Johnny Farnham was an Australian teen idol and television actor throughout the 60s and 70s. In the early 80s, he recorded an album with producer and Little River Band principal Graeham Goble. When lead singer Glenn Shorrock left that group, Goble recruited John Farnham to be his replacement. The arrangement was unhappy and short-lived. After years of artistic marginalization, Farnham’s star was finally back on the rise and he felt himself anchored to a band that had always been plagued with complicated internal politics, and was then, in addition, simply becoming less popular worldwide. In 1985, Farnham acheived international stardom with his album Whispering Jack and its signature single “You’re the Voice.” Bye-bye, Little River Band. That hit only dented the U.S. charts, and then, only when it was included on a Greenpeace charity compilation three years after its original release. It would be 20 years before Farnham would have his next brush with fame in America – and that would be only vicariously via David Archuleta’s performance of the song during Season 7 of American Idol. (Simon was the only one at the judge’s table who knew the song – and he called Archuleta’s take on it – rightly – a “theme park” performance.) Despite the fact Farnham remains virtually unknown here (I mean, if Randy and Paula haven’t heard of him, right?), he’s still a big star in Australia, and in 1988, he followed up Whispering Jack with the album Age of Reason, whose gorgeous title track is not only awesome, but gave him a No. 1 hit in his home country.
In what might be further proof of the faltering of the American Idol franchise, Billboard.com reported in a brief post yesterday that the American Idol summer tour, which features Season 9’s top 10 contestants including this year’s winner Lee DeWyze and shoulda-been winner Crystal Bowersox, will be coming to an early close at the end of August. But while I certainly sympathize with the show’s performers, I have to think this is a good thing – for the performers as well as their audiences. Although by its very definition, the American Idol concert tour should feel current, it has always struck me as a weirdly anachronistic concept, an ugly ghost of the recording industry’s past haunting the summer tour schedules each year. Like the travelling road shows of the 50s and 60s (famously sent up via the “Play-Tone Galaxy of Stars” tour in Tom Hanks’ wonderful 1996 movie That Thing You Do!), it always seemed more about advancing the Idol brand then promoting any of the individual artists.
Especially as the franchise has maneuvered away from the by-the-numbers big-vocals pop performance template it began with, gradually culminating in this last, much-unloved season’s full-on embrace of “artist” values – varied and often idiosyncratic vocal styles, varied and often idiosyncratic stage personae, singers as both songwriters and (multi-)instrumentalists – the American Idol summer tour has begun to seem out of touch with its own brand. Moreover, as the show has started to find more and more artists who’ve already had their foot in (and slammed by) the music industry’s door, there’s an even greater disparity among its finalists’ in terms of level of experience and/or naivete. Even despite the relative compatibilities of their styles (compared to previous seasons’ first and second finishers), why, but for their common appearance on a hit TV show, should someone like Crystal Bowersox ever have to share a bill with a singer like Lee DeWyze? Or vice versa? (I don’t mean that as a diss to either.) In the real world, there’s no way David Cook would ever co-headline a tour with David Archuleta. I mean, c’mon. The sheer diversity of the show’s contestants has turned what used to be a pretty straightforward pop showcase into an increasingly hodge-podgy (in terms of both stage prowess and style) travelling version of a talent show for which the winner has already been declared, thereby limiting and cheapening what each of the performers can do, reducing their act to a least-common-denominator-ready instant replay of the season’s greatest hits and misses.
That said, a far more palatable (and possibly far more profitable) alternative to the annual Idol tour is already presenting itself. This summer, last year’s runner up Adam Lambert is currently on tour with fellow Season 8 finalist Allison Iraheta. Not only does it offer Lambert, clearly the more seasoned and exciting performer, the showcase he clearly deserves while giving Iraheta a platform (and a sympathetic audience – surely more of Iraheta’s AI constituents gravitated toward Lambert than Season 8 winner Kris Allen in the final tallies) on which to grow as both an artist and a live performer. Maybe the venues they’re playing are smaller than the Idol tours, but I imagine that after spending nearly half a year watching these singers from the comforts of their living rooms, audiences would both crave and appreciate the intimacy that smaller venues might afford. Seriously, how many people really come to see all 10 artists?
