It seems the producers of American Idol brought in Harry Connick, Jr. to coach the contestants on their songs this week only to be blown off. As you can imagine, Connick was not at all pleased. Perhaps programs like this should try something like this before they are so close to the end of the competition.
parkandbark 
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I’ll give you another example from another genre. Last fall I was researching a blues song by Robert Johnson. As part of my research I was looking for cover versions to see how the song was presented by other performers. I found a lot of tame (and watered down) versions from the 70s and 90s, but then I found a video of Keith Richards with his guitar duplicated exactly Johnson’s style of guitar playing. Richards must have spent hours in his youth learning songs like this and duplicating them in exacting detail much the way that a young painter would attempt to duplicate the painting style of an old master. It’s not that we want young performers to become robots who mimic great singers of the past, but without going through this process you can’t find your own style and develop the technique to express what you have to say. These young singers aren’t being asked to do that and it’s a shame. America Idol reveals everything wrong with the modern recording industry. Anyone interested in eliminated early. Those that are left are bland and “malleable” but often don’t have the sense to learn from someone like HCJr or anyone else. when they get the chance. I keep hearing that the major labels are imploding. Please let that be true. There are interesting musicians and singers out there doing their own thing. I’d like to hear more of that. Now when I turn on the radio the “new” music sounds no different from the new songs from 20 years ago. This has never been true in the past. It’s time to put the labels out of their misery since they are obviously standing in the way of music moving forward.