Sanjaya

I've finally been broken. Sorta. Tony Kornheiser has been back on the air since January or so, so my morning quota of Mr. Tony, which had been on the same hiatus Tony was on (he was doing Monday Night Football on ESPN), was now met again.

Tony's always been a big fan of American Idol, but I've never bothered to check it out until recently, and really, only on YouTube, and the like. I've listen to Sanjaya bashing for the last few weeks. In the meanwhile, I've seen videos of Chris Sligh, Chris Richardson, LaKisha, Gina, Melinda Doolittle, Phil, Blake, Jordan, and Haley. So I'm basically up-to-date on pretty much who everyone left is.

As I've pointed out before, American Idol focuses on the singing, which if you really think about it, is only one-half of the equation, the other part, not surprisingly being, you know, the song. This is why, as much as people get hooked on Idol, about which singer they like or don't, the singers never seem to do fantastically well afterwards.

Having a great voice is one thing--and many of these singers have pretty good voices, but singing songs people like is another.

Now, part of listening to Mr. Tony is hearing wacky stories like the "Peter Yarrow burglar". To recount this story for those who don't listen (which is probably all of you), a man apparently walked into Tony Kornheiser's house. It was late enough that Tony was in bed, but his wife was awake.

He was carrying a suitcase, and upon seeing Tony's wife, he notes that he is in the wrong house, and is dreadfully sorry, that he's jet lagged from a trip to Israel, and oh, by the way, he's Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary, the folk band from the 60s, who made famous a song called Puff the Magic Dragon.

Days after the event, Tony milked it for what it was worth, trying to decide if this were somehow, inexplicably, the real Peter Yarrow, or a burglar claiming he was Peter Yarrow, so he'd have an excuse, just in case he was caught, just as he was now.

As it turns out, it was the real Peter Yarrow, and he came on the air to do an interview, to explain how sorry he was and so forth. Mr. Tony had to ask Peter Yarrow if he followed American Idol, to which he said he did not.

But it's the reason why he chooses not to listen, that's most interesting. While he had nothing against people wanting to sing for a career, indeed, he feels people should do what they want, much to his 60s ethos, it's the manner which the show goes about finding good singers. In particular, they are judged, and sometimes this judging can be particularly nasty. Simon has gotten nicer over time, but he has an acid tongue, pointing out people's flaws, bringing them to the edge of tears, and beyond.

Now, some people have pointed out that Americans live in a society where they are coddled, where they are made to feel good about anything, where failure is meant to be brushed under the carpet. Criticism is kept to a minimum, while everyone feels good about every accomplishment, no matter how small. It's been argued that criticism, and people's responses to it help people become better, strive for more than just to be.

However, Peter Yarrow feels, in only a way that Peter Yarrow can, that this is wrong. Little kids criticize others for being too fat, too tall, too ugly, and so forth, and such comments are hurtful, and to his mind, wrong. Indeed, he expressed his sentiment on Tony's show in the form of a song, and of course, in the context of American Idol, you had to think, this man's singing stinks! (As the show's motto is "This show stinks"). And you had to feel this sentiment, even as the song's sentiment reaches at something deeper, much as folk music of the 60s tried to do.

But it also makes an interesting critique of Idol itself. American Idol is not so great because the audience can vote, and their vote counts. No, it's that these singers are not uniformly great. They're pretty good, but you can hear their vocal flaws, and so that means, the average American, who loves music, but typically lack any vocal training, can weigh in.

Indeed, there are several "vlogs" (video blogs) that do that each week, much like Tony critiques Idol with his co-hosts. That most of the vlogs are hosted by men (many claim straightness even!)--indeed, I haven't seen one by a woman yet, though I'm sure they are out there, shows that Tony isn't the only guy who has fallen under the Idol spell.

Idol's mystique lies in your own criticism of the singers. You become the judge. And amazingly, this ties to all the baser instincts of people that Yarrow was singing against. I was once visiting my cousin in Seattle, and his then fiancee. We went to one of their friend's apartment, and there sat one of those Hollywood rags. One of the girls opened it up, and started brazenly criticizing how ugly, or old, the person she was looking at was.

She did it almost reflexively, as if it had been built up from many years of she and her girlfriends, passing the hours (or possibly from her mom!) criticizing others. Man, do we love doing this! It makes us feel better about our humble lives.

Say, did you see Sanjaya! He can't sing a lick, but look at that hair! What the hell kind of hair cut was that? It wasn't a mohawk! His hair is poofed up like Marvin the Martian's brush helmet on steroids!

Indeed, had I not found out that Sanjaya Malakar was Bengali Indian, as is a friend of mine, I would have not bothered to check out this Sanjaya phenomenon. And sadly, his rendition of Gwen Stefani's Bathwater, apparently a not-very-well known song by No Doubt sung by frontwoman, Stefani, is so catchy, that I can't seem to get it out of my head, syncopated to the beat of Sanjaya's head.

One of the YouTube comments that Sanjaya's version was superior to Gwen's, even as Mr. Tony feels Gwen's singing is wretched. Still, despite not having the pipes of a good singer, Stefani's singing style is unique enough, and perhaps tall, thin, blond things do well, especially with a ska backup band to give the band its sound.

And it goes to show you, that the quality of singing isn't everything! It's to Idol's credit that it puts singing front and center, albeit singing of a certain style, which I'd have to say, has been greatly influenced, as much of modern American, even modern English-speaking music, by African Americans. Popular singers are about everything, their voice, their looks, their general hotness, and yes, occasionally the songs they sing.

I'd love to see a version of Idol where the song was put front and center, where prolific singer/songwriters/bands would play an originally composed song each week. To be fair, learning a song, and writing a good song in a week are far different. While Jonathan Coulton and maybe Sufjan Stevens is that prolific (indeed, many a songwriter claims they wrote the song in ten minutes), it may stress real bands to have to compose this quickly.

To be fair, one way around this is for the band to have some time to write up songs ahead of time. But the key, in my mind, would be to compel them to write songs in a wide variety of styles, which would show off songwriting and song-singing prowess.

You'll note that Idol never has a "rap" night, because, well, rap ain't singing. I don't know if they've had country night, or hard rock singing night, as that would really put people out of their comfort zones. When you have "British Invasion" night, it still leaves open quite a variety of songs, one of which ought to be something you can sing well.

Well, now I've come to a close, and fortunately, I'm now awake, so that nefarious bump-bump-bump of Sanjaya's head doesn't come tap-tap-tapping in the night.