New Kara talent show to focus on singer-songwriters

[koganbot]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/10/26/kara-dioguardi-jewel-going-platinum-bravo

The series... will follow 12 musicians as they compete in songwriting challenges across a variety of genres — everything from dance tracks to love ballads... — and perform these self-penned tracks for the cameras.

I think that Kara likes to think of herself as a teacher and would like to give substantive advice in a way that American Idol didn't really permit. But I don't know if this sort of reality-show format will permit it either; it does have potential, however, since it might actually take one into the process of how good songs are constructed. But I'm skeptical about how telegenic that process is. What's going to grab the viewer? I would expect it's pretty rare to find an Ashlee-quality person with live-wire self-expression and an obvious connection between life and song, much less a houseful of such Ashlees.

Comments

[koganbot]

Worthiness seems like a definite danger here. A line of inferior Taylor Swifts would be a nightmare (Taylor's singing is simply impossible to copy). But strangely, most of the interesting Idol contestants over the last three years have been idiosyncratic singer-songwriter types; in order of preference: Brooke White, Didi Benami, Jason Castro (an out-and-out stoner), and Crystal Bowersox. Of course we didn't get to hear their actual songs. I got a pre-Idol indie album by White and the only track I liked on it was her cover of Aerosmith's "Dream On." I haven't yet risked her subsequent LP; one of my lj friends likes it, but I snoozed through the single. I'm still in awe of slight, nervous, girly Didi Benami being able to take on and take control of the Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire." She was eliminated early (10th place), so who knows if there even will be an album.