Word: idol
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Just when you thought reality TV couldn't sink any lower, on May 17 the WB will launch a show that takes a diabolical spin on American Idol. Created by Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor), Superstar USA duplicates Idol's format, down to the three-judge panel--this one includes rapper Tone-Loc, has-been pop star Vitamin C and snappish TV producer Chris Briggs--but judges kick the able singers off while promoting the earnestly talentless, off-key William Hung types. None of the contestants are clued in to the hoax until the end. "What's extraordinary...
...permanently into the soil. In an age when knob-twiddling producers rule and lip-synching pop tarts stalk the stage, she has reintroduced the world to the human voice. Jones is rooted by that libidoless, timeless and peerless voice--a calm, blue-tinted murmur that shies away from American Idol--style showboating. I like her jazzy, soulful first album more than her folksy, drowsy second. But in the serenity of her song delivery, this bold proclamation is issued: technology, publicity and sexuality have their place in music, but they are all subordinate to the pleasures and power of true vocal...
Simon Cowell is the Barry Goldwater of reality TV: in your heart, you know he's right. After a weak rendition of You Keep Me Hangin' On last month on an episode of American Idol, sweet-faced Leah LaBelle was told by Cowell to "pack your suitcase." The crowd booed him lustily. The next night Idol's army of home voters sent LaBelle packing. This is the Cowell paradox. Fans of Fox's megahit talent show--not to mention its contestants--have few kind words for the adder-tongued English judge. He's been jeered, doused with a glass...
Andy Lau, it turns out, is a lot like the rest of us. O.K., we don't have movie-idol looks and we don't make millions from crooning insipid love ballads to panting female audiences. But for a long time the iconic Canto-pop star saw his job in the same way most of us see ours: as a soul-deadening grind. Going back two decades, when he was starting in television, or to the mid-'80s, after he made his big leap into films, Lau was dogged by a sensation that he was sleepwalking through his performances...
...conflicted monk in a beefcake bodysuit in Running on Karma. In accepting the honor, Lau took the stage and proclaimed: "I love the film industry!" At last, he's developing a sense of his own worth. "The people who work in this business just classify me as an idol," he says. "But never mind. I am an artist...