Can you actually manufacture an "American Idol"?

I'm beginning to wonder if the idea of being able to manufacture an "American Idol" or a "Canadian Idol" or such...just isn't feasible. I mean, here you have this show that's been on for what, 4 years now? And...somebody wins. And they make a cd. And...after the initial hooplah, they just seem to disappear. Is it just poor marketing? Surely there was some initial interest..."American Idol" is one of the highest rated shows on television. And there's an interest in voting for your favorite contestant.

Kelly Clarkson seems the most likely of the "Idols" who have been chosen. But after "From Justin to Kelly" or whatever the name of that career killing film they were tragically seen in...she's teetering on the precipice of complete obscurity. And it seems as though Justin may have fallen over that precipice already.

I'm sort of curious about this. Plus, it's slow at work. :-)

Happens everyday.

Google "Usher"

"American Idols" get manufactured every day--and not just in the music industry. On TV and in films producers seem to need a new cache of fresh faces every two weeks or so. Next weeks "idol" pushes this weeks idol to the side. After a couple months it's like, "Kelly who?"

Then I realized they are playing her song on pretty heavy rotation on the pop stations.
I think they could manufacture an "American Idol", but not from a television show like that. It seems that the contestants develop a following in the beginning and then one by one they get knocked off leaving the followers to change over to someone else just for the show. The majority of the voters are split and aren't really big fans of the winner, they just ended up voting for each person after their person got whacked.
By the time the show is over the people who wanted the losers to win aren't big fans of the winner and the winners fans are limited to the beginning of the contest.
To make a true idol they would need to be forced fed as an idol to everybody and not just the ones who voted for them to be the best.
Does that make sense?

Her music gets played all the time on the radio here. The problem with manufacturing a music star is that you need decent songwriters and producers and I don't think the company that produces the "Idol" CD's does a very good job of helping to write good music.

No Beatles, or Madonna or Cher.

I don't think there ever will be another "idol" again in the music scene and maybe not even in the movies.

get better. Pop music has been pretty worthless since what...? The Beatles, maybe? In the 1930's and 40's, pop music happened to be very good music, better than it's ever been since then. You can't sustain an image, but art sustains itself.

it's the way the recording industry works these days in large part

A show like American Idol can give a new artist's launch a huge boost, but after the "initial hooplah," success requires great management, diligence, marketing, promotion, distribution and a strong, cohesive business organization. These days, talent is nice to have, but necessary only in small degree. Look great and don't suck is enough.

To the limited extent that the American Idol-style shows are legitimately a national "talent show," their winners are actually at a disadvantage compared to other emerging artists at the time, in that the other artists have had to put together that team and that business effort prior to being launched. Hardly any "new artist" survives to complete their first record deal anyway, but the ones that do are the ones with the strongest team, not the ones with the most talent. When you combine both the business and talent in one package, you've really got something.

or new kids on the block? or britney spears? or elvis?

very few people become "idols" without an assortment of handlers and strict managers.