It’s been more than a quarter-century since karaoke arrived in America, and in that time, the humble Japanese import has inspired a lucrative industry (four new karaoke video games came out in the last few weeks alone), countless drunken singalongs and arguably the biggest pop culture juggernaut of the past decade, “American Idol.” Not bad for a novelty that spent most of the ’80s as a punch line.
Singing onstage in front of a cheering audience — once thought to be the exclusive domain of rock bands and theater geeks — is now just another Friday night in bars across the country, where performers both young and old, good and bad reinterpret standards like “Purple Rain,” “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “I Touch Myself.” The Chris Martins and Bonos of the world can keep their roaring stadiums, their Grammys and peace medals. Give the rest of us a microphone, a few bottles of liquid courage, some vintage Journey tunes and voilà: We are the stars.
Considering how visible karaoke has become — at holiday parties, at sleepovers, as set pieces in Oscar-nominated movies — it’s surprising how little has been written about its origins. Until now, that is. Brian Raftery’s “Don’t Stop Believin’: How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life” delves into the tangled history of the art form (and yes, it is an art form), from its rocky start in 1970s Japan to its embrace by everyone from trendy indie rock bands to Midwestern bridal parties.
The book is also a love letter to a hobby that became an obsession. “I was a wallflower. I was never really comfortable around women, or at house parties, or at cocktail parties,” says Raftery, a contributor to Wired and Spin who began singing karaoke regularly after he moved to New York in the late ’90s. “But I became different in these karaoke rooms. It strangely brought a lot out of me.”
Salon spoke to Raftery by phone from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., which he shares with his wife, Jenny. His favorite karaoke song, by the way, is “Sister Christian.”
Where did karaoke come from?
It started with a guy in Japan in the early ’70s named Daisuke Inoue, who was a musician and not a very good one. But he was very good at what I would call being a middleman. He noticed that in bars there would be a musician playing and people singing along. If you were to streamline this process — add more songs by having a machine, charging a flat rate — there was money to be made.
He invented something called the Juke-8. It looks like a little speaker box with an eight-track machine. He would hire musicians and get people to write out these lyric books, and he leased these out. He hired these hostesses to walk into the bar and kind of discover the machine. Then they would hand the microphone over to these drunken Japanese businessmen.
It spread through parts of Asia in the ’70s and came to America in the early ’80s. Bar owners in New York and Orlando were hustling people to sing, but it didn’t catch on at first, for a lot of cultural reasons.
I was trying to remember when I first learned about karaoke. The first time I can remember seeing it is that scene in “When Harry Met Sally,” where Billy Crystal is singing “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” when his ex walks in.
Yeah, that was the first time a lot of people found out about karaoke. I think they’re in the Sharper Image store, which is how karaoke was seen in this country for a long time — this weird, yuppified object of conspicuous consumption. The equivalent of a vibrating chair.
So why was karaoke popular in Japan but proved such a hard sell in America?
You would think the reverse would be true, right? America is an exhibitionist culture. But in Japan, a certain part of that country’s history is discipline and an attention to form. People practiced and honed one song, which they could sing perfectly, and it was almost like a piano recital. Also, even though it wasn’t an extroverted culture, Japan always had these private rooms for performance [known as k-boxes].
But our country had this clear mark between professionals and amateurs: If you had a contract, and you were touring, you were a professional; otherwise, you were a wannabe. Americans aren’t always forgiving to wannabes, and people were aghast at the idea of watching non-professionals sing. Part of the American culture is: Don’t look like a fool. Don’t be a chump.
So how did karaoke eventually catch on?
One of the reasons was karaoke’s ability to just hang in there. It needed a younger generation. If you’re 20, you grew up with karaoke.
They started marketing these at-home machines, and that had been one of the barriers — people were too young to go to clubs or they didn’t like being around alcohol or they were terrified of being made fun of. So now you can do it with your friends, you can do it by yourself, which helped coax people who were anxious. And the songs of the late ’90s — the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” those first Britney Spears songs — they were made to sing along to in the car, in your room. How do you elevate it even higher? You sing it in karaoke. Remember this is a generation that grew up with Disney musicals, watching people their age singing professionally, and all of that helped pave the way for “American Idol,” in 2002.
Wow, it only premiered in 2002? It feels like it’s been around longer.
