Tuesday, October 26, 2010

MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC SHOW: While Fox seems committed to making Idol even more populist and tween/Bieber-driven and NBC is happy with America's Got Talent as something of a mid-market affair centering on "she can actually sing!" Susan Boyle-type scenarios, there's arguably an upscale talent show niche out there, and according to EW, Bravo is going there, with some interesting twists:
  • All songs will be original and will have to cover a wide range of genres, "everything from dance tracks to love ballads."
  • No viewer voting--like Bravo's other reality competition shows, elimination will be entirely judge-based. No Sanjayas.
  • Your head judge? Kara DioGuardi (filling the Tom Collichio role, it seems). Filling the Padma Lakshmi/Heidi Klum host/judge role will be Jewel. Remaining judges will apparently be a rotating cast of famous folks.
Certainly, this is more interesting and challenging than Idol, and certainly the revised Idol where contestants can stay in their comfort zone for the entire season, but I'm concerned it might be almost too hard--"you have 4 hours--write and perform a country song" seems even harder than "you have 2 hours and $200 at Gristedes to make a dress."

14 comments:

  1. Meghan11:01 AM

    If you were planning to go on the show, could you not come equipped with a variety of music you've already written? 

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  2. Joseph J. Finn11:07 AM

    I've always been a little uncomfortable about the adulation of the singer-songwriter (just as I'm uncomfortable with the auteur theory), but this could be interesting.

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  3. Eric J.11:30 AM

    I'd be more interested if there were a mix of covers and originals, and if musicians could team up with songwriters, or maybe bring an entire band on to compete.

    Perhaps themed covers as the "Quickfire" with originals as the "Challenge."

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  4. Intriguing.  I'm going to bet that they have a songwriter in the "Tim Gunn" role. 

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  5. Would be very hard to do two challenges in an hour show, certainly with showing any substantial portion of the songs, particularly early on when you have 10+ contestants.  Heck, it's going to be hard enough to do ONE challenge in an hour show.

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  6. Dan Suitor12:58 PM

    It's not as if Kara DioGuardi has written a bunch of Top 100 hits, or anything.

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  7. I am glad Kara got another gig.  I thought she was a decent judge on AI and that she took so much heat for the way she was brought on as a "rival" for Paula's job.  I wonder if it is a Magical Elves production.

    I thought Jewel had a nice presence on the few Nashville Star episodes I caught that she hosted.

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  8. Jenn.1:48 PM

    BTW, the country song that 19 used to do on CMT---Can You Duet?---required at least one original during the show, which lasted for about six weeks.  It wasn't necessarily required, though, that it be written during the competition.

    No, I know that Kara D. has written a bunch of successful songs, No Boundaries notwithstanding.  Pink's Sober, in particular, is a great song.  But I was thinking that they might have a non-judge-type, like Tim Gunn is on Project Runway.

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  9. Paul Tabachneck1:53 PM

    The audition process is already done -- otherwise I would totally try out for this! 

    Here's hoping it's big enough to warrant a season 2....

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  10. My guess is that this will be like other skills-based reality shows in which you can come with certain skills (like Top Chef contestants can memorize recipes, or Project Runway's can know how to cut a dress pattern), but can't prepare in advance for specific challenges, like writing a song about X, or with the word Y, etc.

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  11. isaac_spaceman mobile2:03 PM

    Anybody going on this show should identify the six different songs that Mutt Lange described, or, failing that, the two or three most common chord progressions, and be prepared to use them every which way.  You can write in any genre using those common progressions.  It's just a matter of inflection, attitude, and using the correct bass line. 

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  12. Marsha2:48 PM

    As evidenced by improv shows where the performers are asked to improvise a sing in a particular genre. The piano player is always well versed in using the same three chords and verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure for every song, and just varies the vamping based on the genre. They need Laura Hall from Whose Line!

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  13. Plus a thousand for the Laura Hall reference. 

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  14. RandomRanter2:43 PM

    Well, "Nashville Star" in it's original iteration required them to have original songs, although there was a loophole that you didn't necessarily have to be the author of said song, just that it had never been recorded and you had the rights. And in the first season Miranda Lambert did show up one night with a song she wrote the night before. So, I am intrigued.

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