Season 10 of American Idol is done. Another big win for country. (Ann Althouse, via the ever-clucking Matt Drudge, tells us that we should have known all along.) Those keeping score will note two country winners now, and four beltholders from the pop/R&B weight class. The average age of the winners at coronation time is 22. Only one American Idol champ could even remotely be considered indie or alternative, so I can now say with a straight face that I am done. With this show. Completely. The train-wreck-from-which-we-cannot-look-away of the auditions is not a sufficient counterbalance to the aesthetic seasickness that follows.

Expect no ivory tower admonitions, here. Yes, Jacob Lusk deserved the prize and yes, Casey Abrams deserved the runner-up slot. Sure, Stefano Lagone lasted longer than he deserved, and granted, Pia Toscano rode high on the exact same note for four episodes too many. But this is a show by America, for America, named America, and far be it from a music columnist who traffics in modern compositions, post-rock and industrial noise to bemoan the rise of Jordan Sparks at the expense of Melinda Doolittle. Or vice-versa. Or whatever.

This might all be a bit easier to take if the over-29 crowd had a show, too. And for two brief, fascinating seasons, we nearly did. Rockstar INXS and Rockstar Supernova featured harder-edged, more established musicians, a bunch of tattoos and body piercings and innuendos, to say nothing of the delicious, apparently alt-chick Brooke Burke (who knew!). But CBS believed less in season three of Rockstar and more in season one of Pirate Master, a blindingly awful program for which Mark Burnett seemed to rip off his own flagship idea. If this reads like sour grapes, it most certainly is. After ten years of American Idol, I’ve become used to the blueprint, and been repeatedly heartbroken by the execution. So no matter your orientation, you win. Detractors of the American Idol juggernaut won’t see the brand polluting our front page anymore. And fans of the show won’t hear about how it keeps jumping the shark. “Don’t go away mad, just go away.” I get it.

After all, yes, pop, R&B and country are more representative of our collective tastes and yes, one call, one vote is a perfectly fair selection system. But Radiohead, Arcade Fire and Mumford & Sons move impressive quantities of (cough, cough) product as well, and an expensive, polished, prime-time production with lots of soft drink ads and splashy graphics would have been a nice hour-per-week way of introducing the kids to that one art form meant for the rest of us. Instead, it’s back to the torrent sites and still-image YouTube videos. Psh.

I’m so bored with it that I can’t even manage tracking down a public domain image on Wikipedia, or typing out hyperlinks for the whole “by Fred, follow us on Facebook” nonsense. The show did in the first season what it set out to do: create a pop sensation. Now it’s more like a $300 bottle of wine with the cork still in: it has peaked, declined, and smells too much like vinegar to open. Even one of the show’s creators is leaving.

Someone tell us again with a straight face how this is the second golden age of television?

by Fred

American Idol: Season 9 contestant Andrew Garcia seems to be self-destructing the way Rock Star: INXS contestant Jordis Unga did five years ago. In both seasons, early brilliance tapered off quickly. In Unga’s case, she probably just didn’t want to sing for INXS — would you? — and likewise Garcia clearly doesn’t want to win the whole enchilada. But Tuesday night it seemed that he was not interested in securing a spot on the top 10 national tour, either. (Note to self: go see it this year. It can’t be that bad. Right?)

Indeed, moments before the show aired, the wife said, “Andrew is taking a dive this week.” Granted, he did his very best — how else do you explain that low-register spoken-word delivery of Marvin Gaye’s only dud? — but in the end he was bested by Paige Miles, who apparently can’t sing “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” any better than I can. But between Miles and me, one of us blogs instead of performs.

It’s tragic, what fame can do to those who gain it. The rest of us seem to know this intuitively, and do our best to avoid it, although sometimes a few of us get absolutely stuck in the middle. It can be car-wreck fascinating to watch. But go look at that picture one more time.

PS: Ann Althouse goes there.

I could have sworn this was a Dresden Dolls arrangement, but I can’t find it anywhere. Sports fans? Use the comments section to tell me where I’m going wrong?

Great stuff either way.

by Fred

To wit, read her thoughts on why Tyler Grady failed to pass muster, here. Rarely does AA out-think a problem, and the dispatches she files from American Idol are usually no exception, but this one is simple: the poor kid is a theme park of one. He likes 70′s music, e voila! He wears 70′s hair, dresses himself in 70′s clothes, carries himself with that 70′s swagger and just sort of retooled himself in all things 70′s. His research was, by all means, impeccable: certainly I am one of American Idol’s oldest fans, and about all I remember from that decade is that we didn’t wear seat belts. I half-expected him to exit the stage with an, “In awhile, crocodile.”

Nobody bought it. I don’t even think he bought it. That was that.

That being said, I also hold a deep distain for those that produce these types of shows. Namely Mark Burnett and Simon Cowell. Others apparently have the same feelings that I do and wanted to take a little pot shot at ol’ Simon.

For the last four years an act that Cowell nurtured has ruled the UK charts at Christmas time, Shayne Ward in 2005, Leona Lewis in 2006, Leon Jackson in 2007 and Alexandra Burke in 2008. This year Simon was counting on another slam dunk with Joe McElderry’s Christmas song “The Climb”. But Rage Against The Machine had a most sinister plan already worked up to ruin the holidays for Cowell. The band joined an online campaign urging fans to buy it’s song “Killing in the Name”, which had been originally released back in 1992 on RATM’s self-titled album.

