Vendetta1 said:

Anything that offers an extra avenue to be "discovered" is surely a good thing?

Getting your music out there is easier now than it's ever been. Acts will find their place, AI or no AI.

Fury said:

We totally have the same taste. All those contestants are amazing!!!

You do know about the people that were let go because of controversy. Right?

MIGUELGOMEZ said:[quote]

Fury said:

yeah but just from the few clips i saw i don't know if they would have won anyway. i had adam pegged as the winner last year after he did satisfaction-- haven't seen that "oooh factor" yet, but i guess we will after this week
when they go " live"

meow85 said:

Isn't that a little snobby? Music is a vast area, and "pop music" has been there for decades.

I'd be a little surprised if my girls (4, 7, 10) wanted to listen to Bob Dylan or The Smiths or Deathcamp for Cutie or whatever is now.

My kids love Hannah Montana. Pop all the way. It's their first taste of music. They love X Factor. Mostly I think for the drama, but they get a taste of some older music. They're listening to Stevie Wonder because Olly sang Superstitious at his audition. They've got Purple Rain because Ruth sang it last year and Danyl this year.

AI, Glee, Mamma Mia, all new ways to access old music.

There's room for it all.

mcmeekle said:

Who said anything about pop music?

All genres have good quality music in them. Yes, even the much-maligned pop. My problem is the business model and mentality that's so prevalent in the industry, especially in the last 20 years.

meow85 said:

On the contrary, I see the success of AI is a glaring indictment of the current state of the music industry. If anything, we see all of the wannabe singers get weeded out of the program and see some people who actually have some vocal ability come out of the process. You can argue about how AI waters down the music which ultimately gets released, but you can't argue about the talent which comes out of it.

There are so many AI haters on this board, but they should be hating the record companies even more for pushing style and looks over talent. You get people like Britney Spears who struggled to sing well in the first place and can't even hold half a tune these days becoming a huge star because she can expose a lot of skin and have her songs Autotuned to death to cover up her vocal deficiencies. Then you have producers who take otherwise talented singers like Beyonce and Alicia Keys and instead of tailoring their music to their vocal strengths, force them to sing like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey in their prime and prematurely blow their voices out, while at the same time using generic preprogrammed beats instead of a more organic sound.

728huey said:

I get what your saying, but IMO it all boils down to the same industry mentality that style should be promoted over substance.

Untalented performers are being pushed because they have the right look for the moment, and talented performers are being pushed toward soulless imitations because of focus groups' results. Both ways, performers and their audiences are being sold short.

meow85 said:

Making money? Shifting "units"? Surely it's always been that way?

meow85 said:

motown ring a bell? sheesh. u think diana ross was the most talented supreme? she had the look and she gave good head

mcmeekle said:

The promotion of style over substance. Sure, there have always been pockets of that for as long as the industry has existed. But it hasn't always been the go-to default model like it is now.

Fury said:

See my other response. It's always existed but it's only recently it's become THE first approach.

meow85 said:

blame mtv then---christopher cross was talented, but was fugly by video standards. image is 98%. tracey chapman is one exception i can think of--not video cute but with talent. the days of getting discovered at the mall or in a radio contest are over--nobody's gonna walk into wb and demand a record deal--show us what u got on your youtube/facebook/twitter/myspace page

Fury said:

American Idol and it's UK prequel Pop Idol is just like what BlaqueKnight has been telling his fellow orgers for years, it's a show that is nothing more but a fixed glorify karaoke contest.
[Edited 2/21/10 14:40pm]

Vendetta1 said:

It isn't his fault if you do not keep up with contemporary pop music and know who today's artists are.

Wowugotit said:

I have no idea what this has to do with anything. In my opinion, if an artist is a good enough singer, I will get word of mouth. it has not happened with most of the people Fury named.

I've seen some amazing singers go through American and Australian Idol over the years.

