Monday, May 18, 2009

THE SEARCH IS (ALMOST) OVER: It began over four months ago, back when we thought Kara DioGuardi had something to add to the program and Bikini Girl was all the rage. And now, there are two. An ALOTT5MA Roundtable on tomorrow night's final competition:
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Adam: The best two performers are in the Finals, so this season's a success, right?

Kim: I don’t know that the one necessarily follows from the other. Yes, the best two performers are in the Finals, and as such I’m very excited for Tuesday’s show. (More on that shortly.) But I think there’s enough dissatisfaction about the road to the final two (dissatisfaction that I don’t particularly share) that you can’t necessarily say “yes, it was a success” just because we’re happy that it’s Lambert and Allen.

Isaac: I think how happy you are with this season depends upon how much you enjoy Adam Lambert. If you love him, and many do, you probably think this has been a remarkably high-quality season. If you don't like him, then you probably think this season honored showy but pointless vocal acrobatics at the expense of enjoyable music. And as evidence that the latter group exists, this season's insurgent challenger, for the third year in a row, is the one who spent the most time thinking about how to turn his 90 seconds into a pop song instead of an elaborate machine to inject his voice directly into your bloodstream.

Adam: We have definitely moved away from this being a "singing" competition to being much more of a performance-oriented show, in which originality and personality count at least as much as pipes. As far as the road is concerned, I agree with almost everything WTNS said this week, though I don't find much "rebellious" in Adam Lambert this year. Yes, it's clear that they over-pimped folks like Lil Rounds this year, and Scott MacIntyre should have never been allowed out of Hollywood, but even if it's Ricky Braddy and Ju'Not Joyner instead of Matt Giraud and Scott, we're still ending up in the same place, right? All the singers who made it in via the Wild Card were (initially) offed within the first half the finals, so maybe America's fine at picking their favorites the first time around. No matter how much Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta were underpimped, both still made it as far as their talents merited despite the judges' contrary intentions. But if Kris Allen is our David Cook, is Lambert our overhyped Young David Archuleta only with Colorful, Colorful Makeup?

Kim: This bugs me. Hokey Gokey was our YDA until America actually bucked the judges and offed him last week. So now all of a sudden it’s Adam Lambert who’s the target of the internet’s conspiracy theory ire? I get that Adam is polarizing, but it’s part of what’s made him so much fun to watch this season. I dare someone to come up with a scenario where a final two without Lambert would have been more fun than a finale with Lambert. (The solution does not involve Allison Iraheta – love her, but her shtick could not have handled three identically-arranged songs.) I am totally fine with either Allen or Lambert winning – I like both of them a lot – but the backlash bugs me. (The EW cover was a terrible, terrible idea.)

Isaac: No, Lambert isn’t YDA, and that's why I've found this season boring. I do not like the sounds that emanate from Lambert, but he seems like a perfectly agreeable guy to me. Thus, nobody to root against. I thought Archuleta was bad for music, but Lambert is just not my cup of tea. The contestants who were bad for music -- Jasmine Murray, Scott MacIntyre, Jorge Nunez -- were not good enough to be dangerous, so they went home pretty quickly. I do think, though, that the producers need to start doing things to make the show less dull for people who don't have a rooting interest.

Adam: Is it (still) the genres, or something else?

Kim: The genres are windowdressing around the main issue. If you don’t have someone(s) you’re rooting for, it’s just dull, period. So it’s not about enlivening the experience for people who don’t care about the singers, but about making people care about the competitors themselves. Which actually argues in favor of some editorial control by the judges – if you let Richard Rushfield’s army of tweenies take control of the semifinals (they’re probably a larger percentage of the voters at that point for lack of anything else to do, right?) without any guidance or direction (read – pimping), then you risk a much more homogenous set of finalists. So it seems to me that the secret is to (a) do a better job of picking their horses while (b) being a little less obvious about it.

