It's Easy to See Without Looking Too Far That Not Much Is Really Sacred

Simon Cowell doesn't like the music of Bob Dylan. That doesn't bother me. What does bother me is the fact that he thinks Kelly Clarkson is "a young Aretha Franklin," and that he purportedly thinks she is better than Bob Dylan.

For the record, Kelly Clarkson is no Aretha Franklin, young, old, zygotic or dead. She's an older Debbie Gibson whose producers and A&R people scour the sounds of the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Minutemen for material. Her music will be forgotten in three years, unlike the "dull" sounds of Bobby Zimmerman.

With sensibilities like these, it's no wonder American Idol-ification has sweeped the globe and lowered the bar for lowest-common-denominator cultural "expre$$ion" (yeeeeaaaah, how punk was that?). To quote an American friend of mine in exile in London, "The masses are asses." Sure, Cowell makes waaaaaay more money than the lumpenproles who watch his shitty show, but he is clearly a reflection and a projection of our tastes in popular entertainment. He is like Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) from the film All About Eve (1950). I wouldn't call him an asshole, because he is not: he is merely a conniving businessman and taste-shaper who knows that by appearing to be an asshole, he will have a greater influence on his show's viewership because he dominates the conversation.

Just look at what I'm doing right now :)