'American Idol': Behind the Curtain
Note: This post is appearing here because "American Idol" Show Tracker Richard Rushfield is in Park City, Utah, covering the Sundance Film Festival. He'll return next week. In the interim, Mr. Rushfield has asked me to chronicle the second week of "Idol" Season 7. It should be noted that I am a music journalist who, prior to 2008, had refused to watch the contest. My long-held refusal to tune in to "Idol," said Rushfield, is the precise reason why I was drafted. After this week, I'll be back to my regular, non-"Idol" duties.
"American Idol" concluded its sixth hour in two weeks on Wednesday night, and of those 360 minutes, only a small fraction were devoted to actual music.
That may seem odd, seeing as how "Idol" is out to find our next pop
star and all. But this is not a show about music. In fact, in these
early Season 7 episodes, "Idol" has done little, if anything, to
actually celebrate or promote pop music. Simon even went so far as to
tell "Idol" lovebirds Randy Stark and Crystal Ortiz, a couple who met
on the "Idol" message boards (hey guys!), to essentially not even sing
for their families.
A dose of truth for the delusional, perhaps, but for a show about music, "Idol" has an amazing ability to shatter dreams, and to make one feel stupid for ever trying to sing in the first place. A lifetime passion? Destroyed in about 20 seconds -- 20 seconds in which technique (the ability to hold a note and carry a tune) is held in higher regard than passion and personality.
Oh, I want to believe you Jeffery Lampkin. Jeffery performed with his sister Michelle on Wednesday's Charleston, S.C., auditions, and had an energy that would make Gnarls Barkley's Cee-Lo proud (as well as a waistline). "Anybody can sing, but you have to have the ‘ow’ factor," he said. Not sure if the family act he has with his sister is going to work (OK, it isn't), but as far as a singer with an "ow" factor, Jeffery is the closest there's been in Season 7.
That's why it's surprising the pair were actually voted on to Hollywood. For there were two moments in Wednesday's episode -- admittedly, the most entertaining "Idol" episode this season -- that did a fine job of capturing the way the pop-star-making end of the music industry actually works.
1. Sixteen year-old singer Amy Catherine Flynn (pictured), or, in her words, "AC, whatevs."
