Does everyone agrees Carrie Underwood is deserving of the American Idol plum? I was rooting for Bo Bice, too bad he lost

What is "American Idol?" Okay, I know what it is, but who really cares? Any "Artist" that is made famous by Fox isn't something I would be interested in. I haven't like or cared for a single person who has been on the damn show, I have watched probably two full episodes of the show's three seasons combined. The show just isn't relevant, intelligent, or entertaining. None of the previous winners have done anything good and they have actually contributed to the dull pop culture of today (I am sure that most of us have heard of "From Justin to Kelly"). I just don't like talking about the show or hearing about it. I don't know who Carrie Underwood or Bo are, and I, frankly, do not care. They can have their month of being "Important" and then they can disappear just like every other "Idol."

One thought though, why do so many like this show? Why are so many people (Presumable, I really don't know how many people do this but I assume it is into the million) vote for and artist. I just don't get it. Maybe someone will respond to you who actually knows who either of those people are...Good luck with that.

The same reason people watch stuff like professional sports. People watch sports for the mindless competition and usually just to see their team win. That's most likely why people care enough to vote in American Idol. It has nothing to do with finding the next star or the next big talent. It's just a dumb show that is at times entertaining. I think a lot of people who watch the show realize this. I've seen maybe three shows and while I can't really care enough to watch every week I would be lying if I said it wasn't entertaining at times.

Yeah, it's insulting to the music industry but it's just a TV show. Since when is TV not insulting? To me, obsessing over this show is as stupid as obsessing over a football game. They're both irrelevant, idiotic, and a waste of time. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining.

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Originally posted by Call to Apathy:
The same reason people watch stuff like professional sports. People watch sports for the mindless competition and usually just to see their team win. That's most likely why people care enough to vote in American Idol. It has nothing to do with finding the next star or the next big talent. It's just a dumb show that is at times entertaining. I think a lot of people who watch the show realize this. I've seen maybe three shows and while I can't really care enough to watch every week I would be lying if I said it wasn't entertaining at times.

Yeah, it's insulting to the music industry but it's just a TV show. Since when is TV not insulting? To me, obsessing over this show is as stupid as obsessing over a football game. They're both irrelevant, idiotic, and a waste of time. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining.

Thats obviously coming from a person who has never played a "team" sport or was not good enough at any sport to be competitive.

Being a partof a team can be huge for some people.Especially if u dont have much family or friends.I think sports are essential in that form, especially at a younger age.

Competition alone can be a very powerfull thing.If u really think about it...you can relate just about anything in life to competition in some way.

American Idol is a joke.I only really watch it in the beggining stages where the unpolished singers usually get kicked off...or do not even get a chance.It is kind of sad that some of those people are really heart broken...to think that someone is telling them that they are good and they should try it.Parents and friends cannot even be truthfull enough to say you suck...they leave you with the thought that you have a chance.Which makes it worse off in the long run.If u are just going up there to be an idiot and to have fun.That is cool...but there are always more people who take it seriously.

I'm very well aware that competition is a powerful thing. As I said that is partially why American Idol is so popular. I've played sports but there's a big difference between actually getting out there and playing and just sitting on a couch watching others play. When you're in the game of course winning and participation is a huge deal. Look at the parents of the kids who made it this far in American Idol. However, there's really no excuse for taking a game seriously from your living room unless you have a good amount of money depending on it.

I just don't understand how one can justify the importance of a baseball game and then have the nerve to say American Idol is a pointless idiotic waste of time.

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I just don't understand how one can justify the importance of a baseball game and then have the nerve to say American Idol is a pointless idiotic waste of time.

I'll explain it to you then. Opinions on singing is a subjective thing. This means that the winner isn't necessarily the best, just the most popular. One could say that the majority opinion is generally right but, they would be wrong, majorities have voted poorly on many occasions. Who is to say that three former music "Stars" (Also known as D-Level celebrities who have to resort to television to get some attention from an uncaring population) are better at judging music than I am? This is much different than an actually sport where there is a clear winner and loser.

Any event that is judged by people as opposed to performance is not legitimate. This is why I dislike boxing going to the judges. It is a joke.

By the way, none of these comments are directed towards anybody. These are just my observations of a show which I find rather stupid.

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Originally posted by Call to Apathy:

I just don't understand how one can justify the importance of a baseball game and then have the nerve to say American Idol is a pointless idiotic waste of time.

Wow.I dont know maybe the whole history of baseball has something to do with it.I was not referencing baseball in general.I play basketball and have played for the majority of my life.If u cannot see the difference between baseball and american idol then you have no reasont o be posting on this subject at all.

