American Idol!, the Beatles & Michael Jackson, Six (No Three Degrees) of Separation

As huge a show as American Idol has undoubtedly become over the years, it would still appear that you need a hell of a lot of clout to wrangle permission to use certain songs from years gone by. And so it was with a self-congratulatory surge of breast-beating nostalgia that American Idol finally secured permission to use the songs of Lennon-McCartney & the Beatles, which just so happened to coincide rather nicely with 'Michael Jackson's' current financial hardships and his continuing efforts to keep the 'Neverland Ranch' from falling prey to overpaid British Soccer Players. Well, one anyway! I'm sure the coffers offered by the American Idol juggernaut cemented that deal toute-suite given Michael Jackson's constant need for the green stuff. Let us not forget that Mr. Jackson outbid Sir Paul McCartney many moons ago for the Copyrights to afore-mentioned Beatles catalogue and that only now, after many years of watching and listening to Beatles ditties accompanying TV ads have the chaps and chapettes at American Idol been able to secure their use.

Unfortunately for American Idol as the years go by so does culture's tastes along with the faded memories of things that once were. Most of the Beatles songs were written and performed not only before all the wrinkle free contestants were born but in some cases before the contestants parents (ergo: wrinklies) may have been born. Some of the Idol finalists looked positively bemused at having to sing 40+ year old tunes and a few seemed to have taken pot-luck with absolutely no affinity or point of reference with the songs available to them. Notice the absence of any surviving Beatles video-feed commentary on how the songs were performed. I'm sure Sir Paul is pissed off enough without watching his Beatles back-catalogue hung out to dry accompanied by the dodgy warblings of those young folks who were, to quote 'Laurie Anderson' 'A Hershey bar in their fathers back pocket' when the songs were written.

Thanks and Kudos must go to 'Simon Cowell' for refusing to be a sycophant to all the Beatlisms and post-mortem Beatle mania on display for an unfortunately protracted 2-day stint that probably seemed like a good idea at the time but lost its welcome rather quickly. The slower later ballads faired much better than the fast-tempo early songs which surely didn't cater to young American voice boxes. Some Beatle fans may have been offended that Simon dared to call some of the Beatles songs dreary and poor but in truth some were. More hit the mark than not but just compare 'Long and Winding Road' to the fey pop of 'Here comes the Sun' to see that not everything the Beatles produced was sprinkled with golden inspiration.

It might benefit AI to procure a more up-to-date musical catalogue from the last couple of decades with more relevance to today's musical tastes than those B&W years when Kennedy/Luther King et al. were busy getting themselves shot and martyred and spotty skinny British boys were on top of the charts.