Word: idol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Twenty-eight million people watched Kelly Clarkson win the first installment of American Idol in 2002. While "28 million" and "winner" are positives in the context of reality television, singing the swollen talent-show ballad A Moment Like This in a prom dress with mascara cascading down your face is not the kind of thing that endears you to cool-conscious pop-music fans. Just in case Clarkson's victory tableau didn't create enough skeptics about her chances for a successful recording career, she followed it up with From Justin to Kelly, a monstrous Idol movie musical that...
Compared with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, Clarkson is almost always portrayed as a wholesome, unsophisticated girl with an outsize natural talent--a bumpkin with a gift. She really was a cocktail waitress at a comedy club in her hometown of Burleson, Texas, before an Idol audition started her on the road to fame, but it's rarely noted that Clarkson already lived in Hollywood (she was only in Burleson because her apartment burned down), or that, as a demo singer for Gerry Goffin, the ex-husband of Carole King and co-writer...
...Clarkson did something unusual for a reality-show contestant--she let her 15 minutes elapse. Thankful wasn't released until seven months after her big TV moment, giving her and RCA records chief Clive Davis time to figure out how to balance the expectations of people who wanted an Idol souvenir with those who demanded signs of artistic growth. The finished product was a pleasant trifle that alienated no one and produced a deserving hit, Miss Independent, but it didn't earn Clarkson much capital with RCA or her management firm at the time, 19 Entertainment. (19, the company owned...
...didn't need to be cautioned to stay out of the tabloids; a big night out for her is Chili's and a movie with friends.) The Firm fought to make sure that RCA promoted Clarkson's music at radio stations and in stores and removed American Idol from her official bio. (A recent controversy in which Idol judge Simon Cowell alleged Clarkson had not authorized her songs for use on the show appears to have been a misunderstanding; Clarkson says she allowed their use as soon as she was asked.) The Firm also counseled her to go back...
...attract their interest (and dollars). More importantly, "StarTomorrow" takes NBC further into the realm of digital entertainment. ?We?re a content company and there?s an awful lot of content moving towards the web. We need to experiment and find new things,? says Gaspin. Even, as with this particular "Idol" imitation, they're just experimenting with a new version of an old thing...