So. Note to American Idol producers. Ditch the “Top 10” road show. Instead of one big tour, why not criss-cross the country with three or four smaller tours with two or three artists on each bill. For every Adam, an Allison; for every Kris Allen, a Danny Gokey. It will better serve the artist. It could very well better serve the brand as well. The Idol tour might only hit any given concert market once or twice in the summer. With multiple tours, they could hit the same market half a dozen times. And there really may be folks who want to see all 10 artists bad enough to buy tickets every time one of the many AI tours comes to town. Just sayin’.
This is the first week in the newest season in which I have no real idea who is going home. No one had a performance which just caused you to hold your nose so as not to smell the stench coming out of the television.
Our brown-haired punching bag, Teflon Timothy didn’t even have his usual stink-a-roo performance, which could work against him. Why? Well, in the previous weeks, his fans were trying to save him out of desperation and fear. This week, they’re probably not as desperate.
With a water gun to my head, I think my Mexican brother Andrew Garcia is the one who probably takes the hit. He’s nowhere near the worst singer left, but then again, neither was Paige Miles. Santa’s little helper, Aaron Kelly is now grating my nerves, but I don’t think people are ready to see him go. I think Teflon Timothy does survive one more week, but it will be much harder next week.
Onto the elimination …
Ryno makes creepy girl stand-up first. He pulls her toward the center of the stage.
Crystal Bowersox is next to have her emotions played with. She joins creepy girl at the center of the stage.
Young Katie Stevens joins them. They are the girl power group of three.
Crystal is safe. And so are Katie and creepy girl. Well, that was a waste.
But it does mean that it’s an all-dude bottom three. That sounded kind of lewd.
Jason Derulo is performing. I really like his energy and think he’s more than just a one hit wonder. He was also signed by my wife, Miss Kara DioGuardi. And if I wasn’t so lazy, I’d put the umlaut over the “u” in his name. But I don’t want to do the google search to figure out the HTML. I want to watch dude perform.
I enjoy Whatcha Say more as a song, but he performers In My Head instead. He may eventually need to lose that Freddie Jackson mustache. If I told you that he outperformed Usher (who was on this show last week), would you believe me? Well, he did.
David ArchuletaLast night, I was wondering who was going to try to pull off Imagine and no one did. Instead, we get David Archuleta, who performed this song during his season, to give it to us. You mean Blake Lewis was busy?
It was probably his money performance of his season, though I’d say guest starring on iCarly was a bigger thrill for me personally. Ok, I think I just might’ve given you more information about myself than necessary.
David Archuleta and Aaron Kelly could both be in the new Harry Potter movie and I’m not sure anyone would recognize them. Accio!
It’s Lee’s turn to stand-up. Ryno’s going to split the rest of the guys into two groups. One group will be the safe group. One group will be the all-male bottom three. There I go again.
Lee goes to one side and Big Mike starts another group. Casey joins Lee and Aaron joins Big Mike. Tim joins Lee and Casey. I can tell you right now that Aaron, Big Mike, and Andrew are the bottom three.
I could make a slightly political/racial statement about the two minorities being in the bottom three, but let’s face it, we know who watches this show.
Aaron Kelly is safe, predictably. I’ll save the speech and just say, demographics, demographics, demographics.
If Big Mike is the the guy to go home, I think the judges save him. If Andrew goes home, I don’t think they save him.
Rihanna performs Rock Star 101. Jeez, she’s going through singles like morning donuts at an Internet company. I think she’s singing live, but it’s not like the song is all that hard to sing. She’s wearing this tight patent leather suit that only she and Lady Gaga can pull off these days. But it’s hiding her trunk a bit and that makes me sad.
Andrew Garcia is safe and Big Mike goes home. Wow! First shocker of the season. Let’s hope he gets saved.
He’s singing Woman’s Work while his wife is crying. That was heartbreaking.
Here’s video of the first time he performed the song:
They used the save! Big Mike is back next week and if it’s anything like last year, there will be two eliminations last week.
