None of them are that good.
We've seen enough of these final four singers to realize, unavoidably, that they're all flawed. None are as good singers as first season competitors Kelly Clarkson and Tamyra Gray; none have the ability to entertain that Justin Guarini did. Not one of them can have a successful post-Idol recording career. Let's review:
Kim Locke has a lovely voice when it's on, but it's just too inconsistent and weak at times. Too often she belts, and tries to allow increased volume to hide her lack of vocal control. And she's got a great smile, but otherwise is fairly inert as an entertainer. She does not draw you in.
Josh Gracin is an okay country singer, but his arrogance, his distracting hand gestures and his utter lack of sense in choosing material to sing are all fatal shortcomings. His range is slight, and he seeks to extend it far too often. Moreover, I just viscerally dislike him when I see him, and can't get over the tastelessness of choosing to sing (and sing badly) Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" while his Marine brothers were dying in Iraq. Josh just isn't 'pop', and may not be a good human being either.
You can't dislike Clay Aiken, but I can't see him in pop music either. He's a great interpreter of wordy, melodramatic songs, and there's a great place for that: Broadway. And there's no shame in that whatsoever. As I've said before, put him in Rent as Mark Cohen and let him shine. He's too stiff, too genial, too affected, too Up With People! to belong in competition with the Timberlakes of the world.
And, finally, Ruben Studdard. Boy's got one trick. It's a hell of a trick, being able to sing The Vulnerable Guy Who Wants You To Love Him Again role so well. But that's all he can do. No matter what genre of music the producer select each week, Ruben finds the one song that allows him to tip his cap, do his reach-the-hand-towards-the-camera lean and sing his tenor heart out. But can he do up-tempo? Can he sound sad while singing a sad song? I don't think so.
It all comes back to theme choices, as I argued last week. The show's producers have chosen themes week after week (Neil Sedaka, Bee Gees, Billy Joel, etc.) that do not allow the competitors to show their abilities to entertain in a modern context. Tonight's show was "Star Search"; it was not a show that was designed to divine who the next modern pop superstar could be, but one only measuring how many "glory notes" each competitor could hit. As TWoP's Miss Alli explains:
Enough with the Glory Note. Seriously. Seriously, seriously. You know the Glory Note, right? The one (usually, but not always, a high note) that the contestant hits and then tries to hold onto while the audience applauds and goes, "Wooo!" for no good reason? Yeah. I hate the Glory Note. The Glory Note is a mark of Star Search and beauty pageants. It is one thing and one thing only -- a note you can barely sing. If you can sing it comfortably, it doesn't come off like a Glory Note. The reason "sky" at the end of the bridge sounds like a Glory Note is that Clay can barely reach it. That's it. It's not that death-defying a note. Many quality tenors could pull it off in their sleep. I realize that, for the same reason that it's tempting to applaud ice skaters just because they don't fall down, it may be tempting to applaud people who manage to hit notes that are obviously barely within their ability, but if you think about it? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not a good note at all, in this case -- it's extremely forced and reedy, and sounds exactly like the "necktie tenor" effect one of my teachers used to bitch about. If he didn't make you fear that his voice was going to crack, there'd be nothing to clap for.
Is American Idol entertaining? Sure. But without better talent, it's just "Star Search" with better production values and more entertaining judges, no more.
Just as the people on Survivor aren't America's best schemers and survivalists, nor are the competitors on American Idol a real selection of America's best singers and entertainers. They're good, not great, and so it's fun watching them on a weekly basis because they might fail, and because the structure of the show makes you want to root for (and against) individual performers. But these aren't the best pop prodigies in America, and this season, they're not even close.
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