Culture of mixing and sampling: Theories applied in John Oswald’s Plunderphonic CD

Introduction

Mixing and sampling are two most common terms in new media. Music production is one of the fields in new media applying these terms. Most of the current songs are based on sampling and mixing/remixing technique. For example, American Idol Season 6 runner-up Blake Lewis’s “Gots to Get Her” is with a melody sampling of Fred Astire’s “Puttin’ On The Ritz”. Besides, many rap/hip-hop artists would apply sampling in order to enrich their songs’ aesthetic presentation. Kanye West is one of the famous hip-hop artists known for sampling style. He widely uses recorded orchestra pieces for his songs and used vocal sampling in his songs, such as his remarkable No. 1 hit single “Stronger” containing a vocal sampling of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk.

In DJ culture, mixing and sampling are considered to be the important factors in sound production. Paul Miller (2004) has addressed that DJ culture is all about the potential of combining exciting pieces (p.349). In one kind of mixing, DJ would put a great number of hit popular songs in samplers and remix them with dance-style drum beat, mostly techno, and other effects. This also brings out the fact that almost every hit song has more or less mix/remix versions and the labels will release them in either B-side or LP/EP mode. For example, American Idol Season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert has released an EP titled Remixes with five remix versions of his two current singles. Also, Justin Timberlake has an album 12" Masters - The Essential Mixes containing 12 different remix versions of his career-long hit singles as solo artist.

John Oswald is one of the greatest mixing and sampling artists in music history. Milo Miles has judged that “For the moment, John Oswald is a solo movement, the most exciting school of one in music” (Canadian Music Centre, pars. 1). Oswald is a saxophonist and multi-media artists, but his best known work is his practice of Plunderphonic CD in 1989, which is a collection of his plundered sampling and radical re-editing of pop recordings (Oswald, 2004, p.131). The word Plunderphonic is a musical term significantly explains Oswald’s works in the mid-80s. In his paper titled Plunderphonics: Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative in 1986, he argued that “for anyone who wanted to respond to a media environment that was saturated with lowest-common-denominator music, the only way forward was to impose your own preferences directly onto the very substance of that environment” (Duguid, 1994, pars. 31). Choosing this concept, he later examined it in his Plunderphonic EP with four tracks sampling different music artists’ works.  

Mixing and Sampling

       Mixing and sampling based on editing process is a creation of sequence (Miller, 2008). In the ideal of new media, the basic principle is about dueling with information. The concept of montage, collages and modularity in new media all take discrete databases and combination information into consideration. Izhaki (2008) has defined that mixing is “a process in which multitrack material—whether recorded, sampled or synthesized—is balanced, treated and combined into a multichannel format, most commonly two-channel stereo” (p.4). The practice of mixing is somehow similar to Burnett’s (2003) idea in modularity, which he stated that “modularity is based on the fact that an information database is composed of pieces of information to be retrieved separately and combined in whatever way the user wants” (p.3). Izhaki further stated that one of the crucial purposes of mixing is to create emotion and ideas (p.5), which Miller’s phrase of “the samples are given meaning only when re-presented in the assemblage of the mix” supports the same statement (2004, p. 350).

The idea of sampling also relates closely to the idea of modularity, where Professor Steve Fore (2010) in his lecture mentioned that “individual sound elements in a digitized file are discrete, and may be selected and assembled in any order”, a similar statement to Burnett’s. According to Paul Miller (2008) and David Sanjek (1997), the practice of sampling is based on familiarity. Holm-Hudson (1997) has addressed that Sanjek classified the practice of sampling primarily by the recognizability of the original source in four categories, where the first category he cited is “sufficient familiarity (may let the listener) recognize the quotation and may, in turn, pay more attention to the new material as a consequence of that familiarity” (p.19). Also, the third category from Sanjek that “recordings can be constructed wholecloth from samples to create a new aesthetic” (p.19) is also an important point in new media sampling.

