Of course there are no surprises in an ‚American Idol’ season, just as there are no surprises in a new Starbucks drink or a Tom Cruise movie. Every new twist and flavor will be comfortably familiar. Which is exactly the point. So in this week’s AI final you had the two classic embodiments of Pop music – a white boy with severly challenged motor skills imitating black men and a high-strung brat who can well up on command. No question who was about to win (that princess behaviour just goes so far after all). The really scary moment was of course Ryan Seacrest’s ratings brag “63.4 million votes were cast - more than any US President in history has received", which was immediately taken as just another proof for the degeneration threatening the fabric of America by cultural pessimists from Huffington Post to the Chinese State Press Agency. Well, in a presidential election you can vote just once and so far there has always been at least one more candidate, so the correct comparison would've been, that this American Idol finale had more combined votes amassed by millions of teenagers texting verociously for four hours than any presidential election since before 1960.
Being that most pop phenomena are the perfect simulacra for freedom and democracy, with a choice of syrup flavors standing in for opportunities and a religious fanatic for a moral hero, “American Idol” is of course a wonderful substitute for your right to have your vote count.
There we have it – all the excitement of an election year, real results and a clear winner without the consequences of having voted in an incompetent cronyist. There was actually one surprising moment – a bespectacled David Hasselhoff tearing up in the presence of another primetime idol ready for his very brief moment of glory with the prospect of spending your retirement on the German county fair and variety show circuit (yup, Kelly Clarkson made it to the Top 10 over there without being on the highest rated prime time TV spectacle for months on end ).
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Watch a white boy imtating white dudes who imitated black guys.
Listen to Taylor Hick's pre-Idol music on Alabama's NPR affiliate WBHM's website, where you can download some of his songs like Soul Thing
Watch ambition to the point of tears.
Hear David Hasselhoff sing German on German TV. And if you must - watch him sing a German Christmas carroll looking like an odd mix between John Holmes and Al Gore.
David Spade on the AI finale.
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