According to the Telegraph UK:

Morello, the band’s guitarist, joined in by posting on Twitter: ‘Rage’s Killing in the Name & the X-Factor’s goofy Christmas single are neck and neck for the number one spot on UK chart. England! Now is your time.’

The RATM campaign began with a Facebook group which asked: ‘Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No 1? Me too… So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track Killing In The Name as a protest to the X Factor monotony?’

Cowell wasn’t too pleased with this and called the stunt “stupid” and “cynical”.

Cowell’s rage doesn’t really matter because RATM won the battle with 500,000 sales in one week while McElderry came up short with only 450,000. According to NME there were also some records broken in the process.

In taking the title for 2009, ‘Killing in the Name’ also set two new landmarks, becoming the U.K.’s first download-only Christmas Number One and notching up the biggest one-week download sales total in British chart history, according to the Official Charts Company.

On the bands website they posted this thanks to their fans.

“We’ve shown that we can make a difference and that you don’t have a right to Number One just because Simon Cowell says so, especially with a bad cover!

Finally I would like to say thank you to all of you, we’ve raised 64,726.00 pounds for Shelter at the time of writing this, the difference that this will make to peoples lives is truly amazing.

We gotta take the power back – Rage Against The Machine – Merry Christmas.”

Listen to the Muse version below. I simply can’t post anything from Adam Lambert’s album. It is so overproduced and overmixed and overhydrated that it begins to sound exactly the same way a video game looks. I was a fan during his run on American Idol, and believed the comparisons to Matthew Bellamy to be fair. Both have a cocky, high-flying, and acrobatic vocal style, and both straddle the fence between delicate and brash. So Lambert’s performance of “Starlight” made sense, as did this cover:

“Soaked” is a slightly odd Muse track, to be sure. But For Your Entertainment is hands-down the disappointment of the year. We were expecting glam metal wrapped in progressive rock. But what we got was a Britney wrapped in a Justin.

Hat tip: [do I even need to say it?]

Surely you jest? Indeed, I do jest. I do not believe this was a left coast v. heartland deathmatch, complete with late capitalism homophobia and culture war flashpoints (although the boot print Lambert left on “Ring of Fire” probably didn’t win him any votes, except from me). I believe sentiment such as what I have quoted below was not the driving force in Allen’s upset:

Adam Lambert [...is] showy, surfacey; he substitutes technical bravura for heart and subtlety. When he’s belting, he extends his tongue like a rock god, not like a soul man. Still, he’s an adventurous artist and deserved to be in the finals. But he peaked too early, and, as the judges favorite, he labored under a handicap. America loves an underdog–especially a hard-closing, impeccably modest underdog like Kris Allen. America has just come through a period dominated by a Wall Street that “sang” like Adam Lambert: over the top, come with me baby, I’ll put your 401K through the roof.

Kris was small-town values: ambition heavily leveraged with basic modesty. Zero attitude. He was cute–and straight–which didn’t hurt.

I used the word “upset” a moment ago, which is nothing if not understatement. Thirty years hence, when the filmgoing public will at last have tired of football movies (or at least those pigskin films not scored by Explosions in the Sky), Warner Brothers will release a film about the Great Upset of American Idol Season Eight. No one expected Allen to win, most of all Allen himself, who upon winning — instead of looking like he was waiting for the bus — looked like he was waiting for medical attention this time.

Lambert was a shoo-in. It’s treacherous water, claiming cultural discrimination when the other side has to come from behind to win.

Here’s what happened: Lambert tried to stuff Heavy Metal chops into a Top 40 suitcase. He didn’t need to shatter glass every time he took the stage, but he insisted on it anyway. It become incongruous (I’m a fan, I’m allowed to say it). He is a young, male Maria Carey, going to the top of his range in every track, blowing past the redline to close out every arrangement. Karma may be a bitch, and a diva may be a bigger bitch, but the biggest bitch of all is the combined weight of the marketplace. And there just isn’t a market for the singing equivalent of Yngwie J. Malmsteem to interpret Motown. The kid needs handling, and now he’ll get it. Not for nothing did he audition with “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Lambert is my favorite American Idol singer over all eight seasons, and after an hour or so to reflect, I’m glad he didn’t win. AI winners don’t fare terribly well in the cruelty of the marketplace, what with its nanosecond attention span and Tell ‘Em What You Herd Mentality. Would you rather Lambert receive the Kelly Clarkson treatment? Or the Chris Daughtry?

1. Hank Williams, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (1949)
Williams is so down, even the birds seem like they’ve lost their will to live. Throw in a mournful, clip-cloppy beat and a sobbing fiddle, and you might as well just lie down on the railroad tracks right now. Which is exactly what we feel like doing after compiling this list. We’re going to go listen to “Shiny Happy People” a few hundred times now…

Honky tonk. Yawn. Adam Lambert was right.

For a track to rank as truly heartbreaking, the music snob in me somehow requires violins (not fiddles, mind you, but violins), so I’m going with something by Samuel Barber. Yes, “Adagio” from String Quartet, Op. 11 would qualify (keyword: Platoon). Yes, it’s overused. It’s overused because it’s an excellent piece of music. Here is another piece from the same composer, something a bit more lively:

That is Souvenirs Op.28, “VI. Galop.” Played by Daniel Pollack.

Hat tip, as always, to Ann Althouse.