[1neeto]

Originally Posted by tinnitus

I still like Voice and Idol for my own purposes. Are their song choices ludicrous more often than not? Absolutely. But we still see performers striving to deliver the goods to an expectant audience. Like the kids say, "I'm down with that." As a guitarist, that's what I did in performing hobby/garage/cover bands for decades. So it entertains me in more than a few ways. Cute girls and smokin' bands never hurt either.

Then... we see the hopeful writers on Songland, who've already homogenized their fare to get in lockstep with the latest radio fashion, hoping it will take hold with the experts and ultimately sell to a charming guest star. Watching several more layers of processing heaped on top of that can be informative (to a degree). But since most commercially viable music today is disappointing and boring, it's like seeing someone present a recipe for a dish on a cooking show, only to watch the experts substitute large quantities of their preferred ingredients in everything (regardless of the "original" theme) only because they know consumers will buy it in droves. IMHO, and back to music, while Scott Borchetta (for example) has made thousands of musicians into zillionaires and household names, he has single-handedly turned the Nashville music scene into an assembly-line of what I can only describe as nauseatingly bland "product."

To be fair, I can't really second-guess the unvarnished premise of the show... take something "original" and shove it through a processor to deliver (slightly) different versions of canned Spam. Of course the writers are humble, pliant and receptive! "Please, buy my song and get my name on The List." But, as a 1955 baby, captivated by everything interesting/revolutionary that happened to music well into the 70s, my opinion remains unchanged after sitting through a few episodes of Songland. The current insipid and predictable industry standard (yawwwwn) for promoting popular music just disappoints and bores me.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. There was a recent episode where they transposed a song from minor to major, and changed the melody because I guess writing in minor key can be depressing or something. It killed the whole vibe of the song IMO.