Idol At the Crossroads

Welcome to Season 14, the most critical year in American Idol’s record-setting history. With declining ratings, decreasing advertising revenues, and the failure of its last two winners (Candace Glover and Caleb Johnson) to achieve success, the suits at Fox are holding the Evil Genius Producers accountable for better results this season.

To that point, we can expect some significant changes in Season 14. We saw one tonight with the quick reveal of the Top 24. Apparently there is even a bigger reveal available online but I haven’t seen it.[1] Based on some of the voices I heard in that opening montage, we have a lot to look forward to this year.

A more significant change is a live performance at Los Angeles’ House of Blues that will pare the remaining Hollywood Week survivors down to that Top 24. The idea – and it’s a good one – is to not just find good singers but good performers. The past few years have seen a number of good singers who produced a range of boring to dreadful live performances, e.g. Jessica Meuse. These real-world performances will allow the judges and us too see whether potential Idol finalists can captivate a live audience prior to the live Idol broadcasts.

However, the BIG change is Scott Borchetta, the show’s new mentor, replacing Evil Eye Jimmy Iovine and The (woeful) Dawg, Randy Jackson. If anything or anybody can change Idol’s fortunes in this sink-or-swim season, it’s Scott Borchetta, one of the most powerful figures in the music business, and by the business, I mean the industry.

Borchetta is the president and CEO of Big Machine Label Group, whose first signed artist back in 2004 was a little girl I like to call Taylor Swift. Not only will he be Idol’s mentor, but most significantly, he’ll continue to have a role after the show as his Big Machine label will partner with Idol to help launch the winner’s post-Idol recording career.

Beyond Taylor, Borchetta has boosted the careers of Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts and Reba; and signed and developed hot new country acts like Maddie & Tae[2], Justin Moore, Brantley Gilbert, Thomas Rhett, and Florida Georgia Line.[3] And it can’t be a coincidence that the Evil Genius Producers noticed that the only “successful” artists from The Voice (RaeLynn[4], Cassadee Pope and Danielle Bradbery) are on his Big Machine Label.

We won’t see Scott’s influence until Hollywood Week and it’s up to the judges to put together a strong group of singers for him to work with. But with his talent for intuiting what will connect with music buyers, along with his power and connections, his Big Machine may add the special sauce that can create a star to reinvigorate the Idol franchise.

As far as tonight’s proceedings, I liked guitar-slinging Riley Bria; 15 year-old Emily Brooke and especially Sam Smith-channeling, J-Lo slow dancing Michael Simeon. While I don’t see Riley or Emily going the distance, Michael may be somebody to keep an eye on – I may have even heard him in the opening Top 24 montage.

Until the next time, I hope you get to listen to some good music. I know I will.

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[1] I’m that annoyingly patient person that doesn’t open presents until the day I’m supposed to.

[2] Who have a Country #1 single Girl in a Country Song.

[3] I know – all of my favorite artists. 🙂

[4] To be fair, RaeLynn from The Voice Season 2 currently has a Top 10 Country hit.

My Girl Dia – a Voice Voting Victim?

All-Time My Girl Dia Frampton

Well there is nothing that says you are a serious reality singing show like a voter controversy! (Oh, and you thought the annoyingly on-cue hand-waving during ballads was the sign that you are a serious singing show? Well that, too.) Despite being behind on the charts and in every poll everywhere in the world where there is interweb service, somehow Javier Colon managed to eke out that 2% margin of victory over the presumptive mortal lock, All-Time My Girl Dia (ATMGD). So, how did that happen?

Word is that Javier’s coach, Adam Levine, urged his boy Justin Bieber to get out the vote for his other boy Javier. And apparently (but with no actual way to verify), the Bieberite legions responded en masse as they are wont to do when their boy Justin calls them to arms. With almost 11m Twitter followers for the Biebs to put to work, ATMGD really had no chance. It speaks to her popularity – and the restrictions on multiple voting – that she only lost by that 2%.

I can sense your outrage already. How fair can that be? Well, actually quite fair if you truly understand what this show is all about. Unlike, Idol which gives all power to the voters, The Voice empowers its coaches to a larger degree than the voters. Once the contestants are picked by them in the blind auditions, they decide who survives the battle rounds. Then in the first voting round, they decide on four other contestants to save. In the final eight, their votes count as much as the public vote in getting down to the final four.

And all along the way, they provide their own coaching talent, resources and song choices in an effort to see their mentees survive. Miranda Lambert buys ATMGD a pretty dress. Adam Levine gets Justin Bieber to tweet his peeps to vote for Javier. The Voice is as much a contest between the coaches as it is between the Voicers. Not only that, they don’t exactly make a secret out of their love for Twitter given the sort-of-cute-but-sort-of-annoying blonde hysterically screaming THAT CHRISTINA AGUILERA’S CLEAVAGE IS TRENDING ON TWITTER!!!!!!!!! (#XtinaCleavage) The aggressive use of Twitter as a marketing and a competitive tool is yet another way that The Voice has effectively differentiated itself from Idol.

The truth is, if we’re talking about a reality show, this is reality – who you know and what they’re willing to do for you is how you can make it in the business – and by the business I mean the industry. Frankly, we all know it’s how you can get a leg up in any business. One day, The Civil Wars are toiling in obscurity. Then Taylor Swift tweets to her bazillion followers that they are her favorite group and – BOOM!! – almost overnight they go to #1 on iTunes and become one of the country’s hottest acts. Seventies rock icon Leon Russell was barely making ends meet until Elton John rescues him with a critically acclaimed duet album and national tour. A 15-year old Rihanna’s band gets introduced to a music mogul while he’s on vacation in Barbados and he’s enamored just with her. So it goes.

Regardless of that 2% “loss”, ATMGD will be just fine. Universal Republic (label of Taylor Swift, Jack Johnson, Florence + the Machine) has 30 days to exercise their option to sign any of the Voicers to label deals and Dia’s already talking about having her old band support her solo project and what kind of album she wants to make. So it’s highly likely ATMGD and the label have already been talking which makes sense since every time she did a song on the show it went to #1 on iTunes. And supposedly Vicci Martinez has already had some label discussions, too. As always, I’ll be keeping an eye out on who’s doing what in the bizness.