Baseball is over 100 years old and is represented by teams in almost every major city in the united states.

As far as boxing goes.I cannot see that ever changing.Mainly because it makes the fighters win the fight.If they know it is going to go to the judges they are going to do their damndest to make sure it is an easy decision.Of course there have been many bad decisions and poor outcomes.That is what happens though...every judge has a different prospective and they see different things.They all do not have slow motion replays.The humanity factor is what makes it so good.

It is kind of like tennis the head judge still has the final decision in most cases.I see that some events now have the machines that sense when a ball is in or out.But most of the tennis palyer say it themselves thatthey dont want the computers.They want to keep the human decision involved.The way it should be.

I completely agree with Call to Apathy. People take American Idol way too seriously. It's not worth getting all serious and upset about. It's a talent show. There have always been talent shows on TV. It's stupid, mindless TV. Some people find it entertaining. Other people watch "Survivor", or the Home Shopping Channel, or "Joey". As long as you don't take it too seriously, what's the big deal?

Is American Idol destroying the music industry? Of course not. The music industry has always been vulgar, debased, profit-motivated. There have always been stars who were not really very talented and who were just groomed by the industry because they had pretty faces or nice bodies but only mediocre (at best) talent.

Most people who watch sports sit at home in a semi-stupor on their couch eating potato chips and drinking beer and they are engaged at precisely the same level as the average viewer of American Idol. The fact that baseball is not judged subjectively is irrelevant for the point Call to Apathy was making, which is that we all as spectators enjoy some mindless form of entertainment and the average sports spectator is not really any different than the average American Idol spectator. People love to intellectualize sports, especially baseball, and it always strikes me as a pretentious exercise in self-justification.

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This is much different than an actually sport where there is a clear winner and loser.

I know Peewee cleared this up already but the process of determining winner vs. loser doesn't relate to what I was asking. What I don't understand is the value assigned to being a winner vs. a loser. It's just a game, and the outcome of that game is just as insignificant as the fact that Bo Bice was last in the votes.

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Baseball is over 100 years old

If you relate significance to age (I don't agree with this claim for this specific example) then it's probably worth noting that the teen idol craze goes back pretty far as well to the early 50's, about the time that Rock & Roll was starting to evolve.

I should also probably apologize to pathfinderforreal considering this topic has gotten pretty far without his/her question being answered or even barely acknowledged. I would answer but Bo Bice is the only name I can put a face to. To be honest, I'm not suprised at all he lost, but it would have been nice to see someone like that win.

I've never watched American Idol or any "reality" shows, unless you want to call sports or Jeopardy! reality shows. All sports do include the human judging factor though.

I also don't think I intellectualize baseball, but the people who usually think baseball is boring are the ones who don't understand all the strategy and how each pitch or play can have such a big effect on the outcome of the game.

To each his own. Peace.

oops sorry, I guess there are no AI fans in here. I was hoping I would find people who can relate with me. Not that I am obsessed with AI but I can totally feel the show since i was part of a chorale group the used to compete before. Well at least these thread got some attention, thanks anyway peeps

I would make a distinction between AI and sports. In sports, the producers have no control over the result, and little control over the selection of talent.

American Idol....well, they're good at performing pop music. I'd be more interested if they were forced to write all their own music...but they're not, they just sing well known pop songs.

There's one show like American Idol being made where they *do* write songs and play instruments, but I just can't take the prize seriously. Winner gets to be the new lead singer of..INXS!!

A pop band that hasn't been popular for 20 years! Quite a prize..it'll be some attractive 25 year old person with too much hairspray in makeup singing in front of a bunch of 50 year olds and nobody will buy their next album anyway.

I voted for WHO CARES??!

But I will confess to watching most of both seasons of Australian Idol thus far. A guy (named, by some amazing spark of inspiration, Guy) from my home-city won the first one, which did please me despite not really liking him.

The second season was utter crapola. But it was just a change in perception, but I'm willing to bet that it really was worse. There was this one girl who was actually good and didn't sing just bog-standard, derivative shite, and got booted off at fifth-place. It was hard to tell who was worst out of the last four, but for what my opinion's worth, it was the one who actually won it.

So yeah, end of rant. Idol contests would have to be one of the guiltiest pleasures ever, but can be quite entertaining if the judges are in a mean enough mood (I mean, who watches these shows for the music, really?).

I'm not a fan of American Idol, but I think that voting for a pop singer is really no different than other ways that they get marketed to the masses. I would say that any AI winner is MORE deserving of what they get that, say, Ashlee Simpson or Hilary Duff.

