I thought this “scandal” was going to go away, but nope, it’s still hanging in there…
What a load of crap. Someone decided to take his Relix interview, chop it up into pieces, and make Taylor Hicks sound ungrateful for his Idol experience and win. Slow news week, guys? “Man, I don’t wanna write about the war in Iraq again… Hey, I know! Let’s take a bunch of comments out of context from that gray-haired Idol dude and cause a huge, unnecessary, stupid, fake controversy!”
So what did he say exactly? Responding to the interviewer’s admission that he never really watched Idol, Taylor answered, “I don’t watch it either! [laughs] You can write that.” The nerve! Taylor was singing in bars and writing music instead of watching “American Idol”? How dare he! Of course he’s not watching it now, because it’s not on (hello!) and I’m guessing he’ll be too busy touring and promoting his new CD to watch season six. Isn’t that what Idol is supposed to do? It’s a search for a superstar, not for a singing couch potato.
In response to a question regarding the “expectations” of post-Idol audiences, he said this: American Idol, for me, is fizzling out. I want to take that opportunity and that exposure… You either come to see me, come buy my album or you don’t. I’m not trying to meet expectations. I’m trying to expose my music to people who might like it, come see it and come buy it. That’s me. If pop culture doesn’t like it… If you can say you’re a working musician, then you’re doing something good. I’m just glad to be a working musician because that’s what I’ve always been.
Hey everybody! The show is over, the tour is over, and the new season is about to start. It is fizzling out! He can’t ride the wave forever. If the expectation is for Taylor to do Idol-like covers for the rest of his career, then there will be a lot of disappointed people out there. Taylor doesn’t give a rat’s hairy hiney about being packaged for the pop-culture masses, and well he shouldn’t. He’s been in the live music scene for over ten years - he knows exactly who he is as a musician and performer and has neither the desire nor the need to be packaged. I interpret his answer to mean he would rather sell 500,000 records doing what he was born to do rather than 5 million records pretending to be something he’s not. He should be applauded for standing his ground and protecting his artistic integrity - it is certainly not an easy thing to do.
It’s ridiculous, but Taylor has been forced to defend himself and correct the misconceptions. The press is calling it “spin” and “damage control”. As far as I know, that isn’t spin or damage control. Don’t you actually have to do something wrong in the first place for a rebuttal to be considered spin? Karl Rove, you want to weigh in here?