The competition heats up this week between the top 24 semi-finalists on Fox’ American Idol, and from where he sits, tough-talking judge Simon Cowell hasn’t a clue who’s going to come out on top.
“This time last year I would have sat here and said there’s a blond girl called Carrie Underwood who’s gonna walk it,” Cowell tells MediaVillage. “That’s not the case this year. I can argue for seven or eight people who could win the competition.”
It’s a sign of the overall caliber of talent in the series’ fifth season that Cowell readily admits he can’t spot a seemingly obvious winner. He does admit to an early favorite, though. She’s 19-year-old Kellie Pickler from Albemarle, North Carolina, who with her humble demeanor, big voice and longish blond hair invites immediate comparisons to Underwood.
The comparison brings a fast response from Cowell. “She’s more than that,” he insists. “She’s the person as a human being you want to do well. This is somebody you feel deserves a shot. [Pickler has spoken openly about her family problems.]
“I like this girl,” Cowell says. “I really do.”
With the collective talent of the semi-finalists so much stronger than during the show’s previous four seasons, it would seem that Cowell and fellow judges Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson must have raised their standards during the audition process. But Cowell says that the exciting end results of the initial talent search had more to do with looking for interesting “characters” and attempting to cast the show with diverse “personalities” than simply seeking talent.
“It’s a mixed bunch,” he says of the 24 young singers who begin competing in earnest this week. “It would be very easy to just put ten Carrie Underwood clones into the final. This year I [tried] to put in [people] whom I feel the public will be more interested in. I’ve got to tell you we were quite conscious this year of trying not to put the obvious twenty-four [semi-finalists] together. We tried to put people in who under normal circumstances would honestly never get a record deal, like the kid with the glasses who we call Mr. Potato Head [16-year-old Kevin Covais from Levittown, New York]. If he walked into a record label under normal circumstances [he would be told] ‘exit.’ But within a show like this he has what I call the Aaaah factor. There’s a place for somebody like that.”
Ever modest, Cowell says his emphasis on character places the performers he picks for Idol above those who appear on other prime time talent shows. “If you take Mark Burnett’s show, whatever it was called [Rock Star: INXS], they [the Rock Star competitors] are forgettable people. They’re not interesting. They’re just good singers. They’re what, background session singers? I could see a thousand of them every day if I wanted to. I want characters, personalities, the underdog in there as well as the obvious talent.
“I’m only interested in the person who wins, to be frank with you,” Cowell continues. “I mean, statistically when you look back on this show we’ve probably had close to 500,000 people enter American Idol over the years, and to date two people look as if they are going to have careers, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson. Those are horrendous statistics and they show you how difficult it is to do well in this business. That’s why I say, ‘Even if you’re good, it’s difficult. If you’re hopeless, forget it.’ The odds aren’t great here. You just look for somebody a little bit different, really.”
One person who made the cut this season because he is “a little bit different” is 17-year-old David Radford of Crystal Lake, Illinois, whom Cowell describes as “a crooner,” though he thinks “crooners” are at a disadvantage in the Idol competition. “The problem with somebody like [Radford] is [we] do ‘disco week’ and he’s singing Boogie Oogie Oogie as Frank Sinatra.” Cowell smiles at the thought. “It may be a bit of a problem. I like him. I like the fact that he seemed to be authentic. He genuinely loved that style of music so I was pushing for him to make the finals. I think he’s better than [season three “crooner”] John Stevens.”
Idol blasted out of the gate this season with ratings that were well above those of last year when it defied even in-house expectations at Fox. Recently, it has grievously compromised NBC’s telecast of the XX Winter Olympic Games and CBS’ telecast of the Grammy Awards in direct competition. Cowell says he’s not surprised.
“It’s a better show this year,” he states matter-of-factly. “I phoned through to Fox, to [entertainment president] Peter Liguori and [executive vice president, specials and alternative programming] Mike Darnell in the middle of the auditions last year and said to them, ‘Look, I have good news. I think this is going to be the best audition sequence you’ve ever had in terms of its rawness, its controversy, its wackiness, its talent.’ It just felt fresher than we had seen in previous years. Part of the reason for that was going to places like Greensboro [North Carolina] and Denver. It didn’t have that jaded feeling you sometimes get when you go to L.A., because [L.A. is] full of people who are used to going from one audition to another. You’ve got to have that naïvety which gives you the craziness, the excitement, the disappointment. So that’s my explanation as to why it’s done so well. And it’s only on once a year. People look forward to it.”
Tomorrow: Cowell talks about past Idol contestants, Clay Aiken clones, the Mandisa controversy and Paula Abdul‘s love life.