It feels like it premiered 300 years ago. It’s funny that Simon Cowell invokes “karaoke” as a curse word in his critiques, but the “American Idol”-karaoke relationship is so intertwined, it’s hard to tell who helped who more. I definitely think “Idol” has changed the way people view their role in popular culture. This idea that the kid two blocks down could have this hidden talent. And now you have really popular video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The division between professional and artist is much thinner.
Tell us about Sound Choice, which should be a familiar brand name for karaoke lovers.
Sound Choice is a company based in North Carolina that makes karaoke tracks. They have an in-house studio, and rather than just cheaply knocking off these songs, they had this guy who would try to analyze the songs in depth — finding out what pedals were used, etc. That’s a quality control commitment. They didn’t have to do that. I always thought seeing their logo at the beginning of a karaoke song was a bit like seeing the name Miramax in the mid-’90s.
A few months ago they had to let go of some musicians. People have few qualms about illegally downloading music, so they have absolutely no qualms about downloading karaoke versions of those songs. So the karaoke industry has taken a hit, which is a shame. It’s ridiculous to talk about karaoke songs as if they’re a Phil Spector recording, but when you have the close-to-perfect version of a song, it amplifies your performance. You definitely notice the difference when you’re singing some keyboard blip-bleep version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
What’s the story with those weird karaoke videos that often accompany the songs at karaoke bars? They’re one of the great mysteries of popular culture.
In the ’80s and ’90s, companies would film these ridiculous live-action videos to go along with karaoke songs. The main point was to give you the lyrics, but they’re also a diversionary tactic for the audience. If you’re going up on a stage about to sing “Friends in Low Places” and there are 50 people looking at you and you’re nervous and suddenly there’s a dwarf in a cowboy hat, the odds are that people will be paying attention to the dwarf.
They made thousands of them, for 5 to 6 grand apiece. They had really fast turnover. You know, do a video for “Danger Zone” — get models because they work for free, use every low-budget effect but have a story line. You end up with these unique visions of a song which were almost not at all what the musician intended.
["Austin Powers" director] Jay Roach has one credit [for the Barbra Streisand-Barry Gibb duet, "Woman in Love"]. I contacted his publicist, but he never got back to me. Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks is in one for the Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water,” though she’s never spoken about it. Dylan McDermott directed a karaoke video for Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” They were filmed in these cities like L.A. and New York and Dallas where they had a steady supply of acting talent.
Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” is a classic rock song, and Bobby Brown’s “On Our Own” from the “Ghostbusters II” soundtrack certainly is not. But as you explain in the book, Dylan’s song doesn’t work for karaoke and Bobby Brown’s song does. What’s the difference between a good karaoke song and a bad one?
Songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” those mammoth rock songs, they’re played out. And that Dylan song in particular is long and repetitive. I realize it’s considered the top of the rock canon, but listening to someone singing it who’s not Dylan? That’s not interesting. I want something a little surprising and a little forgotten. Something where it turns out that — not only do I remember the song, but I can sing along with it.
What karaoke songs do you hope you never hear again?
This is a clichéd answer, but “My Heart Will Go On.” I don’t even want to hear it done well. Maybe if someone set themselves on fire, I would be surprised. And I love ABBA, but I’ve just heard “Dancing Queen” way too many times. And that’s a song I used to love.
What makes a good karaoke performer?
There’s a practical matters of aesthetics. You have to be very careful when you’re picking songs. You don’t want some unexpected guitar solo. “War Pigs” is 14 minutes long, and it may seem great but pretty soon everyone in the audience is going to be wondering, why is “War Pigs” still on? One of the best karaoke songs I’ve found recently is My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade.” It’s this big, epic song, but you almost never stop singing — unlike songs like “Stairway to Heaven” or “Kashmir.”
And it sounds weird, but I really think the key is sincerity. I don’t like to watch anyone pretend they’re into it. Success really is divorced from whether or not you can sing.
For the most part, karaoke isn’t a punch line anymore. But last week, Kanye West was on “Saturday Night Live,” and he has this new album where he sings, and he’s got a really bad voice. He’s not a singer, you know? After the performance, people were saying it was like bad karaoke. That was how they dismissed it. But to me, here is this guy who realizes there’s a limit to his talents, but he’s putting on an impassioned performance. That’s what’s fun about karaoke. Passion trumps talent or ability.