Oswald and Plunderphonics

Oswald’s sampling works are different to the concept of sampling in rap/hip-hop artists, which the difference is known as plunderphonic sampling. This kind of sampling, according to Hom-Hudson, recontextualizes familiar fragments of popular music in which smallest musical unit is taken (p.21). Also in Andrew Jones’s word, plunderphonics is the concept of recognizable musical quotation (1995, p.132).

His “Dab” is one of the representative works to the idea of plunderphonic sampling. The work basically took out small pieces of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” and rearranged the fragment to a new song. In this song, we as the listener can hear that the sequence of “Dab” actually follow the original “Bad”, where the verse and the chorus were mixing separately, but each part of “Dab” only took a small piece of the lyrics and drum-beat from “Bad”. However, the sequence of “Dab” still has the verse-chorus structure. This kind of using a few second sampling is as Miller (2008) stated that music as information which the creator creates a loop of repetition and all of that is the fragment of time. In “Dab”, Oswald was using this repetition to interpret a new meaning to the aesthetic of art. As Sanjek stated, the practice of sampling is playing with similarity. In “Dab”, we can clearly identify it was Jackson’s voice due to his identical moaning, and the melody from the samples give the clue.

Another work “Pretender”, plundered Dolly Parton’s “The Great Pretender”, is a significant piece of Oswald’s. Leach (2000) said that “Pretender” seems to have garnered the most praise from music critics (p.126). Differed from “Dab”, “Pretender” was not sampling a small piece of the original song. On the contrary, it took the whole “The Great Pretender”, modified and distorted the whole song in different pitches. The modification creates a fresh feeling to the song. “The Great Pretender” is a soft and emotional country song, touching but flat. In “Pretender”, the frequently changing of pitches not only excites the song but also make Parton’s voice theatrical. Furthermore, in most of the “Pretender”, Parton’s voice was lowered in a baritone level. This interesting changing is to interpret and present a different version of the original song and also display Oswald’s ability in modify a song, and as Leach (2000) stated, a realization of certain latent meanings and nuances of the original song (p.126).

Conclusion

       In new media, the idea of cut-and-paste, assembly and modularity is about taking existing objects, dividing them into discrete pieces and recombining them. The idea of mixing and sampling in sound applies the similar system in which people, no matter they are professional or amateurs, can rearrange existing sounds. Many successful mix/remix art works demonstrate that the practice of mixing and sampling is essential in the contemporary music culture.

Sampling is a notion of presenting similarity, while the notion of mixing is related to reinterpret the discrete information (sound). In the case of John Oswald, he efficiently utilized existing materials, like post-modern sculptors, to create a new idea of aesthetic. His “Deb” is a plunderphonic idea that only uses a small piece of samples to compose a new art form, which the playing with similarity, stating by Miller and Sanjek, is manifested. “Pretender” applies another type of editing technique that gives the song a new sense of meaning and aesthetic.

       Oswald’s art works are successful and earned praise for his outstanding concept of plunderphonic sampling. However, his was threatened with legal action by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) acting on behalf of CBS Records and Michael Jackson’s management corporation. This issue not only propelled Oswald surrender all of his remaining CD copies but also led to the questions of fair-use and sharing in digital period. In further study, these issues could be concentrated in a deep analysis.

That's "What I Go to School For"

Basic concept of semiotics

The idea of semiotics was first introduced by the nineteenth-century Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and an American philosopher Charles Peirce (Danesi, 2002, p.28). Although the research definitions of these two scholars are different, yet the basic idea of semiotics is both considered as the analysis of signs and symbols. One of the broadest definitions is as Umberto Eco stated that “semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign” (Eco, 1979, p.7). In this sense, signs can exist in any kinds of medium and transport in any form such as verbal, images, sounds and so forth (Chandler, 2002, p.2). Every sign, according to Leeds-Hurwitz, has two components: the visible part, the signifier, and the absent part, the signified. The basic idea concept of semiotics then can be expended as the analysis of finding the inner meaning (signified) from the objects (signifier).

