It's the Song, Not the Singer

MUSIC NOTES JD Buhl

It’s the Song, Not the Singer A song is but a little thing, and yet what joy it is to sing!

Paul Laurence Dunbar Nowhere is this more true than on American Idol. What joy it is to sing is suggested in the face of each contestant; their every grimace, groan, or grointhrust refers to an ecstatic state. But that little thing, the song, is further diminished by competitive attention to performance. Such tattered flags as “I’ll Be There” or “Without You” exist now for the sole purpose of wowing crowds hellbent on celebrity.

Earlier this year, Associated Press entertainment writer Derrick J. Lang noted what a Christian appearance Idol was taking on. At that point in the show’s eighth season, more than half of the 11 finalists were regular church singers, with three of those six employed as worship leaders. Reminding readers that several finalists have gone on to make gospel albums, Lang wrote that like this season’s Kris Allen and Danny Gokey, “many contestants throughout the past seven seasons of Idol have been Christian and either overtly or subtly showcased their faith.”

What an unfortunate choice of words.

American Idol is itself a showcase, a spectacular display of the earnest insincerity that so often defines America itself.

Though Idol has hosted its own songwriting competition, the broadcast that fills homes weekly is that of singers abusing songs once endowed with their own weight and meaning as a way of drawing attention to themselves. In a rare lead vocal on Pearl Jam’s No Code, guitarist Stone Gossard sings, “It’s all just inadvertent imitation ... all across this

nation/It’s all just inadvertent simulation, pattern in all mankind/what’s got the whole world fakin’ it.”

Subtlety is rare where histrionics are the norm. The Idol-inspired tendency to over-emote, a phenomenon known as “over-souling,” is inadvertent, almost innocent. One can feel sympathy for those straining to replicate something — call it soul — they may have only seen imitated, and doing so before millions of voters. Not content to be moved, viewers are in the position of calculating exactly how moved they have become.

It is here that the song is a little thing indeed. I get the feeling that performers on Idol hold words and melodies in suspicion, as if no combination of these arts can be trusted to do the job. The singers are not there to deliver the hard work of songwriters, to let that work speak for itself; they are instead there to deliver themselves. And it is not just the amateurs. During this season’s finale, Rod Stewart, once the greatest rock ‘n’ roll singer since Elvis, prostituted his “Maggie May” one more time. What began life as a poignant and pointed lyric, charting with concise details that confused region between passion and ambivalence, has become just another sing-along. Rod’s appearance was about Rod’s appearance, not the song that once broke hearts with its depiction of a dissolute schoolboy and the less-thanvirtuous woman he loves.

This subordinating of song leads to a loss of soul. Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine wrote in Image that “soul can’t be reduced to a formula or nailed down or explained or quantified, but every music lover knows when it’s missing.” My fear is that by voting for the most convincing simulation of soul, those who consider themselves music lovers are willingly contributing to its trivialization; they have signed off on the latest attempt to formulize and quantify this essential element of human communication. Detweiler goes on to say PRISM 2009

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that “soul gets tangled up with suffering, darkness, hope, forgiveness, awe — the slippery stuff of life.” The difference between a singer with soul and the “soul singers” one finds on Idol is “the difference between having sex and making love: physically, the same thing is being accomplished, more or less, but one invites the spirit in.”

What’s got the whole world fakin’ it? This leaving the spirit off the guest list. I would sound as stupid as Simon Cowell if I were to say that every Idol contestant’s life is devoid of suffering, darkness, hope, forgiveness, and awe.

But few if any know how to give voice to these human experiences by trusting a song to guide them. They are so busy over-souling that the possible succor of the words and music, their very intention of addressing these beauties, is lost.

In a conversation with Bay Area writer Lee Hildebrand, gospel star Hezekiah Walker spoke of his role as judge in a choir competition. Although technique, dynamics, and choreography were among the criteria, “spirit makes the difference.”

Gospel performers are bringers of the good news, “and we have to communicate that and make sure it translates. It can only translate with spirit.” Spirit is what Christians might call soul, and we all know how it hurts the heart and the ears when a gospel singer feels he or she has more of it than somebody else.

Precautions were taken to make sure that Walker’s event would not become anything like American Idol. Hildebrand was told by a sponsor spokesperson that judges were “not going to make fun of anyone or make anyone feel bad.”

