Platinum Hit is Bravo’s attempt to do for songwriting what Top Chef does for food and Project Runway does for fashion — that is, to fill the TV screen with grasping talents, semi-talents, and egoists, offer them prize money and a career, and watch the beautiful creativity flourish!
The show is hosted by Jewel, who has become more Bravo-host-like in her look and demeanor — tight-dressed, high-heeled, and primly haughty in the Padma manner. But the bigger draw is judge Kara DioGuardi, who imports her American Idol style of critiquing most contestants as though she was granting them immense wisdom that, if not heeded, might lead not merely to eviction but to utter and complete failure in life. That’s how vehement DioGuardi is, non-stop — as a TV personality, she’s intense and exhausting. Watching Platinum Hit, you remember why DioGuardi was at once the most transfixing judge Idol ever had, and the most cluelessly unbearable.
Speaking of cluelessly unbearable, the premiere’s roll-out of songwriting talent had a majority of humans full of what passes for confidence on reality TV, which is unbridled arrogance, aloof entitlement, and an inability to concentrate on and listen to anything one of the other humans is saying.
As with almost every other current competition show, Platinum is a throwback to a show that was a hit 50 or 60 years ago. (Without Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour, no America’s Got Talent; without The Lawrence Welk Show, no Dancing With the Stars.) In this case, the idea of collaborating on pop songs under pressurized conditions is strongly reminiscent of tunesmith-factories such as the Brill Building, where in the 50s and 60s, teams such as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, churned out material for the likes of Bobby Vee, The Shangri-Las, and Paul Revere and the Raiders. (The songwriting talent tended to exceed the general quality of the artists, although I’d argue that Paul Revere and the Raiders are underrated.)
But the songwriting collaborations on Platinum Hit are designed to foster drama through friction and hostility, not friction and creativity. So are the challenges. Tasked with writing a song about “the City of Angels” — Los Angeles, where the show is set — we got a lot of dribble about making it, affixed to melodies that sounded ready-made. Or, in the case of Sonyae Elise, the aggressively yowled, “Love it or hate it! Love it or hate it!” — less a song than a piece of rock criticism about where punk rock went wrong. Unaccountably, DioGuardi loved Sonyae’s monotone rant; someone send Kara a box of Ramones albums.
There is a fundamental flaw of Platinum Hit. It’s true that when a chef on Top Chef is asked to come up with a theme dish, he or she is doing variations on dishes that contestant has made before, but the twist the producers build into a challenge forces something new. On Platinum Hit, however, I find it impossible to believe that every contestant doesn’t arrive with a head-full of hooks that he or she simply attaches, with little or no variation, to some new lyrics suitable to the assigned theme.
As a result of this belief, I don’t find Platinum Hit at all suspenseful. It’s simply curious and — as in the cases of prizing Sonyae’s yelling and leaving us to figure out why the flighty, tuneless Melissa Rapp was chosen at all — baffling. Kara told the contestants they each had “one second to grab us.” I’m not sure that an entire hour of Platinum Hit was enough to grab sufficient numbers of viewers who’d tune in for a second week. Are you?
Twitter: @kentucker
More crap.
America loves that, though.
Too true.
I think I would have to agree. The only parts I found interesting were when they actually performed their songs at the beginning and end of the show. Other than that, I found most of the contestants to be unbearably arrogant and I really felt like the group writing parts went on too long.
I don’t want to be grabbed by Kara in any way. :-p
The show is pretty meh, but I take exception to your argument that the Shangri-Las are an example of the writers being more talented than the artists. The Shangri-Las sheer charisma and talent elevated a bunch of crummy songs into two-and-a-half minute masterpieces.
I thought it was pretty good and some of the songwriters were really talented. I still don’t understand why some people dislike Kara so much because I like her.
would you understand why people would dislike these contestants? holy sh!t they are some major douchebags.
because she’s a talentless fool who won lotto and now is making a giant fool of herself in public
her songs stink!
DEF. CRAP. she gives actual SONGWRITERS a bad name especially FEMALE SONGWRITERS.
Which “she” are you referring to? Kara is responsible for many hits that you sing a long to on the radio. She’s a pretty awesome female songwriter. And Jewel is pretty talented in her own right. You may not like Kara or Jewel as a TV personality, but you got to give them credit where credit is due.
