The Devil will find work for Idol voices to do

The new season of American Idol started last night. I guess the show is sort of a semi-guilty pleasure for me, in that I'm not afraid to admit that I like it, but I feel the need to qualify that there are a lot of things about it that I find stupid and irritating: the cheesy group performances, the incessant Ford commercials within the show, and the obsession with appearance. As far as the latter goes, these people are trying to make it as singers, not models. Who cares how much they weigh? Last night, we had Simon Cowell saying someone looked like an elephant. I mean, come on! And I'm sure I've ranted before about the producers' apparent hatred for curly hair and glasses. Just look at what happened to Kimberley Locke for a perfect example of all three of these appearance policies in action. (On the other hand, I guess they ended up curling Kelly Clarkson's hair, so maybe it's not a hard-and-fast rule after all.) Then there's the incredible sameness of the songs the contestants sing. I mean, last season featured both Motown AND Soul Nights. Then when the show DOES try to do something a little different, like Country Night, the contestants generally end up signing stuff that barely qualifies (I can just see some of them trying to decide what to sing on such a night. "Did Whitney Houston do anything that could be considered country? What about Mariah Carey?"), and the judges (mostly Simon, but the others to a lesser extent) will hate it because, for whatever reason, they don't like country music.

Another point I feel I should make is that I really don't have much interest in anyone's music career beyond the show itself. Even if someone chooses decent songs throughout the season, they're generally stuck with crap written by two-bit hacks once they actually get a recording contract. Really, I might prefer it if they just gave the winner some cash and a new refrigerator, and the runner-up a copy of the home game, and then you never heard from them again. Some of them definitely have potential, but I tend to think that potential is wasted on the kind of career the winners get. It's like, "You went through this big, long, grueling ordeal to win the contest, so now you get to be owned by an exploitative record company!" I guess they choose that fate for themselves, and I'm sure the money is good, but I can't help feeling a little sorry for them.

I'm not yet totally sure that it's true, but I've heard that there are going to be separate categories for men and women this season, with the boys singing on one night of the week, and the girls on another. Stupid idea, if you ask me. Which you didn't, but I'm saying it anyway. Earlier seasons seemed to already make too much of an effort toward gender balance. All but the last season had equal numbers of guys and girls in the Top Ten/Twelve. If the best singers in the group are mostly male, or mostly female, who cares? Separating them strikes me as rather sexist. (I guess they would be separate-but-equal performances, right?)

On the positive side, I do hope the Jaded Journalist comes back for this season. His reviews are often more entertaining than the show itself.

As far as last night's episode in particular, what's with the dude from Sugar Ray being a guest judge? Like he's qualified to judge other people's singing. And they're apparently letting guest judges sit in earlier in the season, when the judges' opinions actually matter. I liked the janitor guy, who ended up not making it, allegedly because he was too old-fashioned. I've heard the judges level that charge against others in the past, but weren't a couple of the finalists last season fairly old-fashioned? And Simon partially (but not totally) redeemed himself by telling the girl who thought God was calling her to be the American Idol that "God doesn't want you to be in this competition." If only people had said that to a certain President of the United States, when he started in with his religious nonsense.

Speaking of music, I heard XTC's "King For A Day" played in Wawa yesterday. That's far from being one of the best XTC songs, but it was still cool to hear it. I remember hearing it in the grocery store once or twice, years ago. And speaking of right-wing idiots, bethje and I caught Bill O'Reilly arguing with a biology teacher that they should teach creationism (or "intelligent design") in schools. When the teacher said that all science is incomplete and left a lot of unknowns, O'Reilly said something like, "I know that there are 24 hours in a day." Um, does the guy even know what science IS? As Beth remarked, the segment showed O'Reilly at his dumbest. And that's saying a lot, isn't it?