yes.. I admit it. I’m an American Idol fan. While I don’t necessarily agree that this is the best year yet, the talent is definitely great.

Randy Jackson said something after Michael Johns’ performance last night that struck me funny.

Let me just add that this show is about being the best singer, undiscovered talent we can find.

I realize defining the word “undiscovered” is subjective; however, let’s define it as those never having a record contract. By that definition, the Top 12 isn’t as undiscovered as Randy thinks.

• David Cook – Solo album and multiple releases with the band Axium.
• Carly Smithson – Album released by a major label (MCA) under her maiden name.
• Michael Johns – Multiple releases with multiple groups.
• Brooke White – Solo album.
• Kristy Lee Cook – Solo album.

So by my count, five out of twelve have already been discovered. Should they be on American Idol? According to Randy Jackson, they shouldn’t be.

However, using that very same logic, there are a host of other previous contestants that shouldn’t have been on the show either:

Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, Taylor Hicks, Bo Bice, Constantine Maroulis, Mandisa Hundley, Lisa Tucker, Phil Stacey, Chris Sligh, Brandon Rogers

Don’t misunderstand me.. I don’t care that they all had records out prior to Idol. But Randy’s statement just isn’t true.

Amazing Songwriters

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to post here more, and I think I’ve achieved that. This my 33rd blog entry for 2007; not too bad. Going along with that post, this one will be about music as well.

It’s no secret that Pearl Jam is my favorite band. I’ve loved them ever since Ten was released in 1991 while I was in junior high. Sometime in 1990, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden wrote a couple tunes in memory of Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone who had recently passed away from a drug overdose. Not wanting to lose the songs’ meanings in the hard rock sound of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell enlisted the help of a couple of his Soundgarden bandmates as well as Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament. Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of Mother Love Bone with Andrew. Instead of simply recording those two songs, the group began writing some tunes and ended up with an album’s worth of material. The self-titled album was released under the band name Temple of the Dog which was taken from the lyrics of Mother Love Bone’s song Man of Golden Words.

Now on to my point after that little background synopsis.

Stone Gossard had written some tunes that he, Jeff Ament, and Mike McCready had recorded in hopes of finding a singer for their new band (Pearl Jam). Eddie Vedder received one of those tapes and wrote lyrics to the instrumentals. He named one of those songs Footsteps.

At the same time, Chris Cornell heard the instrumental and began writing his own lyrics and rearranging the music a bit to fit his lyrics. What came out of that was Temple of the Dog’s Times of Trouble.

So what we’re left with is two songs with the same (basic) music track with differing lyrics: Footsteps and Times of Trouble.

It amazes me that two songwriters/singers can interpret the music in different ways and compose lyrics that both sound “right” in their own separate ways. Even in the 30 second iTunes snippets, you can tell that the music is the same.

And yes, this post is littered with iTunes links. But hey – I’m passionate about music and especially the Pearl Jam “family tree” and related bands. If you have some time and money, check out the tunes.

American Idol Simpsons Style

This clip from Idol Gives Back always makes me laugh.

Classic American Idol

American Idol did it again.

Towards the end of the broadcast, the traditional recap of performances was shown. The funny thing is that the recap of Jordin’s last performance wasn’t really a replay of her last performance.

Got that? American Idol must have pre-recorded the recaps or something.

It was obvious since Jordin was in tears at the end of the televised final performance but yet during the recap there was nary a tear.

Maybe I’m just upset because I think Blake should win and that all Jordin can do is screech..

Bon Jovi – A Hypocrite?

While watching American Idol last night, Jon Bon Jovi said something about Blake Lewis’ upcoming performance that really irked me. He said something to the effect that “people don’t want to hear a remade You Give Love A Bad Name.

Now, as a caveat – Blake Lewis is who I believe will win American Idol.

What caught me funny about Bon Jovi’s comment was that the band themselves – rock legends Bon Jovi – did exactly what Jon stated people wouldn’t want. In 2003, Bon Jovi released a CD entitled This Left Feels Right. What’s ironic about this album is that all of the songs were redone and reworked.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen.. Bon Jovi released a full album of twelve tracks remade from their originals.. just as Blake Lewis did last night.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m a Bon Jovi fan and always will be. But this situation does lend itself to being hypocrisy at its highest.

Did iTunes Trump American Idol?

Okay, I’m an avid American Idol fan and it’s no secret that I’m an iTunes addict.

There’s a top banner ad on iTunes that reads “American Idol: Idol Gives Back: Exclusive Charity Performances Coming Soon”. I noticed it yesterday and clicked on it. It took me to playlists for the Top 6. Nice!

Five minutes ago I click that banner again. There’s only five playlists! Chris Richardson is missing!

I just went back to the iTunes “home page” and clicked the banner again. Chris Richardson’s playlist is back.

Did iTunes jump the gun and divulge the lowest vote recipient? We’ll know in two hours.

EDIT @ 7:04PM CT – Chris’ playlist is gone again..
EDIT @ 9:04PM CT – Guess not. Must be one of those iTunes quirks.