'American Idol,'
no Simon but lots of heart
Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are great replacements
By Tom Conroy
Mar 10, 2011
In his heyday as a judge on “American Idol,” Simon Cowell was like a tart sorbet that cleansed our palates after too much cheesiness or sweetness — whether those elements came from the contestants’ performances or from the pronouncements of Cowell’s fellow judges, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul.
The news that Cowell wouldn’t be on “Idol” this season, the show’s 10th, and that Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez would be joining Jackson on the judges’ panel seemed to many to be a death knell. In different ways, both Tyler and Lopez seemed too struck by their own stardom to be able to pay attention to anyone else’s performance, much less an unknown’s.
But Tyler and Lopez have turned out to be involved, sympathetic judges who nonetheless make some enlightening points. The show is doing just fine without Cowell.
Besides looking gorgeous in nearly every shot taken of her, Lopez provides the gently encouraging feminine voice that Abdul used to contribute before she went off the deep end. She’s particularly attuned to the non-musical aspects of the performances. And when she sadly said that eliminating talented hopefuls was “really hard,” she seemed to feel it.
Tyler, meanwhile, has transformed himself from a rock star to a bona fide celebrity. He can usually be counted on to contribute a memorable, if incomprehensible, sound bite. After an early performance by the young country singer Steve McCreery, Tyler recited, “Well, hellfire, save matches!/F--- a duck and see what hatches!”
At the other end of the spectrum, when an early favorite, Chris Medina, brought his severely handicapped fiancée into the audition room, Tyler crouched by her wheelchair, stroked her hair and whispered in her ear, “That’s why he sings so good, because he sings to you.”
It’s more than enough to make us forget the brief judging careers of Kara DioGuardi and Ellen DeGeneres.
Last night’s episode, the season's first performance show that was broadcast "live" (in reality, it was taped earlier in the day), showed not only that the new judges can work without the benefit of editing but also that they’ve given us a consistently high-quality group of 13 finalists.
But as always, some of the more mainstream song choices try our patience, as does the contestants’ tendency to sing 15-note runs where one note would do.
Each contestant was shown working on his or her song with a professional record producer and then conferring with Jimmy Iovine, the head of Interscope Geffen A&M Records. Iovine was effusive in his praise for nearly all of the contestants. If he has a personality, it was well hidden by his cap and tinted glasses.
The judges were perhaps too kind in their critiques. If they didn’t like a performance, they tended to praise the performer’s talent. After a while, a little Simon Cowell would have come in handy.
Jackson has been harsher in his analyses this season, probably in reaction to Cowell’s departure. But too often he still relies on vague complaints of the it-didn’t-work-for-me variety.
After weeks of criticizing contestants for failing to bring anything new to their performances of well-known songs, in this show he praised McCreery for sticking rigorously to Garth Brooks’ version of “The River.”
As it has since the first season, “Idol” continues to provide us the pleasure of watching fledgling performers gradually take flight. Pia Toscano is emerging as a potential pop diva. James Durbin is learning to make his quirky mannerisms work for him.
At the end of the episode, the host, Ryan Seacrest, asked the judges to sum it up. They all agreed that making the contestants sing truncated versions of the songs — the maximum is 1 minute and 40 seconds — was unfair. No one pointed out that cutting some of the flab, like Iovine’s screen time or the pointless post-mortems that most of the contestants delivered to the camera, could have easily provided each one with another minute.
Finally, it’s customary to end anything written about “Idol” with a prediction of who will be in the bottom three and who will be eliminated. Tonight, look for Naima Adedapo, Ashthon Jones and Karen Rodriguez in the bottom, with Rodriguez going home.
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