Music Dude: American Idol-atry

Because so much of my time and actual music ramblings are now committed to ThisIsRealMusic.com, I recognize that I havent done a Music Dude blog in a while. As much as I enjoy the T.I.R.M. work, there's nothing like the unfettered ramblings and rants I get to drop in this space. So The Dude is back...and since its been such a long time, I got a wholelotta ish to say...

AMERICAN IDOL
This show is a problem. I never used to watch the show, always seemed stupid and corny and basically for old retirees and girls. The most I would get is when my little cuzzes would make these highlight tapes of the "rejects" and show them to me and we'd crack up laughing and then that'd be it. As far as me sitting in front of a television every week yay-naying some amateur knockoffs while some fat black man that sounds and acts like he's an SNL skit where a white man is playing an exaggerated version of a black...i mean...the whole show always seemed irredeemable. I'm a little more exposed to this since I moved to NYC, because my sister watches this all the time...its something I never had to deal with living by myself. Much like Lyd's red carpet play-by-play, she does the same with these poorly dressed, copy cat rubes that prance on the stage sounding like Beyonce, Justin Timberlake or beat boxing in the middle of a Dianna Ross song...this ish is steaming hot trash.

But what really opened my eyes to 1.) just how much of a pervasive phenomenon this show is, and 2.) just how much this threatens the integrity and artistic fiber of music; came during my couple months back in Buffalo, playing Scrabble with my aunts.

A true highlight of my week during my Buffalo stay was Sunday, when I ventured over my Aunt Kimmy and Uncle Tip's crib and sat down at the table with them and my other Aunt Kim to play some post-dinner Scrabble. I don't play spades or poker or any of that, I play Scrabble...and not all that good, mind you. I prolly played a total of 50 games during those 4 months and I won ZERO times...came in second maybe 20-30 times, but never won...this, actually, is irrelevant. Back to American Idol...I used to make these playlists on my iPod (a little old skool, some new stuff, some classics, some obscure joints, that kinda steez) and we'd groove while trying get that Triple Word Score with the "Z".

The weird thing would be when a Stevie Wonder or Anita Baker or Whitney Houston or Dionne Warrick or Curtis Mayfield song would come on and one of my aunts would say something like, "Ooh, remember when Stacy did this on American Idol? What was that, 2 years ago?" And they'd smile and nod their head. One time, a Stevie track came on and my Aunt Kim said to my other Aunt Kim, "Heyyy. Remember, Kim? This is Niko's song." Now mind you, my Aunt Kim is prolly one of the baddest listening broads on the planet earth. She grew up in the same house as my Pops, so Aunt Kim can sang you every Delfonics tune and hum every tune off Miles' Sketches of Spain. This is no lightweight we're talkin about here. But this American Idol trash has become such virus that it's infecting the way we identify straight-up-n-down bonafide classic songs. Its gotten to the point where legitimate music enthusiasts can begin to correlate a classic song to the snaggle-toothed amateur American idol contestant before the legendary artist that sang the song.

My Uncle Warren had had enough at the point. He looked at me incredulously like "Do you see whats going on here?" then looked down at his tiles, let out an exasperated chuckle and muttered to noone in particular "That's STEVIE's song, not that American Idol boy's."

The song was "All I Do" off Hotter Than July, one of those joints with a classic Stevie piano melody, one where he gives us those classic Stevie moments where he strains his voice so hard you think his larynx will burst. Yet, my Aunt Kims really like this Niko guy (I remember seeing him on a tape my cousins showed me. He was a squarish R&B dude, one that girls and women would develop an affection for. The only reason I remember him is because he's the great baseball player Ozzie Smith's son.). Because my aunts liked him so much, they remember all his performances and because he didnt win and hasnt shown up anywhere else, they probably miss him, so when "All I Do" comes on, they think about him before the friggin genius blind man that penned the song, sung the song and played practically all the instruments on the song. Think about that for a second. American Idol must be stopped.

And I'm not worried about my Aunts. Theyre cool...unless slews of nerdy black guys with good voices start to overwhelm the contestant lineup, my Aunts will be fine. But what about the younger generation? Really, what just about everyone born from 1984 and and back, specifically the ones that dont come from families that are big into music? But really, what about them all? These are children that don't know who Pearl Jam is, but they know some cheeseball with dirty hair sang "Jeremy" on American Idol...so it's not Pearl Jam's song, it's the dirty-haired cheesball's song. Or, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You" won't be Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's tune, it'll be "Oh, this that hipless skank and slack-jawed gay dude's duet in '06".

I'm tellin you, the possibility and, frighteningly, likelihood that classic works of art by incredible artists and musicians are being hijacked by a lowest common denominator, ameteur talent show is the most threatening attack on music of the new millenium. Not illegal downloading, or snap music or Joss Stone or Hot 97 -- it's American Idol. So either people start keeping this show in perspective or I'm gonna start mobilizing the troops to get this thing kicked off the air (fat chance, but i gotsto family).