I'm not a music consumer however, and no matter how good a singer is, if they don't have the emotional connection I need to actually BUY an album, it's meaningless to me.

I feel for those kids though, thrown up there in the public eye, pushed to breaking point for our ENTERTAINMENT and some of them do good DESPITE IT ALL.

Pants on the Ground was the jam.

I think it'd would make a great mash up with that song that goes,

"Applebottom jeans, boots with the fur
The whole club is lookin' at her."

AI is seriously no different than how the music industry has been since the very beginning. You audition to get a record deal, you beg and plead to get your demo in the door. The only difference is it's done on a show and the public chooses.

I don't get the hate at all...especially when clueless people think it's a bunch of talentless people on there. Sure a couple that are popular might not be that great, but most can really sing, really, really sing.

JustErin said:

exactly
most of my singer friends always watched it

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

That makes three of us!

I like the show, it's entertainment and that's all I'll chalk it up to... no need to overthink it...

Even here in New Zealand, we are watching Season 9 and the last episode on Saturday February 21st was the group competition at Hollywood. Well the talent is thinned out and theres too many maverick singers and sob stories and then all the people crying. To us kiwis its seems many contestants are so full of themselves and hate it when anyone gives you a reality check, its like the USA is the home of the infallible ego. There are very great talents, a lot of average ones and heaps of rubbish.
I do't know about the US, but there are heaps of ads here, its like a 1 hour slot has 5 4 minute long ad breaks and theres as little as 4 minutes of program between breaks, along with a lot of Ryan repaeating himself, or giving away outcomes before the ads even start. Is it the same there, or is it just to mollify people watching it outside of America.

Huggiebear said:

It makes me sad that the USA comes off this way to the rest of the world - all the self-importance and downright delusion. I wouldn't say most of America is this way, but the assholes absolutely do get showcased on TV. I think a big part of the problem is that people don't demand talent so much anymore, they demand spectacle. Not that Snooki isn't talented, I'm just sayin'

2freaky4church1 said:

I don't care how many awards they give these dweebs, because of crap like American Idol you will never get the next Stevie or Prince. Woodshedding is out. Slowly marinating the next genius is a thing of the past.

The days of having the Beatles is over.

2freaky4church1 said:

There were plenty of these kind of pop stars around in their days, too.

Ace said:

No, hell, I mean, N-O

And they were usually one-hit wonders (but at least that single was GREAT) and they career usually lasted no more than two or four years...

Mick Jagger once said in 1977 that "Today, if we were an amateur band, we could not make it" or something like that, just because they released two sorry albums like It's only R&R, 1974 and Black and Blue, 1976, and even then they were still writing classics like Fool to Cry...
But in 2010, if you win AI, well that's all you need for a successful (yet crappy) 15-years career , no matter how disposable your albums are (which have been written by some overpayed professional songwriters anyway...)

The sorry state of current mainstream pop music makes you admire groups like Coldplay or Arcade Fire , no matter how flawed they are...
[Edited 2/22/10 10:57am]

JoeTyler said:

Bullshit. The music industry has always been this way. People have always been told what they should like and not like from day one. For every "great single" back then there were countless shitty ones. This is NOT a new concept. You can just look back and remember on the great songs, totally forgetting the shitty ones. Just like people will do years from now.

However, more than any other time before, you've got more music by more people at your fingertips. From the artist on huge labels to the artist making music in their mom's basement and posting it on myspace.

Quite your fucking complaining and go find the music you like and stop wasting your time complaining about what other people like.

when music has the ability to cure cancer or give half way decent blowjobs, I'll give enough of a fuck to be as passionate about it as some of you guys are...

JustErin said:

You're partially right, but AI and other similar TV-shows are (and were) a phenomenon of the 2000s decade...

JustErin

Sir, NO-SIR! The point of this thread is to criticise the worst aspects of AI, or at least that was (is) the author's goal. Perhaps you need glasses [
[Edited 2/22/10 11:37am]