American Idolatry

I recently came across a spectacular video of a guy named Sam Tsui, a Yale student who has a stellar voice. He did a Michael Jackson medley and sang all 5 harmonies by himself and taped it using overlay. It's a really cool video, you should check it out. Hey, and while you're there, scroll through the comments. Every 5th comment or so, someone inevitably says, "You should audition for American Idol!" And this brings me to the days Meaningless Opinionated Rant (hereby known as MOR.)

American Idol: Big Break or Big Bother?

I don't mean to brag, but I can't tell you how many times I have been told to audition for this damn show. It seems to me that anyone who has a decent-to-good voice has been told this by someone they know. It bothers me that people assume that that is the best (or only) choice for a talented singer. Winning or getting a jump start to a singing career through AI is highly unrealistic. Above all, AI is a TV show, not an instant fame-maker or even a true singing competition. It's about ratings and making a dime, not true talent. I have seen talented singers audition and fail to advance in the competition based on low marketability. After all, it doesn't even become a serious singing competition until after the first round of auditions. The cattle-call shows are an open forum to poke fun at those who can't sing. The producers put prospective competitors through a screening process before singing in front of the judges. This means that while they screen for true talent, they also pick the least qualified- just for entertainment, knowing full well that they will not move forward. It feels like exploitation to me. I admit that it's fun to laugh at all the terrible auditions. (Hey, if you decide to go on national television and scream Whitney Houston, you deserve to be laughed at.) But when the public eye holds a TV show designed for entertainment as a standard of talent, I get bothered. What happened to paying your dues, playing gigs, and working for things? It's not like AI even helps many people. True, a few people each season are moderately successful, but it's still no guarantee. When's the last time we heard from Ruben Studdard or Taylor Hicks? They won the show and still haven't really made it. It makes the whole debacle seem like a waste of time. Since there was popular music before this show, I assume singers can get there by themselves. We don't need shows like this bastardizing the music profession.

So no, everyone. I will not be auditioning for American Idol. I have talent, yes, but I have taste. I'd rather sing in a seedy piano bar full of cigar smoke and empty chairs than sing on this show.