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THIS
season of American Idol had talented singers, a
doe-eyed teenage contestant for the prepubescent crowd,
visits from pop royalty, stinging comments from Simon
Cowell and jaw-droppers from Paula Abdul. So why have
some fans and observers found it a dull slog as the show
builds to its David Archuleta vs. David Cook finale this
Wednesday? Because contestants who were good but not
memorable made for mediocre television, watchers say.
Where was the drama, the unpredictability, the oddball
personalities? In short, where was the fun?
Such
criticism is ironic given the heat Idol took last year
when Sanjaya Malakar, more a hairstyle than a singer,
held the spotlight. Or the reaction when dancin’ man
Taylor Hicks won the title in 2006, trading as much on
charm as skill.
Producers of the Fox show made an effort this year to go
for vocal gold over glitz, and this is the thanks they
get—along with remaining the No. 1 show, albeit with
slimmer ratings.
“The
only thing that kept the entire thing from being
excruciatingly boring was [apparent frontrunner] Michael
Johns being voted off and the shiver it seemed to send
through everyone,” observed regular Idol viewer Mike
Anderson of Yakima, Washington.
“Because
the talent level was so high, nothing anyone did was
surprising,” Anderson said.
Maybe
not quite high enough: No one, not even teen fave
Archuleta or Cook, came close to equaling what
Anderson
calls LaKisha Jones’s “blowout performance” of “And I’m
Telling You” last season. Fantasia Barrino’s stunning
rendition of “Summertime” in season three also remains a
singular achievement.
Dave
Della Terza has long relished mocking American Idol
on his web site, votefortheworst.com, but counts himself
among this season’s disappointed viewers.
“In past
years people would ask, ‘Do you hate American Idol?’
I’d say it’s fun to make fun of, it’s so bad,” he said.
“But this year, honestly, I’m so sick of the
show....It’s almost a chore to watch at this point.”
He’s hearing the same thing from visitors to his site
and seeing it in the numbers, with traffic down about 50
percent.
A major
complaint cited by Della Terza: The contestants have
remained cyphers. In other words, Jason Castro’s
dreadlocks showed more character than any contestant.
“What do
you really know about David Cook? All you really know
about David Archuleta is his dad is annoying,” Della
Terza said, referring to reports of backstage meddling.
“I think
that’s why Sanjaya was so successful. Every week, he was
coming out and showing personality. He flourished in a
crowd of people who didn’t have personalities,” Della
Terza said.
American
Idol
executive producer Nigel Lythgoe isn’t buying the
criticism. He says the talent this year has been
“phenomenal” and he expects the David vs. David finale
will be the “humdinger” that judge Cowell colorfully
predicted last week.
The
audience for American Idol has dropped by about 8
percent from the nearly 31 million viewers who watched
last year. But there’s been a general erosion in TV
viewership, partly blamed on the writers’ strike, with
the big four networks drawing about 9 percent fewer
viewers in April and May so far than during the same
period last year. Idol has withstood the downturn better
than many other hit series, such as Grey’s Anatomy,
down about 20 percent.
Lythgoe
dismissed the contention that viewers weren’t allowed to
get up close and personal with contestants.
Take
runner-up Syesha Mercado: “We know that her father had
drug and alcohol issues. We know what she was
experiencing. After that, there are personal
[boundaries].”
Lythgoe
maintains that even before Sanjaya Malakar became a
topic of discussion, he and fellow producers realized
the show was “losing focus” and needed to give
precedence to the contest and follow-ups on past
finalists like Barrino and Clay Aiken.
“It’s
not about the judges, the mentors, anybody with a record
coming out,” he said.
For a
show that makes an art of product placement, however, an
old artist with a new CD to promote still represents a
viable commodity. Neil Diamond was among this year’s
fusty but famous visitors, graciously offering advice to
contestants (some of whom proceeded to mangle his work
anyway).
Bruce
Flohr, a former record-company executive now with Red
Light Management, is an Idol admirer but said the show
has to do a better job of weeding out lesser singers who
make it too easy to guess who will make it through to
the end.
“Part of
the problem is people are starting to use the show as a
vehicle to stardom, whether they truly want to sing or
not,” he said.
Newer
artists and music also would help freshen the formula,
Flohr suggested.
Absolutely, said Della Terza of votefortheworst, who
questions how asking contestants to sing songs from the
1960s or ’70s can translate into “a current marketable
recording artist.”
“This
year overdid it with old songs and barely let the
contestants sing anything that they would actually put
on a record,” he said.
Producer
Lythgoe responds that finding a young artist with an
impressive enough body of work to be covered by a dozen
contestants is no easy task. Besides challenging the
young singers—which he says makes for compelling TV—the
classics remain worthy, he adds.
“You
can’t beat Stevie Wonder. Look at that catalog,” Lythgoe
said. “And history teaches us so much.”
But the
show can’t ignore one particularly ominous ratings sign,
although Lythgoe contends it’s cyclical and reversible:
The median age of an American Idol viewer, once
in the mid-30s, is now up to 42 as viewership by
teenagers and women age 18 to 34 has dropped.
One
beneficiary of the Idol machine, Hicks, remains upbeat
about it. He’s headed to Broadway to join the cast of
Grease next month.
“The
idea and the dream is still alive in that show,” Hicks
said. American Idol has the ability to “cultivate
a talent to put them on their way to becoming a great
entertainer and a great performer, a musician, actor,
whatever.”
Bob
Lefsetz isn’t buying it. The music industry analyst says
flatly that “the bloom is off the rose” after so many
years.
“Even if
the new Aretha Franklin came on,” he said, “people would
say, ‘Seen it. I’m going to watch something on YouTube.’”
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