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Thursday, April 15, 2004
Superstar USA, basically an inversion of American Idol on the Joe Millionaire model wherein they keep the really bad singers and make them think they're great, sounds pretty good--I mean, Tone-Loc is a judge--but what about when they say "and to ease the embarrassment, the 'winner' (or 'last person standing,' as producers phrase it) gets $100,000 and a recording contract" and "Fleiss hopes to release a 'Superstar' album and take the final 12 on tour"? Can this actually work?

Maybe so. It strikes me as sort of the indie AI--first we laugh at people who think they're good but we all know are horrible, then we encourage them, then we go see people who can't sing or play instruments perform. It's sort of like Welsey Willis in stage one, and then sort of like, um, 90% of existing indie bands in stage 2. Awesome!