Create Your Own Americal Idol : How To Manipulate The Public For Fame And Riches

After several years of watching Pop Idol (as it’s known over here in the UK) and it’s American equivalent, I am now ready to present my guide to creating your own guaranteed ratings winner, super successful talent show that is a sure fire way to make you a millionaire several times over.

1: People Like To Watch People Being Humiliated

Never, never underestimate the essential cruelty of your audience. If they don’t get to see mentally unstable people attempting to sing or some hopeless case being savaged by the judging panel, then they are going to change the channel.

Luckily, you can avoid this fate by recording absolutely everything from every audition for your show. That way you can focus on the untalented, the mad and the truly disturbed as much as you like.

2: Bring Me The Homeless Orphan With The Lisp

Right from the start, you need a human interest story to keep the attention of your audience from week to week.

Actually, you will need 4 or 5 of these during the show’s run, but before the finals, you only need one really good one to hold the interest.

As this is early in the show, your first story has a sad ending. Yes, despite overcoming being homeless, parentless and having a lisp, the cute female orphan who walked 17 miles barefoot to the audition unfortunately doesn’t make it to the final 12.

She is, of course, rejected at the final hurdle with the words “it was a tough, tough decision…but with your drive, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you in the future”.

By that point, your homeless orphan has served her purpose and the fact that she sang flat is no longer a problem.

However, the controversy caused by this will generate lots of press interest, headlines and water cooler comment, thereby increasing your audience share still further.

3: You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

The golden rule is ‘keep people watching’. The more people who watch, the higher the networks charge for advertising and the more money you will make for your show.

Let’s face it, on it’s own, a bunch of amateurs singing bad Karaoke is not enough to keep people tuned in.

That’s why you need to be very careful when choosing your judges.

You need at least one really self-obsessed, opinionated egomanic (other than you) otherwise you won’t be able to convincingly fake an ongoing hate-hate relationship. This will inevitably lead to an onscreen confrontation that results in at least one judge ‘quitting’ the show.

This, again, creates more press, more interest and higher ratings. Obviously, your co-judge returns 2 weeks later, again boosting the ratings of your show.

4) I Am The Spawn Of Satan…And You Are My Puppets

As the creator, main judge, promoter, executive producer, record label owner and all round Svengali of your show, you don’t want to come across as arrogant and dictatorial. Heaven forbid!

That’s why you need to hire a judge who is essentially a decent human being who tends to see the positive in things.

A former, but not major, pop star is ideal for this.

This person’s role is to be unremittingly positive about performances, regardless of quality. That will allow you to bully them to the point of tears. Thereby creating more press, more controversy and higher ratings for your show.

There is, of course, always the possibility that this judge will genuinely want to quit. At that point, you’ll need to remind them that their entire career rests on your good graces.

5) The Public Decide…What You Say They’ll Decide

Unfortunately, in order to create a truly successful talent show, you will actually need some genuine talent. You do want your viewing public to care about who wins. But what you don’t want is that the public choose a winner you don’t want to win.

That would be catastrophic. After all, you are a highly paid music exec and they are just the public. Their job is to buy whatever you put in front of them. That’s it.

That’s why you don’t allow public voting until the final, even though the money you would make from the phone calls would add an extra million or two to your bank balance.

Luckily, because the other judges are, in effect, paid employees, you can always ensure that the final two are, at the very least, the two contestants you would like to win.

6) Milk It ‘Till It Hurts

Don’t forget that every contestant is your property - you’ve signed them all to short term deals, so force them all out on tour together, and collect another $1million.

Combine this with DVD sales, download, album and merchandising sales for the winner (and runner up, most likely) which are going to be huge as your music buying public has both watched them on TV for months and voted for them to win.

You can see that the path to riches is yours. All you need is a bunch of crazies, one semi-talented, fame hungry youth and a talent show. Go to it !

You Named Me What?

In the Sixties, inspired no doubt by industrial strength LSD, otherwise normal people started naming their children ridiculous things like ‘Sunbeam’ and ‘Starshine’.

Thankfully, time has moved on. Now, it seems, it’s only the most self-obsessed celebrities that give their offspring names you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. And here are 10 of the very worst.

