Thursday, January 27, 2011

The New American Idol

First it was Paula, the ditsy drunk we loved to watch, stumbling over her words and ribbing with Simon, that left the show, but when Simon Cowell gave his notice, essentially turning down a king's ransom of 130 million dollars to come back, I was like, American Idol will never be the same without Simon Cowell's cruelly honest opinion. Who would tell the no talents that they have NO TALENT! Who would say "That was God awful". "Who would say that sounded like my cat wailing"? And whose praise will the contestants revere more? I've never really liked the auditioning part of American Idol so I usually skip it until the real competition begins, however, I was curious about JLo and Mr. Big Lips, Steven Tyler (not really an Aerosmith fan). This season we are seeing a gentler, softer side of American Idol, dud, now that Simon is gone, there is no one there to shoot straight from the mouth, which is totally BORING! JLo doesn't want to hurt anyone's feeling and Steven Tyler is looking for his next girlfriend. The only thing that will keep America watching will be the contestants themselves, which for the past few seasons, really sucked. I do have to say that Jennifer Lopez is gorgeous! No one should look that good, so polished, sparkly and fresh. As for Steven, he's just odd odd odd looking and reminds me of a grand dame with a bad facelift. As for the dawg Randy Jackson, he's kinda taken a back seat to their fame, but I think he still holds a sweet spot for American Idol's fans.
Has anyone watched Afghan Idol? No bright lights, no hi tech million dollar sound stage, no recording contract. Just bragging rights and $5,000 which I am sure is a small fortune there. I watched about an hour of this documentary of the five finalist 3 men and 2 women. It was riveting up to a point. How long can one listen to songs in Afghanistan about love "You are Hindu and I am Muslim" (seriously those were the lyrics of one song in subtitles). On the night of they voted for the 5 finalist,which by the way the entire country votes by cell phones, the sound equipment cables were held together by duck tape, the small stage lit by cheesy neon lights. The men wore cheap suits and the women came out in mismatched burkas (no veils). I was surprised by the ages of the women who were 22 and 24 but looked so much older. The men, dark haired and looked like they were from Mongolia or Asia. Each told a story of their life in a very harsh war torn country. Since I didn't catch the end of Afghan Idol, I googled the winner, it was the woman Setara who now is in hiding because she is afraid of death threats made against her for winning in a male dominated country driven by hate and prejudice. Maybe this season's winner of our American Idol will watch it and count their blessings. Single D

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