Idolator

My latest theory as to why industryites and performers like Jewel are rushing into country is it's still a viable genre/business environment for certain aging acts and certain profitable industries: songwriting and song publishing. Seriously, copyright-holders -- and that would include self-penning acts like Jewel -- will always gravitate toward Nashville, because it remains the most fertile ground on which to earn some cash, even now.

As for Jon Bon Jovi, he's just an opportunist and an aging fart.

Great analysis, Maura. If it's true that Simons Fuller and/or Cowell are being tempted into trying to replicate the varying levels of success of their other franchises [Idol, [___]'s Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance, etc.] by doing a countrified Idol, I think you're absolutely right that they'll find nothing but fools gold.

Perhaps the Fremantle honchos think there's something about the outsized representation of southern and country-friendly finalists they've had that makes them think they can replicate Idol's success with a different focus. Or perhaps they have a plan to retool Idol -- they made significant changes to Idol after Season 3, and Idol watchers expect them to do it again after the dreadful Season 6 -- to steer some of the Kellie Picklers and Bo Bices and Phil Staceys and Bucky Covingtons into a different show.

But if they're truly thinking of a countrified Idol clone, I think they'll have significant trouble if they try to play it straight. To expand a bit on your points 2 and 3 above, not only has this "been done already", but NBCU and CMT have not had anything close to a "hit" with Nashville Star. And as you note, they have only managed to produce one maybe-star. Only two artists have come from NS with any kind of sales-and-chart mojo -- the afore-mentioned Miranda Lambert, the Season 1 third-place finisher, and Buddy Jewell, the Season 1 champ. Buddy Jewell had a gold record but has already been dropped by his label. Miranda Lambert's terrific first record [Kerosene] went platinum -- practically unheard-of in the genre -- but her second record, the sublime Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, has stalled out just short of moving 250K, despite being perhaps the most critically-acclaimed record in the genre since Loretta Lynn and Jack White's Van Lear Rose.

As you note, the country market is shrinking in terms of sales, as is most of the rest of the industry. But what makes the project even more challenging is that the country market is already much smaller than the mainstream pop, rock, and AC markets. To make matters even tougher, much of Idol's "mainstream" audience has a cultural aversion to "country" music that would surely keep them away from a show like that.

A glimmer of possible hope -- I have always wondered if the relative dullness and non-sizzle of NS has been that NBCU/CMT have played it too straight. One of the biggest differences between the superficially-similar Idol and NS is that NS [supposedly] actually focuses on finding people with real talent, as opposed to personalities that will appeal to teevee audiences. Contestants on NS tend to have several years of experience [as session musicians, backup singers, and bar-band performers, etc.] honing their craft and creating their own original material -- which they perform as part of the competition -- and tend to be older and thus less-appealing to the core younger demographic of Idol. And NS has no Simon Cowell to tear apart the ridiculously untalented contestants and finalists. Perhaps Fremantle thinks the show would succeed with a stronger "any schlub can go from loser to big star" approach, and a caustic, grizzled veteran of the business not shy about ripping them apart instead of soft-pedaling.

@dennisobell: Great point, brother. Your post hit while I was still composing mine, so I couldn't respond there.

Since the U.S. heyday of the pop "singer-songwriter" in the '70's, anyone who could be characterized as a singer-songwriter almost always gets shoe-horned -- or self-shoe-horns, as the case may be -- into the country genre. And the trend seems to have accelerated in recent years, with John Mellencamp, James Taylor, Jon Bon Jovi, Jewel, and even Michelle Branch going that route. And speaking of aging stars trying to stretch their careers by diverting through Nashville, have you heard the Robert Plant-Alison Krauss collaboration?