[Flipside]

I will freely admit that there are some very talented people in Idol programs, but the way of winnowing them down is formulaic and stifling. It's a glorified Karaoke competition. I don't accept, in any way, that the Idol program is at all healthy for music or for the people involved in it.

[Ford Prefect]

Fact of the matter is that Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger (to name two mentioned in this thread), and dozens of other extremely successful musicians wouldn't have known musical theory if it walked out of a page and smacked them over the head when they started out.  They weren't musicians - they were popular figures who started creating their own brand of music.  They had the creativity to make musicians out of themselves, but they didn't really know music when they started.  The same is true of the majority of extremely successful musicians.

As for lack of creativity and merely cover singers, some of the most famous musicians in the world (instrumental musicians, mostly) have never written a piece of music in their entire lives or played an original piece of their own - ever - and yet their talent is beyond dispute.

To summarize:  musical snobbery is idiotic, because it's an art form and has no set rules.

Both those examples were good performers and lyricists, (well, Bob Dylan, anyway), but both composed music that was just as adherent to simple patterns as the stuff you hear from the homeless guy on the subway. Many great classical performers may not write their own work, but the work they are required to play is so complex that its interpretation requires, at the very least, a formal education-- An education in which they first learned the myriad of rules regarding music theory and composition, and only then came to understand why those rules are broken. There's nothing we do that truly has no rules. I guarantee you whatever music you listen to obeys some set of rules; otherwise it would be noise. The notion that there are no rules is very attractive because it implies that the tedium of education is pointless, but the truly great musicians are the ones who are conscious of the conventions they're breaking, not the ones who blindly do whatever they want because they don't know jack **** anyway. It's not about being original or unoriginal-- Bach's music was not concerned with innovation, but with the manipulation of a particular set of conventions-- it's about whether you know what you're doing, so the choices you make are conscious decisions. And most popular artists, in any medium, are either unaware of what they could be doing, or just untalented. In an environment like the music industry, it hardly makes a difference.

[MP-Ryan]

Both those examples were good performers and lyricists, (well, Bob Dylan, anyway), but both composed music that was just as adherent to simple patterns as the stuff you hear from the homeless guy on the subway. Many great classical performers may not write their own work, but the work they are required to play is so complex that its interpretation requires, at the very least, a formal education-- An education in which they first learned the myriad of rules regarding music theory and composition, and only then came to understand why those rules are broken. There's nothing we do that truly has no rules. I guarantee you whatever music you listen to obeys some set of rules; otherwise it would be noise. The notion that there are no rules is very attractive because it implies that the tedium of education is pointless, but the truly great musicians are the ones who are conscious of the conventions they're breaking, not the ones who blindly do whatever they want because they don't know jack **** anyway. It's not about being original or unoriginal-- Bach's music was not concerned with innovation, but with the manipulation of a particular set of conventions-- it's about whether you know what you're doing, so the choices you make are conscious decisions. And most popular artists, in any medium, are either unaware of what they could be doing, or just untalented. In an environment like the music industry, it hardly makes a difference.

I was being simplistic.

Musical rules do exist, but every single one of them is broken at some point or another, which is how new musical styles and genres come into being.  Jazz musicians are a fantastic example of this; I distinctly remember attending a workshop by Lou Rawls well over a decade ago and listening to him tell us "there's no such thing as a wrong note; some are just better than others."  Which is true, and why jazz is such a great form of music to listen to and learn from.  I'm digressing though.

At any rate, I'm not detracting from the performance of the greats or saying an understanding of musical convention is not important; I am saying that people who knock performers on American Idol for being uncreative or merely cover artists don't know what the hell they're talking about... especially if they're basing their understanding of great music on the likes of other pop performers like those already mentioned.

[Ford Prefect]

Well I would agree that, in theory, someone doesn't have to suck simply by virtue of coming from American Idol, but in my opinion they all do suck, for the same reason that most popular music in the rest of the industry sucks: People like ****ty music. That's fine; there's some ****ty music I like, and if everyone liked the good stuff I would have no smug sense of superiority. I honestly wouldn't care if they didn't keep preempting House.

[karajorma]

There's a huge difference between never writing anything yourself and only ever singing songs where the original artist did a better job though.

And bear in mind I'm from the UK and I can't think of anyone good produced by Pop Idol or X-Factor.

[Nuke]

there are composers and there are performers. seldom are they the same people. american idol is for performers only, individuals who want to be famous. the record industry needs these people so that they can manipulate them into whatever form they think will sell, to make money and maintain their stranglehold on the average consumer. so you have a big name lead performer backed by a bunch of no name musicians spliced together from wherever. where you can stage a spectacle of sorts and rake in the money. id like to think that music is more than just a means to bloat an already bloated bank account.

then you have bands. bands may contain both performers and composers. a good band is really just a bunch of friends who all know how to play an instrument or two, one comes up with the idea to start a band. they screw around, coming up with a few riffs, one of em takes out their poetry journal and finds something that might make a good lyric and the next thing you know their on tour. or you can form an orchestra, sort of like the way they form up the popular stuff, but more or less under the guise of cultural posterity than raw income. this seems to be a much better way to do things. to let the music come first, and then make a living off of it. i have of respect for the long time bar and club bands who earn a working mans salary doing what they do, and many of them are just as talented as the people who make millions doing whatever the **** they want. too much success can actually be rather destructive to ones music.

[Dark Hunter]

My god, what have I unleashed? 

I certainly didn't intend to start something like this... 

[redsniper]

Welcome to the HLPBB.