10: Apple and Moses

Tiresome, self-satisfied musician Chris Thingy and tiresome, self-satisfied actress Gwyneth Paltrow clearly thought that Apple was an appropriate name of a girl.

They then went one worse by calling their second child after the father of the Israeli nation, Moses. What were they thinking?

9: Moon Unit

Frank Zappa’s eldest daughter was lumbered with the name Moon Unit. Of course, she followed in family tradition by calling her own daughter Mathilda Plum.

8: Jermajesty

Just to disprove the idea that Michael was the only ‘Wacko Jacko’ brother Jermaine called his son ‘Jermajesty’.

7: Kal-El

Elvis and Superman fanatic Nic Cage called his first born ‘Kal-El’, which apparently was Superman’s birth name. It seems Elvis Superman Presley Cage was too obvious.

6: Moxie Crimefighter

Magician Penn Jillette’s first child. This is a girl’s name, apparently.

5: Lark Song

The choice of ’60s throwbacks Mia Farrow and Andre Previn.

4: Fifi Trixibell

First of two entries for Paula Yates - Fifi is the daughter of that nice Sir Bob Geldof , who really should know better.

3: Princess Tiaamii

British glamour model Jordan and her ridiculous ex-pop star husband Peter Andre thought this was a great idea for a child’s name.

2: Sage Moonblood

Sylvester Stallone was obviously reading a lot of Conan books when he named his son this.

1: Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily

Possibly the worst children’s name in the history of mankind. Proud parents : Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence.

21 Reasons The Stones Were Better Than The Beatles Part Two

OK, following on from part one of 21 Reasons The Stones Were Better Than The Beatles here, imaginatively enough, is part two.

8 ) That George Martin Was Good, Wasn’t He

Let’s face it. Lennon and McCartney were good with a melody, but certainly weren’t the musical geniuses everyone thinks.

A large percentage of the arrangements and innovative instrumentation was down to their producer, George Martin.

Strip away a lot of that stuff and many of the songs don’t stand up anywhere near as well as the best of The Stones.

9) Still Got The Blues For You

A lot of the comments regarding part one of this article argued that The Stones were little more than a derivative blues band, while The Beatles were innovators.

The thing is, at the outset of both bands career, both were little more than copyists. The Beatles just played the latest pop hits (Twist and Shout, etc.) while The Stones played the blues.

The Stones, however, always had an authentic touch when playing differing styles of music as their career developed. They could do blues, country (’Wild Horses’, etc.), reggae, rock…everything they did sounded right. Largely because Keith Richards just has a natural affinity for music in a way that McCartney and Lennon didn’t.

The Beatles, by contrast, just played pop music and, um, music hall.

10) In The Studio…No One Can Hear You Scream

The Beatles may have been a fairly good live band, but they threw a strop somewhere around 1965 because the screaming was too loud and they couldn’t hear themselves properly.

The Stones would have just bought bigger amps. Let’s face it, from the footage available, it’s clear that The Beatles weren’t anywhere near in the Stones league as a live band. The Stones were, probably even still are, the greatest live act in rock n’ roll.

11) They Influenced Who ?

OK, it’s undeniable that The Beatles have been a huge influence on popular music for, well, ever.

However, let’s have a quick look at the bands that followed the Beatles as part of the Merseybeat sound they popularised.

Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and The Swinging Blue Jeans. Rubbish, one and all.

Not to mention the fact that they helped kick start the musical career of Cilla Black.

By contrast, The Stones helped kick start the musical career of Marianne Faithful and the bands that followed them from the London r n’b scene included The Kinks, The Who and The Yardbirds.

12) OK, We Give Up

The Beatles lasted about six years, giving us a few good albums and lots of great singles. And then, well, they just gave up because they couldn’t really be bothered anymore. Listen to ‘Let It Be’ and you’ll hear the sound of a band who can’t be bothered.

The Stones, of course, are still going. While, admittedly, they haven’t done anything worthwhile in the last twenty years, they continued growing as a band way after The Beatles split and put out great album after great album well into the 1970s and even one (Tattoo You) in the 80s as well.

13) The Beatles Wrote The Worst Song Ever…Official

In 2004, a BBC released poll voted Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da the worst song ever. That’s because it is. Although Octopuses’ Garden runs it close…and Hello, Goodbye isn’t exactly the work of genius either.

