Idol Chatter & Voice Views

American Idol made some welcome changes in 2008.

For the first time, contestants played instruments. Would David Cook have gone as far without his guitar? Jason Castro without his ukelele? Brooke White without a piano? Regardless, they left us with some memorable performances.

And fans likely appreciated the fact that you could download full-length studio performances by the Idol contestants on iTunes at the standard cost of 99 cents per song. Before, the option was waiting for the Idol machine to release a compilation CD with a couple songs you wanted and lots you probably didn’t.

But the consensus seems to be that Idol needs to make more changes to reverse a decline in viewership. It’s still the most watched show in the nation, and the finale drew more voters than last year. But overall ratings slipped slightly this year.

So, with that in mind, here are some suggestions.

1. Be up front to us about the contestants’ backgrounds. When Ryan kept rambling about this being the most talented final 12 in Idol history, I figured it was all hype. Turned out Idol execs knew what we found out over the course of the season.

David Archuleta wasn’t just some high school kid plucked out of Utah. He was a winner in Star Search when he was 12. David Cook wasn’t just a bartender from the Kansas City suburbs. He had been playing in bands since 1999 and released an independent album in 2006.

The list goes on. Carly Smithson released “Ultimate High” in 2001 as Carly Hennessy. Kristy Lee Cook released a country album, “Devoted” as Kristy Lee in 2005. Brooke White released an independent CD, “Songs from the Attic” in 2006.

Commercial break #1: All are available on iTunes; Brooke’s includes a wonderful cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow.” The CD and a video are also available on her Web site. End commercial break.

2. Cut the results show to a half hour. Seriously, asking viewers to watch an hour-long show to watch one contestant get eliminated is asking a bit much. I counted commercials the night Syesha Mercado was eliminated. The final count: 43, and that didn’t include in-show commercials like the weekly Ford music video.

3. Eliminate the portion of the result shows where Ryan Seacrest accepts call-in questions from viewers. The segment smelled of silly filler when it debuted this year, and the weekly stroking of Simon Cowell’s ego was beyond unbearable. “Why haven’t you been knighted yet?” “Don’t you think you’d be great for the next James Bond film?” Try this question: Why should Idol fans have to endure such garbage?

4. Take a week of final 12 competition and devote it to original compositions. That’s right — make the Idol contestants perform an original song or two that they’ve composed all by themselves. Nashville Star, which follows nearly the same format, does it; Idol should be able to. After all, this year the show took pride in celebrating star singer-performer-songwriters — Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey. Why should an American Idol be selected on only two of those three traits?

Commercial break #2: Nashville Star debuts June 9 on NBC with Billy Ray Cyrus as host and singer/songwriter Jewel (her first country CD comes out June 3) as a judge. Past contestants include singer/songwriter Miranda Lambert, who won Album of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards earlier this week. End commercial break number 2.

5. Cut down on the commercials, regardless of how long the shows are. I’ve only had two commercial breaks so far. If this was an episode of Idol, there’d be one after every paragraph. More annoying are the commercials within the show. Why were Mariah, Dolly and Neil among this year’s guest mentors? Because they all had new CDs to hawk. Heaven help us next year if Gene Simmons and Bret Michaels release CDs.

6. After doing #5, let the singers sing a full song. I mean, Simon keeps telling us this is a singing competition and, every week, the singing gets shortchanged. More than one contestant ran into trouble this year because he or she was forced to condense an ambitious song into a soundbite of less than two minutes.

7. Change the voting. Yeah, like that will happen. But, really, lots of folks who watch the show are likely discouraged from participating because you’d have to keep voting for two hours straight to offset the tweens and teens who do just that.

8. Rein in the audition episodes. This is my biggest complaint. I’ve been an Idol fan since year one, but I generally skip the audition shows. The parade of would-be contestants with no singing ability, who will wear or do anything silly to get on national TV, is nauseating. They stopped being funny a long time ago and they make a mockery of the pre-audition screening process.

Idol should also stop celebrating the most outrageous, profanity-laced tirades from those upset because they got to audition, but didn’t get their golden ticket to Hollywood. At this point you wonder, are any of these tirades genuine? Or are they made-for-TV temper tantrums?

So there you have it, Idol producers, eight suggestions, free for the taking.

I’ll be anxious to see if any of the eight are in place when Idol season eight debuts next year.