Hi.
My name is Dutchg8r.And I’m an American Song Contest Addict.
tnocs.com contributing author and reality television song-contest-shows addict, dutchg8r
They got me. Hook. Line. And sinker.
Anyone else care to join me in my confession?
For those who are unaware, American Song Contest is yet another singing competition/reality/ phone-in-your-vote show that started on NBC in the US back in March, and just aired its finale May 9th .
When I first heard they were going to do this show, I asked myself, “How could this possibly be any different than the other 842 singing talent completion reality shows out there these days?”
“Yo Yo Yo, it’s da bomb diggity shizzle, fool,” our co-host Mr. Snoop Dogg might say.
“It worked for the Old World for 60 some years – Eurovision deserves to be Americanized y’all,” chirps our other co-host, Ms. Kelly Clarkson.
“God Help Us, really?!” I probably cried in disbelief, horrified at the prospect of American TV productions ruining another perfectly good, cheesy import.
But I couldn’t help myself. I had to peek.
I mean, it’s got Eurovision’s blessing after all; there might be a ‘JaJa Yankee Ding Dong’ just waiting for its time to shine. (I’d say “New Boot Scootin” came the closest, lol)
Not to mention, it’s got one of the most Neanderthal of all American mentalities driving it:
My State’s Better than Your State.
Beeeee-yahch. [mic drop]
So: Week One, I tune in. Oh, so we get not only one rep from each state performing an original song, but we’ve also got DC, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and a few other US Territories for good measure? Ok, ok… this is cool… Eleven states each week competing? Ok, that’s a good mix.
Wait, what’s this??!! They’re sneaking in a geography lesson with each performer, and giving state trivia facts? WHAAAAAT???!!!
That’s it, I’m done for. Music, a chance to root against California, NY, Texas and Florida, and fun with American Geography?
Sign me up.
So, our hosts are trying to find their footing, the crowd of 100 or so is doing their best to flail their hands against the rhythm of every song (notice how that crowd totally resembled a herded bunch of wayward tourists siphoned off of another line within Universal Studios?)
Each performer’s support section is given their own VIP booth like they’re at a gentleman’s club, with cheesy flags to wave of their state’s name. (Note to NBC – treating your viewers like morons who couldn’t possibly know what the state flags are, so you insult them by having everyone wave the same generic flag with the state’s name on it is NOT helping things).
I’m still apprehensive if this is really going to go well. And then they announce who’s got the express pass to the semi-finals after the first show:
Rhode Island.
That’s like Luxembourg winning round one of Eurovision. There’s hope for this contest being fair after all! Each week I came back, more invested in cheering on someone from Guam on, and secretly hoping that California bombs (which, unfortunately, was difficult to do cause they were actually pretty good)… you know, the normal, rational kinds of things shows like this will cause one to do.
And, did I mention they’re causing all the viewers to learn American Geography – without even realizing it????!!!
My favorites emerged in Week 4 – Ni/Co from Alabama. They’re an adorable couple, humble, love music and performing together, and they encapsulate everything the producers of this show are aiming for –
the ideal face of modern day America.
Once the semi-finals rolled around, the show started focusing on the songs themselves, which was a breath of fresh air. Lost in the pomp of this show is the fact that these are original songs being sung by folks already making a living as best they can by performing and doing what they love. So at the semi-finals, each performer was asked to single out the one lyric in their song that meant the most to them.
That alone catapulted American Song Contest to the top of the heap for me – all other shows are amateurs interpreting a song, and frankly, that’s been old for awhile now.
This is a most welcome change up in literally giving seasoned, mostly unknown performers a platform to express themselves.
So, Monday night was the finale. And what a welcome, eclectic group of 10 it was!
