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American Idol has become such a pop culture phenomenon that it will likely be around for many years to come. I am one of the multi-million viewers who are thankful for that. There have been some very subtle changes to the show from season to season, and I imagine there will be some subtle differences this year too.

I, sadly, did not discover the show until the second season, but have been able to catch reruns of Kelly Clarkson's entry into the pop scene. During this first season, Ryan Seacrest shared the hosting spotlight with "that other guy". Maybe it was all an act, but these two did not seem to like each other very much. In my opinion, the adversarial relationship between Ryan and Simon Cowell, is quite enough. I'm glad "that other guy" has moved on. Season two and all subsequent seasons gave Ryan Seacrest full MC privileges.

During the Hollywood tryout portion, contestants are whittled down to the final twenty-four with a variety of singing situations. In the second season, the contestants were asked to write a song, based on a title given to them. This songwriting assignment may have been included in the first season, but I cannot attest to that. However, I thought it was very interesting that so few of the contestants had any songwriting ability. This could explain why this assignment was removed in subsequent seasons.

It wasn't until the fourth season that we saw any real contenders who would be focused on country music. In previous seasons, Simon disliked country music so much that he sometimes shot down an auditioning country singer with pronouncement that American Idol is a pop singer contest. Interestingly, 2006 year-end statistics from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) indicates that country music CD sales are twice that of pop music and is, in fact, second only to rock. Someone must have pointed this out to Simon, because it was also season four when we saw more rockers competing.

Season five was an interesting mix of talent. The winner, Taylor Hicks, appears to have been a short-term celebrity. However, several others from this season have become stars in their own right. Kellie Pickler and Bucky Covington have hit the country charts and Chris Daughtry has made his mark in rock. There is an interesting tidbit about these three, they are all from small towns in North Carolina (they should test the water out here)

In season six, we saw the Sanjaya Syndrome when weepy little girls and anti-AI bloggers all over the country were voting for the worst singer (for different reasons). This became such an issue that the music industry was all abuzz, about how American Idol would probably be killed over this. The producers added a songwriting competition because the songs that had been written for AI winners in the past had gotten poor reviews. So, what happened? They pronounced the winning song and Jordin Sparks recorded it.

Now, the audition cycle has finished on the seventh season. So far, we have seen the annual mass migration of the much-maligned tone-deaf warblers to auditoriums across North America. Sadly, only a few outstanding specimens will make it all the way to Hollywood. I'm not sure if we have see our winner perform yet, since there are still a few more audition sites to visit, but I think I can safely predict we will see the following:

1. At least one of the singers will stay much longer than their talent should allow them to.
2. One of the contestants will be carted away by the police on a two-year-old felony charge.
3. Paula Abdul will be tied romantically to one of the male contestants
4. Nude photos of one of the females contestants will surface on the Internet
5. Simon and Ryan will still be at each other's throats.

Learn more about this author, Barbara Cox.
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