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on 2008/5/22 23:55:34
Whether you embrace or scorn “American Idol,” the most efficient star-making phenomenon in entertainment history, can depend on the day. David Cook’s lopsided victory over David Archuleta on Wednesday night was an unexpected triumph of poise and maturity (Mr. Cook is 25) over ingenuousness and promise (Mr. Archuleta is 17). It reversed last season’s trend, when Jordin Sparks, an unformed talent with a bubbly personality and a big voice, won, and the older and less glamorous but far more talented Melinda Doolittle came in third.
Come to think of it, Mr. Cook’s triumph might not have been so unexpected. Maybe we were set up during the final performances the night before, when Simon Cowell uncharacteristically congratulated Mr. Archuleta for scoring a knockout punch with his weepy repeat performance of “Imagine.” Several days earlier Mr. Cowell had predicted Mr. Cook as the winner. His flip-flopping might have been a cunning, ratings-grabbing maneuver to generate suspense in a season when “American Idol” has been suffering some audience slippage (and in fact, Wednesday night’s broadcast on Fox drew about a million more viewers than last year’s finale).
Mr. Cook was chastised for choosing the wrong song, “The World I Know” by Collective Soul, as his final selection. It was considered a misfire presumably because it was quieter and subtler than the usual belt-it-to-the-rafters war horses that win talent shows. I loved it.
Throughout the season, Mr. Archuleta, whose honeyed voice conveys a boyish sincerity, was encouraged to be shameless. He won my affection early with his joyous “Shop Around,” but lost it by applying to Neil Diamond’s grandiose tub-thumper “America” the same sugar-coated sob he brought to “Imagine.”
Because Mr. Cook refused to follow the unspoken guidelines for the competition, he emerged as the most original and savvy male finalist in the show’s history. The cornerstone of his victory was his iconoclastic rock version earlier in the season of “Billie Jean,” the magic song that catapulted Michael Jackson to new heights of popularity 25 years ago.
Mr. Cook has a strong, flexible voice; when he sings rock, its scuffed edges echo Sam Cooke filtered through Steve Perry. Stylistically he occupies the same broad pop-to-rock territory as Bryan Adams, one of several star guests at Wednesday’s finale, but Mr. Cook is a better singer.
The appearances of older generations of pop performers as coaches and guests — in addition to Mr. Adams, Wednesday night’s guests included Donna Summer and ZZ Top — is an inspired concept that contributes to the comforting fantasy that there exists what the host Ryan Seacrest has called “the ‘American Idol’ family.”
If the two-hour variety show that ended the season illustrated much that is right about “American Idol,” the showdown between the two Davids on Tuesday night was a disheartening spectacle that jokingly (and futilely) tried to portray the singers as engaged in a blood feud. Mr. Cook and Mr. Archuleta, looking embarrassed and mystified, appeared in prizefighting robes (red for Mr. Cook, blue for Mr. Archuleta), with matching boxing gloves and half-heartedly struck pugnacious stances. The term “heavyweight title” floated in the air.
Mr. Cowell advised them with a straight face, “You’ve got to hate your opponent.” Yes, hate. How odd, considering that “Imagine,” the song that supposedly delivered the knockout punch for Mr. Archuleta, is one of the most peaceful anthems ever written.
Rivalries with threats of violence may be commonplace among rappers. But to portray mild-mannered performers like Mr. Cook and Mr. Archuleta, even humorously, as enemies plays into the prevailing ethos of pop music as a gladiatorial sporting event. The overall quality of music is much the worse for having been turned into spectator sport.
Except for the two Davids, this season’s contestants were an uninspiring group of singers whom Jimmy Kimmel, during his brief, pungent roast of the show and its judges on Wednesday, accurately described as “19 weeks of karaoke.”
What’s right about “American Idol” is the way it holds up a mirror to American mass culture. Not since the heyday of Ed Sullivan has a variety show cast such a wide net. If pop music as reflected in “American Idol” resembles flavors of ice cream melting into a sweet, milky soup, the show’s vision of a mass culture in which rock, pop, country, rhythm and blues and the conservative fringes of hip-hop and jazz blur is profoundly reassuring. The television pundits who thrive on conflict may wish otherwise, but the show’s performers and audiences demonstrate that the American people are not at one another’s throats 24 hours a day. The show reveals the same deep-seated longing for agreement and consensus that can be felt in electoral politics nowadays, underneath that cynical talking-head level.
Because each show ends with a national election in which the audience can override the judges’ opinions, it gives power to the people. It may all be bread and circuses, but it is still democracy in action.
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