kidmercury

I had all these thoughts about this show The Sing Off that I wanted to organize in writing, which I thought would make for a good blog post. So here goes.

First, just so you know the perspective I'm coming from, I must confess to having a weakness for the singing shows on television. Stupid singing shows and ESPN are the only TV I watch. Occassionally I'll be at a friend or family member's place and I'll watch the other propaganda, because that's what they believe in, but even that only happens once every couple months or so.

Anyway, NBC has a new singing show called The Sing Off. It's like battle of the bands but a cappella groups instead. Below is a commercial for the show that illustrates what it's about.


Here are the aspects of the show I found to be noteworthy in some way:

1. It's got a lot of American Idol similarities. See my previous post on American Idol.

2. In terms of artistic integrity, it's hard to take seriously. Basically would they let a guy like Kid Mercury go on and sing "Proud to be a Conspiracy Theorist" -- the answer is probably no. Instead they have a bunch of puppets all doing choreographed, pre-approved dance moves in their Sony-approved costumes. Stupid, lame, phony. So I don't take it seriously and was flipping back to ESPN regularly.

3. Sony Music owns the value chain. The prize for winning the contest is a Sony Music contract. So, Sony's interests will play a big part in how everything goes. As an example, the a cappella groups all do cover songs on the show; they are going to be picking from Sony's catalog. The entire show is a talent farm for Sony Music, which illustrates one of the elements of social media communities that we've talked about before.

4. The judges were Ben Folds, Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men), and Nicole Scherzinger (Pussycat Dolls). I was pretty impressed with the judges in some regards; at times they all had interesting thigns to say. Ben Folds is one super smart and educated dude, his game is very academic. I actually listened to some Ben Folds on Napster just because I was impressed with his comments. He has this one song about what it's like being a middle class white suburban kid, LOL, that is hilarious, pure genius. And I admit to being a Boyz II Men fan, they are very, very talented. So that was cool.

5. The judges were lame in some ways, though. First I wonder if they are all Sony acts, or getting this gig because they are somehow in the Sony family. If true, that shows how Sony's economic interests can drive the entire value chain, which we may wish to consider when thinking of how to position ourselves in media value chains.

6. It was also lame that the judges were modeled after American Idol. They had a white dude, a black guy, and a chick that was like omniracial or something, LOL, I don't know wtf Nicole Scherzinger is.

7. Speaking of which, Nicole Scherzinger is really hot. A little too much plastic surgery in my opinion, I sometimes find myself focusing on the unnatural perfection rather than her hotness. But she is hot. NBC is definitely playing the hot chick card here. She has some good things to say, but for the most part, she is not saying much and is sort of acting like a cheerleader. Would they have a smart chick who was butt ugly on the show as a judge -- probably not. You can debate the appropriateness or lack thereof of this, but I think NBC is going to do what they think will sell. The hot chick card is the oldest trick in the book, frankly the bigger risk is to bet against it (it is actually not even a trick at this point, it is practically in the textbook). Anyway, I just like to think about it from a "what is appropriate" perspective.

8. There is a group called The Belzebebubs that are contestants on the show, and have risen into the final rounds. Their name is a name for the Devil. If they win this show on NBC and Sony, the Christian Patriots (Christian fundamentalists always talking about the Bible and the New World Order) will have a field day about how it was all rigged. LOL, the funny thing is that when you study this conspiracy stuff there actually is a lot of truth to it -- you can see where they are coming from. Ultimately though I don't think you can get past religion until you study some of the extraterrestrial stuff, as well as the science related to the multiple dimensions of the universe (which helps answer many spiritual questions about life, death, rebirth, etc, as well as opening the door to a whole new field of technology, like time travel, telepathy, free energy).

That's about all I have to say on The Sing Off. Ultimately it is still phony in the sense that the performers will be too controlled, and that it is corporate-driven art rather than artist-driven art.

Unregistered

How can you have an acappella contest when none of the performers are actually singing live?