I don’t watch SA Idols. I consider this a character strength. Any good it may have once represented has been dead for so long that the fellow currently holding the whip is simply flogging mushy ground and bone chips.
As far as soulless, moneymaking schemes go, it’s frigging genius. As a magnifying glass held up to the face of South African popular culture, however, it illuminates every pockmark, blister and cruddy scab carefully concealed by the corpse-white, harlot’s base lathered on by the pimps and pit bosses of the SA popular music scene.
One almost wishes that whichever deity is holding the lens might shift its position ever so slightly, condensing the focal point and sending an incinerating blast of cleansing, concentrated sunlight down onto the heads of which ever self-serving parasites dreamt up this musical abomination, burning them right off the face of South Africa’s delicate, musical skin like one might lazer a malignant mole.
One can only hope that the resultant blast radius might also be wide enough to vaporize the majority of the limp-jawed dullards that willingly choose to support such an atrocity, but perhaps I dream too much.
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| Also, maybe I should lay off the caffeine. |
That isn’t to say that there isn’t talent on the show, but heaven forbid that any of it should ever be appreciated. For instance, I caught the tail end of an episode on Sunday night. A pleasant looking, rotund fellow was belting out a rendition of Guns and Roses’ Sweet Child o’ Mine so pitch perfect that, three-thousand kilometers away, Axel Rose paused mid-hooker to briefly re-evaluated his life.
According to the judges, however, he sounded “too professional”, because, you know, that’s a real thing. Are you fucking kidding me?! Never mind that, by definition, the only difference between an amateur and a professional is getting paid; these buzzer-toting, panel-monkeys seem to think there is such a thing as being too good! You can almost hear the secret cabal of accountant-judges frothing beneath the stage, keening and whining about how many souls it cost to purchase Enrique Iglesias’s pitch-shifter and what a wasted investment it would be should they award a contract to someone who can actually sing.
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| "These days, they just pay me in self-tan and hair products." |
A similar rant to a sibling led me to this, however, and a small amount of my hope in humanity was returned.
The Bothers Streep’s SA Idol’s Audition is something to be admired. They rocked us as a group, with an iPod dock, and proceeded to mime their instruments over one of their own tracks, singing a song entitled, "We're never gonna be SA Idols on TV...".
Sure, it’s over a month old, and yes, most of you have probably seen this before, but it’s also a shining ray of light in a local “creative” industry that grew stagnant years ago, and it deserves to, and should be, seen by as many people as possible.
Needless to say, they didn’t make it through.
4 comments:
One of the contestants this year has not only been on Idols before, she's also become famous in that time and has gone on to host two SABC shows. Seems unfair to me - you'd think she'd be able to do it without Idols.
I hate Idols because people treat it like it's the only way to be a professional singer in this country - they get all sad and teary when they don't make. I'm all for accomplishing dreams the proper way. If you want to be a performer, learn to play the guitar, learn to sing, write the songs, do a few gigs.
The rotund fellow's name is Mark Haze. He's the vocalist for 12th Avenue. One of my top SA bands to go to dodgy pubs in Durbanville and scream for.
I don't watch Idols either. But good gracious the man can sing.
Well, Carrott, you tell Mr Haze to keep jamming the burgers and rocking the chunes, 'cause he's doing something right. Twelve-thousand kilometers away, Brian Johnson is waking up with a semi every Monday morning and he's not sure why.
(And don't get me started on his surnamed and the vastly unfair foot-up it gives anyone with dreams of entering the world of rock. Seriously, I hear his folks actually wanted to call him Mark SmokeOntheWater but the nurse couldn't block-type that many characters onto a birth certificate.)
And K, the unfortunate truth is that there is no money behind musicians in SA. The only funding goes into pop. Hell, most of the rock musicians I know hold second jobs, and I'm including the okes I know who got signed.
Unfortunately, Idols is one of the few opportunities for talented individuals out there. There's money there, but it's hidden behind a wall of suits looking for a profitable, short term investment. They're looking for something that will be popular NOW, and care little for the musician shelf-life. They want to be able to mould and package something, which is why they're giving guys like the jolly Mark EnterSandman a tough time. Boy can the dude wail, but I can't really see him in a tux singing Michael Buble covers.
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