Which is pretty punk rock.
And punk and karaoke have the same elements: performers who are not fully formed in terms of talent, and sometimes comedic, but truly enthusiastic. I love watching people reinterpret these songs. I remember the novelty of seeing Sid Vicious sing “My Way,” but I’ve seen so many people reinvent songs over the years in karaoke.
You portray karaoke in the book as this earnest expression of music fandom.
It’s the best form of music appreciation. I hear a song on the radio that I like, and I cannot wait to sing it in karaoke. I will go through every other ritual of a song — I’ll sing it in the shower, in the car. It is not until I go to a karaoke bar and sing it myself that I really feel like I own it. When I was in my 20s, I used to go to four or five concerts a night. Now I go, and so often I think, eh, I’d rather be singing these songs.
But isn’t that kind of worrisome? Suddenly you aren’t entertained unless you’re the one doing the entertaining?
That’s the weird power switch of our emulative culture. That’s why real guitar players are pissed off about Guitar Hero — you can find them in chat rooms complaining about it. At the same time, who are we kidding? We’ve always owned these songs. We made mixed tapes and performed these songs drunkenly. This is the best possible thing to happen to music. Maybe people don’t want to pay for music, but they want to make it a part of their lives.
There have been offshoots — movie-oke and live band karaoke and now Guitar Hero. Do you think the novelty of karaoke is wearing off?
It’s hard to tell. I don’t think so. The communal karaoke bar might be hitting its peak. Like a lot of entertainment, it’ll shift to being at-home and slightly more private. I also think the way to go is live-band karaoke. You go to see a band and half the show is you getting to sing with the band. Only a couple of indie rock bands are doing it now — Of Montreal, Ted Leo — but it’ll catch on. The way the music industry is right now it’s a smart way for musicians to make ancillary money. Think about this explosion of rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camps for boomers, and how that could be applied to a younger generation. If Fugazi sold audience members a chance to sing with them, I’d buy that — and I’m broke!
That’s kind of depressing. I wonder what musicians think about this.
Well, I’m sure Ne-Yo isn’t crazy about the idea. But a lot of younger musicians are into it for licensing, because ancillary income is something you’re not going to sneeze at these days. And people who are in their 20s and 30s, they are open to a lot of musical ideas. I am sure Carrie Underwood has a karaoke past, as does probably every winner of “American Idol.” I think the snobbery doesn’t exist anymore.
What advice do you give to people who have never tried karaoke but might want to?
I suggest they start out with private-room karaoke, which is what they have in New York. Basically you go in this private room, which holds from five to 25 people. You don’t have to wait a couple of hours to perform. You can hog the mike without being a mike hog.
Also, choose a song you’re sure that you know. It sounds obvious, but I’ve seen people do a song like “Baby Got Back” and quickly realize they only know the beginning. I also know people who have practiced their karaoke songs for weeks, which is charming.
Go with a group of friends and know where they are and have them in your sightline. It’s nerve-wracking to go onstage. I still get nervous sometimes. But you should keep in mind that people are not paying that much attention to you. You can make stuff up. They probably won’t notice unless you just stop and stare.
And holy shit, don’t pick “Freebird.”
The final episode of any season of “American Idol” is always a smiling show of force, a confetti-laden massacre of time. After a nearly 40-episode season, along comes the gargantuan finale, an enormous spectacle that contains exactly one minute of real content — when the winners are announced — and two-plus hours of filler. Last night’s episode was nominally about who would be declared the winner of the 11thseason of “Idol” — Phillip Phillips, the humorously named yet handsome guitarist with a twang in his voice and shirts cut to display exactly the appropriate sliver of chest hair, or the huge-voiced, personality-less 16-year old Jessica Sanchez. But sleepily good-looking white guys (and Scotty McCreery) have won the last four seasons of “Idol,” and Phillips was pretty much a lock before the night even began. And so it is a commendation to the near-military professionalism of “Idol” that somehow, for the last half-hour or so, I was riveted to the screen.
