American Idol Has Not Failed

This is not a sponsored post. I am personally not on Idol’s payroll. This comes from a long time viewer of American Idol. American Idol announced on Monday May 11, 2015 that it would come back for just one more season.  Season 15 will air early next year.  I think it is brilliant timing on their part. After all this is finale week for season 14.  Why not put this news out, and get American Idol trending on Twitter. You can bet Tues & Weds. (May 12 & 13) will tip the ratings.  Brilliant has been this entire show. Fourteen seasons and they may not be as strong as earlier season’s but they are still here. Not exactly a fail.

I birthed three of my five children over these American Idol years.  In earlier years when my first two were young teenagers we’d gather around, the kids would get to stay up and together we would watch American Idol.  Being a music loving family, and having some musicians of my own this was our family viewing. I can not name one other show that WE ALL watched together.

As they grew up, family TV time turned into this mama cooking for about 30 college age kids who would gather around my dining room table to eat, and then a hush came over the crowd as American Idol aired.  Gathering and piling into my family-room to watch. Bringing my kids and their friends together around my home two nights a week is a highlight of mothering. The only time, ever,  in the history of me being a grown up did friends gather and weekly show up at my house was the first season of “Friends”. Every Thursday night I would order pizza’s and couples with babies showing up to watch.   I guess you can say that music and friends are the essence of our TV watching as a family.  American Idol is being cast into some not so friendly conversations.  Yes, those who love the show share a different story.

I feel like the protective family member who wants to counter the negative comments with something positive. I find myself in Twitter doing just that. Not to take away from any one person’s opinion, but just voicing my love and passions for the show and casting a positive tweet here and there. In the same brilliant timing of voicing the last season, American Idol has been brilliant in extending the show year after year. Okay, they fired a few key people, they got into conflicts, they brought on some that did not hold the show up, and they tried and tried to learn how to navigate in a new media of social media.  They even extended their family by adding the IdolTweethearts, a bunch of gals to help spread the word across all media platforms.  A new culture of kids and American Idol still floundered to find that space and place to sustain itself.

I personally believe, that the power’s to be just did not get that change needed to be a bit more dramatic than new judges, lighting and stage fantastics. My bottom three kids got board. Why?  My first two did not. It’s an easy fix but they missed it and I understand with the age of those producers and directors, they perhaps not knowing how to connect with their own children and grandchildren could not build that connection with today’s kids. My first two could connect with the music, sing-a-long and knew that the artists were what their parents had streaming while growing up.  There is an 18 year difference between my oldest and my youngest.  Music in almost two decades is just not the same. Not even in how kids today listen. The music being presented and sung does not resonate with kids today. Even my own younger teenage kids roll their eyes at the song choices.

The music industry is HUGE is paying compliments to those who have gone before us.  High-lighting long time favorites and icons in the music industry. The problem with that today is our kids do not even know their songs. Fifteen years ago, kids did know those 70’s and 80’s and even 90’s greats. Not today, yet American Idol still favored those artists and paid homage to their  past, which had my kids wanting to get up and go finish their homework.

Did American Idol fail?  Uh-hem, when all is said and done FIFTEEN seasons and how many Grammy artists did they produce?  I mean how many did WE produce as we were the voting crowds that kept them on that stage.   This show will always hold fond memories for my family.  Fond memories of all the kids who gathered in our home to eat, drink and watch American Idol. For all the stories we have shared, cried tears over, and watch fall off that stage, we cared, and American Idol will never be forgotten.

The mention of IdolTweethearts is not lost on those closest to me. This has been one very exciting time to be invited in.  Thank you American Idol for all the years you streamed through the TV and now online.  ~ @elizabethtraub