 The understanding of signs is based on one’s experience (Monaco, 2000, p.155), because what signs “stand for” are the abstract concepts instead of the real things which is “as idealized mental approximations” (Danesi, 2002, p.29). In this sense, it is assumed that different individuals may have different understanding in “what the particular things stand for”. Therefore the idea of “sign” may not have to exist. The similar idea also was indicated by Eco that “semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie” (Eco, 1979, p.7).

Semiotics in music videos

The idea semiotics in music videos is complex, because music video is a combined subject with music, texts and visuals. All the three elements seem to be interdependent and independent in music video while each exerts a shaping force upon the other (Vernallis, 2004, p.153). Separately, for the music part, according to Elicker (1997), the analysis of musical works is based on structure (e.g. keys, tempo) and lyrics of meaning (e.g. linguistic meaning, language). The video part, on the other hand, owes much to the semiotics of film and television (Howells, 2003, p.245). In this sense, the idea of “how to shoot it” and “how to present the shot” (Monaco, 2000, p.163) also delivers the meaning connotatively in music videos.

Vernallis has discussed that music video can create a sync point, where musical feature could be recurred (2002, p. 175). This means music video supports the song (Howells, 2003, p.238). Song lyrics always carry the ideological signs, which a visual world is ideologically loaded (Howells, 2003, p.244). In fact, both musical and visual are important, because “(the combination) makes an impact on the ‘meanings’ of popular musical texts” (Strachan, 2006, p.192).

Analysis of “What I Go to School For” MV

“What I Go to School For” is the first hit single for a British pop-rock band Busted. The song is about they (play as three school boys) fancy their teacher Miss McKenzie. The lyrics of the song have a great amount of sexual hints. The music video, as the visual reflection of the song, also contains the image of sexuality.

Busted is not a sheer punk band. The average age of the three members in the band was 19 in the year of 2002, when their first album came out, and considering their clean looks, Busted is actually a teen-pop group with the outfits of rock ‘n’ roll. Their debut self-title album peaked No.2 in the UK Album Chart with selling more than 700,000 copies. First single “What I Go to School For” charted No.3 in the UK Singles Chart. Neil McCormick in Telegraph.co.uk wrote that Busted are a British pop phenomenon. The song “What I Go to School For” and its music video definitely represent the attitude to music of Busted, the audacious and authentic attitude towards youth culture and sexuality (other songs like “Britney”, “Air Hostess” and “Falling for You” also carry sexual messages).

Sexuality is a common topic for both rock and pop music. Began from the 1950s, the most successful rock artists “wrote and performed songs about love, sexuality, identity crisis, personal freedom, and other issues that were of central concern to teenagers” (Danesi, 2002, p.84). The topic of sexuality also is confirmed widely used in teen-pop music. According to Firth and McRobbie, sexuality in teen-pop is “transformed into a spiritual yearning carrying only hints of sexual interaction” (1990, p.375, in Brian Longhurst, 2007, p.112)

The most important sign of this music video is that the band members directly take part in the characters. Unlike those music videos finding other actors to play, it is an iconic sign that the story is about the band: they either have done it or imagined of doing that. In fact, the inspiration of the song is bassist Matt Willis’s high school dance teacher Michelle Blair, who is the original image of the lusted-after Miss McKenzie in this song. Willis admitted that he used to have a schoolboy crush on Ms. Blair[1]. Besides, the “singers-as-protagonist” format highlights the identity of the band. In this sense, the use of illustration constructs the stardom or persona the band members are.

The setting and dressing style in the “What I Go to School For” music video are the crucial signs of the theme. The band members are singing and playing as the school boys in a high-school set with wearing school uniforms. These signs in the music video not only present the theme of the song but also provide an outlook of the style of band, which is young and energetic: on one hand, these setting and outlook are the central storyline of the song, which the story of school-boy crush could be presented vividly. On the other hand, these setting and dressing style appropriately target the young consumers in a similar impression of identification.

