The side of me that is susceptible to hooky pop songs has once again resurfaced! Today, I can't stop humming Hollywood's Not America by Ferras, otherwise known as the lucky bastard who's song was hand-picked by American Idol producers as the sayonara song, as I like to call it. I'm assuming the message of the song is that Hollywood isn't the only place where you can live the American dream, so failing of not making it in that town isn't the end of the world. But, frankly, for a song like this I don't really care much what the message is. All I care about is hearing, "So long, put your bluejeans back on," otherwise known as the hook. I fall for the hook every time! Damn the hook!The real question is, why does American Idol do such a good job of picking the sayonara song (remember Daniel Powter's Bad Day and Chris Daughtry's Home?) but such a terrible job picking the song that will eventually become the winner's first single (remember, This Is My Now and Believe...didn't think so)? American Idol needs to recruit some new talent to write a song with relevance and a good hook for this year's finale and ditch once and for all those stale songwriters who regurgitate the same song year after year.
That said, I am looking forward to this year's Idol competition. The talent seems much stronger than in year's past and a lot of the contestants are also quite impressive musicians. Let's hope the song in the finale does the eventual American Idol some justice. If not, you can always tune in just to hear Hollywood's Not America every week.