The beginning went by in a busy, boring blur. Ryan Seacrest in his tuxedo informed the crowd that 132 million votes had been cast this year (the number of votes cast in the last presidential election: 129 million. Though that doesn’t count teenage girls voting over and over and over again for a guy named Phillip Phillips.) John Fogerty and his mop top of dyed dark hair clanked his voice against Phillips for a while. One of this year’s contestants kept distracting me from the group numbers with her uncanny resemblance to Florence Henderson. Chaka Kahn flirted dangerously with camel toe. Steven Tyler was filmed playing with a three-toed sloth, revealing that he and a three-toed sloth have the exact same hairdo. Jennifer Lopez performed a medley in a sparkly dhoti.
And then Ryan Seacrest invited former contestants Diana Degarmo, who was 16 when she was the runner-up in Season 3, and the long-haired Ace Young, a contestant in Season 5, up onstage. They waved hello, and Young said, “This has always been home to us, and I felt this was the perfect place to ask a simple question.” Ryan chirped, “Dim the lights!” And then Young proposed to a surprised-looking Degarmo — with the help of David Webb jewelry. (Never forget your sponsors.) “I love you to death, you’re my best friend, and I will do anything in my power to have the most unimaginable, amazing life together, if you’ll have me. Diana Nicole DeGarmo … will you … marry … me?” he asked on bended knee. She nodded yes, the “Idol” theme music swelled, and these two newly engaged people, having significantly boosted their chances of getting some reality show company to pay for their wedding, embraced onstage as the show hurried mercilessly, ceaselessly on, this time to the thematically appropriate duet “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
A wave of emotions crashed over me. I realized I had been screaming at the television. (“Nooooarghhhahaahaeeeee” or something like that.) While this was, on a human level, so ill-advised — what is wrong with doing private things in private???— it was also undeniably entrancing television. The “Idol” machine had struck again. What if these two kids had chosen to get engaged off camera? In the relative privacy of, say, a Cheesecake Factory? Would we, the audience, have been forced to watch a supercut of Steven Tyler’s most lascivious comments instead? One of Jennifer Lopez saying sweetie over and over again? Or just more commercials? When I thought of it this way, I could almost appreciate the utilitarian sacrifice of Degarmo and Young’s privacy and dignity: The entertainment of the many outweighs the needs of the few.
But this engagement was not the highlight of this episode. No, the ever crafty “Idol” had waiting in the wings a tactical tour de force: Jennifer Holliday, the Tony Award-winning actress who originated the role of Effie in the Broadway production of “Dreamgirls,” and so is the ur-performer of “I’m Telling You I’m Not Going,” that canonical musical competition song and a number the teenage Jessica Sanchez has been singing for nearly her whole life. Holliday and Sanchez came onstage to do a nominal duet of the song, which turned into an extended solo. (Sanchez’s willingness to let Holliday steal this number right out from under her is the most likable thing she’s done all season.) Holliday, who looks like she can dislocate her jaw on command, and at various points seemed poised to inhale Sanchez with no need for chewing, absolutely destroyed this song, and did so in such joyful, reckless disregard for what she looked like while doing so — here are some gifs of her in the act — that it almost wiped out the sourness of the engagement sequence. Here was a public act, one that was meant to be public, performed with such passion, it felt private: Who can possibly know what is going on inside of a person’s body or mind when they are as possessed by anything as Holliday was by this song?
When Ryan Seacrest finally told Phillip Phillips he had won, after 10 o’clock at night, he picked up his guitar and began to sing. Ever since Kelly Clarkson cried her way through “A Moment Like This” in the show’s first season, the winner is expected to perform their new single at the end of the show. But halfway through “Home,” Phillips broke off, to sob. The background singers kept singing, and the confetti kept falling, but Phillips didn’t even try to get back on the mic. For about a minute, he stood on stage, quiet music playing in the background, trying to pull himself together, to do what was expected of him. He couldn’t. He didn’t sing again. Instead, he walked offstage to his family, who pulled him into a big group hug, inadvertently hiding his face from the cameras. At which point, I think that I got something in my eye.
Imagine, for a moment, that Dick Clark had died in 2002 instead of 2012. How would his obituaries have been different? In most ways, there would have been little change. In the last decade, Clark has continued with the ventures he’d been known for, hosting and producing a New Year’s Eve broadcast, various radio programs, game shows and TV specials. But there would have been two big differences. The first thing was Clark’s 2004 stroke, and his courageous return to public life despite a speech impediment modulating his famous voice.
And the second? The second is Ryan Seacrest.
Seacrest appears in Clark’s obits like the Boswell to Clark’s Samuel Johnson, quoted instead of family members as the apparent authority on Clark’s life and legacy. His tribute to Clark on “Idol” the night after his death became a news story in and of itself. For years, Seacrest had been slowly positioning himself as the new Dick Clark, taking over as the host of the New Year’s broadcast when Clark was ill, and modeling his career after Clark’s by taking ownership stakes in radio shows and TV ventures. Seacrest has become so entwined with Clark’s story that when news of the death broke, it was hard not to picture Seacrest kneeling in some dark rite, screaming to the heavens as Clark’s power possessed him, “Highlander”-style.
The problem with this image is that it’s far too interesting to have anything to do with Ryan Seacrest, a man who has made a career out of being professionally boring. If we’re going with a sci-fi reference, it’s easier to think of him like the bureaucrats in “Brazil,” toiling away in some back office, looking up briefly as an intern arrives to tell him the news, nodding curtly, shedding a single tear, and immediately returning to work. (During his tribute on “Idol,” he said that Clark was “in a better place saying, ‘Hey, let’s get on with the show, OK?’”) Seacrest is not someone who does dramatic things in fields. He is a person who stands in places of no place and intones blank words like a priest performing some long-deprecated rite. And he’s been very, very successful at it.
Seacrest’s extraordinary rise, so counter to the prevailing trends of the time, points to a current of artistic and social conservatism in the mass audience that persists despite the relentlessly progressive story we like to tell ourselves about the march of culture.
Like Clark, Seacrest got his start in radio. Clark’s early jobs were in an industry where local was king, getting spots at small-bore stations in upstate New York and only going national when “Bandstand” was picked up for TV distribution. Seacrest, however, came to radio just as it was being deregulated and local stations were being eliminated in favor of national conglomerates like ClearChannel. As such, he was able to move to Los Angeles and, at the age of 20, take over a morning radio show that became nationally syndicated. He followed that up with his own form of conglomeration, taking over the weekly “American Top 40″ from Casey Kasem in 2004, and launching his own new programming ventures, like “On Air With Ryan Seacrest,” a four-hour block he records daily and which is distributed to more than 150 stations nationwide.
But his big break was “Idol.” Premiering in 2002, it at first seemed an unlikely phenomenon. Why would anyone want to watch a “Star Search” where the contestants didn’t change? The country did not lack for pop stars, after all: Between “Total Request Live” and Radio Disney we were experiencing something of a bumper crop in those years. The success of “Idol” speaks to both the unalloyed effectiveness of its format and something deep in the national mood at that moment. Bathed in post-millennial anxiety, and eager as always to avoid discussing the possible causes of and responses to a national tragedy, “Idol” seemed to reflect our best selves. It was meritocratic (the best will win, regardless of their social position), individualistic (only single singers, no messy bands), populist (the people vote), and aggressively cheerful.
Key to that success was Seacrest. The judges represented the business aspect of the transaction, the reward at the end. The voters were America, of course. But Ryan was the Idol. For struggling amateurs, he was the end product they were training for, smooth, professional and unchallenged, a perfect pop product encased in a suit. While the contestants’ images varied, Seacrest’s presence on stage was a constant reminder of what the producers had in mind when they talked about a pop star.
There have long been rumors that Seacrest is gay. It’s hard to know what to do with these, exactly, but there is something undeniably unsettling about his sexuality. The image he projects is that of a non-threatening teenage boy, a pre-pubescent heartthrob like Ricky Nelson, David Cassidy or Justin Bieber. But Seacrest, who has dated Teri Hatcher and Sheryl Crow, is decidedly post-pubescent. He is, as they say, a grown man. Merv Griffin, who hired him to host a children’s computer-themed quiz show called “Click!” in the mid-’90s, said that “he had this spiky haircut, and we knew all the little girls in the audience would love him, and they did.” And they do. And he doesn’t care. Which is, maybe, a big point in his favor.
