American Idol Season 10 - Top Rung Or Bottom Of The Barrel?

Ten years ago, AMERICAN IDOL burst onto the scene as a breath of fresh air, real people from across the country all vying for a shot at superstardom, performing before a judging panel of music industry veterans and succeeding or failing based on the votes of the American people, live, in your living room, two or three nights a week. Even the most notorious part of the show, judge Simon Cowell, became a fixture in millions of homes every season (while some of his comments could be cringe inducing, you also know that you couldn’t wait to hear what he was going to say next).

The show went on to astounding success, spawning real life genuine pop stars such as Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, and Carrie Underwood, with the biggest surprise being that quite often many of the runners up went on to considerable careers themselves. In fact, Chris Daughtry, despite being eliminated on the top four show in Season 5 went on to eclipse that year’s winner Taylor Hicks in terms of popularity and record sales.

For the last two seasons, viewers saw a shift in the judging lineup, with Paula Abdul being replaced by songwriter Kara DioGuardi for one season, followed by the truly baffling choice of Ellen DeGeneres for Season 9. The amusingly abrasive Simon Cowell also left after Season 9, opting to spend his time bring his UK based show X Factor to American TV.

For Season 10, the new lineup includes Randy Jackson, who has been with the show since day one, alongside Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. While Tyler can come off as somewhat creepy at times, namely by making suggestive comments to girls young enough to be his granddaughter, and this author questions the credibility of a judge such as J. Lo, since she is after all, very much a studio creation and most of the disqualified Idol wannabes can sing better than her, the new lineup has breathed some fresh air into what was rapidly becoming a stale formula producing questionable results (can you name the winners from the last three seasons? Yeah, I didn’t think so…..).

The result is a Top 13 lineup that includes mostly solid, powerhouse vocalists as opposed to more questionable inclusions such as John Stevens or Kevin “Chicken Little” Covais.

It has also been encouraging to see the show focus more on the auditions with some actual talent as opposed to the string of train wrecks we are usually treated to for the first few weeks.

Of course the judges are still falling into their roles, sometimes awkwardly. Steven is usually quite reluctant to seriously pan anybody unless the performance was just unforgiveable. J. Lo replaces Paula as the nice girl who loves everybody and everything, while Randy Jackson finds himself pretty much forced into the Simon Cowell role of having to be at times brutally honest. I’m quite sure everybody’s favorite “dawg” is unaccustomed to the number of boo’s he has received so far this year.

And so far this year the selection of musical guests on the elimination show has been questionable. 

Lee DeWyze – last year’s returning Idol champ who also happens to be the lowest selling Idol winner in the show’s history. Why can’t they ever seem to talk the big stars like Underwood or Clarkson or Aiken into returning?

P-Diddy (or whatever moniker he is currently using) – His former ties to J. Lo no doubt got him the gig, although with the exception of his background vocalists (who actually SANG), many were no doubt scratching their heads and wondering why a rapper was featured so prominently in a show about SINGING.

Black Eyed Peas – easily the most overexposed “band” (using the term loosely) in the world, these guys will never have to worry about Randy Jackson accusing them of being “pitchy” since their overall sound is largely the result of blatant auto-tuning. For a show that encourages its contestants to be “real”, the selection of the BEPs was an odd one at best.

Of course there are some things we are still waiting for, namely the elimination of a contestant that pretty much the whole nation figured would go all the way (i.e. if Pia is eliminated in the next week or so, expect riots in the streets), not to mention Randy taking a moment to remind everybody that he was a member of Journey (for a whopping year and a half), as well as the inevitable screw-ups with the voting process.

But one thing is for sure, once we are firmly ensconced in the Top Ten, it is anybody’s game. This is easily the best crop of vocal talent to be found in any year of AMERICAN IDOL.

My finale picks are Pia and James, with Pia taking the crown. What say you?