Cover Story: American Eye-Dolls

American Idol judges Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul

American Idol, the cynically driven, glorified karaoke contest that currently has the country mesmerized, is now down to its final pair of competitors in its second season, and the whole concept of the show could stand a little scrutiny. In point of fact, the show's main conceit and the reason for its appeal are identical: It can take anyone with a reasonably capable voice and make her or him a star.

Of course, any amateur astronomer will tell you some stars are fixed in the heavens for eons while small pieces of others streak across the sky and burn to ashes in seconds. Which metaphor is AI representing, do you suppose?

Now that Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken stand ready to square off for the second American Idol championship, it's time for the inevitable group tour as the Manufactured King of Pop takes to American stages with the warbling court jesters that were denied the tin crown bestowed upon the chosen one. Of course, he was chosen by the American public, and we know how flaky they can be. Remember when inquisitor/judge Simon Cowell nearly swallowed his tongue when the clearly more talented Studdard fell into the bottom two and grunt crooner Joshua Gracin remained safe after a particularly awful performance?

Still and all, you can now thrill to the tear-inducing notes inflicted for free on millions through the auspices of the Fox network and actually pay for the torture by attending the American Idol Finalists concert. By comparison, it's a little like buying a ticket to see the guy who won big on Jeopardy and the nine people who weren't quite as smart as they sit around and respond to the same questions with similarly wrong answers.

Although American Idol is clearly riding a wave of popularity, it's still odd how the industry is crowing about the success of first season winner Kelly Clarkson's No. 1 selling debut and the impressive half-million units each of the two seasons' compilation discs as proof of the viability of creating Pop stars instead of developing artists.

Perhaps they've forgotten when they declared Garth Brooks a failure when his "Chris Gaines" experiment sold just less than a million copies.

Besides, with the audience AI has accrued and the promotional vehicle it's afforded Clarkson in advance of her album, only a braying donkey (or Ryan Starr) would have failed to sell a half-million units out of the box.

The real test will come in the weeks beyond that swell debut to see if Clarkson (and AI by extension) has real legs to sell sustained numbers over the long haul. It will be just as interesting to see how long attention is kept on Clarkson once the new winner moves into the spotlight.

So far, AI has proven that it's difficult to package and promote musical talent on the timetable of seasonal television. The second season of AI was down to four finalists before the first season's victor had her product in the racks, nearly six months after the first projected release date. We are still weeks away from first season runners-up Justin Guarini and Tamyra Gray releasing their albums: How does that bode for this season's winner and also-rans? Here's a hint: Not very damn good (especially on the basis of the execrable Babyface song that Guarini gamely hair-balled through on his recent second season guest appearance). Let's not even dwell on the cinematic Titanic (the ship, not the movie) that will be the upcoming Justin and Kelly film.

For all the flaws, the show and the concert series have been a success because of one overriding consideration: The people who watch and the people who buy tickets all share the same thought: "If they can do it, I could do it." Even though the judges weeded through thousands of applicants who were beyond awful, and the majority of the country would fit comfortably into that talentless category, it is the reality that the winner has been plucked from Real Life America that makes it so alluring and compelling to watch.

The biggest problem with the show's underlying concept is that ultimately the kids on AI have simply been good at singing established songs. Until the final competitors square off with the original songs that will comprise their singles, the show is little more than a cavalcade of high-level shower singers.

The most moronic comment in the entire first season was Randy Jackson's criticism of Nikki McKibben's rendition of Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen," which he characterized as "real karaoke, dude." Well, Randy Jack, dude, you capped your show's mission statement square in the ass with that comment. What is American Idol if not a high stakes sing-along competition? Sure, there's original presentation and the singer's personality to consider. But AI still boils down to kids with (infrequent) chops singing songs that were hits when their parents were young. Many of them sang some of the most famous songs of the past four decades and admitted they'd never heard them before they learned them in rehearsal. This lack of historical perspective threatens to trivialize American Idol into a sugary confection with lots of immediate taste appeal and little lasting nutritional value.

And still the show, both on television and on the tour circuit, must go on. Those of you who disdain the American Idol live experience in favor of staying in your living room may be the smart ones. You have access to a mute button.