American Idol

I love American Idol and hate it at the same time.

Love it because I like hearing new voices and see how these people rearrange the songs and attempt to make them their own - which sometimes turns out horridly.

I like that it exposes younger audiences to different genres, and decades of music they may not normally have listened to. I really loved how David Cook changed up Lionel Richie's Hello last week and made it a cool rock song and then did the same this week with Eleanor Rigby.

But here's what I don't like. I love Jason Castro - how cute is he? but I digress... He did Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah - covered by Jeff Buckley in the 90s.

This is one of my top 10 songs of all time. I thought Jeff Buckley was MY generation's secret and I liked it that way.

Do these young kids really understand the exquisite beauty that is Jeff Buckley's version? Do they really appreciate the Grace album? They are all just downloading that one song - missing out on other fantastic songs like Last Goodbye, So Real, and the title track on that album. This album needs to be played in it's entirety from track 1 to 10. I'm not against Jason Castro and mostly I have really liked the songs he has sung on the show - although for me Hallelujah fell short - no one can do it like Jeff Buckley.

After last night's Beatles episode (the Lennon/McCartney songbook) I wonder if a bunch of Beatles songs will become the top downloads on iTunes? I was surprised how several of the kids singing hadn't heard many Beatles songs. How is this possible? I grew up on this music. My very first album in 1978 was a McCartney album. I treasured it and played it over and over. It still plays pretty well - only 2 scratches on the whole album (mostly I listen to it on mp3 now). But then I realize these kids were born in the 90s! They clearly missed out on some of the greatest music ever. Plus to me, if you want to be in the music industry - don't you have to appreciate all kinds of music? Don't you have to take some music theory? Listen to the greats? Learn the history?

David Archuleta gets up there last night and says I've never liked oldies and I don't know any Beatles songs or like them. With hundreds of songs written by them surely a person can't hate all of them? They changed music. It so many ways they influence what it is even today. They have some of the top albums/songs of all time even today. Yesterday is the most covered song in the world. The world. Which by the way, was a song I thought was right up David's alley. THAT'S what he should have sung last night.