The first verse (see Appendix) of the song contains the hints of sexuality. “To get the best view of her ass”, “she bends down and shows me more” are the signs for the “male students” yearning for female teacher’s body image. In the music video, the students sitting in a “sex education” class watching video about animals’ copulation. These literal and visual signs serve as the index of sexuality and “the students want to have sex with the teacher”. However, this type of signs seems to be too transparent and even as denotation. In the second verse, the storyline alters to the teacher’s home. “I climb a tree outside her home, to make sure that she’s alone”, “I see her in her underwear” brazenly express the students as the voyeurs. In the music video, the images assist to display the information from the lyrics by given a close-shot on McKenzie’s black silk hose and pink underwear.

In the video, there have several shots imply the idea of sexuality. First, women’s eyes seem to be frequently used to describe sexy in most of the commercials and films, and this video also contains this element. There have some close shots of Miss McKenzie’s eyes (Figure 1, Figure 2) and eyes connection from her (Figure 3).

At the end of the video, the boys play with Miss McKenzie in grassland (Figure 4). This scene is completely unrelated to the school scene before, so we can assume that it is the boys having psychosexuality to the teacher. It leaves a question that whether all those wild scene and behavior are not real.

  Figure 1-4                       

Conclusion

       Music video is a complex form to analyze because it both emphasizes on image and words (lyrics). Unlike films, however, images in music videos serve as the supporting function to the words (lyrics) and music. This establishes the idea that images have to be analyzed with words or music. Therefore, most of the scenes and events in the “What I Go to School For” video are visual reflection to the lyrics. Moreover, the images amplify the lyrics which make it more vivid, for example Miss McKenzie’s flirting eyes, in-class sex education videos.

       Although sexuality is a common theme in rock music, yet the explicit expression in a teen-pop band is rare. This is the reason why Busted became a hit in Britain in 2002. They dared to try everything including this video which is full of sexual messages. Most of the signs in the video portray the boys as voyeurs or flirty teenagers. In this sense, it is also believed these connect to youth culture and sex in school. In future study, this field could be taken as the main path.

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[1] “She’s what Busted went to school for!” January 2005. BBC <http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/theatre/2003/12/michelle_busted.shtml>

Music Copyright and Glee

A TV series Glee is recently a hit around the world, the audiences love the Glee cover of the classic songs. No matter it was classic like Don’t Stop Believing or It’s My Life, or current hit Poker Face or My Life Would Suck Without You, audiences are all amazed by the singing ability of Glee cast. Some people even said that some Glee cover songs are far more better than the original ones.

I always held a same attitude that singing hit songs by Glee cast is beneficial to both the show itself and the audiences. First of all, audiences are already familiar with the classics, so they do not need a long time to find the echo with Glee. Second, the educational function is explicit, audiences can through this series learn something related to these songs.

However, when the issue of “copyright” and “intellectual property” has been aroused in a book I read recently, Glee has come up in my mind. Using classics abundantly, Glee must confront some issue with copyright.

The fact is, the producers spent a great amount of money in licensing. Dominic Patten wrote that “Madonna-themed episode of ‘Glee’ is going to leave the Material Girl very, very happy”. The reason of that surely is the producers have to pay Madonna for $50,000 per song for licensing fee. This kind of expense not only can not be avoided, but also has a trend to rise: “Licensing, like live performance, is one of the few areas of the music business that is still actually growing.” Including numerous “mash-ups”, the major amount of expense in Glee is obviously not in casting, but in paying licensing fee.

