Place no false idols before me…

Several years ago a radio station I worked for held a "talent contest", which is what reality shows used to be called. The winner was remarkably unspectacular, but was lauded with cash and prizes, to which one of my co-workers remarked "…and somewhere a real artist is eating spaghetti out of a can". That pretty much sums up my feelings about the various "Idol" shows. For starters I think the term "idol" speaks volumes about the state of pop culture. How about "false idol" – ya, "American False Idol", that's better!

I'm not a fan of these shows, which is fine because I'm not their "target audience". I've seen a few episodes of both the Ameri-con and Can-con versions and while some of the contestants do possess musical talent, most seem preoccupied with performing the way they think a "pop star" should perform. Leaping frenetically about the stage or forsaking musical dynamics in favour of over-the-top vocal acrobatics does NOT equal presence. Presence is the appearance that you are about to explode, not the actual act of exploding. Bono has presence, David Bowie has presence; most of the "Idle" contestants have damaged on/off switches.

I've been in bands. Bands are not formed with the help of 3 judges, a pretty-boy mc and a studio audience. In a nutshell here's how it works. Friends who play instruments get together and jam out other people's songs. If there's a spark they continue to jam on a regular basis. After a couple of weeks and more beer, "jams" are referred to as "band practice". The band writes their first original song, which is usually lame and derivative, but everyone's pumped because it's their song. At this point it becomes evident that there's one person in the band that doesn't fit the band's "style", which means they can't play or sing, or they're an asshole. That person is turfed and a replacement recruited. The band writes, the band records, the band gigs. The money sucks, the band starves, and one or more players become addicted to something. Everyone starts to hate everyone else and the band dissolves. Thankfully this isn't true of every band, just the ones I've been in, and for most bands it's not too far off the mark. And oddly all of this happens without phone-in voting!

Actually I wonder how the landscape of rock and roll would have changed had bands based their personnel changes on phone-in voting…and when does the swimsuit competition begin?

Look, if anyone's 15 minutes of fame includes a public flogging on national television by "judges" whose credibility is suspect then knock yourself out. But let's face it – real artists who work really hard and forge out real careers have a FAR better chance of "keeping it real" because they have an intimate relationship with their art.

And speaking of music industry careers - Sugar Jones anyone? Looks like real artists aren't the only ones eating spaghetti out of a can after all.