Michael Slezak, in his weekly Entertainment Weekly review of everyone’s favorite reality singing competition, accurately predicted that Wednesday night’s “most shocking result ever!!!” would be that – GASP! – nobody goes home! If that were the case, I really wish that they would not have dragged that out as a part of the show – it was kind of pointless, although I do like that they are combining the votes from this and last week and eliminating two next week…it makes sense – that way this week’s votes still matter.
And matter they did; thanks to News Corp’s generosity, the first 50 million of 70 million (!) total votes were multiplied by a dime equaling (get your calculators out) $5 MILLION!!! Add that to the ongoing pledges received by 877-IDOL-AID and the corporate sponsors and Ellen Degeneres’ on-air pledge of $100,000 (don’t you wish you could do that?) and by 3/4 through the show, they had raised $30 million.
I applaud American Idol for using their massive national stage to raise awareness for poverty and illness around the world. Some of their stories were so heartbreaking that they nearly brought me to tears. Others felt a little contrived (Randy in New Orleans, Paula at the Boys and Girls club), but I think that they all really wanted to do some good. The most comical moment of the night for me was Simon on stage with Ryan – he just looked so uncomfortable being up there and not only that, but he was being asked to be genuine and NICE. Must have been tough for him.
The night also featured some pretty great performances. I thought Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood put on a clinic for this year’s idols – showing them what true performing is and what real singers sound like. Clarkson’s performance with Jeff Beck was so good that I had to remind myself that she was actually LIVE. The Staying Alive lip sync performance was pretty funny, but I also thought the Celine/Elvis duet was pretty cool. Sure it was corny, but a lot went into that – I thought it was awesome.
I was, however, holding out for U2 to perform since Bono was this week’s celebrity mentor. How awesome would it have been to see them perform “Walk On” at the end of the show?
As I watched all these great performances, and before they had announced it, I leaned over to Alli and said, “You know what they should do is release all these songs and videos on iTunes and work with Apple to use the money toward the cause as well.” Sure enough, about 25 minutes later, they announced just that.
As much as I like to rail against American Idol, I still watch it every single week (didn’t watch the season with Fantasia or Clay…or much of the season with Carrie Underwood for that matter), but you can only ignore it for so long. Last night was the big payoff in my opinion. Sure, it deliberately pulled at your heart strings, but that was the point. There’s no doubt that the money raised will aid a lot of impoverished people; I just hope that it inspired people to do some good in their own communities as well. It’s amazing how much the little things can do. Just think – if each of those 70 million callers donated $1, the amount raised would more than double. And not only that, for the people who don’t vote (like myself), hopefully they found the will to make a contribution because I really believe that they are trying to do some good.
If you are anti-American Idol, but want to contribute to a great organization, check out Bono’s ONE Campaign. It had a couple of spots on Idol Gives Back last night and I’ve been following it for quite a long time. If you don’t do that, just take 2 minutes and think of something you can do to make the world a better place. It doesn’t have to be big, if we all commit to doing something small, together we can make a difference.
