Do Not Enter the American Idol Songwriting Competition

Posted by thefunnystone on March 27th, 2008 at 12:58 PM
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The lame songwriting contest is back on American Idol this year. Should you enter? Of course not! AmericanIdolExposed has a great site that explains just why you shouldn't waste your time. Among the reasons:

  • The contest promotes itself as finding "amateur" or "undiscovered" songwriters, but that isn't the case. The winners of the contest last year, Scott Krippayne and Jeff Peabody, had already written 14 number 1 hits and 20 top 10 hits for artists like John Tesh, Jaci Velasquez, and Rebecca Saint James.
  • 10 different songwriters who made the short list last year had prior working relationships with either American Idol judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, American Idol bandleader Rickey Minor, American Idol Host Ryan Seacrest, a former American Idol finalist, or Fox Television.
  • Idol made $ 250,000 last year by charging each of the 25,000 entrants a $10 fee. Why charge a fee to enter a contest that's rigged for professional songwriters anyway?

Notice how when the voting starts up, the songwriters aren't listed? How have the plants infiltrated everything associated with American Idol? Isn't it about time American Idol stops blatantly lying to its viewers?

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scoobsnack
Posted: March 29, 2008 - 2:49am
Joined: 29 Mar 2008

Well John Tesh released a couple of Christian albums on the same label as Jaci Velasquez and Rebecca St. James.

Syrup-y ballad-y crap for singers who aren't songwriters.

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Zoiks.

MissManaged
Posted: March 29, 2008 - 10:43pm
Joined: 29 Mar 2008

"10 different songwriters who made the short list last year had prior working relationships with either American Idol judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, American Idol bandleader Rickey Minor, American Idol Host Ryan Seacrest, a former American Idol finalist, or Fox Television."

What? And they still are crappy songwriters!

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“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
Simone Weil

TheDancingCookie
Posted: March 30, 2008 - 3:45pm
Joined: 11 Apr 2007

That was a notoriously catchy song. I ended up singing it for days afterwards...

I mean, it was better than Paula's latest single...

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Playing the role of my avatar today will be a kitten.

TheDancingCookie
Posted: March 30, 2008 - 3:49pm
Joined: 11 Apr 2007

That would be blessed relief, if I have to see him in another one of those low cut v-neck tops which show off his man-boobs I'm going to lose my lunch.

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Playing the role of my avatar today will be a kitten.

catperson
Posted: March 30, 2008 - 4:02pm
Joined: 19 Feb 2008

Thanks for that information. That really sux...but nothing about AI surprises me anymore.

PaulaJackson
Posted: March 31, 2008 - 10:24am
Joined: 31 Mar 2008

Wow..This is some pretty disturbing news.
It's hard to believe that they can get away with this.
This makes me so mad!!!!
AehtMrenniwEfoRehtIdnocesClaunnaA8002NnaciremaIlodiDgnitirwgnosO
tsetnocLlliwEebXetanPynapmacOybSetanEetteniborDdetadhcram0380023411mp
Ooops my 2year old daughter seem to agree..lol

Museishin
Posted: April 13, 2008 - 8:37am
Joined: 13 Apr 2008

I was real excited entering into the contest. I finished writing the song a few days before the deadline and had only 1 day to record it. It came out so-so, but I thought the song itself came across. Many told me the song had a great chance - if not to win - to make the top 20.

The contest explains that you don't need a professional recording - just play guitar and sing into your computer, then record it as an mp3. Then I heard the 20 songs that were chosen. All pro quality productions. However, I was unimpressed with ALL of the songs (in the context of the competition) and am finding it really hard to believe that from all the submissions, these were the best they could come up with. Regardless, they'll really whoop the song up on the finale and force feed it to the public. I already pretty much know which song will win this year from that list.

It's clear that the submission guidelines is just a bunch of malarky. Not to mention that from thirteen 2007 song submissions, the songwriters had a prior relationship with someone from the show (be it Seacrest, Jackson, or even Ricky Minor from the band. And there were 25000 submissions last year. I entered on the final date, and from the invoice, it appears there were about 10000 this year.

Also worth noting: you can still see the song submissions from last year, along with the songwriter's bios online somewhere. This year, there are no bios, just a music player, song title, lyrics, and rating system. So the writers are not being revealed. In fairness, I don't know if that page I'm looking at from 2007 was put up after the contest - but if so, what's the point?

Anyway, I'm really dissapointed about the whole thing, and it's sad to see how much the music business continues to spoon feed the public with their own agenda. I learned long ago it's "who you know". Why should I have expected anything different?

This "scam" needs to be exposed at a higher level (such as on 60 Minutes).

As far as the talent contest goes, how Christie Lee Cook has outlasted Michael Johns and Chickezie is a mystery to me.

AI is toast.

jj000
Posted: April 17, 2008 - 5:19pm
Joined: 17 Apr 2008

What do you all think are the best few songs? and the worst few? I think some of the worst are "dream big" and "we're gonna make it"