photo courtesy of CTV

This is a personal commentary about Canadian Idol and perhaps I’m outta line when I say. “YESS IT’S OUTTA HERE!”…but only for now.. I was just informed that Canadian Idol will not be on air for 2009 due to lack of garnering enough advertising revenue through these tough economic times. I know there is an abundance of fans who will miss the program, but it’s nice to take a break from all these mundane reality programs showing off decent to extremely terrible performances. Don’t get me wrong, it is part of the business to be frank with people who don’t have what it takes to become a professional performer and at certain times some of it IS entertaining. But after a few years of going through the same motion is it not getting a little old? We try so hard to create our own distinct Canadian identity, but for some reason we keep on circling back and imitating our American counterparts.

When I was a teenager we had the pleasure of listening to uniquely Canadian artists the likes of Sarah McLaclan, Bruce Cockburn and Tom Cochran which all of seemed to have disappeared on the radio. And in it’s place we have meaningless pop music. Is it not enough we listen and watch this kind of music on Canadian Idol, American Idol that we also have to listen to it on our radios as well? Is Canada lacking so much developed talent we have to create a glorified karaoke contest to find our next so called “Idol”. Perhaps its a statement from our Canadian government with all of their funding cuts from the arts that they are telling us “Alright folks you guys entertain yourselves…” .  I’m hoping we can fill this time slot with, i dunno, throwing this out in the air; “The Next Canadian Treasure” and show case the next Sarah McLaclan or some up and coming Canadian artist. There is a market for all music as long as it’s given a chance, all genres can share the spot light with every other genre and having choice was never a bad thing.

The bottom line is music is a business. What sells is a sexy female or hunky male performer singing about something, whatever it is they’re singing about. The bottom line is ratings. What attracts an audience? Laughing at people who get up on stage just to watch them fall on their face. Maybe pop music was not their strong point and perhaps they should be doing country or adult soft rock. Then again we’ll would never know because the only music these candidates have probably ever been exposed to is POP music and thats all they know. The bottom line is the market in it’s effort to sell products has over saturated TV and radio with one or two genre’s of music and thats all our children will ever listen to. Am I off track with this analogy? Should I take all of this with a grain of salt? I don’t blame the program for giving what people want and the candidates know exactly what they’re getting themselves into when standing inline to sing in front of a panel of judges. In the end Canadian Idol is pure entertainment and I give my apologies if I’m trying to defend the art that I love. POP music has its place and I listen to it too…sometimes… but not ALL the time… Trying to bring back the music of the Supertramps, the Midnight Oils and the Johnny Cashs of the world or finding the latest artists who perform with a certain meaning is perhaps a lost cause.

Now that we have that extra hr of freedom every week what are we as the audience going to do? I dunno, take that singing lesson you’ve always wanted to; pick up an instrument; perhaps write a song… Or how about we take that hr and do something most of us haven’t done in a long time… Why don’t we go outside and play.

Maybe we’ll see you back in 2010 Ben! .

Just a commentary,
CAS Admin