'Idol' hands hold too little personality
BY RAFER GUZMÁN
STAFF WRITER
NY Newsday
September 1, 2004
Fox's "American Idol" talent show - and the live concerts that accompany each season - take a lot of heat for being overly glitzy, commercial, fake and calculated.
But this year's concert - featuring contestants from the show's third season - wasn't glitzy, commercial, fake and calculated enough.
Last year, various set changes, fireworks and confetti cannons helped bamboozle the audience into thinking the Idols were genuine entertainers rather than clueless mannequins dressed up by clever minders. This year, the producers skimped on the set (a simple two-tiered rig with chrome railings) and seemed equally short on ideas. As the Idols ran through rudimentary dance steps and sang a mix of old soul and recent pop, they looked less like slick corporate creations and more like kids muddling through a high school musical.
The bare-bones, slap-dash concert comes at a time when the Idol franchise appears to be losing steam. Singles from this season's stars ("Don't Cry Out Loud," from runner-up Diana DeGarmo, and "I Believe," by winner Fantasia Barrino) haven't sold as well as last year's hits from runner-up Clay Aiken and winner Rueben Studdard. And though overall ratings were better this season than last, the finale drew 2 million fewer viewers than the previous.
As each Idol appeared on stage, you could almost hear the hasty, impatient planning sessions that must have come beforehand. "OK, John Stevens sings standards, so he'll wear a tuxedo. George Huff likes Motown tunes - put him in a cape, just like James Brown! Camile Velasco is from Hawaii, so that's easy: Throw a lei around her neck. Jasmine Trias is also from Hawaii? Who let that happen? Well, just stick a flower over her ear."
(Amy Adams, the pink-haired Kelly Osbourne look-alike, didn't appear. She's sitting out the next few shows "due to health reasons," according to a concert spokeswoman.)
After three years of scouring the country for talent, the "Idol" machine may be draining America's resources. Most of this batch had merely passable voices: Jon Peter Lewis possessed more volume than accuracy, La Toya London delivered an unmemorable version of Mariah Carey's "My All," and DeGarmo belted out every song with equal force, whether it was a chugging rocker (Neil Diamond's "River Deep, Mountain High") or a hymn ("His Eye Is on the Sparrow").
Barrino showed off her colorful, sandy voice during a sultry version of the Gershwin tune "Summertime" and a gutsy take on Prince's "Purple Rain." The baby-faced Jennifer Hudson, though, put everyone's else's pipes to shame, packing more creativity into a short phrase than her cohorts did in an entire song.
But nobody revealed what you'd call a personality. The between-song patter was limited to encouraging the audience to scream; Barrino offered the obligatory can-do message, "if you have a dream, go after it." It was enough to make you wish for last year's Aiken, who at least knew how to charm a crowd. Boy, they knew how to make them back then.