But it’s a point against the audience. All teen idols grow up, and as moral panicky as the process can be (“I’m Not a Girl,” etc.), we’ve seen it happen enough times now to know that part of the pleasure of a non-threatening teenager is knowing the threat they will inevitably become; Justin Bieber is fascinating because we want to see how it all spirals down. For Seacrest to stay in that neuter state reflects a childish, eyes-closed denial of reality among those audience members who still like it. The last decade has seen a remarkable opening of public discourse about all kinds of sex; currently the news media is tirelessly (and tiresomely) covering a story that basically amounts to “Hey, some people like bondage!” Adult sexuality is at least an option for our public conversations now, and lots of openly gay celebrities have remained idols in their own way, able to publicly pursue relationships without having to maintain the facade of blank sexlessness. But if Seacrest, the Delphonic seer of conventional wisdom, is in fact gay (or sexual at all) and truly thinks breaking face would kill his career, then maybe he’s right. For all the recent gains we’ve made, there’s a sizable portion of our fellow citizens who would much rather have Ricky Schroder stay a boy. Whether you want to have Seacrest or be him, he is selling the troubling fantasy that desire doesn’t have to be dirty.
Throughout a decade in which celebrity scandals were everywhere, Seacrest himself remained steadfastly above the fray. The scandal boom was great for entertainment news, but unstable workers are bad for the entertainment business. Scandal-plagued actors may get more publicity, but they make it a lot harder for a production to get insured, and the harder it is for the talent to hit their marks, the longer it takes to make the product. You never had to worry about that with Seacrest. A tireless worker and consummate professional, a morality clause would just be superfluous for any contract you might want to strike with him. In a decade of turmoil, Seacrest was the rock, the thing you could always depend on.
But since when has good TV been about dependability? The fun of watching “Idol” is its anarchy, whether it’s Paula’s looseness and Simon’s free-form contempt, an unknown amateur maturing into a star or flaming out under pressure, or the direction of each season, which producers, for all their tinkering, ultimately leave in the hands of the audience. “Idol,” at its best, is a show that can genuinely surprise everyone. In the midst of that glorious chaos, Seacrest stands apart, a stable center. His ability to parlay that personality into lucrative positions on other shows indicates that stability is what a certain portion of the audience wants. And that’s worrisome.
During an authoritarian period in American politics, culture was the lone bright spot. It seemed to be rapidly democratizing: corporate conglomerates were failing, user-generated content was everywhere, and even highly controlled mediums like TV were expanding their offerings to become far more adventurous. But no shift brings everyone along with it, and as easy as it now is to find people who like “Mad Men,” cultural progressives are haunted by fears about what everyone else is watching. Maybe, like Glenn Beck said, we really are surrounded; certainly a lot of people seemed to watch “Two and a Half Men.” Seacrest is like your square brother who went into banking: His success makes you wonder if the cultural power you feel when you’re with your people is really all that strong. Despite the fact that Ryan Seacrest has never done anything even slightly objectionable, people hate Ryan Seacrest. And that’s why.
“Idol” has, inevitably, begun to wane in influence and audience. As the paying audience for pop music massively declined during the ’00s, “Idol” had been able to stay ahead of the curve by making it about competition and narrative rather than music. But that audience had broken down too, splintered into niches by the expanding array of entertainment options. This should have spelled doom for Seacrest, eternally a mass-market guy. But he saw it coming, saw that the family-friendly audience he served would soon just become one market among many, and formed Ryan Seacrest Productions in 2006. His major hits so far have all involved the Kardashians, but he just signed a big new deal with Comcast, and more could be on the way.
If Dick Clark is an eternal teenager trapped in a ‘50s image of adolescence, Seacrest is a teenager from 2002 who’s persisted across time, simultaneously trying to please parents and safely experience more sensual pleasures from the standpoint of a moment when America had a serious interest in being pure and virginal. He’s achieved this by splitting his personality across business ventures, appearing as a squeaky-clean host on TV and radio while using his production company to push delightfully trashy reality fare like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” When we look at Ryan Seacrest, we see innocence; when we look at Ryan Seacrest’s productions, we see naughtiness framed as a secondhand experience. A man so averse to scandal that he takes pains to present himself as asexual, Seacrest is one of the few remaining examples of television’s “Least Objectionable Programming” doctrine, a remnant of the era of mass audiences. His particular evil genius has been to recognize that you can do just this but for every audience. Give the family hour what it wants, give the late-night gossipers what they want, and keep it all firmly separate with plausible deniability.
