2007: A Year in Review

Or The Top 13 Products of Reality TV Competitions & Their Finest Moments

Despite my having left America, 2007 was the year I watched American Idol for the first time ever. Contrary to expectations, I’d never actually watched any reality TV music competitions until earlier this year when I became compulsively addicted to the whole Sanjaya brouhaha on youtube. So I am nowhere near an expert on the topic, but since the whole phenomenon has had an immense impact on the world of pop music, and as I claim to be a pop aficionado, I’m going to try to my best to make a list out of it, because I love lists. I love reading them. I love compiling them. I love showing them off. It makes me giddy.

Of course no list would be complete without its own list of caveats. This list is heavily skewed towards U.K./U.S.A. music because that’s what I listen to mostly. Also, I have not listened to a lot of the following artists’ output, because there is too much to listen to when you are a pop music fan, so it is likely that their finest moment isn’t really their finest moment.

Bonus: Daniel Zueras
Spain – Operacion Triunfo runner-up, Season 5 (2007)
Let’s kick things off with one of the most jaw-dropping music videos ever. If you haven’t seen this, then you absolutely must. The song isn’t that much to write home about and I know practically nothing about the singer, but what a video. It features the most unconvincing pillow fight ever. Warning: not exactly safe for work though.

13. Darin Zanyar
Sweden – Idol 2004 runner-up (2004)
It’s like Aaron Carter all over again, except he’s really 20.
Finest Moment: “Insanity” (2007)
Instead of making the transition to Justin Timberlake, he seems to be taking the more adventurous JC Chasez route. A tad gothic, a tad kinky, and a catchy “hey ho.” He’s wearing a nice jacket in the video too.

12. Margaret Berger
Norway - Norwegian Idol runner-up, Season 2 (2004)
Finest Moment: “Samantha” (2006)
Bertine Zetlitz, Annie, Marit Larsen - Norway seems to be cranking out these icy electropop princesses like nobody's business. Margaret Berger, despite coming out of the Idol school of music, follows closely in the vein of the aforementioned. "Samantha" is dizzying electrogoodness, while aspiring to be a self-help anthem as well: "Let your head up high, girl / you need to be yourself."

11. Lemar
U.K. – Fame Academy, 2nd runner-up, 2002
Sadly, he seems to be the only visible face of the UK R&B scene, one which is very much in the doldrums :(.
Finest Moment: “Dance (With U)” (2003)
Lemar burst onto the scene with a debut that was a wonderful slice of throwback R&B. Laidback, groovy, "the ooh the aah the ooh," it was the epitome of a lazy summer track. Unfortunately, with the exception of "If There's Any Justice," his brand of adult contemporary R&B has been dull and duller ever since.

10. Jennifer Hudson
U.S.A. – American Idol contestant, Season 3 (2004)
Boy, she sure told that Beyoncé, didn’t she? Dreamgirls exploded to life whenever Jennifer Hudson was on screen, which sadly wasn’t enough.
Finest Moment: “And I Am Telling You That I’m Not Going (Richie Jones Dance Remix)” (2007)
Because few things are better than big gay house remix of a Broadway belter, but those few things do exist and so let’s count them down!

9. Katharine McPhee
U.S.A. – American Idol runner-up, Season 5 (2006)
Perhaps the world's most prominent victim of reverse-ageism
Finest Moment: “Love Story” (2007)
This is glorious. Horns, handclaps throughout the song. Backup soul singers that go oooh ooh ooh. Katharine might be recounting the “typical love story," but this simple song was one of the best pop songs of last year.

8. Christophe Willem
France – Nouvelle Star winner, Season 4 (2006)
They call him "The Turtle." His back seems to be perpetually hunched. He's got to be one of the world's unlikeliest popstars.
Finest Moment: “Double Je” (2007)
When I first heard this song, I had no idea it was a guy, which goes to show what an astonishing falsetto Christophe has. It's a catchy, slinky disco number, the highlight of which is Christophe screaming "Je me déguise, en chanteur dans ma salle de bain!" Along with the new Alizée and Julie Zenatti, there were loads to excited about with French pop in 2007.

7. David Bisbal
Spain – Operación Triunfo runner-up, Season 1 (2002)
My students tell me that he’s the only Spanish reality TV star worth a grain of salt.
Finest Moment:“Torre De Babel (Reggaéton Mix)” feat. Vicente Amigo y Wisin & Yandel (2007)
Flamenco + Reggaéton = mind-blowing. This song is just massive.