Christina Mulligan wrote on his article Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club that the biggest problem in Glee was not about paying licensing fee, but in the portrayal of high school students using copyrighted songs in the series. She mentioned that Glee club sang classic song every week, if it was in a real life, they can totally unable to pay such expensive licensing fee. If they put the video on the Internet like the series, they need to pay 150,000 to 300,000 copyright fines. This was obvious not the ordinary high school students could afford. Mulligan believed that Glee apparently ignored copyright issue, she indicated: “the absence of any mention of copyright law in ‘Glee’ illustrates a painful tension in American culture”.

If it is just like what was mentioned above, teenagers can no longer share music or sing songs in public. However, according to copyright law, performing in class or organization without financial purpose does not infringe copyright law, unless the audiences are invited. In the series, most of the performances the student did are rehearsals in classroom, only a few of the performances are in public. Furthermore, if the audiences are less than a certain number, copyright issue can actually be ignored, because there has no financial purpose. But if the show is aired by TV, licensing fee is inevitable.

Back to the series, although Glee has a pay a large amount of money in copyright, the profit later on is abundant. According to a report in Advertising Age, Glee, till February, 2010, has created 420,000 downloads and two golden albums.

We have to agree that in the issue between licensing fee and profits, Glee is doing very well. Although purchasing large number of songs, the show can earn them back in a short period of time, which includes CDs, live performance and other related products. Furthermore, comparing to other series, Glee cast sing all the songs, so they do not need to pay the performance fee, which save the produce team a lot of money.

Besides, with the development of technology and music industry, copyright holders are difficult to get all the legal money from Glee. Those Glee video clips which are protected by copyright have owned over millions clicks, which like Patrik Wikstrom said in The Music Industry: Digital Media and Society Series: “In the new music economy, it is still important to know how one’s intellectual property is used by the audience but it is more or less impossible to regulate and police that use.” Although recording firms are happy with such wide music dissemination, the process is hardly to control. In fact, the so-called “illegal promotion” created more and more listeners, which means more and more people are likely to purchase related products and tickets for tours, and this no doubt increased to potential profits of recording industry. Copyright holders should actually appreciate Glee for the promotion, no wonder there has people believe copyright holders should reduce licensing fees, because these show serve as a promotional function in an implicit way.

The Music We Love Is Changing

In 1960s, the appearance of the Beatles and Elvis Presley made people addicted to rock music. Youths at that time were against war, against mainstream and against everything left by the older generations. Rock music became the tool for them to escape the world or vent their anger.

In 1970s, youths started to search for more fun with the end of wars. Therefore, a fast-beat style of music occurred. Nobody knows it was a pub film Saturday Night Fever ignited the heat of disco music or it was disco music got this film famous, but one thing surely that the people at that period were connected with flared trousers and disco pub.

In 1980s, with the emergence of MTV network, more and more people started to put their attention on visual sensation. At a result, artists such as Cyndi Lauper and Prince, who combined excellent vocals and fantastic outfits, achieved great success. Of course, we ought not to forget Michael Jackson’s unparallel Thriller in 1983 and Modonna’s flirting Like a Vrigin in 1984. In this decade, visual sensation went ahead which also served as the beginning of the later so-call Pop music.

In 1990s, no one would forget Backstreet Boys from the US and Spice Girls from the UK. This was also the golden age of “Pop” music. Young fans franticly chased those handsome boys and girls who singing love song excessively. In this age, Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync made people fascinating boybands that can dance, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera then made people know the shortcut of female artists getting famous was following the part of “Mickey Mouse Club—being sweet like sugar—the few clothes the better”.

Came to the millennium, people started to realize dancing “pretty-face” could not satisfy their hormone. After then, a phrase began to disseminate from corner to corner, it was “pop-punk”. Take a look at the highest reportage from magazine and the highest cover from radio, they all belonged to those kids holding instruments making cool looks. “BoyBands” like Good Charlotte and Simple Plan completely replaced those aged “boyGroups” like Backstreet Boys. People found out that singing with guitars was cooler than singing with dancing. Of course, we never should forget who “popul-ize” pop-punk: Avril Lavigne. 2001, her debut album Let Go surprised people that female singers undressed themselves worth nothing, singing with screaming was the real hot. Thus, more and more similar female singers, such as Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee Simpson, showed up and gained sufficient fame and fortune.