Yeah I’ve looked at the list of the “hits” she has written. There are a couple of good songs, but for the most part they are crap. Just because a song is a “hit”, doesn’t make it good.
In Ken’s review, he writes: “we got a lot of dribble about making it”
Isn’t the word “drivel”?
In the words of evil Willow, “Bored now.” Didn’t like it at all.
Funny!!
I enjoyed the program. I think it will get better each week. Kara does not bother me. She is very talented and knows her stuff. I admire that. Not sure about the people picked for the show.
Some seem to be very erogant and I agree entitled.
I agree. It’s amazing how ADHD American TV viewers are. They watch one episode and are already bored with it. GIVE IT A CHANCE, PEOPLE!! I personally like the concept of looking for a recording artist who can sing the songs he or she writes. I’m tired of watching contestants sing covers like American Idol. I think this show has potential and am willing to give it a chance.
If it was the only show on television, I would read or go to th movies.
Show was okay. Will keep tuning in because I like Kara and have an early fave in Johnny. I’m surprised they let Jackie Tohn on this show since she knows Kara from her Idol days. The problem for me is I find it hard to judge the songs since I don’t know what to look for. I hated the hook Sonyaye came up with and thought Nicks winning song was way too fast in the chorus, though the
backing parts were great. I also liked the losing song more than Sonyayes,
I find it funnier that Jackie and Jess act like they don’t know each other when they’ve been collaborators for a while now. Check out “Powerfox and Ponymane” on YouTube sometime.
I agree, I don’t think Sonyaye can sing AT ALL
Kara has written or co-written a LOT of hit songs. Jewel’s written some gems in her time. So, yeah, they SHOULD know what they’re talking about. But unlike Top Chef and Idol, the written songs are much more esoteric to judge. Kind of like Work of Art from last year, what one person likes or sees/hears as art can be garbage to someone else. Same here. The dishes on Top Chef may have different appeals to different people, but proper and improper cooking, seasoning, and plating are fairly objective to notice as is being pitchy or forgetting words on Idol (although the judges SURE let a LOT of that fly this season.) At the end of the day, at least what the contestants put forth on Work of Art at least could be judged by the end product. Here, it seems like the written lyrics are just one step in the process. Note how differently Billy Jean was performed by Michael Jackson compared to how Chris Cornell (and later David Cook) performed it. Same lyrics, different tempo, vocal style, pacing, and production. Any song written here could be a hit or a miss depending on who was to sing it and how it was produced. Look at Friday by Rebecca Black. She didn’t write it and the production on her fairly bad voice was horrible. Others have taken that crappy song and at least made it somewhat tolerable. The written song is just too subjective and unfinished to really be the basis for a competition. It made sense to have the contestants write their own songs on Rockstar:INXS because they wanted to give the band something to show that they could write FOR the band. Even Idol has original songs in the audition stages. But just judging written songs alone, or quickly produced and sung by the writers just doesn’t seem “tangible” and complete enough for a competition show like this.
Good analysis- I agree. Most of the songs on this episode, if tweaked, produced, and refined would be a “hit.”
I have to agree. There’s no recipe on how to make a “hit” song. Some of the best songs ever written never made it on the charts and vice versa.
Is Bravo bringing back Work of Art? I really liked the concept of that reality show and would watch it again.
I KNOW!!!! why this show and million dollar whatever and real housewives of crap are still on tv baffles me!
i saw an interview with sarah jessica parker, one of the producers: it’s coming back.
GO JACKIE!!!!
it was okay. i quite enjoyed how some of the songs turned out.
I don’t like forced team competitions, they lost me once that happened.
I think they did that (team competitions) to bring out their personalities by how they worked together. It’s important to know the personalities that write the songs. I thought it was a smart move.
I actually liked the show better than I thought I would. It is very difficult to throw the voice out of the equation when you are judging, otherwise Nevin would probably have won the whole competition. He was just a bit green in the songwriting field, and was too cliche. Another criticism: when Jen was a contestant on Top Chef All-Stars, Eric Ripert was not allowed to judge, but doesn’t it seem like Jackie Tohn has a huge advantage since Kara already judged her and liked her in Season 8 of Idol? I could see her glee whenever Jackie sung. Jackie is like Sheryl Crow lite at the moment. I thought the judging was a bit weird. I was pleasantly surprised by Jewel.