How About Maybe You Surprise Me

We're all tired of discussing the election, so let's find something else to get us worked up about.  Since you asked, well, yes, I have something.

I do indeed watch some of the TV contest-format shows of competing singers and groups.  Not all, but some.  "The Sing-Off", which is a competition of a capella groups, is actually my favorite, primarily because the groups are really good and the judges are really expert at harmony singing; they know a major-seventh chord from a fully-diminished one, they actually recognize talent and they get the presentation aspects of the genre.

Although the Mrs. and I swore off "American Idol" for a few years after Simon Cowell left, we did return last year to follow the show.  Like Sing-Off, you have at least one judge (Harry Connick, Jr.) who is truly expert in the field, and can speak technically as to why a given performer, well, stunk.  It is very comforting when he speaks, since there is at least one part of the show -- when he speaks -- that is in fact educational.

So it is going to start up again soon and, before it even starts, I feel like venting on one of its most puzzling and disappointing aspects.  I refer, of course, to of all things, the introductions to the songs.  "The what?", I hear you say.  Yes, indeed.  I refer, in fact, to the practice of Ryan Seacrest, the host, introducing a performer by saying "Now here is Contestant #11, Etaoin Shrdlu, singing 'My Adenoids Hurt' by Charlie Potatoes."  And you know and I know that he does that every time, and that it is not he who is writing the script.

There is so much wrong with that.  First and foremost, when Etaoin is singing the song, it is not a Charlie Potatoes song, it is an Etaoin Shrdlu song.  In other words, the story of the song that the singer is about to perform, is the story told by the singer, not the guy who first recorded it.  Could I be any clearer?  When Etaoin is singing a song, he sure as h-e-double-hockey-sticks does not want your mind wandering to what someone else did with it, particularly the first guy to record it.  He wants you listening to him and the story that he is telling.

Doesn't that make sense? If your mind is off remembering how Charlie sang it, Etaoin has already lost you.  As a listener, I cannot sit in the audience and suspend my disbelief.  And the performance suddenly becomes just another cover.  Whatever Etaoin has done to put his own stamp on it is mostly lost.  A guy like last year's third-place finisher, Alex Preston, becomes far less appreciated for his creativity.

On top of that, believe it or not, many of us don't know the song!  I, for one, do not listen to current music, so every Idol performance is new to me.  The more you tell me before the performance, the less real storytelling it becomes.

Would it not be better if this were the case: Seacrest says only, "Let me introduce our next performer, Etaoin Shrdlu."  The house lights come down and Etaoin owns the stage.  No one knows what he's going to do, and he is free to create the mood the best he can.  What a marvelous way to let the performer be a performer and not just a cover singer, right?

Of course, we know why the song is introduced.  Follow the money.  It is patently obvious that this is done so the audience can be told what song to download, and which singer made it famous, and probably had to be stroked to grant the performance rights in the first place.

But there's no reason that can't be done right afterwards, and grant the performer the ownership of the stage for the time he or she is there.

There is a lesson therein for all performing groups, by the way.  Never, never, never tell your audience the name of the song you're about to do.  Just set the mood and sing.  Do an introduction but stop short of the name of the song, just set the mood.  Take us on a journey.  Suspend our disbelief.

Don't be American Idol.

Copyright 2014 by Robert Sutton