6. Carrie Underwood
U.S.A. – American Idol winner, Season 4 (2005)
She once implored Jesus to take the wheel.
Finest Moment: “Before He Cheats” (2006) Obviously. Wow. This song made me reconsider the whole genre of country music, which I had previously rather ignorantly written off. This song is so fierce - “I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive / carved my name into his leather seat / I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights / slashed a hole in all 4 tyres/ maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.” – that’s what girl power is all about. In fact, I could've just quoted the whole song, as it's so quotable. But what makes it so great is that Carrie herself hams it up with a little guttural affectation. Few things are as bitter, funny, and endlessly entertaining as a wronged psycho country girl.

5. Miranda Lambert
U.S.A. – Nashville Star, 3rd place, Season 1 (2003)
More country! Incredible, isn’t it? What’s become of me? I actually went out to buy this album - my first and only country album.
Finest Moment: “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (2007)
There’s something about these wronged country girls and their violent beer-guzzling, pistol-carrying, trash-talking tendencies that make for wonderfully unhinged vocal performances, replete with their adorable twangs, and backed up with loud guitars, harmonicas, tambourines and banjos. Ooh, it’s just great. Miranda goes to places wee Carrie can't even fathom. One of her cracking songs has her loading a shotgun, lighting a cigarette, and yelling "I'm gonna show what little girls are made of / Gunpowder and Lead!" Having said that, Miranda is by no means a one-trick pony. She gamely throws herself into her melancholic ballads, but it is avenging touch chick shtick that makes for the most entertaining.

4. Will Young
U.K. – The original Pop Idol (2002).
Believe it or not, Will Young is the music video artist of this millennium. Few artists have made videos as consistently entertaining and original as he has. The run of Leave Right Now / Your Game / Friday’s Child / Switch It On / All Time Love / Who Am I is absolutely amazing. Like Kelly Clarkson after him, Will Young abandoned the pop ballad path that his record company had probably condemned him to, and reinvented himself as a chameleonic popstar.
Finest Moment: “Your Game” (2004)

Although his gender-bending cover of Tori Alamaze/Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha" was all kinds of ace ("Don't you wish your girlfriend was a free-ee-ee-ee-eak"), "Your Game" was the song that made me sit up and pay attention to him. I had previously written off as little more than a boring record company cipher, the way that Leona Lewis seems to be now ("Bleeding Love's" ludicrous OTTness notwithstanding), but this is a big, bombastic, Broadway superstar track. Will Young's roots are in musical theater, and it clearly shows this is where he's most comfortable, when he's funky and theatrical. The best thing about is the question and answer thing he does with his backing chorus "What you gon do?" "I DON'T KNOW!" "what you gon say?" "I AIN'T SURE!"

3. Kelly Clarkson
U.S.A. – The original American Idol (2002)
Kelly’s debut had some great songs in “Miss Independent” and “The Trouble With Love Is”, but she proved she wasn’t going to play the straight pop game in the amazing Breakaway. Sadly her new album, which generated loads of controversy because of its rancorous conception, has produced little more than indifference upon its release.
Finest Moment: “I Hate Myself For Losing You” (2004)
An underrated album track wherein Kelly proves that she's got lots of angst, but not so much that it's at an annoying Alanis level, and not as teenagerish as Avril's either. It's a very likeable Kelly Clarkson angst. This is an enormously catchy ditty, and it builds up so that she's really belting it out in the last minute. I'd sing along the whole way through if it weren't for the clumsy line "what do you do when you look in the mirror and staring at you is why he's not here?"

2. Fantasia Barrino
U.S.A. – American Idol winner, Season 3 (2004)
Fantasia, oooh Fantasia. She has one of those unique fiery and husky voices that screams out for some explosive man-munching material. It goes without saying that her teary heartstopping performance of "I Believe" on winning American Idol is flat-out amazing, but songs like “Hood Boy” and “Baby Makin’ Hips” fully exploit her voluptuous volatility.
Finest Moment: “When I See U (Remix)” feat. Polow Da Don & Young Jeezy (2007) <<---- it is imperative that you download this!
Polow Da Don (producer of the year) works his wonders on Fantasia’s lovesick blushing, stuttering and scribbling X’s and O’s by inserting a menacing, towering backing beat and heavy synth lines. While Fantasia’s incredible howling about the mundane: “Should I send an email at hooooooome?” “Youuuuuuu sexy booooooyyy” is further juxtaposed with Young Jeezy’s thuggish non-cussing (it’s a remix for the radio, he fondly points out). Incongruous, perhaps? No way. It becomes a battle between Fantasia’s amazing emoting and the masculine crunk. Er, my most listened to song of 2007, this.

TO BE CONTINUED... (whenever I can be bothered)