American Idol Songwriting Contest Songs Submitted

American Idol Songwriting Contest song entriesSay that 10x fast.

This is bad…it’s the 2nd time American Idol has appeared on GarageSpin in less than a month.  But this time, it’s about the American Idol Songwriting Contest; I felt compelled to after seeing the oh-so-cute Hugh in "Music and Lyrics" last night.

The backstory: the American Idol winner traditionally records a new, professionally-written song after the competition is over.  However, the song has traditionally sucked.  So, American Idol decided to start the American Idol Songwriting Contest.  Songwriters were to write a "journey-" or "quest-" theme song, follow a few simple songwriting contest rules, pay a $10 entry fee, and cross their fingers.  Fans will vote on the 20 selected songs. 

Boom.  Apparently, 25,000 entries were submitted (hey, that’s $250,000).  So, besides raking in a chunk of songwriting contest fees, by involving fans in the selection process, American Idol should also be able to sell quite a few copies of the winning idol single.  Oh yeah, and hopefully, they’ll find some decent songwriting talent.  Pretty smaaht.  Sadly, none of this will affect the American Idol Theme Song itself.

There’ve been some complaints about the songwriting contest selection process, apparently.  Hey, what do you expect when music interns are commanded to shrink a pile of 25,000 songs to 20?   And some believe the 20 selected songs all suck.  Ah well.  I’m not sure myself; unfortunately, the 20 finalist songs are no longer available for listening.  The winning song will be sung live by the winner on May 22 (and will surely become a karaoke hit soon after).

The moral?  Er, I dunno.  Maybe, "Create your own promotional opportunities, don’t depend on 1 in 25,000 chances of succeeding."  Or, "Be sure to appeal to the masses in everything you do and create."

Just kidding.  Kudos to the winner-to-be; I’d love it if it were a DIY basement-bound musician.  People are posting what they know about the entrants here, in case you’re interested.  Honestly, I hope someone great makes it.

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3 responses to “American Idol Songwriting Contest Songs Submitted”

  1. Office Overlord Avatar

    For anyone still paying attention to this (somehow I doubt there are many American Idol viewers on this site, but I’ll press on anyway, just as I have in my unrequited Sanjaya love)…

    Too long a parenthetical. Let me start over.

    For anyone still paying attention to this, tonight was a great example of why this system is no better than the previous system. The song chosen was MUCH better for one of the final two contestants than it was for the other. The style simply fit her voice much better than his. If it was simply the first single for the winning contestant, that wouldn’t be a big deal, but here it was one of the final three songs that the contestants get to perform before the ultimate vote to decide this season’s winner. A contest winner shouldn’t have that kind of power.

    They did better last season, when they assigned different songs to the two finalists in an attempt to better match their particular voices and singing styles. Heck, if they were still bent on doing the contest and squeezing whatever shred of additional publicity out of the show that they can, they could at least narrow the contest entries down to 5 or 10 winners, and let the finalists pick the song they want to perform. Surely there are five songs out of 25,000 that are as good as “This Is My Now.”

    Granted, you can argue that it doesn’t much matter–that all of the top 10 contestants pretty much have it made to various degrees. They’ve gotten their exposure; talent will take them from there (or nowhere, in some cases). I say, even things that don’t matter are worth doing right. With the possible exception of giving Pauly Shore acting lessons.

  2. Tania Purpora Avatar

    Are they having a 2009 songwriters contest.. because I have the song.. ready…

    email me at Ionlyrocknroll@hotmail.com to hear it…

  3. dale turner Avatar
    dale turner

    Anyone know how to submit songs to Idol. Or what publishers or record company handles their music in the U.S. I heard that it was RCA. Anyone know, let me know please
    dkprints@hotmail.com

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