Word: idol
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Every kid dreams of being a rock star - or at least a winner on Pop Idol - but few parents want to endure the cacophony from their very own Sheryl Crow-in-training. The new HandBand ($90) from KGI Consumer Products offers a cheap alternative. Using nothing more than a high-tech pair of gloves and a portable, wireless receiver, it lets kids play virtual guitar, keyboards or drums at less-than-earsplitting volume. Each bend of the finger produces a different note; you switch instruments with the push of a button. It's a great idea, but the execution needs...
...still nominally a music channel. But in the era of J. Lo and American Idol, The Osbournes and the Michael Jackson circus, being a music channel does not mean being about only music. Says MTV Networks Group president Judy McGrath: "Music culture is now a place where you'll find Liza Minnelli and OutKast and the Queer Eye guys on the same stage." So a popular VH1 subgenre is shows about current celebrity culture only tangentially related to music--Fabulous Life of ..., 100 Hottest Hotties and so on. "I was in Puerto Rico at our sales meeting," says VH1 president...
...hitmaking days of American Bandstand, and music itself has less of a monopoly on youth culture. Now it is part of an amorphous entertainment blob in which the boundaries between TV, movie and music stardom are fuzzier than ever--a fact best exemplified by reality-TV shows such as Idol and the crossover celebrities they create...
...studio performances (Missy Elliott, Enrique Iglesias) and celeb gossip. It's like Total Request Live but older, or Entertainment Tonight but with more screaming fans. Granted, nobody asked for either one, and On-Air was shaky in its first week. Seacrest may be better suited to the more controlled Idol than to unpredictable live variety. When Richie brought a pair of goats with her to plug her rural reality show, one of the beasts did what well-fed goats do, all over the stage. Another talk host might have improvised a zinger out of the barnyard blooper; Seacrest just seemed...
...Grins aside, Seacrest is a driven worker, waking at 6:15 a.m. and ending his days late, bouncing between Idol, On-Air and Top 40 (taped across the hall from the On-Air studio). "I have never seen anyone work so hard at so many different things," says his idol-consigliere Clark. "People don't realize that guys who do this are smart. You've got to have brains to make it look easy." And as Clark should know, a nice head of hair doesn't hurt either. --Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles