Something is missing – only: What? No, it’s not Snoop Dogg. The rapping total work of art is always there when something has to be moderated in the USA at the moment; he does that at the American Song Contest together with American Idol legend Kelly Clarkson. Music isn’t missing either, there’s something like: K-pop from Oklahoma, cowboy rap from Wyoming, glamor pop from Iowa, electronic dance music from Nevada, Christian dance-piano mix from New Hampshire. A potpourri ranging in entertainment from “Möööp” to Freddie Mercury and in quality from howling to, well, nearly Freddie Mercury.
The principle of the show also works like the model from Europe, the Eurovision Song Contest – just in the USA. Every state sends candidates: Connecticut, for example, the When-a-Man-Loves-a-Woman-Schmachthammer Michael Bolton or Maryland the glam rapper Sisqó, known more than 20 years ago for his “Thong Song”, a homage to the tightest panties on women’s butts. From Alaska hails once iconic singer-songwriter (but now more of a barn-party entertainer) Jewel and Ohio native Macy Gray. The four have sold a total of 155 million records; So there is no lack of star power, even if these stars may not shine that brightly anymore.
Snoop Dogg calls the eight-episode competition the “Super Bowl of Music Shows,” a very generous superlative, as it turns out. Americans know the ESC because Netflix once secured the rights to the 2019 and 2020 ESCs, about the Will Ferrell film Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga to promote. It’s about talented musicians from Iceland who make it to the final for outrageous reasons. It became the most-watched Netflix film on its opening weekend in June 2020, and the song “Husavic” was even nominated for an Oscar.
No copy in the world can be as crazy as the original. Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams in the ESC parody “The Story of Fire Saga”.
(Photo: Elizabeth Viggiano/AP)
Americans saw this wacky comedy as an over-the-top pastiche. The reactions on social networks, how wonderfully crazy that was, led to trying the format in the USA. Europeans, however, considered The Story of Fire Saga as a rather undisguised documentary, this is what this competition is like: a crazy comedy and an over-the-top satire on itself. That is exactly what makes the charm, the magic and thus the success of the ESC.
Here, Americans are trying to create something you can’t create
So there are currently 56 participants (in addition to states, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and Northern Mariana Islands are also there) competing against each other in five rounds to qualify for the semifinals, there are no regional preliminaries. A week before the real ESC in Turin the American final takes place. “March Madness style,” says Snoop; Another dubious sports analogy: in the knockout tournament in university basketball, the Americans are cheering along like crazy, at the ASC the number of live viewers has quickly halved since the first episode (2.9 million): Only 1.44 million Americans watched qualifying round four.
So it’s not the Super Bowl (seen 110 million this year) nor the madness in March, but Americans trying to create something you can’t create because it has to grow. What exactly happens becomes visible when Jordan Smith from Kentucky performs: He has an incredible voice (nearly Freddie) and the singing competition seven years ago The Voice won. Great artist, great song (“Sparrow”), but they overload the performance with a forced home story from Kentucky and references to the ESC, in this case: Smith wrote a song for Celine Dion, who won the ESC in 1988 – crazy !
When the Americans bring (pop) culture phenomena to themselves, they monopolize them completely and exaggerate them in the most brutal way possible: a bratwurst is then no longer a bratwurst, but a monster with cheese in it, Luc Besson’s masterpiece La Femme Nikita becomes a snuggly bore, spaghetti is served on pizza, because delicious plus delicious must of course be much more delicious. The ESC is already an inflated event in the most brutal way possible in Europe. If you don’t believe that, look at the wonderful contributions that Moldova and Norway will present in Turin. The first is about a train ride with a folk rock party; the other about giving a wolf a banana if you please.
The moderators freak out after every song – can this be real magic?
The Americans are trying to recreate the tradition of the ESC, squeeze it into their singing competition scheme with several episodes and just produce the whole thing quickly in Los Angeles. What is missing are references to more than 60 years of music history combined with the wink of not taking yourself too seriously. The ASC is the opposite; something new that takes itself far too seriously and at the same time wants to come across as crazy and exaggerated.
Its magic can’t be forced, and that’s exactly what this show lacks: those what-on-the-world-was-this-now moments that etch themselves into your brain, whether because of grandiose musical quality or wackiness . If presenter Clarkson really freaks out after every song as if she had heard Freddie, then it becomes arbitrary. When Snoop Dogg doesn’t stop making the biggest comparisons possible, one thing becomes clear: this show is another Americanized bratwurst. Completely overloaded and yet boring as a pit.