A little disclaimer before we jump right in. I have not been on the Idol train from the beginning. In fact up until 3 years ago I had maybe seen 3 episodes of the show total. My first full season watching was the one in which David Cook won. I began watching because of my girlfriend at the time. That girl has since moved on, but I do still watch the show. In part because I truly enjoy watching talented people perform. I’d be lying though if I didn’t say that a part of why I watch the show is the train wreck potential. Whether it be from the contestants or from years past, judges like Paula Abdul and Ellen. There is something intrinsically entertaining in watching a person completely make a fool of themselves in front of 25 million people. Last year’s season was definitely weak on talent and fell into the train wreck category. Lee Dewyze was one of the weaker winners in the shows history, and him beating a truly talented person in Chrystal Bowersox really accentuated that maybe the show was being too dominated by its teenage female fans. Last year’s weak line up coupled with the complete overhaul of the judges really made me leery about Idol this season. Would this juggernaut finally fall without Simon Cowell leading its charge? I decided to watch the first few episodes before I wrote about it so I could give some good analysis. Here’s what I came up with.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is how is this new judge’s panel handling things? I really expected Steven Tyler to be an absolute wreck on this show. Like Paula Abdul but so inappropriate that I couldn’t even enjoy the train wreck (Like I mentioned above) sort of way. Not only has he been much mellower then I expected him to be, he has actually been fairly insightful and managed to be very critical when he has needed to be. Sure he does have a crazy moment here and there, and the way he ogles 15 year old girls is enough to make everyone uncomfortable, but for the most part, I really think he has been pretty decent in his role as a judge. Jennifer Lopez had some issues when she first started with telling people no. I feel like she has quickly gotten over that and if anyone is going to be the “mean” person in this group, she seems like she could be the one to do it. As a person who has had success on multiple levels, I really feel like she could be someone who can pick up on an “it” factor that a contestant may have. Overall I’ve been pleased with her as well. My main issue is with Randy Jackson. I hate him. HATE HIM DAWG! It would be bad enough if they just left him as he was in the previous seasons as the first judge to speak, but they put him in Simon’s seat. That seat has come to represent not only the person who was going to be the most critical, but the person who was going to have the most insightful thing to say about the performance. Outside of saying that something is pitchy, has Randy ever actually had any substance behind his criticisms? I understand wanting to keep Randy on the show even though I was absolutely against it. With 2 brand new judges and many changes to the format of the show, they wanted to establish at least some semblance of continuity. I think this is established by keep Ryan Seacrest as the host, but if you are going to keep Randy, do not put him in that last seat
As important as the judges are to the show, by far the most important thing is finding a talented group of competitors. You won’t find many people who actually thought last season has a good group of performers. I personally think that outside of Chrystal, they all ranged from mediocre to terrible. One of the things that Idol did to address this was lower the age limit from 16 to 15. It seems like maybe it is working because so far the most impressed I have been was during the group performances when that group of all 15 year olds absolutely brought the house down. As long as they can find 10 quality performers, the show should do fine.
Will American Idol ever be as strong as it once was? That’s really tough to say. From a judges perspective I really don’t think so. But again, it all comes down to the talent pool. Maybe the answer is taking a year off of the show so the talent pool can refill? Only time will tell. So far this season has been decent enough without really impressing me. We will see if the show is able to improve or, if like last year, it will just leave us all Jaded.
(See what I did there? Jaded is an Aerosmith song! )
Not sure I could take anything you have to say serious when you don't even mention the best thing to have ever come out of idol, Adam Lambert! The guy is insanely talented with the best controlled powerhouse vocals to have ever walked this earth! Notice, I said controlled, no, the show's efort to remake Adam lambert with this James Durban has failed! Adam isn't just the best singer alive, it was his stage presence, looks, visuals, owning the stage, the whole package and his ability to do it all while staying true to himself, not trying to be someone else! |The show lost me forever, not worried though, because I still have Adam lambert!!!
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