As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a speaking engagement last night, to the Tire Town chapter of the International Association of Administrative Professionals, and I had an excellent time. I especially like the Q&A's, to hear what people are interested in, and to have more of a dialogue with them.
But it means that I caught "Idol" somewhat on the run (see the previous post), saw only the final moments on "Dancing With the Stars" and have not yet gotten to the finale of "Jericho." So let's have a Cone of Silence on that one, please. And with a night's sleep and the light of day I'm wondering if last night was an "Idol" watershed.
That is, has the momentum? For weeks, David Archuleta has been the only singer declared safely outside the margin of error by Dial Idol's analysis. After last night's show, we have three — DA, David Cook and Carly Smithson — and Cook is in first place.
I could easily see a DC/DA final and with it yet another battle for "Idol's" soul. And at this point, the show may well be ready to sell itself to Cook. We have heard a lot from the judges this season about wanting a more youthful, contemporary sound, with the implied message being that the same-old-same-old may not move enough CDs or iTunes downloads.
Or the show knows that DA will move a certain amount of product win or lose, but having him lose while DC wins could set up a Clay/Ruben situation — and, to get once again note a basic reason for "Idol," two biggies will sell more units than one. On the other hand — and I always try to remember the other hand — it remains to be seen if DC has another performance like last night's in him. And the possibility of his winning could just mobilize the DA base to push their guy over the top.
Advertising Age reports that ad man Hal Riney has died. A full obit and a recap of his accomplishments is here. The man was involved in some pretty remarkable things. One that caught my eye was the origin of the Carpenter's "We've Only Just Begun" in a bank commercial. You can see a clip of the ad, and of songwriter Paul Williams talking about it here:
The intersection of commercials and the Carpenters doesn't end there, either. While I was YouTubing, I came across this piece:
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Always interesting to see pop groups of that era shilling products. I think my personal favorite (maybe available somewhere on YouTube, definitely on DVD) is of The Fifth Dimension standing on a giant box of Jell-O singing the praises of "the light, refreshing, anytime snack."
Am I the only one fed up with people whining about "arrangements" on Idol? These young people are in a SINGING competition, not "music arranging" contest. Most of them probably can't even read music!! Yet, after every quality performance (i.e. Cook's Billie Jean & other numbers, Arch's Imagine…), people get on the 'net and scream that it's someone else's "arrangement." Who cares? The artists are almost always, always credited on the show, and they probably sell more tunes because of it.
Yes, the judges call certain performers "creative," but they have to be to able SING the unique arrangement, don't they? Does anyone in their right mind actually think these kids are composing elaborate arrangements during the few days between shows? Give me a break.