Actually, we can sum up from now that since the emergence of MTV, music was no longer a mirror that reflected a period. People listening to music were not about to express their emotion or escape the world, all their purpose was “being entertained”. These can explain why one of the Michael Jackson’s hottest songs Thriller was nothing but fantastic music video, why “material girl” was another name for Madonna, why dancing handsome boys such as Backstreet Boys could be so famous that even housewives could recognize…

From the music genres, we can classify that rock ‘n’ roll in the 60s, disco in the 70s, pop in the 80s and teen-pop in the 90s could represent a period of year. With the coming of 2010, we can begin to label 2000-2010 which is pop-punk/pop-rock, represented by Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan, Busted, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Jonas Brothers.

Then, what is the next genre that blows the world? How about saying Lady Gaga?

All I could say is dance music pop again! Heavy beat and songs made by synthesis effect processor re-permeated everyone’s life. Ke$ha and Pixie Lott all once were blamed to follow Lady Gaga. Although there were Justin Timberlake and Usher, who combined hip-hop, dance and R&B, that used to dominate the music industry, no one was like our Lady Gaga that can receive numerous compliments as a rookie. Dance music is so prevalent that some pop-rock bands like McFly add dance-music feature to the new single, then what should we say new artist like Adam Lambert showed up with dance music. Of course, there has Katy Perry that perfectly masters retro and dance.

Besides, we have to mention Miley Cyrus. She majored pop-punk in her first album but suddenly changed to dance in the second one. She is counted as a trend-follower.

Occasionally, comparing to the substitution, what came after 60s’ rock was dance/disco as well. Following this tendency, pop music would dominate the mainstream market after Lady Gaga. No wonder Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber become so attractive…

Adam Lambert: A Glam Rocker in the World of Reality Show

(The Chinese version of this article was published in Lingnan Music, Issue 297)

As the runner-up in American Idol Season 8, Adam Lambert drew enough attention from the audiences, also applause. Depended on his outstanding appearance and incredible vocal, Lambert was undefeatable in the show, and only lost to college student Kris Allen from Arkansas with a few controversial votes. Although he could not crown the title at last, Lambert already acquired sufficient attention and support, which facilitate his future development in the road of music industry.

Debut album For Your Entertainment debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in December 2009, selling 198,000 copies in the United States. Ironically, champion Kris Allen’s self-titled album only debuted at No. 11 on the U.S. Billboard, selling 80,000 copies. These data seems to imply that Adam Lambert, this controversial idol’s future could be bright.

Adam Lambert was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in January 29th, 1982, and moved to San Diego with his parents later. Lambert vocal ability was disclosed at his early age. Lambert performed on the stage as a stage actor in the first time when he was 10. At the age of 19, he already had the experience of touring outside America. Abundant stage experience cultivated his confident personality and venturous creativity. Lambert used to say on Idol that performing was his interest. “From the early age I was pretty clear that I wanted to be a performer. I like to print on customs, getting attention. I think I found my calling early on. I am glad I stuck with it.” July 17th, 2008, Lambert attended the American Idol Season 8 audition in San Francisco, then his glamorous music journey started.

Adam Lambert: Originality
The stage of American Idol achieved his success. His extraordinary range in voice was the weapon he has in American Idol. However, it is never enough to barely have a good voice, therefore, his originality and creativity in song arrangement became another factor boosting him to the Final. In the audition, Judge Randy Jackson called it “theatrical”, saying he was not showing emotion. In spite of that, Lambert’s dramatic vocal sent him to the Top 36 safely. After that, it all depended on the audiences.

