Too Much Idol Gossip

I take a couple weeks off from writing about music, and everything goes straight to hell. And apparently most of it happened on American Idol.

First off, Apparently the folks at The Smoking Gun decided that it isn't enough to have dug up spousal abuse allegations on Scott Savol (who was eliminated this week to cut the Idol hopefuls down to four). They chose to go after 28-year-old Bo Bice, one of the fan favorites in the competition, digging up his cocaine conviction from a decade ago to suggest that he should be cut from the competition.

Not much to say about that, except that if this is going to be the way things go for Idol contestants down the road, all we're going to get are Partridge Family rejects with no soul whatsoever. The producers raised the age limit to 28 to allow for a little more diversity in the competition, and if having a drug record from a decade ago is worthy of keeping a great performer like Bice out of the competition, when he disclosed the record on his application, where's the witch-hunt going to stop? Next thing you know we'll be seeing Idol contestants who get burned in the early rounds doing independent research to get revenge on the better singers who beat them. Or worse, we'll have a top ten next year full of people afraid to take any kind of risk for fear they'll become the next Smoking Gun victim.

Then there's the plight of poor Paula Abdul. Apparently the woman's had more accidents than Hans Moleman on the Simpsons: car wrecks, plane crashes, cheerleading injuries, enough to make anyone need a painkiller or twelve. Not only did she have to go public with her medical history in order to dispell rumors of alcohol and drug addiction, but now a former Smoking Gun victim, Mr. Corey Clark, has come forward alledging that Miss Paula ... gasp! ... seduced him.

Too bad for Mr. Clark no one really cares. He got booted from the show due to an arrest record he didn't disclose to Fox, and now he's peddling a book ... and a tell-all interview for a rival network. Sounds really believable to me.

But hey, don't forget about last week's controversial exit for Constantine Maroules, the "rocker" who sold his soul to sing cheesy ballads and make 13-year-old girls swoon. He gets voted off, after making it a lot farther than I would have voted him (that is if I did vote, which I don't) and suddenly there are online petitions saying "boycott the show" and thousands of people with too much time on their hands demanding a recount. When really, the odds are Mr. Constantine decided to pick a bad song on purpose in order to get "fired" from Idol and go take up his old job with the band Pray for the Soul of Betty.

A band you probably won't want to let your Idol-loving 7-year-0ld listen to, by the way.

The bottom line is that people need to take all this "controversy" for what it is: time-wasting nonsense. Every season of Idol has had its controversy, much of it brought on by Smoking Gun reports and fallen Idols trying to reclaim their five minutes of fame. Meanwhile, the ratings juggernaut grows bigger, Simon Cowell gets snarkier, and Randy Jackson will keep sounding like he underwent a complete lobotomy and they forgot to put the brain back in.

Fact is, Idol isn't a "talent show." No one watches the show to see the best singer win. The show is one long record company audition, and they want the winner to be someone who can sell records. And if Scott Savol had made it to the championship, no one would have given ten seconds thought to the fact that he may or may not have beaten his ex, because the number of votes he would have received would serve as a signal of how many records he'd sell to the American record-buying public.

Idol is a demographic dream. I can call in and vote a hundred times for someone in order to show RCA that I really really want to buy that record. That's why last year's Idol controversy was that Elton John declared the show "racist" because a black girl was voted off. No one bothered to explain to Sir. Elton that when you have five people left, and three are "divas" who sing the same style of music, odds are they're going to split the "diva vote" and all three will suffer. Meanwhile the Diana DeGarmos of the world survive because they at least manage to differentiate themselves from the crowd.

So let's make a pact, shall we? Raise your hand and repeat after me:

I, [insert name here] do swear to stop taking American Idol too seriously. I will ignore the gossip columns, arrest reports, recount petitions and any reference to Ryan Seacrest, and take the show for what it is: ENTERTAINMENT. I will admit that I'm addicted to schlock, and will stop deluding myself by saying "if my contestent loses, I quit!" We know that won't ever happen. I will never sign an online petition; I will not spend hours in an American Idol chat room screaming about my favorite being "cheated." Shall I violate this contract, may I be strapped to a chair Clockwork Orange style and be forced to watch William Hung's "Bohemian Rhapsody" video until my eyes bleed, so help me God."

There. Now don't you feel so much better, dawg?