- Alabama: Ni/Co – “The Difference”
- American Samoa: Tenelle – “Full Circle”
- Colorado: Riker Lynch – “Feel The Love”
- Connecticut: Michael Bolton – “Beautiful World”
- Kentucky: Jordan Smith – “Sparrow”
- North Dakota: Chloe Fredericks – “Can’t Make You Love Me”
- Oklahoma: AleXa – “Wonderland”
- Tennessee: Tyler Braden – “Seventeen”
- Texas: Grant Knoche – “Mr. Independent”
- Washington: Allen Stone – “A Bit of Both”
A ‘K-Pop’ spitfire….. from Oklahoma. A Native American country chick from North Dakota. American Samoa! Michael f-in’ Bolton! Folks who have no business making it this far!!! (I’m looking at you,Colorado…) Such fun.
So, of this final group, I thought Tennessee had the strongest song (he was a country artist from Nashville, certainly knew how to write a great story in a song), but Ni/Co were the most riveting performance-wise, in my opinion.
An animated Professor Snoop explains the scoring rules, and I was lost 5 seconds in. Is Eurovision that convoluted??!! I mean, it’s probably the fairest way to approach ranking the results, but dang! It’s like listening to someone read out of an instruction manual for assembling a Swiss watch. Just nod and go with it.
Then I slammed the whole damn thing against the side of the workbench.
You’re all set. That will be $189, please.”
The results are revealed in 2 parts – the jury, and the voters. Jury consists of one professional musician from each state/territory, and they were broken up into about 10 different regions of the US. Each region then ranked their favorites from 1-10, so the jury results wind up based on the total number of points they collect from all the regions.
Soul Groover Allen Stone from Washington state was winning the jackpot; he was named at the top of the list by over half the regions. It was pretty evident the jurors appreciated heartfelt substance over flashy style based on their votes. But do not ever question the power of teenage girls and their quickdraw texting fingers……
Spoiler Alert, if you care!
Essentially, the board got completely upended. Those in the bottom half with the jury suddenly start receiving overwhelming popular votes and resoundingly vaulting over the jury favorites. For example, the jurors least favorite (as well as my least favorite because he was too fluffy eye candy-ish to look past him as being just an Up With People alumnus), Colorado, wound up in second overall, because no doubt teen girls just ate him up.
But there was definitely no doubt who the winner was, it really wasn’t even close. Your Eurovision West winner (aka American Song Contest winner) is…
AleXa, your newest KPop superstar, from that K-Pop hotbed of Oklahoma.
(Mom’s Korean, dad’s the country boy from Tulsa). And she is pretty good, it was cool to see her win. That was like having a country singer from Miami win, and I totally loved how polar opposite it was from our stereotypical views. Stereotypes do exist for a reason, but the exceptions are always the most delightful surprises.
And guess what! We wrap up just in time for Eurovision to kick off this week (Streaming live on Peacock for those of us Stateside). Now I might be able to appreciate the Eurovision madness a little better.
It’s like thegue just explained the rules of cricket to me, lol.
Did anyone else get sucked into the Ameri-vision like me? Non-US folks, you set for the 2022 Eurovision? Any tips on who non-European viewers should pull for?!
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I have never really watched these competition reality shows. I tried a couple of times, and I just couldn’t stand the camera closeups of the ones who got voted off. They had invested so much of themselves. I wanted them all to win even if they were really bad. Especially if they were really bad, actually. So, I will let you enjoy this one on your own (along with the millions of other people watching).
Even though these shows are not for me, I am glad that they provide entertainment for so many, and that they offer an opportunity to a lot of people who might not otherwise get even a chance to be noticed.
Oh I’m totally with you, ltc, on the horrid camera closeups where you know the producers are chanting in the back room “cry, CRY dammit!”. I haven’t watched a show airing live in years – I dvr most everything anymore so I can skip through the ads and especially on a live show with waaaay too much filler. Did that for the NFL draft the other week – just fast forwarded to “The Pick is In” for each selection, made a 3 hour show an enjoyable hour for my viewing pleasure!
I think I know more about singing competition shows than I do about any given sport…but only a little bit more.
I haven’t seen Eurovision or the American spin-off, but the production on such shows (like with today’s game shows) tends to be so heavy-handed that I can’t really take it. But I have seen some key viral clips, your Kelly Clarksons, your Susan Boyles, and even your William Hungs and Larry Platts.
