Just turned on booby tubey and Tivo has Country Music Countdown Top 20 recording. So I zip through, and who is the "pick it or flick it" video of the week? Carmen Rasmussen...remember her? She was in Season 2 of American Idol. Anyway, she is a cute little blondie...Pickler like. And her voice is actually quite good. Great song and good video. I was impressed. Then I watched Kellie Pickler's new video, and she is actually quite good as well. Great song and very very touching lyrics about being abandoned by her mom. That girl just needs to lose the "i'm a dumb country girl" act. I saw her on CMT Insider and she was re-inacting the moment when she was on stage and her red high heel got stuck in the grate on the stage. Right there at a press conferenece she dropped to her knees...and of course non of the cameras could still get her in frame...dumbass. Anyway, this incident happened when she was an opening act for Kenny Chesney. OMG she got on his tour? I couldn't believe my ears. Anyway, check it all out at CMT.com if you care to. Now for those of you keeping count...there is a show called Nashville Star. And it is supposed to launch the next...you guessed it...Nashville Star. So far, only Miranda Lambert has come anywhere close to Carrie Underwood. And Miranda didn't even win Nashville Star, she came in second. How many Idol stars are selling records in the country genre...Carrie, Bucky Covington, Josh Gracin, Kellie Pickler, Carmen Rasmussen and I predict Kelly Clarkson will flip one day. I hope Phil Stacey turns country. He had a great voice... Did I miss anyone?
Happy Sunday...glad to be home from vacay...I'm on my 6th load of laundry...
2 comments:
I followed season 2, but do not remember her. Good for her though.
Dude - this girl was AWFUL, AWFUL on Season 2. Granted, I wasn't watching the show live when she was on (I started Idol in season 3 and then thanks to the magic of BitTorrent, downloaded season's 1 and 2 after the fact), but on my computer screen - she sucked ass. Of course, that was 4 years ago (spring 2003), so you know - she could be a lot better.
I'm not that surprised that Idol has turned out so many country "stars" (only Carrie counts to me - Pickler might eventually make it bigger, though I doubt it - and the others are nobodies), simply because, if I'm being honest (pulling a Simon), country isn't exactly the hardest type of music to sing - and it's the easiest to market. I've made no-secret of my disdain for most mainstream country acts, and although I can recognize talent in any genre - and there are some country songs/stars that I like quite a bit, despite their association with the Nashville Evil Empire (I'll spare you my rant on how much I hate the Nashville EE -- it's long-winded and boring), it's just not that hard of a market to penetrate and squeeze out a major or minor hit. Carrie is a legitimate country star (she's managed to avoid having the reality-winner label hurt her career - an amazing feat, so good for her!) and Miranda is certainly on her way, and because Nashville Star is on cable and not a juggernaut like Idol, she won't be hurt by her association with that either. That also explains why that show turns out less minor success stories -- it gets maybe 1/10 of the audience, certainly less than that if you count international ratings, and almost none of the major media exposure - Idol averages 30 million households, out of 110 million, twice a week - think on that,27% of US households tune into Idol...and that doesn't even address all of the other media coverage. Nashville Star is more akin to Idol season 1 (though even then, we're talking about probably 1/3 of the ratings...I think Idol 1 averaged 8 - 10 million viewers an episode, I don't have a ratings book in front of me, but I'd guess Nashville Star does about 3.5, and that might actually be overstating it - because 3.5 is HUGE for cable, we're probably more talking 2.2 - 2.7 range), meaning that success is more attributable to the actual talent of a performer (the same way Kelly's talent propelled her from Idol association to bonafide superstar) more than exposure or association with a show.
OK, so that was long-winded - sorry.
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