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What makes American Idol such a pop-hit-generating juggernaut? The show-closing singles its winners are forced to sing are uniformly awful, so there must be something about Idol itself that ensures hits.
Is it the fact that it’s a cannily crafted competition that gives pop fans a rooting interest in budding acts with compelling backstories? It’s been said that Idol is the closest thing we Americans have to Eurovision, the annual nation-vs.-nation song smackdown, which has been generating pop hits reliably since the middle of the last century.
Or is it the simple fact that Idol is on TV, period? I’m starting to think that’s it, looking at this week’s Billboard Hot 100.
In a week that should’ve been a chart triumph for the two finalists competing in what was perhaps the show’s most compelling finale ever, the week’s highest debut comes not from winner Kris Allen or runner-up Adam Lambert, but from a bunch of no-name teenagers who sang on Fox TV in the hour after those guys finished competing two Tuesdays ago. More »
Archive for May, 2009
After ‘Idol,’ a ‘Glee’-ful Upset on the Charts
Hey Everybody, I’m Pretty Sure That KFC Was Not Giving Away Free Copies Of The Ciara Album
Like the Timex Social Club, I spend a lot of time lamenting the rumors that surround me every day. How do they get started? And where do they get crazy? In Truthmongerer, I’ll try to suss out the kernels of truth in the rumors that are taking up airspace in gossip columns, blogs, and our tips inbox.
THE RUMOR: Earlier this month, KFC distributed a coupon that allowed anyone who bought an Original Recipe Chicken Sandwich Value Meal to get a free copy of Ciara’s eternally delayed, poorly received Fantasy Ride.
TRUTH THRESHOLD: 0%, although the notion that Ciara’s star has fallen precipitously is 100% verified. More »
The Case Against Phish: Why A Once-Great Band Should Have Stayed Dead
In 2005, at the height of Coldplay’s popularity, The New York Times published a scathing essay by Jon Pareles. “The Case Against Coldplay” argued that the self-pity of the Chris Martin-fronted band was calculated, and that its grandiose sound was built to prey on an unsuspecting populace. On the eve of Phish’s first summer tour in years, kicking off with a show at Fenway Park in Boston, Dylan Stableford offers a similar argument. More »
This New Mew Song Is Pretty Rad
“Introducing Palace Players,” the first track to emerge from the Danish band Mew’s forthcoming album No More Stories / Are Told Today / I’m Sorry / They Washed Away // No More Stories / The World Is Grey / I’m Tired / Let’s Wash Away, starts off taut and wiry, all percussion and attacked guitars, before blooming into something that sounds like three tracks are playing at once (in a good way). Things settle down slightly after that, and the whole song unfolds kind of like a dream, with the marshmallow-light vocals of Jonas Bjerre recalling–swoon!–Green Gartside’s. I always forget how much I love this band until I hear a song of theirs (damn short-attention-span culture), and I am so excited for the album to come out in August. An embed of the track, after the jump. More »
Kanye West: More Complicated Than The Books He Isn’t Reading
Yesterday, Kanye West got bummed out that the wrong version of his Rihanna-tastic “Paranoid” video leaked earlier this week: “IT HURTS ME TO SEE THE OLD AND VERY WRONG VERSION OF THE PARANOID VIDEO GET LEAKED ALL OVER THE NET WHILE I WAS ON AN 11 HR FLIGHT AND COULDN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT,” he all-capsed on his blog yesterday. The rest of his rant about the degraded state of the music video and how leaks just won’t let him be great after the jump! More »
Wavves Meltdown Results In Mass Outbreak Of Twittenfreude
The Pitchfork-beloved lower-than-lo-fi outfit Wavves has certainly caused certain corners of the Internet to get their danders up, thanks to the influential review site’s unabashed enthusiasm for the band so early in its career rubbing up against its ramshackle sonic aesthetics and bordering-on-unbearable live show. Those live woes continued yesterday at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival, where they basically staged a melt down while playing the fest’s Pitchfork-sponsored stage. What started with a bad soundcheck grew into bottles being thrown at the crowd, Wavves main man Nathan Williams mocking the crowd’s choice of recreational pharmaceuticals, petulance toward the sound guy, and the drummer finally pouring a big cup of beer over Williams’ head. Naturally, this news of an overhyped band being sort of crappy led to no shortage of responses on the microblogging service Twitter, which, in times like these, serves as the Internet’s perhaps-too-rapid-response unit. A sampling of reactions from people who felt the urge to issue 140-character statements on what this means for Wavves, music, and the world after the jump! More »
Pretty Ricky’s Spectacular speaks about his intentions behind that video of him grinding like an idiot that he posted the other day: “Them little tight man drawers … I bought ‘em to show off my cuts [in my stomach]. I wanted to show off my body. The underwear was for the ladies.” And here I thought it was to ensure maximum bloggability! [MTV] More »
Chrisette Michele Knows You’re Real Good
R & B singer Chrisette Michele tackles No Doubt’s power ballad “Don’t Speak” in the above clip, and accompanied by only a piano, she does quite a bangup job on what she claims is one of her favorite songs ever. (I wonder if the Long Island native had a preset on her stereo locked in to WDRE back in the day?) Two minor complaints: one, maybe she should have avoided the key change in the bridge; and two, using the backdrops behind her to sync the original video to her singing is kinda silly, and it only serves to distract from her otherwise lovely effort. [Yahoo! Music via Backstage Pass] More »
Attention fans of R & B: The latest entry in Tapemasters’ The Future Of R & B ziptape series has made its way online, and it looks to be a doozy, with a Ne-Yo/Brandy collaboration, Amerie’s new single, Maxwell’s outstanding “Pretty Wings,” and a track by the all-over-the-Internet Drake in the mix. (This blog has links to other entries in the series as well, in case you missed a few volumes like I did over the past few months.) [The Piff] More »
