Requiem for AI
American Idol (AI) is dead. The iconic talent show on TV had its last telecast last April 8, during which 25-yearold country singer Trent Harmon was crowned the last American Idol. The dude from a farming family in Mississippi is now the right bookend to an illustrious collection of music talents from the past 15 years. On the right end is the first winner, the one who set the standard by which all Idols who came along were measured, Kelly Clarkson. She set a very high bar. Will Trent be able to measure up? Only time will tell.
I was honestly rooting for Dalton Rapattoni. I knew that Trent and runnerup La’Porsha Renae were the better singers. In fact, they were acing it in the competition every week. Truth to tell, it was obvious early on that those two would be in the finals.
Idol’s farewell season was also its most predictable. But I thought that Rapattoni had pop idol written all over him. He was the total package, the kid who might develop into a cross between the two Justins, Bieber and Timberlake. Trent was country. La’Porsha was soul. Dalton could be both. But my wishing did not work. I could not even vote. I just hope that Dalton resurfaces again one of these days with his first big hit.
But the big news from the Idol front last weekend was not really about the winners. It was about the end of
American Idol. Dwindling ratings and the growing lack of sponsors forced the producers to put a halt to the airing of the show. Things must be really bad because even the summer Idol tour featuring the winner and finalists, that has become something of a tradition, was cancelled this year. Those thousands of aspiring stars who used to come to the annual Idol auditions now have nothing to look forward to. Conceptualized by Simon Fuller,
American Idol was an import from the United Kingdom where it was known as Pop Idol. It reintroduced the concept of the singing contest on television. The first US telecast was on June, 2002, during which it was merely a filler for the slow summer programming. That was the season during which Clarkson won. But the show turned out to be such a huge hit that it would later rank No. 1 in the ratings for several years.
Idol also spawned counterparts in other countries and encouraged other producers to create their own kind of talent competition, as in The Voice and
Dancing with the Stars. The Philippines was among those who got into the bandwagon. Some of today’s biggest stars like Sarah Geronimo, Rachelle Ann Go, Christian Bautista, Mark Bautista, Yeng Constantino and Erik Santos were discovered in TV contests patterned after AI.
Now American Idol may be gone but the innovations it created remain very much in use. There is the use of judges who got to critique the contestants with the aim of helping them turn into better performers. The first batch composed of producers Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson and pop star Paula Abdul proved so appealing to viewers that the show was never the same again after they left. Judges in talent contests used to be silent voices, who scored on paper and were never heard from at all. But those three bantered, argued and gave glowing reviews when merited. The people loved them.
The public also got to participate in the judging through online voting for the first time. This meant that they had a direct hand in choosing the winners and they liked that. The
American Idol was not chosen by just anybody. America had the final say and that counted a lot. This system of voting is now in use in all sorts of talent shows all over the world.
And while some of those other contests might be rating better nowadays, it can never be denied that AI produced the most and the biggest stars. Aside from Clarkson, there were Carrie Underwood, Scotty McCreery, Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks, David Cook, Fantasia Barino, Kris Allen and Jordin Sparks. Even non-winners like Jennifer Hudson, Clay Aiken, Chris Daughtry, Justin Guarini, Constantin Maroulis, Katharine Mcphee, David Archuleta and many others.
A lot of them and others who had been part of AI showed up to bid American Idol goodbye. Host Ryan Seacrest emceed with a catch in his throat before he signed off for the last time. Abdul and Jackson reunited with the acerbic Cowell, who admitted he was feeling emotional. And the previous Idols and finalists sang with all their hearts. Particularly moving was Filipino-born Jessica Sanchez’s rendition of The
Prayer. Winner or not, she sang it like a true Idol.