As a professional stage actor, Lambert’s sense of stage was transparent. His confidence was exuded explicitly. Singing (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in the semi-finals, Lambert’s charismas was known thoroughly by the public. Fashionable dress-up, confident movement and unrivalled high-pitch immediately pull audiences to him. Although Judge Simon Cowell has some negative comments on his over-fashionable outfits, other judges all surprised by Lambert’s unparalleled singing ability. Obviously, Lambert already became the “American idol” in people’s minds from that round.

Each round, Lambert used his incredible vocal and glamorous stage performance wined over every applause and compliments. The truth was, Lambert was always the audiences’ most favor—before Top 4 week, Lambert has never been into bottom 3. What’s more, Lambert’s understanding in music made him stand out the contestants. No matter it was Michael Jackson’s Blake or White, Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, Yvonne Elliman’s If I Can’t Have You and Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, Lambert could all find a way to mash up his own style into these songs. Just as he said in “Hollywood week”: “I get a song and I want to change it.” One of the mentors, country music icon Randy Travis use words like “Speechless”, “unique” after heard Lambert singing Ring of Fire. Judge Cowell appraised Lambert as one of the most original contestants in the history of American Idol.


Adam Lambert: Controversy
Tight leather jeans and black nail polish seem to imply that Lambert is a gay. The photo of him kissing a man while he was competing also spurred the discussion. This is also the reason most critics believe why Lambert could not win American Idol: it seems that American still cannot accept a gay being their “American idol”. After the show, Lambert admitted his identity of being a gay at Rolling Stone. In Barbara Walters’s talk show, Lambert expressed that it didn’t matter who he slept with, what matter was him being a singer.

However, the controversy Lambert brought did not stop. One day before he officially released his debut album, he was invited to perform on American Music Awards singing his first single For Your Entertainment. The performance that full of filtering and sexual behaviors, such as kissing a male keyboard player, was watched clearly by the Americans. After that, ABC network received over 1,500 complaints, so they have to cancel Lambert’s next performance on Good Morning America on ABC. Although Lambert was still invited by other television networks to perform, his overacting performance already became a controversial topic. Lambert later admitted in Ellen DeGeneres Show that he was going too far that night, but he also said he just wanted to bring more energy and express the meaning of the song better.

Adam Lambert: Future
Although going through so many things, Lambert still one of the most promising new artist in America. As a rookie, he sang the theme song Time For Miracle for Hollywood blockbuster 2012. In his debut album For Your Entertainment, well-known producers and singers such as Lady Gaga, Max Martin, Redone and P!nk involved for the album production. Apparently, it is meaningless to argue whether Lambert is the champion of American Idol, because comparing to both the quality of producers and the sales of album, Lambert has exceed Allen at the very beginning.

Besides, he has numerous supporters and fans in China. No many new artists could have a Chinese website, but Lambert did is the exception. Up to December 16th, 2009, adamlambert.com.cn has over 5,000 members. Furthermore, Lambert expressed his wish in an interview that he wanted to come to China. Adam Lambert, this glam rocker from reality show has already become a worldwide superstar.

From Pop to Opera

Talking about opera artists, what come to our mind could be having a big body like Pavarotti, or singing with a straight body and communicating with audience only by gesture and eye connection. The reason why bel canto cannot be prevalent among the mass is because their high-required singing skill and non-amiable stage performance. However, there has one thing that has to agree that the artists who can sing bel canto are all excellent singers. No one would deny. Then what if these songs are sung by pop singers?

There has a reality show I saw on the Internet called Popstar to Operaster, produced by ITV, Britain. This is the one that meet the above question. Most opera listeners are in the middle-age or above, but this show is to train popstars, who the young people love the most, into opera singers. Understandably, if the target audience is failed to set, none of the audience from these two generation will be catered (young people still think opera is old-fashion; aged people would believe the pop singers destroy opera). Then the ratings would not be optimistic.