Two big things happened on “American Idol” last week. First, the top 24 contestants were chosen. They were a largely bland, unsurprising bunch, selected by one of the most toothless panels of judges on TV, but they’ll still be the ones viewers will vote on for the rest of the season.
More significantly, perhaps, “Idol” was usurped (just barely) as the top show on TV by a fresher-feeling copycat, “The Voice.” There’s actual enthusiasm for the biggest hit on NBC in years and waning excitement around “Idol,” whose tired format in its 11th season is undermined further by judges who have been sweetened into acting all nice, all the time.
Throughout this season and last, the three “Idol” judges loved just about every audition home audiences were allowed to see. Nobody was terrible, or awful, or the worst thing anybody ever heard, to use the phrases of Simon Cowell, whose brutal honesty made the show in the first place.
That left with Cowell, leaving the teddy bear Randy Jackson as the meanest of the three, of all things. And the worst he’ll ever say is, “Dawg, singing is just not for you.” But mostly all he, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler will ever say to the rare reject is “You’re not quite ready, sweetheart” or “Come back next year.”
Cowell was a record producer who didn’t have time for the bad, and no inclination to encourage the mediocre. More than that, he acted as if he had something on the line in considering these voices. The present judges, especially the marquee names, have no such urgency.
This far into the show, every remaining contestant seems a reminder of a past one: DeAndre Brackensick has the flowing curls of a Jason Castro (but a better voice); teary father Adam Brock the bespectacled look of Danny Gokey with blue-eyed gospel voice of Taylor Hicks. Fifteen-year-old Eben Franckewitz has the pre-puberty voice of a David Archuleta or some kid from “America’s Got Talent.”
There’s one guy with an unfortunate Vanilla Ice haircut and another who seems a little unstable until he’s allowed to play drums while singing; a third has just discovered he is the biological son of the lead singer for the truly terrible ’80s band Flotsam and Jetsam – a little flotsam off the old jetsam, if you will. It’s my favorite fun-fact about any contestant and he’s the last offspring of a famous person, since Jim Carrey’s daughter didn’t make it through Hollywood week.
Hollywood week was so hellacious this season, OSHA may want to investigate labor violations, since it pretty much forces newly formed groups to practice into the evening. So when they do perform, they’re sick or falling into the orchestra pit, or both.
If the current season has a voice of conscience it may be Heejun Han, who makes frank comments about the process and other contestants as if he’s not part of it, until it’s time for him to sing.
All of the guys are pretty good singers and already have an edge over the much more generic group of young women. Among them is David Leathers, an adorable round-faced kid with a voice like young Michael Jackson and the nickname “Mr. Steal Your Girl,” who is so obviously right for the show he plays the role Melanie Amaro played on “X Factor.” Her ouster was so glaringly mistaken, she was asked back to the show and won.
To get back on, Leathers will have to beat a giant with a soulful voice and another deep-voiced country kid with too big a cowboy hat (like the one who won Season 10 – can you remember his name now?).
The top 12 women, by contrast, seem too similar in their passable voices and smiley good looks — even their names are ridiculously similar: There’s a Hollie, a Hallie, a Haley and a Baylie. There are a few country belles in there, should audiences hanker for some more Lauren Alaina, who was runner-up last year in the all-country finals.
Among the women, there seems just a single standout: Big-voiced Jennifer Hirsh, who could be held back only because of her normal, healthy and non-traditional (that is to say: non-size zero) look. Unless voters with a long memory won’t mind harkening back to the first “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson, who by the way will be serving this season as a mentor … on “The Voice.”
On a Wednesday evening last March, my daughters and I had an “American Idol” campout in our living room. I made hot dogs and microwaved s’mores as we watched the contestants croon through a crowd-pleasing roster of Motown hits. The next morning, my father-in-law died. That night, the girls and I gathered again in the living room, huddled on the couch in our pajamas, and watched Casey Abrams sing just a few bars of “I Don’t Need No Doctor” to be granted reprieve from elimination.
For a decade now, “American Idol” has been winning fans with its weekly wallop of suspense and surprise, along with a fairy-tale conceit that fortune can smile on even the most obscure among us. It was a message that never really resonated for my family and me until this past season, when its variety show shtick turned out to be a surprisingly effective balm for our heartaches. The competitive song showdowns of James and Paul and Naima got us through a lot of rough, tearful nights, and so a pilgrimage to see our vocal heroes on their Idols Live tour seemed like an inevitable indulgence of grief therapy. And this week, after a new round of doctor visits, setbacks and concerns for loved ones, we had found ourselves clinging again to the prospect of awkward dance moves and Journey covers. Yet before last night, I’d never imagined how potent the show’s magic could be.