14) Coyness Is Not An Attractive Feature In Grown Men

Both the Beatles and The Stones took their share of drugs. Well, Keith Richards probably took your share as well, but I digress…

Nevertheless, the coyness of the Beatles about the drug use was very far from endearing and smacked (pun intended) of a fear of losing their cuddly, family friendly image.

The Stones never allowed such concerns to get in the way of industrial quantity drug mis-use.

My Humps…Reinvented

While I’m recharging my batteries ready for the second part of ‘Why The Stones Are Better Than The Beatles’, I came across Alanis Morrisette covering that Black Eyed Peas monstrosity ‘My Humps’.

For all I know this has been doing the rounds on the web for weeks, but in case you haven’t seen it, here is La Morrisette’s fantastic reintrepretation of that appalling load of old tosh :

21 Reasons The Stones Were Better Than The Beatles : Part One

As the Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce case draws to a close, it is almost inevitable that Sir Paul is frequently referred to as a musical genius and an integral part of The Beatles.

Half true…for sure. He was, of course, an integral part of The Beatles. Now, don’t get me wrong - I like The Beatles a lot. And I agree with those people that say “anyone who doesn’t like The Beatles is either deaf or lying”.

Nevertheless, The Beatles were - and are - overrated. Here is the first part of my 21 reasons why The Stones were better than The Beatles :

1) The Stones looked cooler

What’s this got to do with music? Everything. Keith and Mick were just cool - McCartney was a lovable, cheeky Scouser and Ringo was even worse.

2) The Wives and Girlfriends

The Beatles wives were partly responsible for their breakup. The Stones kinda shared and shared alike (Anita Pallenberg and all).

3) The Lyrics

The one thing that rarely gets mentioned about The Beatles is their lyrics. This is because, with only one or two exceptions, they are awful.

Here’s a few excerpts:

From Hello, Goodbye:

“You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don’t know why you say goodbye when I say hello, hello, hello.
I don’t why you say goodbye when I say hello.”

From Strawberry Fields Forever:

“No one I think is in my tree,
I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can’t you know tune in.
But it’s all right.
That is I think it’s not too bad. “

There’s much worse than this, of course, but you can find all the Beatles lyrics here - if you must.

By contrast, The Rolling Stones were pretty accomplished lyricists. Here’s a few excerpts:

From Salt of The Earth :

“Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead”

From I Can’t Get No Satisfaction :

“When I’m watchin’ my TV
And a man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarrettes as me”

Lots more great Stones lyrics can be found at this website.

4) The Drummer

Ringo Starr is an amiable, likeable scouser. Unfortunately, what he is not is a good drummer. In fact, he wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles.

I’ve heard all the revisionist nonsense about Ringo’s abilities over the last few years, but that’s all it is: nonsense.

By contrast, Charlie Watts is a fantastic drummer. His minimalist style in The Rolling Stones often hides his natural jazz style, but what he does in the Stones is always, always perfect.

5) The Novelty Songs

When you’re five or six years old, ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘When I’m Sixty Four’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and the like are fantastic songs. In pretty much the same way as ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ is fantastic poetry.

The fact is, though, that The Beatles novelty songs are, frankly, embarrassing. They’re generally awful music hall pastiche with - in far too many cases - the tone deaf Ringo singing.

The Stones avoided this trap and thank God for that.

6) Self-Indulgent Rubbish

While The Stones are responsible for the execrable ‘Satanic Majesties Request’, there is nowhere near the level of self-indulgent rubbish as that churned out by The Beatles.

‘The White Album’, for example, is four good songs plus an hour of tiresome half-written rubbish, like ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’.

Is this really the work of the best band in the world ever? Nope…it’s just rubbish from a bunch of self-indulgent millionaires.

7) Where Did They Hide The Good Albums

The Stones recorded ‘Beggars Banquet’, ‘Sticky Fingers’, ‘Exile on Main Street’, ‘Goats Head Soup’ in succession.

The Beatles made only one really consistent album - ‘Sargeant Peppers..’. The rest were pretty ropey (Let It Be, The White Album, Revolver…some good, some bad on all).

I hope you enjoyed this first part of a three part series. Part two is here.