Informal Internet studies show that incidents of loud and passionate shower singing have gone up exponentially since 2002. In unrelated news, the 12th season “American Idol” winner, Candice Glover, has finally broken the five-season trend of “white guys with guitars.” Meanwhile, “The X Factor” grows with every Simon Cowell quip, and “The Voice” is almost single-handedly keeping NBC afloat. And right here at UCLA, Spring Sing drew enthusiastic crowds. Yo dawg, maybe this singing competition thing’s got what it takes to keep going?
With “American Idol” on a steady ratings decline, and “The Voice” closing its fourth season, columnists Tony Huang and Sebastian Torrelio take a look at the now decade-long obsession with vocal talent. In this week’s Love | Hate, Torrelio shakes his head with fervor, arguing for a bright future, while Huang paints the shows as ratings machines without much purpose.
Believe it or not, as the seven or so other people on campus who saw an episode of “American Idol” this season can hopefully vouch for, it was a great season. Two singers who very much deserved to be in the finals made the finals, unlike some recent seasons which pitted unmemorable talent against unmemorable talent, or country singer against country singer. Those really didn’t matter.
Unfortunately, it really didn’t matter this season either, but for different reasons. The show’s ratings went down the tubes, the judges became tabloid-famous for their lack of chemistry and a fair amount of blatant producer manipulation was present throughout. But both Kree Harrison and Candice Glover were pleasantly refreshing, albeit similar, competitors to have made it to the end.
“Refreshing” seems to be the name of the game. With all four of this season’s judges leaving, “American Idol” is looking to reinvent itself. The thing is, it’s much easier to do that with other shows. “The Voice” still clings to the genre of reality singing competition, which forces it to keep to certain guidelines. There will have to be judges, audience voting and pop-star presence – that’s inevitable. But the use of judges as mentors (and charismatic ones at that, Mr. Adam Levine), is an exciting and fun idea.
Reality singing competitions are basically what variety shows from the 1960s and 1970s have become. Entertainment made for television at its finest, they featured comedy sketches and performances in abundance. Now we’ve removed the comedy, and left just the singing. It’s how television has evolved to fit the growing interest of the viewers, in this case using interactive voting and fan interest in everyone’s favorite potential star.
It’s possible that I cling to the successes of the past, and being optimistic for some helpful TV evolution is a bit late at this point.
But if a genre that gave the world pop goddess Kelly Clarkson and Academy Award-winner Jennifer Hudson wants to prove itself once more, I have no qualms.
Email Torrelio at storrelio@media.ucla.edu if you’re on the “love” side.
I actually have a hard time imagining the mentality of people who devote themselves to “American Idol” or “The Voice.” Not the viewers – the voters, the people who actually have it in them to dial a number and vote. Consistently. Week after week.
It’s the epitome of a futile exercise. Say you vote for a candidate who gets cut. How embarrassing. Say you keep voting for the candidate who eventually wins. Yay. Except in two years, maybe three from now, that acoustic-guitar dude will be languishing in admirable obscurity, grinding out factory pop tunes until he dies of boredom. And you’ll be one of the handful of people to own his record, that quirky relic of shame.
The fact of the matter is that singing competitions are by and large rather useless; other than Kelly Clarkson, maybe Carrie Underwood, scarcely any worthwhile artists have emerged from them. The shows are ratings machines, nothing more, but they pretend to matter – and worse, they perpetuate the idea that all you need to be a successful pop artist is the ability to make people go “jeez, that was a high note – and how long!”
Which isn’t true – there are plenty of remarkable karaoke artists across the nation, but you won’t see anyone rush out for their records. It takes a bit of personality – not just a rags-to-riches sob story, but actual charisma – to really get anywhere. And reality singing encourages exactly none of that.
But hey, “The Voice” is different, they say. These judges are really looking out for their own musical style, they say. I’m not really sure what they get out of having their team win, but. Adam Levine has to know what he’s doing. And look at all those genres!
Incidentally, how’s that Javier Colon album treatin’ ya?
Email Huang at thuang@media.ucla.edu if you’re on the “hate” side.