Every year, when the new season of American Idol launches, I catch myself singing a little differently to the tunes in my car, as if I were on the show. I find it sickingly entertaining, and have been one of the millions to vote every week with the hopes that my American Idol would win. (Of course, it hasn’t and I have been forced to choose another Idol.)
What does it say about our entertainment industry that we have to have a reality show to choose our “Idol”? Why can’t musicians climb up the Idol ladder and earn their Idol status the way they had to 40 years ago? The Beatles didn’t simply become Idols. They had to work for it (and based on the interviews about the Hamburg years, it sounds like they really worked). Has entertainment become so cookie-cutter that the industry will choose someone who will earn $$$ rather than letting talent speak for itself? What happened to the music?
I have the luxury of living in a town focused highly on its music, and defines its identity as being a “music capitol”. Every night, the clubs are filled with at least one live band, some local garage band just trying to make it big. Perhaps it’s not big in the American Idol sense, but it does take a lot of balls to perform in a club on a regular basis, to make one’s career one’s music, to stay true to the art form. Some of those local bands might get a break and get out of our wicked little town, and some may never receive recognition beyond being a local favorite. Isn’t that okay?
Why does entertainment have to be as much a corporate whore as the rest of our society? Why does the business of escaping the horrors of life have to be fueled by the same devilish, greedy goal as the rest of the country?
Can’t we just have a break?