Since my wife watches Idol, I've seen most of the shows this season in bits and pieces. It's not the kind of music I enjoy, but it's entertaining TV, if slightly evil (you wait for someone to screw up!). Between the two finalists, I thought that Carrie would win, but both contestants broke the standard Idol mode (a country singer and a southern-rock singer) which was unique for the show.

I've enjoyed a couple of the songs from the American Idol finalists (one of the Clay Aiken songs was OK and I really like the Kelly Clarkson single, since covered by Ted Leo).

I find AI far less reprehensible than all of the crappy dating/marriage shows, if only because it requires a modicum of talent to suceed.

I consider watching American Idol a lot less evil than, say, buying a CD from Starbucks.

But what is very surprising, even shocking, was to see Lynyrd Skynyrd play back up to Bo Bice singing Sweet Home Alabama, thereby utterly debasing their most famous song. Have they no dignity? Surely Ronnie VanZant was turning over in his grave!

One of the problems with American Idol is that it produces an artificial, completely manufactured end product. I'm sorry, but Simon whatshisname does not have magic beans that automatically confer music stardom on the annointed AI singers.

Let's look at the real music successes: How did Elvis Presley rise to stardom? The Beatles? Elton John? Neil Young? Kurt Cobain? Virtually every other popular star or group of the last 50 years? Luck and timing certainly play a part, but the reason people succeed over the long term in music can be traced to talent and ability, coupled with things like hard work, climbing the ladder by writng and performing songs in concert, and various other qualities. But not just singing karaoke in front of a voting audience, with the winner annointed a music "superstar."

While there are somewhat "manufactured" music celebrities, such as Britney Spears, the music industry and the public won't buy the music/show/act if it isn't that appealing on some level. And most of these AI singers just aren't that talented.

The artificial competition that is American Idol is like taking twenty men and having them compete on a baseball diamond and calling the winner a "superstar" baseball player. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. Just because Paula Abdul says someone sang a good Beach Boys karaoke number does not mean that person is a viable professional singer.

American Idol, to quote Rush Limbaugh (whom I must point out that I disagree with on nearly everything else), is just "Ted Mack's Amateur Hour all gussied up" for public consumption. If that's how you like to waste your time, go to it.

But don't be surprised when nobody buys a Fantasia record.

A

Well, are we talking about musical talent, or true musical success?

I mean, what is a pop idol? You take somebody with some performance talent, put them in thousands of dollars of makeup, choreograph them on stage, and write them some easy-to-digest simple tunes that sound just like everything else you hear on the radio. That pretty much describes American Idol. They're creating..pop idols, on the same level as your Jessica Simpsons, Ashley Simpsons, Christina Aguileras. People who will make a lot of money for a short time, which will pretty much all be taken by the studio, then work at McDonalds by the end of the decade.

To be remembered in 20 years wihout a 'What the hell were we thinking?' comment tacked on, then you need hard work and real talent.

Although, small comment...a lot of big stars now first appeared on Star Search...

AI's popularity is understandable. We do love competition; and especially competition that allows us to participate. It allows us to help a person pursue and possibly achieve their dream, as we struggle to achieve our own. AI allows us to vicariously live through the contestants. Thus, the strong emotional attachment we form with them. However, this show is going to falter terribly if the following is not fixed:
Randy has got to find a way to critique other than saying "it was a little pitchy in places" or the nebulous, subjective "It didn't do it for me." What the heck does that mean?
Paula has to be reigned in. I know she struggles with legitimate chronic pain and probably has to take medications just to sit there; but there were moments when it was obvious she wasn't all there. Regarding her critiques, "What are they?" "Does she ever say anything of real substance?"
And Simon should throw away the karaoke analogy, as well as the "I can hear that in any hotel lounge." Come on, he is a smart guy who knows the music business. Is this the extent of his ability to offer critique in such a manner that can actually be implemented?

Sometimes somebody just sucks and the best thing you can do for them is crush their hopes so that they'll stop bothering you.

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Originally posted by mark f:
I've never watched American Idol or any "reality" shows, unless you want to call sports or Jeopardy! reality shows. All sports do include the human judging factor though.

I also don't think I intellectualize baseball, but the people who usually think baseball is boring are the ones who don't understand all the strategy and how each pitch or play can have such a big effect on the outcome of the game.

To each his own. Peace.

Do I detect another baseball fanatic, like me? Right on, every pitch is a whole new ball game. If you haven't read "Pure Baseball" by Keith Hernandez, I highly recommend it. It's a book for people who love the strategy of the game. People who know real baseball is played on real grass in the afternoon.

I'm waiting impatiently until April 2nd and that opening season pitch. Go Cubs! Win the series before I die! Please!

As for AI, I do not watch it.