I actually prefer those “bad” performances most of all, because they’re closer to what fun novelty pop music used to be, and they have a quirkiness and roughness that no amount of production gloss can smooth out. Not to mention, “Pants on the Ground” is a killer ear worm.
Weirdly enough, people used to stop me and say that I look exactly like Dave Cook, back when he was popular. I definitely don’t look exactly like him, but I guess I can see the resemblance at certain angles. Still, a rather strange thing to experience.
I gave up watching American Idol probably 12 years ago, and I don’t think I’ve watched more than about 10 minutes of The Voice collectively over all their seasons. I’ve seen a few episodes of The Masked Singer here and there, but most of these reality shows anymore are just dull filler around a 5 minute SNL-type skit that might have some substance.
Now, Forged in Fire on The History Channel??!! That’s AWESOME! I’ve learned so much about blacksmithing, and knives, and swords, and you get to see them literally test slicing and dicing stuff up, it’s such fun. That’s the kind of reality shows I’m into these days – it’s different and I can learn something new. The more obscure the better!
Back in my post college – pre MrDutch days, I would regularly go hang out at a friend’s house to watch Iron Chef. This was back when The Food Network first staring airing them, the original Japanese versions that were dubbed. It made for fantastic Happy Hour/Evening viewing. Required Drink whenever the Man On The Floor would butt in with his “Squisan!” or whatever he was saying to relay some fascinating tidbit about how the competitor was choosing to broil his lettuce with lemon juice or something bonkers like that…
Oh yeah. Iron Chef, Top Chef. And my favorite, Bake Off/Great British Baking Show. You can’t go wrong with skills based shows, especially skills that let me look at food.
Dutch, thanks for the shout out!
*Wife made me watch The Voice tryouts a few seasons. Didn’t mind it; didn’t watch when the teams competed against one another…and I’ve never watched a full episode of American Idol. I’m gonna be hella lost when Tom starts covering those songs…
I’ve watched most of American Idol (aside from the last several seasons of its Fox run), and *I’m* gonna be hella lost. Most of the coronation songs were either forgettable or just downright bad, and only Kelly Clarkson’s single got any significant airplay (and it’s still basically a footnote in her catalog).
Maybe mt can find that map someone put out a few years back (he’s good with treasure hunting on the web, lol) where some company did a data mine of Facebook to see what each state viewed as it’s rival – basically, a Who Hates Who of the US. It’s really quite funny, especially when you look at the legend to interpret the symbology, and see what the unique coloring for New Jersey represented –
“NJ Hates Everyone”
I can just see it now, an All American Olympic Games, and the NJ contingent walks in flipping everyone the bird and mooning the crowd….
Wisconsin would just be aghast. 🙃
Staters Gonna Hate:
Hot damn, look at that. 10 minutes, and he’s got it.
You da man, mt. 😎
Not in Trenton or Parsippany, I’m not.
They hate me there.
What I loved about NJ growing up next door to them was how unbelievably diverse the state of NJ itself truly is. Trenton could care less about Newark, South Jersey wishes everything in NJ north of Camden would get hit by an asteroid and obliterated, North Jersey has an even bigger chip on their shoulders than anyone in the 5 Boro’s across the Hudson and probably have never even been to their state capital Trenton (if they know its the capital at all…), and then there’s all the tomato farmers in the Pine Barrens mid state section who would rather not associate with anyone else in NJ and would be fine with placing a moat full of ill-tempered sea bass around their land. All in such a relatively small state to begin with!
Where’s Brigit??!! Our resident Jersey expert needs to chime in…
This is very useful background information for an outsider. Now if someone can fill me in on the reasons for the target of each states hatred that would be great. 😁
Easy answer? College football rivalries.
Honest!
An exception to that would be Indiana and Kentucky, in which case it is college basketball rivalries.
Well, and … Kentucky.
Yes.
Ha, I love the fact that Florida hates Florida. (Also, it’s true.)
