I haven't watched American Idol since the first season. One of the things that ruined the show for me was realizing how much better the nameless background singers were than any of the contestants. It made it obvious that AI was just a competition of the mediocre.
 
I've just watched this excellent documentary about background singers called "20 Feet from Stardom", a celebration of the contributions of background singers to great records.
 
It starts with the legendary Blossoms, who made so many 60's records into hits (think "da doo ron ron"). You get to put faces to the voices you know so well, singers who made the difference between an ordinary song and something special. Imagine "Gimme Shelter" without the female vocal - quick, who sang that? I didn't know, either. You also realize that when you sing along with those tunes you're often singing with the backup singers - as one of them put it "we're the ones who sing the hooks".
 
I just wish the musical bits were longer, because some of them are really good.
 

Yup. We watched this about a month ago. We gave it 5 stars.
 
 
I met Mary Clayton at a friends' party in the 80s. I knew who she was even before I met her.

I've always been a "background singers fan", but I think we also have to aknowledge that a brilliant background singer may only be a mediocre lead singer, or perhaps lack totally what it takes to entertain the crowd. They are two different forms of art.  Most likely Dylan, Amy Winehouse or Whitney Houston would have been poor background singers, for one or the other reason. 
 

And of course it always helps to have hot background singers if the lead singer is ugly.Just sayin'

Sam Brown is one that springs to mind. She's sung back-up for Floyd, Deep Purple, George Harrison & Gary Moore, to name but a few, and regularly sang with Jools Holland's Big Band.

bitflipper
It made it obvious that AI was just a competition of the mediocre.
 

I usually avoid such shows but these days, a couple of friends of ours were on The Voice back home, so I had to at least check it out quickly. It is disheartening. (And how unbelievably tone-deaf the public of these shows really is is beyond anything even the most pessimistic of us could imagine). The tyranny of mediocrity...
 
The tragic thing is that, in a smaller market like back home, these shows have practically become the single (illusory) gateway to making a career in music. But in truth, it's only another temporary engagement which leads to nothing - chews you and spits you out.
 
Even people with a 20 years career end up doing it because there's no job - and ironically, there is no job in part because such show produce new "stars" by the dozen when there is no market to support them. Most of them vanish from public consciousness after 6 months... If we'd stayed back home, my wife would have had to audition for it too - even if just to survive for a few more weeks. Dreadful perspective...
 
Another tragic thing is that in such a small market, there can be no viable alternative - there's not enough people to make it possible to support alternative music - you can't make a life out of that system. Even our friends, who've been in some of the biggest musicals ever, and have been on cover of magazines and all - they have to have day jobs and go back to school. There's no job for musicians. And yet, TV shows like these keep on producing disposable new stars years after year.
 
At least here in the US, there is a bit more room for working musicians outside that circuit.
 

Rain
At least here in the US, there is a bit more room for working musicians outside that circuit.

 
Yeah, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's... 

craigb

Rain
At least here in the US, there is a bit more room for working musicians outside that circuit.

 
Yeah, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's... 

I know it's far from easy, but compared to back home, this still is the land of milk and honey... It may not be as obvious as it once was, but, artistically, there still is a "middle-class" here.
 
When working on the translation of my wife's humongous press kit (which, according to the lawyer helping us w/ the green card process, is the most impressive she's seen), at one point, both of us realized that if we'd transpose what she'd accomplished back home even before she joined Cirque, transpose all of that to its relative US equivalent, the results would be very impressive... We'd probably be chilling w/ Bon Jovi around a private pool somewhere and we'd have nice apartments in NY and LA.
 
Instead of which, back home, for all the awards and the gold and platinum records hanging on the walls, we depended on my stable income and she had to go back to school and work a day job... 

Yeah, the so-called entertainment industry certainly is not fair.  That so many dumb jocks make millions playing a game while most of the musicians and actors are barely scraping by doing what they love is sad...

bitflipper
I haven't watched American Idol since the first season. One of the things that ruined the show for me was realizing how much better the nameless background singers were than any of the contestants. It made it obvious that AI was just a competition of the mediocre.
 
I've just watched this excellent documentary about background singers called "20 Feet from Stardom", a celebration of the contributions of background singers to great records.
 
It starts with the legendary Blossoms, who made so many 60's records into hits (think "da doo ron ron"). You get to put faces to the voices you know so well, singers who made the difference between an ordinary song and something special. Imagine "Gimme Shelter" without the female vocal - quick, who sang that? I didn't know, either. You also realize that when you sing along with those tunes you're often singing with the backup singers - as one of them put it "we're the ones who sing the hooks".
 
I just wish the musical bits were longer, because some of them are really good.
 

Is this on Netflix or Hulu?