My daughters and I had never been to Newark’s Prudential Center, but as we stepped inside from a torrential summer downpour, we nonetheless instinctively beelined for our usual seats. Remember where Harry and his friends sat for the Quiddich World Cup in “Goblet of Fire”? That’s always us. Forget the nosebleed section — on my budget, it’s strictly the altitude sickness section for my kids. My children are accustomed to open rehearsals, Shakespeare in the park and college football games that start at halftime, when they let you in free. So accustomed are they to tickets that read “partial view,” they instinctively roost next to the back exits even at the movies.
Despite my daughters’ — and my own — genuine excitement at being part of the enthusiastic crowd, of getting to hear Pia, Lauren, Jacob and the rest belt out a few favorites, my heart sank as I approached our seats, located in an altogether different ZIP code from the stage. I wished, just once, to be someplace other than the last row. “Idol” had been a bright respite in an unbearably bleak period of illness and loss. I couldn’t resist a pang of envy for the families striding front and center, the ones swarming the concession stand for $30 souvenir books. “This is awesome,” I told the girls as we headed to the ladies’ room before the lights went down, “but sometimes I wish I could give you more.” Then a funny thing happened.
No sooner had the words left my lips when a man with an “Idol” staff badge casually nodded to us and asked, “You excited for the show?” And when my girls and I whooped in the affirmative, he asked, “Would you like to meet the Idols?”
As a skeptical New Yorker, I gave the only logical reply. “Look, dude,” I said, “I don’t have any money.”
“I’m not asking for money,” he said, handing us badges. “Come downstairs after the show for the meet and greet.” He was already walking away by the time we could sputter amazed thanks.
And so, after the show, a group of us — some clearly with connections and some just randomly selected goobers like us — found ourselves ushered through the bowels of the Prudential Center. We wended our way through a long tunnel until suddenly, there at our feet, was Lauren Alaina, plopped down on the floor signing autographs for a group of rapt fans. There was Casey Abrams, giving an ecstatic bear hug to fellow former contestant Brett Loewenstern. There were Pia Toscano and Haley Reinhart, hands on hips and posing for photographs. It was like opening a door to Wonderland. For a brief, happy time, the girls snapped pictures and gave eager, giddy hugs to the young men and women they’d passionately championed week after week all season long. (James Durbin, perhaps due to the Asperger’s and Tourette’s that can make socializing in crowds a challenge, wasn’t present.) My younger child, her loyalty to Lauren still fierce, refused to even approach this year’s champion, Scotty McCreery, preferring instead to engage in a serious bout of high-fiving with Jacob Lusk. Eventually the crowd thinned, and two train rides and much, much later, the kids made it to their beds, exhausted and exhilarated and still insistently wearing their badge-festooned T-shirts.
A few minutes with the stars of a TV-show-based musical revue won’t cure cancer, and they sure as hell aren’t a substitute for a lost family member. But that time last night was something else for my family, something nonetheless important. A little entertainment. A little bit of grace.
Soon after I was diagnosed with cancer, a friend who’d had his own harrowing year emailed me a few words of wisdom. “I’ve discovered the answer to ‘Why?’ is ‘Because,’ and the answer to ‘Why me?’ is ‘Why not you?’” he wrote. “So let people do astonishingly generous things for you. Know why? Because why not you?” As my beloved says, “Every time I have a worst-case scenario, I have to do a wildest dream come true as well. Every negative projection deserves a positive one. It’s only fair.” I like those odds.
Life is random and surprising. But it’s wonderful to remember that it’s often not just in the “oh crap, assume the crash-position” way. Sometimes you find a quarter on the sidewalk. Sometimes a friend calls right when you’re thinking of her. And sometimes, a fairy godmother in the form of a New Jersey security guard plucks you from the back row to backstage. Why? Why not? For no better reason than just because it’s your lucky night.
(Credit: Fox/Benjamin Wheelock) 
Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson (Credit: Fox) 
Haley Reinhart, Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina. 
