Idol voting most likely doesn't need improving, but some folks seem to think so.
A simple reform would be to have each contestant have two numbers flashed beneath their name each week.
One number, would be for folks voting FOR the contestant.
A second number, would be for folks voting AGAINST the contestant.
The positive votes would count +2, the negatives would count -1.
A person like Sanjaya, who polarizes fans, would have a higher bar set for continuing on the show, while a contestant who is solid and broadly popular would enjoy more relative success compared to a marginal singer/performer with a small but rabid fan base.
Seems like the eventual winner in a system like this would also be more likely to build a lasting career.
There are plenty of polarizing figures in pop music, though, so even if Sanjaya were to win it all, they could probably build product around him, at least for a little while.
The "vote for the worst" crowd have pulled a bit of a fast one this year. Vocally wise, Sanjaya mostly sucks, but as a performer he has charisma and strong appeal to a key demographic that cares about this kind of crap. The Stern-ites can claim they've influenced the weekly outcomes all they want, but most likely, it's the little girls obsessing about how much they love a sexually ambiguous kid who are pushing his votes.
The history of Idol shows that having a penis that young women feel has a credible possibility of being used is dangerous. Of the guys who've made it far on the show, only Bo Bice could be said to have been broadly sexually enticing/threatening.
First season, Justin gets farthest, and though attractive, his attraction is a very unthreatening kind of attractiveness. Second season was Ruben v Clay, and even though Ruben was a big huge black man, he was an asexual teddy bear, and Clay, well yeah. Season Three no guys made it too far. Season Four, was the exception that proves the rule. Bo Bice not only had a penis, but he seemed certain to be willing to use it. He seemed to be the first male performer to succeed in Idol appealing to sexually mature women more so than appealing to pre-teens. In the run-up to his showdown with Carrie, it was pretty clear that it was the moms pushing the vote on Bo. Last season, Taylor has about all the sexuality of Elmo (the tickle-me variety), his success is utterly inexplicable from a sex appeal standpoint.
This season, Blake has to be one of the favorites, he stradles the line between penis-ful and penis-less appeal. Sanjaya on the other hand is utterly and totally penis-less, and that's why he makes the young girls cry. Phil and Chris aren't sticking around much longer, so no use talking about them.
If Sanjaya somehow wins it all, there will be many folks who'll go crazy, but should that happen, it will be because he has a strong appeal to a rabid fanbase and he'll just be another in a long line of sexually ambiguous/unthreatening male performers who preteen girls find appealing (until they grow up and realize that guys with penises are preferable).
Showing posts with label Pop Music Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pop Music Theory. Show all posts
12 April 2007
15 December 2006
Wherein Bill at So Quoted Gives Me an Excuse to Expound Upon Dreamgirls, Laura Nyro, Patti LaBelle, and Kylie Minogue Among Other Things
I feel inspired by this post where Bill at So Quoted felt inspired by one of my posts (he's so entirely right about Sinead O'Connor, that I can't possibly add more, also her Wiki mentions she's due to deliver her fourth child Christmas Eve, God could do worse for his latest Mary (and the Devil could do worse as far as his first Mary, for that matter)). The blogosphere is full of these sort of self-referential feedback loops, I didn't want to be left out.
I'm trying to trace back in my mind where all this horrible Whitney, Mariah, Celine, Xtina crap started and I think I know where.
Dreamgirls.
I was going to do a review of the album from the new film, but I loathed it so much, that I figured I couldn't possibly be fair towards it. Then I listened to a cast recording of the original musical, and it was just as bad, if not worse.
That song, the big show stopper, the big moment, the one that supposedly made Jennifer Holliday a star, that song is a wreck, especially at the end. Jennifer Hudson does an equally horrific job with that crappy song, warble for warble, oversung note for oversung note.
It may be enough to earn her a Supporting Actress Oscar. Good for her, I guess.
Needless to say, you'd have to pay me to see that film, and pay me well, like getting Prof. Althouse to eat an egg salad sandwich type money (current price seems to be around $1,000 US, but as she seems more prosperous lately, the price may have risen).
Dreamgirls first hit Broadway very early in the 80s, before Whitney had her hits, and before Patti LaBelle went from being a powerfully voiced singer into being a ridiculous parody of a warbler. It is a play about girl groups from the sixties but it applies a bombastic Broadway sensibility to the lyrics and song style. It's a match made in hell, if you ask me. Listen to Motown, listen to Mary Wells' velvety vocals, or Diana Ross' sexy whisper. That's not what Holliday does in that stupid musical. Dreamgirls is as if you mixed girl groups with the demonic presence that is known as Andrew Lloyd Webber. To paraphrase Hugo Chavez, whenever ALW leaves a room, the smell of sulfur lingers for days.
So why did that crappy vocal style catch on, and why do consumers continue to eat it up?
I don't have a precise answer, but I think it has something to do with the idea that folks have a tendency to believe that things that seem hard take more talent than things that seem easy. The shortstop who's always in the right place never has to make a spectacular play to get the easy out, while the guy who doesn't know what the hell he is doing, but has amazing physical gifts gets to make spectacular play after spectacular play as he dives in the dirt, wheels and throws. People assume the diver is the better shortstop, when really it's the fella who does his homework, and does the job as it should be done.
I think pop music consumers have fallen in a similar trap. They hear vocalists doing runs and singing in a couple octaves and keys within one song, and they think to themselves, "self, I could never do that, therefore this here that I'm listening to must take real talent, and therefore is well worth my time, even if it sounds like a bag of cats drowning".