Love the enthusiasm on show Dutch, you definitely get my vote! I read something a few weeks ago that this was happening but not seen any follow up this side of the pond so had no idea it was all over. I’m not so keen on singing contests but I like the geography lesson aspect of it. I love that the incongruity that the winner was a k-pop singer from Oklahoma.
As for Eurovision…..am I set for it? Oh yes, all set to ignore it. As a UK correspondent there’s a whole can of worms and continental politics to pick out of that – it would take far more space than is available here to explain all of the history, grudges and weirdness of Eurovision. As a kid we watched it every year, there were only 4 channels on the TV so there wasn’t much choice. The singing bored me but I liked the results part as each country in turn would dole out their points and the scoreboard would mount up and the leaders ebb and flow. Probably says something about me that my favourite bit of a singing contest was the statistics.
Last time I watched it in full was mid 90s. Last time I saw even a bit of it must be over 10 years ago. Its always had a kitsch value here, not something to be taken too seriously but it still offered the chance of a chart hit off the back of it. I’m not sure even the winners get anywhere near the charts now. The fact its seen as a bit of fun means the UK can brush off its dismal results for the last 20 years as we’re perennial combatants for last place now. Common perception is that its partly political and partly cos we keep entering terrible songs. The contest has changed now so countries have to qualify for the main event but for some reason UK and a few others get an automatic pass to the final. I think it has something to do with population, viewing numbers and amount of funding we give – or it could just be that the rest of Europe make sure we’re in the final so they can ritually humiliate our entrant. It sure ain’t for the quality of our music.
As for voting, each country generates its points allocation through 50% public vote and 50% jury decision. Tactical voting has always been prominent. Greece and Cyprus would always give each other big points and same with Denmark and Sweden. Good relations with the neighbours often trumps quality of the song.
I haven’t heard our sacrificial offering for this year. I’ve got plans Saturday night and they involve being nowhere near a TV. I’ll probably check the results Sunday morning just to see that we finished near the bottom and the reassurance that despite all the upheaval in the world these days some things in life never change.
Fantastic JJ, just the kind of summation I was hoping for from you!!! 😄
I think, to me, that’s the most fascinating thing about Eurovision – its not so much the songs as it is the centuries upon centuries of political and historical tension on display.
So the whole “We give our 12 points to…” thing is a Eurovision staple, eh? I have to admit, I was totally nerding out as well seeing those final points get tallied and the States just bounce around the board.
There was always the political element but with the end of the cold war it ramped things up a bit more. We got all the eastern European countries throwing off communism and celebrating by joining in (I’m sure that wasn’t their only motivation in tearing down the Berlin Wall but I guess the East Germans first sight of Western culture post wall may well have been a singing David Hasselhoff so Eurovision is perfectly in line with that). The break up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union into numerous countries has meant plenty more factions, voting blocs and not so friendly rivalries.
And for some reason, probably to do with money, Australia has been annexed by Europe – in Eurovision terms only.
Just looked at this years entries and in amongst the generically titled songs of love and hope there are these pleasingly ridiculous offerings;
Latvia’s song is Eat Your Salad;
Switzerland are responding to The Cure 40 years too late with Boys Do Cry;
Malta, which is where the live action Robin Williams starring Popeye movie was made, are singing I Am What I Am. I really hope its an update on Popeye’s; I Yam What I Yam;
San Marino are performing Stripper.
And best of all, those crazy Norwegians are represented by Subwoolfer singing Give That Wolf A Banana. The lyrics of which are quite something. I would love to read Tom deconstructing this.
https://genius.com/Subwoolfer-give-that-wolf-a-banana-lyrics
That’s like Daft Punk meets Ylvis with his What does the Fox Say?
That’s some seriously stupid poodoo.
I of course love it. GO NORGE!!!!
Somehow I just had a vision of East Germans tearing down the wall, hearing Hasselhoff for the first time, and wondering how quickly they could build the wall back.
Nice job, dutchg8r. Almost makes me feel bad for having missed it. (Still, I guess, there’s always Hulu.)