Isaac: I don't disagree, but we may not see eye-to-eye on how to make people care about the competitors. I think the most important thing is to show them having fun with music. As Kris and Cook showed, audiences respond to that. That means opening up the song selection (by telling them the genres ahead of time, so that they can identify potential songs well in advance for clearance purposes), letting the contestants interact with each other musically, instead of just food-fightally, and maybe showing them working on arrangements or having fun in rehearsals. But the most important thing is setting them up to sing in the style that they think will make them successful -- you learn nothing and please nobody by making Michael Sarver sing disco or forcing Megan Joy Corkrey to flap her arms and make bird noises. That just turns people off, doesn't it? I agree with the basic point that the show needs to do more to get people to care about the contestants, but the question is how?

Adam: Well, what I'd do is go back to a 24-person semifinals -- we gained little by having a wild card this year -- and ensure that all 24 get audition packages or some focus during Hollywood Week. That work? And I will agree with Isaac's suggestion of more duets and collaborations, sooner, even if it's just letting Matt play piano for Lil or having Allison sing the female lead on Kris' "Falling Slowly" (without being officially judged on it.)

Kim: I’m a little nervous about opening the door for more collaboration on performance nights, as it will likely benefit the more versatile instrumental musicians to the potential detriment of those who just, you know, sing well. I do like the idea of perhaps including some more of that sort of thing on results nights. Cut the dopey group sings and go for some sort of small group performances. (I totally agree with Isaac, though, that there should be more time spent watching the contestants rehearse/plan/arrange – a la SYTYCD.) I also agree that 24 semifinalists is sufficient. But if you do audition packages on all 24, then you’ve eliminated any suspense whatsoever. “Oh, that guy got a package and he doesn’t suck, so he must make it through Hollywood.” If I recall correctly, there was at least one year where the final post-Hollywood decision episode(s?) had a lot more content from the auditions and Hollywood rounds. This year was kind of light on that – so perhaps do two hours of narrowing to 24 and give each person more complete treatment at that time?

Adam: That makes sense -- at a minimum, have a package for each semifinalists by the time you're done with the long-walk-to-the-big-room episode. Oh, and by the way: they're singing again tomorrow -- one new song each as chosen by producer Simon Fuller, one favorite from earlier in the competition, and the thing with the roses and the dreams and the hopes and the ponies. If you're Kris, it's too soon to do "Heartless" again, so "Falling Slowly" with a better sound mix?

Kim: Right. Singing. Regarding Kris, I have a bit of a concern as to how his style will play in the larger Nokia Theater – remember when Katharine McPhee resang “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” in the Final Two and Simon told her that it felt small? The performances where Kris has really excelled have been his more intimate ones, and I’m not sure how they’re going to play in the bigger venue. That being said, it’s been a long time since Kris first wowed everyone with “Ain’t No Sunshine” – I’d bring that one back. As for Adam: I was listening to some of his performances again over the weekend, and realized that we haven’t been entirely accurate when characterizing his song choices. We’ve been saying that his two modes are crooning (see, e.g., “Mad World,” “Tracks of My Tears”) and wailing (see, e.g., “Satisfaction,” “Born to Be Wild,” “Whole Lotta Love”), but he has one performance that doesn’t fit into either of those boxes. Remember his “Black or White” from way back on Top 13 week? It’s really quite good, and neither screechy nor moony. I suspect that it’s not the one we’re going to hear as a reprise, but it does show a sort of mid-range Lambert that might reassure some of the voters who have veered away from Adam over the last however many weeks.

Adam: I'd rather see Adam do a new rock song -- it's not too late for Guns and/or Roses, Mr. Fuller -- which suggests Tracks of My Tears for the do-over to me. Also, while they have to do the same song again, there's nothing that requires the same arrangement twice. I'd expect a surprise from Adam or Kris or both. Isaac, what about our beleaguered judges?

Isaac: If your comment is really directed at another judge, involves a metaphor or simile, suggests that somebody else is gay, or amounts to no more than I [didn't] like it, then shut yer yap.

Adam and Kim: Agreed.
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We'll be ready for your thoughts pretty soon after tomorrow's competition. Wednesday night, we're going live again. Please join us at 8pm EDT for a CoverItLive-powered contemporaneous mocking of the two-hour grand finale. There will be polls, there will be rude comments, and we will all enjoy it together. Do join us.

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