Go! No Go!

The other day a friend of mine expressed to me her shock that I am so into American Idol. I am also shocked that I have lasted this long. My infatuation with the show, even if it only lasts one season, is genuine because you can watch the show from any number of angles. I can watch it for a guilt-inducing dose of American pop culture. I might watch it for the bad singers. This late in the show, I definitely watch it for the good ones. I watch to apply my critique and cynicism to every aspect of the show—this being perhaps the dominant reason for my watching.

The show is down to nine contestants and I feel as though my interest has waned in the past few weeks, but I still keep coming back Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I am honestly excited to see what Melinda sings every night. That girl is amazing. I don’t know how it is possible that she is not a star already. Her singing, performances, and interpretation of the lyrics are so much better than anyone else on the show it is embarrassing. With that said, she may not win.

Having watched this much of the show, I know how fickle Idol voting is. Sanjaya demonstrates every week that he has poor taste, is generally genderless, can’t sing, and sucks. Hopefully, change comes later on in the show, but to make it to the top nine you don’t have to be talented at all. Sanjaya is proof, and so is Haley, who shows more skin, or wears tighter clothing with every week that passes, in an attempt to get more males to vote for her. It has worked, she was in the bottom three last night, but her method prevailed.

Sanjaya wasn’t even in the bottom of the group. I have heard some explanations regarding the Sanjaya phenomenon.

1. People keep voting for Sanjaya to see how long he will last.
2. The votefortheworst.com following has kept him on for this long.
3. The Indian community is behind him.
4. Every week Sanjaya has a different style. He has no style, and that is what people like about him.

I subscribe to explanations 1 and 4. Sanjaya is proof of the flaw in the American Idol system. Chris Sligh, whose performances since round 2 have been less than amazing, was voted off last night, but he could out sing and out perform Sanjaya at any given moment.

Although I like contestants on the show, I don’t like any Idol winner from past seasons. I don’t even like the wildly popular Daughtry (not an Idol winner), who has (as of today) 312,022 friends on MySpace. The Idol can mold good singers into amazing singers and performers, but it can’t make them good songwriters, and that is why I will probably be more of a fan for the singer on the show than for the artist after Idol fame has faded, or in Daughtry’s case, been eclipsed by a popularity that the show cannot bring.