American Song Contest, episode 2 (Brain Academy, Propagate Content, Universal Television Alternative Studios, NBc-TV, aired March 28, 2022)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2022 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night at 8 p.m. I watched the second episode of American Song Contest, a bizarre spectacle hosted by Snoop Dogg and Kelly Clarkson (supposedly Snoop Dogg is representing California and Kelly Clarkson is representing Texas, though frankly I’d much rather be represented by Clarkson than that tall, ugly, anemic rapper with the “doggy” stage name, whose true moniker is Calvin Broadus) and featuring 11 performers, 10 from U.S. states and one from the Virgin Islands. All too many of the performers were baby-divas doing electronic dance music in its various forms – though the opening act, a couple of guys from Portland, Oregon named Micah and Eli who jointly call themselves courtship (no capital), was a pure pop song called “Million Dollar Smoothie” that featured them dressing up in odd costumes that were supposed to make them resemble green smoothies. It seemed to me that Oregon in general and Portland in particular would have been better represented by a punk band – but NBC isn’t about to put on a pure punk band in prime time. There are FCC regulations against that sort of thing, along with NBC’s own “Standards and Practices” department, the network euphemism for “censors.”

Next up was Jonah Prill, decked out in skin-tight blue jeans and showing off a basket that was considerably more interesting than the song, an old piece off the country log called “Fire It Up.” At least I got a charge out of watching him shake his hot bod! After that New York, home of the most febrile music scene in the country – it’s where all the people move to get discovered except the people who go to Hollywood instead – was inexplicably represented by one of those standard-issue baby diva wanna-bes named ENISA (all caps!) doing an O.K. song for the genre called “Green Light.” Following that was a heavy-set, short-haired woman named Jocelyn doing a quite beautiful and moving song called “Never Alone.” She had my Dyke Detector going through the roof, partly because of her butch appearance, partly because of the content of her song (it’s a ballad reaching out to comfort people by saying that just because they’re lonely, they’re never alone), and partly because of the long-haired woman whose photo was shown during the introductory segment and described as Jocelyn’s “friend” – of course I immediately thought, “‘Friend’ – yeah, right.”

The next performer was someone from the Virgin Islands who calls himself Cruz Rock, lives on the island of St. Croix, and comes off as more Latino than Polynesian – explained by the fact that while his mother was a Virgin Islands native, his dad is Puerto Rican. He was dressed all in green and did a song called “Celebrando” that was partly in English and partly in Spanish and, as the title suggests, it was a party song. Then came an act who’s already won one of the NBC contest shows, season nine of The Voice; his name is Jordan Smith, he was representing Kentucky, and his song was called “Sparrow” (as in “His eye is on the … “) and it was an O.K. ballad of faith even though it’s hardly on the level of the Black hymn that supplied the title of autobiographies by both Ethel Waters and Diana Ross. Jordan Smith is one of those odd guys, like Harry Langdon, who’s managed to make it to adulthood while still retaining the characteristics of a baby: his body has grown larger but otherwise he still looks pretty much as he probably did in the cradle. And his high-lying voice seems to match his appearance.

The next song was “Can’t Make You Love Me” bh Chloe Fredericks, a Native American (though her parents were from different tribes) and easily the most powerful performer of the night. Her song throbbed with emotion and real soul, and her unusual background (like some of the other performers from rural states, she stressed how hard she had to work on her parents’ ranch; her story reminded me of how Warner Bros. put James Dean on a high-fat, high-calorie diet before he made East of Eden, and when he asked why they said, “We want you to look like you grew up on a farm.” “But I did grow up on a farm!” Dean replied. “Don’t you know how hard farm kids have to work?”) and the fire and fury of her singing just added to her appeal. The next performer was a nondescript rapper from Kansas named Broderick Jones, who began his act by saying Charlie Parker had come from his state (he did technically – he was born in Kansas City, Kansas but his parents moved him across the river to Kansas City, Missouri and that’s where he grew up and was formed as a musician). After that came another anonymous dance diva-ette named Almira Zaky, representing Virginia; she’s the daughter of a Muslim couple from Indonesia but, alas, her song, “Over You,” was forgettable dance-pop and showed nothing of her rather interesting musical roots.

Next was King Kyote (that’s how he spells it) from Maine, and he was clearly hoping that with the guy from Rhode Island having dominated the last week’s program, lightning would strike twice and his song “Get Out Alive” would score over everyone else. It didn’t. The final song of the night was sung by one of the ringers, long-time veteran singer Macy Gray, who represented Ohio and did a song called “Every Night” whose catch phrase was “Higher” – thereby evoking comparisons to far better and more talented writers like Paul McCartney and Sly Stone, respectively. Gray had stage presence to spare, but her song was saddled with a guest rapper named Maino and there were bits of gospel-derived soul in the mix, but also a lot of horrid pop bits. Gray performed with authority, but it seemed a bit (or nore than a bit) unfair to make the other contestants compete with a thoroughgoing professional like Chloe Fredericks. The show was saddled with “competition” trappings, including the cheesy “halftime” segment that interrupted the proceedings midway through and the phony suspense build-up before the winner of the jury prize was announced – and it was Jordan Smith, even though Chloe Fredericks was clearly the one who deserved it.