By Christina Radish
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Simon Cowell with girlfriend Terri Seymour at the Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Calif. on September 16, 2007.
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American Idol is back for season 7, with all-new hopefuls vying for a spot in the Top 12. Before they can make it to the finals, they have to make it past the outspoken, opinionated judges -- Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul. Cowell spoke with MediaBlvd Magazine about what to expect from the mega-popular Fox television series.
MediaBlvd Magazine> Is sitting through all of the bad performances worth it, when the winner gets named and it turns out to be somebody who’s very deserving?
Simon Cowell> Yes, it is worthwhile. Is it fun doing it? No. It is becoming increasingly like torture. You have to give most of the people who come in at least three or four minutes, but it has gotten harder over the years. What’s amazing, even after seven seasons -- and we’ve had some shockingly bad people this year -- is how much they still believe that they’re right and I’m wrong. They got more argumentative with me this year. All I’m trying to do is help them. But, I think that you have to have that mix within the show. If the audition process was completely sanitized, and everybody came in and was just competent, it would probably be the most boring show on TV. So, it’s fun for me to watch, but it’s torture for me to do it.
MediaBlvd> There are former American Idol contestants up for Grammys this year, including Kelly Clarkson and Ace Young, but on the flipside, you have two winners, Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard, who were just dropped by their label. What do you make of this kind of dispirit success?
Simon> I think it’s a reflection of the unpredictability of the record business where, fortunately, we have it right more times than we have it wrong. But, I’ve run a record label for 25 years and the one thing I know about this business is that it is horribly unpredictable. Ruben certainly would have been one of the ones you would have backed, at the beginning, to be on his third or fourth album by now, and it just didn’t work out. There’s no scientific or logical way of explaining why that happened. We are a reality show and what happens, at the end, is also reality. You have to take the knocks with the good things.
MediaBlvd> Do you feel that last year’s mentoring talent, such as Diana Ross and J. Lo, overshadowed the contestants?
Simon> When you run a 90-minute, or even a two-hour show, on American Idol, you actually haven’t got a huge amount of air time to do an awful lot of stuff with. Once you’ve done the judge’s comments and the singing, it’s very difficult for the audience to get to know much about the person. If you had asked me, “What do you know about the girl who won last year, other than the fact she’s a good singer?,” I couldn’t really tell you, and I was a judge on the show. I think that was also the same with the people who watched the show at home. We didn’t let the audience at home know enough about where the contestants live, and what their likes or dislikes were, because everything was about their chat with, Diana Ross or J. Lo, or whoever it was. I think this year, there will be more focus on the contestants and less focus on the person who is mentoring them that particular week. It’s a balance.
MediaBlvd> What other changes do you think we’ll see this year? And, have there been any disappointments in your mind about last season?
Simon> I think 90% of what happened on the show last year was very good. I’ve always said it’s a very well-produced show. But, as I said earlier on, we are completely and utterly reliant on who walks in the door, in terms of the quality of the contestants. So, most of our focus this year was to make sure that we got a better, and more interesting, top 12 than what we got last year. I’m pretty certain that we have that this year, and that’s the most important thing. There are also cosmetic changes. There will be a new set, which will be good. They tried a couple of bits and pieces in the Hollywood rounds of having people play instruments, which wasn’t particularly a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t think it made too much difference because we were lucky enough that the contestants were better, and that was the most important thing. On a show like Idol, you don’t necessarily want to make change for the sake of change. You have to evolve the process, and that’s what I think you’re going to see this year. You’re going to see an improved show with much better singers and more interesting contestants.
MediaBlvd> How do you feel about Jordin Sparks’ first album versus Blake Lewis’? What is your professional opinion of them, especially in the light of disappointing sales?
Simon> I’m naturally disappointed they didn’t sell more copies, or that either artist failed to catch on fire. That’s what you want. You want something like a Carrie Underwood or a Daughtry or a Kelly Clarkson, where they’re competing with the Mariahs and everybody else. It didn’t happen. Am I surprised? Not particularly. The record business is incredibly unpredictable. You literally have to give the public what they want, and the public decided this year that wasn’t necessarily what they wanted. So, we have to try and do that this year, and I’m confident that we will. But, we are absolutely in the lap of who walks in the door, and there’s nothing much we can do about that. Having gone through six months of auditions, Hollywood rounds and narrowing down the field, I genuinely think we’re going to be in a much better place in six months time than we were last year.
MediaBlvd> Do you have any personal favorites from this year?
Simon> I’m not going to name any names because I always get into trouble for doing that. There are luckily three or four very strong guys and three or four very strong girls this year. It’s probably going to be one of the most open competitions we’ve ever had. I can’t call out a winner, at this stage. In my mind, I have an idea who could make the finals, but I’m not going to give anything away at the moment.
MediaBlvd> How are you guys keeping things fresh, going into your seventh season?
Simon> Remind yourself that we are not actors, that we’re here doing what we do in our day job. Remember that you’re making a reality show. Don’t take it too seriously, don’t be politically correct, and try to say what you hope people at home are thinking. That’s what we’ve done over the years. We never go into the year-on-year with a master plan. We try to make it fun. We know each other well enough that we can argue with each other. Nothing is pre-meditated on this show. I can remember last year somebody saying that the arguments are planned in advance, but nobody knows what they’re going to do or what they’re going to say, and I think it’s that unpredictability that makes this show different from the others. So, we’ll just try and do what we’ve done previously and hope people like it.
MediaBlvd> Do you have an exit date planned for yourself with Idol? And, do you think the show could survive if you leave?
Simon> Nothing is going to last forever. The exit point is determined by the public who, eventually, are going to get sick to death of me, if they haven’t already. I’d always thought I would go up until the end of my contract, which would mean two more seasons after this one, which would have made it nine in total, because nine years is probably enough to inflict on anyone. That’s what I have in my mind. Can the show exist without me? Absolutely. It’ll probably get better.
MediaBlvd> Your style analysis often seems spot on with the contestants. How important do you think their look is, and what’s the recipe to getting the “rock star” look?
Simon> I’d be lying if I said that first impressions aren’t important. If somebody walks in with a sense of style, it means a lot. At the same time, when someone walks in, in a hideous outfit, regardless of what they’re going to sing, you’re put off by that person. I’m not a style expert -- far from it. That’s why we have a lot of people on the show, towards the latter part, to help them with their style and image, and everything else. Obviously, it still comes down to your singing voice. If you try and sum up what star quality is, it is a sense of style, a sense of knowing who you are, a sense of being an individual and having a good voice. So, your image is one part of the package. It’s not the most important part, but it’s one part of it.
MediaBlvd> Fantasia’s brother auditioned this time around. How good was he? Does he have his sister’s talent?
Simon> He hasn’t. He was terrible. He can’t sing. I remember thinking, “Oh, great, Fantasia’s brother has come in.” It was all fantastic until he started singing, and then I think we disputed the fact that he really was Fantasia’s brother because he doesn’t have his sister’s talent.
MediaBlvd> What are your thoughts about the spin-off show, America’s Next Great Band?
Simon> I never saw the Band show, except for about 10 minutes of it. It’s tough doing band shows. It’s a whole different ball game than doing solo artists, which is why I’ve never done it before and probably wouldn’t.
