American Song Contest, episode 4 (Brain Academy, Propagate Content, Universal Television Alternative Studios, NBC-TV, aired April 11, 2022)

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

Last night at 8 I put on the fourth episode of the NBC-TV series American Song Contest, which in some ways was the best of the four (so far; there’ll be one more week of so-called “qualifying rounds” to determine the quarter-finalists and then three weeks of eliminations to bring it down first to 22 contestants, then to 10, and finally to one). The hosts, Kelly Clarkson of Texas and Snoop Dogg of California (and yes, I’m resentful that my state is being represented by a particularly obnoxious no-talent rapper, even though he’s flashing a pretty big basket under those flannel pants he’s been wearing), were as annoying as ever, and the show featured one of those ridiculous “halftime specials” that was blessedly absent from week three, probably because it was the odd week in which they had to crowd in 12 songs instead of just 11. All 56 U.S. jurisdictions are being represented, including the 50 states, five territories and Washington, D.C. (the so-called “Federal District” which Mitch McConnell has sworn that he will never allow it to become a state, since it would be sure to elect two Democratic Senators and that would make it that much harder for McConnell to become majority leader again; the last time the U.S. admitted two states it was Republican-leaning Alaska and Democratic-leaning Hawai’i, so the partisan implications for Senate control evened out).

The program opened with one of its best acts – in fact, I found the overall quality of the performances better this time around than on any of the previous three shows – a girl from New Hampshire named Mari, who came from a multicultural family. Her parents have 10 children but only two of them were their natural offspring; the other eight were adopted, and the adoptees run all over the world map. Mari is Latina, and she’s a “woman of size” the way Lizzo, Adele and Megan Thee Stallion are; in fact, she even called herself “the Latina Lizzo,” though given the strictures of network television in the U.S. she couldn’t unleash the barrage of swear words the real Lizzo came up with that ruined her CD for me even though most of it was gospel-flavored soul and suggested Lizzo could have been good casting for a biopic of Mahalia Jackson. (When NBC showed a promo for this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live with Lizzo as both MC and musical guest, I joked that the person in charge of the “bleep” button is going to get a lot of exercise from that show.) Though Mari’s song, “Fly,” is a generic anthem of perseverance and persistence and its debt to Mariah Carey’s “Butterfly” is pretty obvious, her presentation was amazing; she really has control of that large body and commanded the stage.

The next act was something called The Crystal Method, representing Nevada, and originally consisting of two men, Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan. They recorded their first singles in 1996 and their debut album, Vegas, in 1997. They’ve released seven albums in all, though the last two were without Ken Jordan, who decided to retire in 2017 and was not replaced. (Steely Dan started out with six members and gradually whittled themselves down to two, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker; The Crystal Method started out with two pieces and whittled themselves down to one.) I’m presuming Scott Kirkland was the person in the back playing a synthesizer he rested on top of two bass drums. The big thing I liked about their song, “Watch Me Now,” is that their lead singer sounded like punk-rock even though the overall background and sound texture was electronic. Third up was Utah country singer Savannah Keyes (whose last name is pronounced “Kize,” by the way), doing an O.K. generic ballad called “Sad Girl” after she lamented how difficult it is for women to succeed in country music. (Tell that to Dolly Parton – who has actually been featured in these shows as part of a commercial for cell-phone service – or Loretta Lynn, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile, Lauren Alaina, Maren Morris, et al. And I’ve deliberately mentioned only women country superstars who are still alive!)

The next act was a sweet-voiced soul singer named Nëither (with the umlaut) representing Washington, D.C. – and while any aspiring musician from our nation’s capital, especially a Black one, labors under the long shadow of Duke Ellington, I quite liked Nëither even though his name and overall appearance made me afraid he’d turn out to be a rapper. The next performer was Jared Lee, representing Massachusetts (he was introduced via film clips of him in Boston, his home town, ordering food at a stand whose posted menu actually references “clam chowda” – I’m not making this up, you know!) and delivering a professional performance of a song called “Shameless” that was O.K. but did little for me. The next song was “D.I.Y.” by Stela Cole from Georgia – her first name is pronounced “Stella” but she uses only one “l” – and she was dressed in a skin-tight spangled silver pantsuit that gave her freedom of body movement (and she was sexy enough that if I were straight I’d have been turned on by her!), but as with many of the other acts, her dance moves and other visual presentations were more interesting than the actual song. Next up was Bronson Vardé from Hawai’i, who did a song called “4 You” (that’s how he spelled the title, the numeral “4” followed by the word “You” – no doubt Prince would have called it “4 U” the way he actually did title one of his songs “I Would Die 4 U,” which led my husband Charles to refer to Prince jokingly as “the first texter”) that blended traditional Hawai’ian music with pop and reggae (he actually called the song “Jawai’ian,” after Jamaica, the birthplace of reggae), and as with so much of the program it was pleasant and engaging but also pretty bland.

Afterwards came an artist I would have wanted to like much better than I actually did: Alexis Cunningham from West Virginia, who came out as a Lesbian during their pre-song interview (and we got to see footage of her and her girlfriend out on the town ordering ice cream). She bore a striking resemblance, physically and vocally, to Bonnie Raitt, particularly when she whipped out an electric guitar during her song – but she’s not as powerful either as a voice or a visual presence than Raitt and it didn’t help that she was only playing rhythm guitar, not lead. The next song was by far my favorite of the night: “De La Finikera” by Los Marias from Arizona, twin sisters named Maria Theresa and Maria Isabel (no, we didn’t get their last name) whose parents were deported from Sedona, Arizona in 2008 and who have since lived a bi-national existence. (This reminded me of film director Josef von Sternberg, who wrote in his autobiography Fun in a Chinese Laundry that during his childhood he was shuttled back and forth between his father in his native Austria and his mother, who had moved herself and the kids to the U.S. when she and Sternberg’s dad divorced.) What I liked most about “De La Finikera” (the title was a bit of Spanglish indicating someone from the Phoenix area) was it was flat-out traditional Mexican ranchera music without any admixtures of pop formulae or music from other places the way virtually all the other artists on American Song Contest who are neither white nor Black have felt obliged to add. I was also impressed with the woman guitarist who played an instrumental solo in double time and, since she looked to be a generation older than los dos Marias, I was wondering whether she’s their mother.

The two remaining songs, Bri Steves from Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, in particular) doing “Plenty Love” and Allen Stone from Washington state doing “A Bit of Both,” were unsurprisingly anticlimactic,though I liked the way Steves smoothly transitioned from singing to rapping and then back. Stone has had something of a major career: He was born in 1987 and released his first album (in digital format only) in 2009, when he began touring; he’s been on TV shows hosted by Conan O’Brien, David Letterman and Ellen DeGeneres and was guest artist on the Macklemore and Lewis song “Neon Cathedral.” His song was a piece of forgettable 1970’s-era pop music but the critics and music-industry professionals on the American Song Contest jury were clearly more impressed by him than I was, because they voted him the jury award. (Every night, the winner of the jury prize automatically goes on to the next round, while the other three slots from each night are determined by weighted voting from jurors and fans.) So far I’ve enjoyed American Song Contest despite the really annoying brand of hype that’s surrounded the show and the pathetic antics of Clarkson and Snoop Dogg as the hosts; there seems to have been at least one performer on every edition – Rhode Island’s Hueston from the first program, North Dakota’s Chloe Fredericks on the second, Tennessee’s Tyler Braden on the third and Arizona’s Los Marias from this one – that has stood out from the rest and scored with real sincerity, power and soul.