by Our prescient and delightful and winsome pick Ashley Rodriguez was voted off the American Idol island last
night proving, in spades, that the wrong song can kill you because it gives the producers the power to pull the plug on you without leaving anyone, like us, left to feign outrage in her dimming.
We
had high hopes for Ashley — but perhaps the name change fiasco we caught on the American Idol website coupled with the early
support bending her way — just put too much pressure on the producers to keep
her. They want false weekly suspense, not a winner by default.
American
Idol feels decrepit this year. The remaining singers are uninspiring and
stale. Their selection as stereotypes-to-fill-a-niche instead of showcasing real singing talent is much too obvious and calculating.
Over the last nine years, we’ve learned the American Idol game. We can, week-by-week, pick who will stay and who will go based on the
off-air string-pulling by the producers. The show is a cynical effort
to package talent — but in the age of Twitter and instant
communication, we’re all two steps ahead of the cynicism and we’re bored
with the predictability of it all.
We
loathed Paula Abdul — and now we have two of them in her stead: Ellen
and Kara. They’re both going for the pandering — “love me, mommy” — role
while the rest of us are left to suffer in their gagging sugar-coated
and syrupy “criticism” that consists of hugging and petting pretty faces instead of digging for real musical talent.
Simon Cowell appears to be hellbent on killing
the show in his last season — as if to say as leaves — “You’re nothing
without me and were never anything with me.” His demeanor this year is more spiteful and venomous
than in the past and, believe me, we now hate the show as much as he
does.
Farewell, Ashley. We will miss your bright talent and
winning ways — and you’ll always be the Winner of Season 9 in our hearts
and minds. American Idol never deserved you.
I’ve effectively given up on American Idol. It has gone to rubbish over the last few years and the most amusing part is watching the people who seem to have no indication that they are completely talentless come out for the initial auditions. I hope Ms. Rodriguez does well for herself now that she is off the show.
You’re smart not to be invested any longer, Gordon. American Idol has become a shell of what it used to be and after the conch period comes the caricature moment and then the sad, lingering, death of it all turning into trash. Ashley at least had some training and genuine talent and the fact that none of that came out in her first and only live performance tells us more about the wants of the show and less about her ability to produce.