However, when the show aired, the reaction of audiences is not so negative. There have approximate 4 million views per episode in the first season, which is rating 15%. The reason why I say it is not bad is because Popstar to Operastar is only a sheer singing reality show, which the target audience is not wide. Comparing to other similar reality show (The X Factor/Britain’s Got Talent), the contestants in this show are all from entertainment industry, who are celebrities already. So it is lacking in the concept of “changing ordinary people into stars”. It is normal that missing this concept, audiences who love succeeding-overnight drama would not watch the show. Concerning these reasons, 0.15 is not a low number for the prime time TV show.

Obviously, production team is disappointed about this statistic, an insider said they originally believed this show would have over 7 million viewers like Soapstar Superstar, but, he said: “it just proves that people weren’t fussed about it (Popstar to Operaster)”. In spite of that, they are optimistic to the future development. He thought the low rating was because the contestants are not famous enough. Champion Darius is only a contestant from Pop Idol 2002, other contestant like Danny Jones from McFly and Vannessa White from The Saturdays are just second-tier stars.

Nevertheless, from the purpose of music communication, this show is significant. Pop singers singing opera can more or less encourage young people to accept opera and bel canto and makes opera more than an entertainment for mid-age people. Meanwhile, the information about opera will be disseminated via the show, so it provides a good platform to educate audiences to learn opera. Actually, mixing bel canto and pop is not a new production, Il Divo, who has sung the theme song of World Cup 2006, is the bel canto group labeled “Pop”. If this show could be more creative in both content and contestants, to attract more audiences is not impossible.

The End of American Idol

After finished the Finale of American Idol Season 9, there has only one word I could think about to describe it, it was “sucks”. Although I seriously and thoroughly watched Idol for only four seasons, in this short period, no other season was as boring as Season 9 was. There has Blake Lewis using beatbox rearranging every songs in Season 6; there has David Cook rocking down the house till the Final in Season 7; there has Adam Lambert who was considered to be the most talented contestant in the history of American Idol glamorously performing every week in Season 8. However, what about Season 9? Humble paint sales clerk Lee DeWyze or outgoing "mama sox" Crystal Bowersox? Doubtlessly, there were all talented singers, but on the stage of American Idol where entertainment tops everything, they were so “boring”. Oh, yes, there has one I remember the most, Mr. Tim Urban, a pretty boy who only CAN sing got into Top 7.

Although it was the dullest season, the significance was wider. It was all because our lovely judge Simon Cowell was about to leave the show (he went back to UK preparing to move the other talent-show The X Factor to America). Thus, we could see that the Finale already become a farewell party.

To estimate, the total minute of the video clips about Simon Cowell was approximate 15, which contained other judges’ words to Cowell and some classic moments Cowell had in American Idol. Besides, Paula Abdul was back to the stage waving goodbye to Cowell and sat on his lap watching the next performance. (Although Abdul said she and Cowell were only partnership, then who knows.)

Other than that, all winners of American Idol were invited (no David Cook from Season 7) to sing for Cowell with other former contestants. Checking that moment out! Abdul was crying and Cowell said he has never been so sensitive…

But…did we forget our Season 9 Champion Lee DeWyze? It was like the only season in the Finale that audiences could completely ignore the winner because of the leaving of Simon Cowell.

Although FOX claimed there would have Season 10, the time for this show was obviously done. In the Finale, Cowell’s importance to the show was emphasized repeatedly; and stated that American Idol would not be the same without Mr. Cowell, though Cowell expressed kindly on the stage that him leaving did not mean anything, because the judges were the audiences. Furthermore, Cowell will bring the American version of The X Factor, which is also a singing competition show. It will doubtlessly create a huge impact to American Idol no matter which network buys it because the new show will be fresh and attractive. When the rating decreased, American Idol has to confront to the termination.

So, this farewell was not only for Simon Cowell but also for American Idol. All we could say is “Simon, so long; Lee, good luck”.