and now something about... American Idol

Yeah, I watch it. Almost addictively. I have seldom voted (more on that some other time, maybe). I don't buy or make a point to listen to the music made by previous seasons' winners. But I watch it, every week. If you're not watching it this season the following will mean very little to you.

So, these days there's a contestant, Chris Daughtry (the bald guy). He's technically a very fine singer with a powerful "rock" voice a' la I can't think of a name to drop here. Anyway, much is made of his "originality," and I suppose that's true, in the context of the show. And I like him, not my favorite, but whatever. But a couple things bug me. Two weeks ago was "Stevie Wonder Week," where all the contestants were required to perform a Stevie Wonder song. Chris chose "Higher Ground." He was familiar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers' excellent version and was pleased to find out that it was "actually a Stevie Wonder song." That's fine, he's a young guy. So he performed it, quite well, but pretty much the exact same arrangement as the Chili Peppers' version. Judge Simon Cowell praised his originality. I guess that's fine too, maybe Simon never heard the Chili Peppers' version. Which, uh, was the exact same... you know.

This past week Chris performed Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." He did it in a kinda dark, alterna-rock way that was pretty interesting, and once again one of the better performances of the night. Partway through I realized what bugs me about Chris.

Think back to the height of the mid-90s alternative rock explosion. There was some damned good music on the radio again -- Pearl Jam, Nirvana, even cool bands I never thought would ever be on commercial radio, like the Butthole Surfers, Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets. But this same boom also gave birth to bands like Candlebox, Live (damn you Ed Kowalczyk), and way too much similarly glossy, overwrought, precisely-market-segmented, um, crap. Pretty much the Foreigners to Pearl/Nirvana's Zeppelin, if you will.

So yeah, partway through Chris' latest emotional performance I remembered. I really, really hated Candlebox.