Solving For 'x' in Today's World

When America wakes up tomorrow morning it will be saying good morning to a newly-crowned American Idol. The show, wrapping up its 11th season, has become a staple of American pop lore. The television factory has created genuinely viable superstars (Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson to name two) and given us some laughable moments (William Hung, anyone?). We've seen judges ranging the gambit from formerly washed-up (Paula Abdul) to obscure (I'm sure 90% of America had no clue Randy Jackson had been a member of Journey before Idol) to masters of reinvention (Steven Tyler). And despite its sharply declining ratings, it's been overall a massive success, one that will take its place, rightly or wrongly, alongside such monumental TV staples as American Bandstand, Soul Train, and the Ed Sullivan Show when it comes to buzz-worthy musical moments.

But one thing it hasn't given us is any sense of authenticity. Everything about the show, from its carefully selected judges to its contestants to the individual song selections feels contrived. Before you get defensive, I promise that this is not a hipster rant about the lack of a "cool factor;" I'd rather put a Michael Jackson record on than Bon Iver's latest drama and I can easily throw on a copy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road  immediately after listening to the latest Little Dragon offering. I'm not saying the contrived nature of the show can't be entertaining, but it is oftentimes misunderstood for something of more value. While it may go neck and neck with a show like American Bandstand in terms of cultural relevance, it will never match its predecessor in terms of actual value. American Bandstand was relevant in more than its entertainment value; they were introducing a lot of America to a whole new sound, a whole new thing! There were musicians performing songs that had never been performed before that sounded like nothing that had been heard before. They were attempting to break down preconceived notions and racial barriers with brand new art! The only thing American Idol can be charged with on the originality scale is that it was the first program of its kind to make us realize that we've grown stale in terms of what we want from our art.

A while back I was asked to define what I considered to be 'genuine.' I wrote that "rather than recreating something old, we should strive to create something new and fresh each time." Ok, of course there have been some excellent musical covers. Jimi Hedrix' All Along the Watchtower was better than Dylan's original and Johnny Cash's rendition of Hurt was at least on equal footing with the Nine Inch Nails hit. But, in order for a reproduction of someone else's art to stand alone as its own expression it needs to take the original piece someplace new and different; that's why Hendrix and Cash's renditions can be taken as true art. It's why the Cohen brothers' True Grit won awards as a remake of a 60's film. Although not wholly original when it comes to the birth of idea, they still took something preexisting and made it feel fresh.

By nature, we're not going to see a show like American Idol churning out dozens of original songs each week. It wouldn't work with the tried and true success of the show's formatting. So, we're stuck with watching contestants forge through 'Whitney Houston Week' and 'Lady Gaga Week.' And instead of taking the songs somewhere new and exciting, instead of capturing them and making them their own, we see the contestants plodding through someone else's art trying verbatim to hit each exact note at the exact same time with the exact same emotion as the original artist. Some of the contestants do an amazing job at this too! They can sing with the best of them and they can mimic the exact feeling of a given song, but it's still as hollow as Al Gore's claims of cyberspace invention. 

Formulas make us happy because we know they work. Mathematicians find comfort in knowing that if they have the right values plugged into a given formula, they'll get the right answer every time. Television and record producers oftentimes (through no fault of their own) possess the same mentality; they want to plug the variables into the equation to ensure they get the answer that works every time. And, sadly, I think it's where we as Americans have arrived as well. We aren't as keen on innovation -artistic or otherwise- as we had been in generations past. We'd rather see the safe bet on TV singing a song we already know the exact way we remember it...rather go see a movie that is a 10-year update of a movie we've already memorized...read a book that rips off other books. But it's not just about American Idol and art. It's about what this says about you and I in general.

We like to play it safe. We like the comfort of formulas too. We'd rather go to the same restaurant every Thursday instead of trying something new on the other side of town. We'd rather be friends with people who remind us of ourselves instead of pursuing relationships with people who might challenge us or teach us something new.We'd rather stay home than walk down the street and get to know our neighbors. We'd rather go to school to get the job that will pay us the most instead of learning what interests us the most. We'd rather stay at our current jobs instead of pursuing our dreams.

Maybe it's time we leave the formulas to the worlds of mathematics, science, and business and live our lives more artistically, striving to move forward instead of remaining static and stale.

What song are you mimicking?