Humiliation is central to Idol’s appeal.

Yet BeliefNet blogger Joanne Brokaw believes that “the fact that the line between Christian music and the mainstream is becoming more blurred makes it OK for people who are involved in worship to audition for a show like this and not feel like they are selling out or will be criticized.” Central, too, is sex

appeal. Kris Allen’s pastor, Brandon Shatswell, told the reporter Lang that he understands the “moral balance” his worship leader must assume for his antics, “especially after Paula Abdul gushed ... that Allen was ‘adorable/sexy’ and Cowell teased the smiley newlywed for introducing ‘the wife’ so early in the competition.” Pastor Shatswell, at least, has no problem with this.“He’s a good-looking guy ... [and] I was aware people were going to notice that,” he admitted. “If it gains him votes and favor, then I’m all for it.”

What is the real idol worshipped here? Self-expression. Even though many contestants and their fans are content to cover their bodies (what part of their bodies that they do cover) with brand names, they insist on self-expression as their primary right. Ours is a culture where the self and its needs are placed above all others, and the means to selfexpression — especially spoken and written English — are subordinated even further. In the realm of popular music, a certain set of body postures, facial expressions, vocal inflections, and melodic manipulations have come to represent a soulful self being expressed.

For the Christian, two risks present

themselves when entering this particular realm of “the worldly world”: inauthenticity and presumption. For Kris Allen, say, to go from leading worship to singing Michael Jackson — or even the National Anthem — on TV bestows upon him a certain authenticity. I think behind Brokaw’s brushing-off of criticism is the misguided effort to show the world that Christians are just like everybody else, a harmless subset of tattooed and toothy singers who just want to have fun. Such ingratiating integration of called-out ones, especially for those in their teens, often leads to more confusion than confidence. To what gods are their hopes, dreams, and desires being directed? Those of popularity and cleverness? It’s hard enough for kids to keep their identity rooted in Christ without their adorable/sexy worship leader singing in an overblown talent competition.

The presumption is that the Holy Spirit, that A&R man of the Trinity, follows ambitious Christians into whatever temple of self-expression they wander. The Spirit follows no one. Such foolishness is what Karl Barth warned against when writing of a church that “presupposes [the Spirit’s] presence and action in its own existence ... as though it had hired

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him or even attained possession of him.”

Or worse, such presuppositions fuel an unconscious effort to Christianize such secular pursuits. So we have Christians belting hymns to lust and loneliness with the same intensity as they offer praise to the Almighty.

And there is only one vote that matters. Gokey’s pastor, Jeff Pruitt, said at the time, “Honestly, we believe it’s in God’s hands. Danny is in a place in his life that he is trusting the Lord with everything .... He prays ‘Lord, I will go as far as you want me to go.’”Apparently that was as far as Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” In her book Free Range Kids, Lenore Skenazy reminds us that the job of television is “to terrify and disgust us so that we’ll keep watching in horror.” In that case, all is well. Another season of American Idol will bring its usual desecration of all this music-loving Christian columnist holds dear, sending me in search of theological ear-plugs. Created in God’s image we are; but not all of us are created in the image of Aretha Franklin.”

JD Buhl is a freelance writer based in the Philadelphia area.

in the mountains of Afghanistan, what is stolen is not only their lives but also their future. Young people need more to show for their lives than a flag-draped coffin or an altar of flowers and teddy bears on a street corner. Christian peacemakers must put as much effort and ingenuity into addressing the causes of violence at home as we do into challenging the wars abroad. To focus on one while ignoring the other is to ignore the incontestable connection between the two. n

Peacemakers” on page 22 for more information on the groups mentioned here.) Efforts like these need to be deepened and expanded to involve people of faith in efforts to address militarism and urban violence at their cultural core.

To do so is to live as people of hope.The prophet Jeremiah spoke into a particularly desperate situation in the history of ancient Israel. Like so many of the urban poor today, the exiled Jews of Jeremiah’s day saw little hope for change in their circumstances.Yet Jeremiah came proclaiming that God had promised them “hope and a future.”When young people die or are maimed, whether on the streets of an American city or

(Editor’s note: due to space limitations, the endnotes for this article have been posted at esa-online.org/Endnotes.)

Drick Boyd is an associate professor of urban and interdisciplinary studies at Eastern University, Philadelphia, Pa.

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