Yeah, but do you HONESTLY expect anything groundbreaking to make it to the final 12 let alone win? Has any band that has won some big competition (Star Search, etc) EVER gone on to anything significant? The problem is that AI is about selling celebrity, not credibility. It's nearly impossible to have both any longer. You can either be vapid and famous or credible and selling one tenth the records that the Pussycat Dolls sell. Hell, they'll let any band of any GENRE in, but not any AGE. That eliminates a helluva lot of great musicians. Most musicians don't hit their stride until they are 30 with very few exceptions. But, they don't want that. They want young, attractive, middle-of-the-road stuff that sells to 14-year-old girls with ADD. And, OF COURSE, these bands are going to be playing covers. That's what Clive Davis' enterprises do - separate writer from performer. So, what we really get is Battle of the Cover Bands competition that tells us little about how good the band really is. ALL bands have hits and misses. In order to figure out how good someone is, you need to hear what they really do, not them up on stage playing Sweet Home Alabama or Twist and Shout. We know those songs worked. We need to know if the band works. But, America is too impatient to sit through misses even if it means waiting for hits. I love music and even I skim through the first 30 seconds of a band's first couple songs on MySpace before deciding to move on. God only knows how long that time is for someone who cares more about how the lead singer looks than they do about the music.
Badly. But, no worse than this. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Of-NIEQmMvg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Of-NIEQmMvg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> Oh, God!
AI is supposed to find the next "great" pop star, not the next great ground-breaking musician(s). AI is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Horrible pop music has been around a LOT longer than AI and it will be around long after AI is no more. I don't watch the show, but I defend it because it is what it is. Sure, I cringe when I see these dumb little kids trying to imitate Mariah Carey. But the thing that I (sort of) respect about the show is that they make no bones about what they're trying to do and what they're looking for...and what they're not looking for.
Fair enough, however, when there is no balance in the music industry, when it is ALL pop stars and nothing else, then AI becomes the symbol for an industry that has long since given up on music and settled on the lowest common denominator.
I can buy that. I watched a little bit last night (to see Kerry Underwood's body) and caught the first part of Clive's speech. It was pretty disturbing to hear him talk. He sounded so business-like and didn't really talk about music. All he talked about was how this single was going up the charts etc. Just so business-like. I've been watching a lot of those Classic Albums shows on VH1 Classic lately. It's a great series, but also a little depressing because you wonder when (or IF) there will ever be another "classic" album ever again.
Just to emphasize my point about AI Bands, they had a songwriting contest on AI this year and the BEST they got was "This is My Now????" Proves my point.
I thought this was a story about Reznor ripping the clothing label, but it's actually just another story about a disgruntled musician flinging poo at the evil big brother music publisher, snore...nothing to see.