What's that have to do with Laura Nyro? Everything, I've been listening to her album of soul covers, Gonna Take a Miracle, and it's amazing. That was a vocalist who knew exactly what she was doing and used her instrument in surprising and exciting ways. Her voice wasn't always pleasant sounding, and she brought a shocking emotionality to those songs that tended to uncover a dark undercurrent in the sunny lyrics she was singing. This is especially true on Nowhere to Run, her take on that song is absolutely enthralling. At the end when she repeats "I've got nowhere to run to" it sounds as if she's really being stalked by something sinister. It's a fascinating change from the original, and it's all done through how she uses her voice.
As it so happens (I was going to edit that needlessly conversational phrase from this post, but instead I'll link to this Althouse post as penance), this album is a joint project between Nyro and Labelle, Patti LaBelle's group at the time. It's amazing, and somewhat hard to believe now, that Patti used to be able to use her voice in the service of the song rather than as turning each song into glorified vocal exercises.
What has Kylie Minogue have to do with this conversation?
She's a thinly voiced singer who has perfected the art of using that thin voice to maximum effect. She is that shortstop who is always in the perfect position to make the easy throw. Her last album, Body Language, is just about the most perfect pop album released in the past 5 years. It's a sublime creation, and it doesn't matter that she can't power through a note, what matters is that she's able to interpret songs, and present something pleasing and beautiful within the context of light, confectionery pop. It's one of the easiest albums you'll ever listen to, and that's a big compliment in my opinion.
Folks don't always get it, but Easy is Hard, it's Hard that's Easy.
I'm trying to trace back in my mind where all this horrible Whitney, Mariah, Celine, Xtina crap started and I think I know where.
Dreamgirls.
I was going to do a review of the album from the new film, but I loathed it so much, that I figured I couldn't possibly be fair towards it. Then I listened to a cast recording of the original musical, and it was just as bad, if not worse.
That song, the big show stopper, the big moment, the one that supposedly made Jennifer Holliday a star, that song is a wreck, especially at the end. Jennifer Hudson does an equally horrific job with that crappy song, warble for warble, oversung note for oversung note.
It may be enough to earn her a Supporting Actress Oscar. Good for her, I guess.
Needless to say, you'd have to pay me to see that film, and pay me well, like getting Prof. Althouse to eat an egg salad sandwich type money (current price seems to be around $1,000 US, but as she seems more prosperous lately, the price may have risen).
Dreamgirls first hit Broadway very early in the 80s, before Whitney had her hits, and before Patti LaBelle went from being a powerfully voiced singer into being a ridiculous parody of a warbler. It is a play about girl groups from the sixties but it applies a bombastic Broadway sensibility to the lyrics and song style. It's a match made in hell, if you ask me. Listen to Motown, listen to Mary Wells' velvety vocals, or Diana Ross' sexy whisper. That's not what Holliday does in that stupid musical. Dreamgirls is as if you mixed girl groups with the demonic presence that is known as Andrew Lloyd Webber. To paraphrase Hugo Chavez, whenever ALW leaves a room, the smell of sulfur lingers for days.
So why did that crappy vocal style catch on, and why do consumers continue to eat it up?
I don't have a precise answer, but I think it has something to do with the idea that folks have a tendency to believe that things that seem hard take more talent than things that seem easy. The shortstop who's always in the right place never has to make a spectacular play to get the easy out, while the guy who doesn't know what the hell he is doing, but has amazing physical gifts gets to make spectacular play after spectacular play as he dives in the dirt, wheels and throws. People assume the diver is the better shortstop, when really it's the fella who does his homework, and does the job as it should be done.
I think pop music consumers have fallen in a similar trap. They hear vocalists doing runs and singing in a couple octaves and keys within one song, and they think to themselves, "self, I could never do that, therefore this here that I'm listening to must take real talent, and therefore is well worth my time, even if it sounds like a bag of cats drowning".
What's that have to do with Laura Nyro? Everything, I've been listening to her album of soul covers, Gonna Take a Miracle, and it's amazing. That was a vocalist who knew exactly what she was doing and used her instrument in surprising and exciting ways. Her voice wasn't always pleasant sounding, and she brought a shocking emotionality to those songs that tended to uncover a dark undercurrent in the sunny lyrics she was singing. This is especially true on Nowhere to Run, her take on that song is absolutely enthralling. At the end when she repeats "I've got nowhere to run to" it sounds as if she's really being stalked by something sinister. It's a fascinating change from the original, and it's all done through how she uses her voice.
As it so happens (I was going to edit that needlessly conversational phrase from this post, but instead I'll link to this Althouse post as penance), this album is a joint project between Nyro and Labelle, Patti LaBelle's group at the time. It's amazing, and somewhat hard to believe now, that Patti used to be able to use her voice in the service of the song rather than as turning each song into glorified vocal exercises.
What has Kylie Minogue have to do with this conversation?
She's a thinly voiced singer who has perfected the art of using that thin voice to maximum effect. She is that shortstop who is always in the perfect position to make the easy throw. Her last album, Body Language, is just about the most perfect pop album released in the past 5 years. It's a sublime creation, and it doesn't matter that she can't power through a note, what matters is that she's able to interpret songs, and present something pleasing and beautiful within the context of light, confectionery pop. It's one of the easiest albums you'll ever listen to, and that's a big compliment in my opinion.
Folks don't always get it, but Easy is Hard, it's Hard that's Easy.
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