“American Idol” has made an unlikely new pop star of Daniel Powter, a 35-year-old Canadian with the wide-eyed look of a runaway bride.
Each week, as “Idol” sends another contestant home, the show pairs his brooding, sensitive song “Bad Day” with a sniffly montage. Riding high on the Billboard pop-singles chart, the song has become inescapable.
TV and music dovetailed long before “Idol.” There are your musician/actors (from LL Cool J to Reba McEntire); there are theme songs that become hits (from Waylon Jennings’ husky “Good Ol’ Boys” of “Dukes of Hazzard” and the Rembrandts’ wimpy “I’ll Be There for You” on “Friends”); and songs boosted by their use in commercials (Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” for Apple, Sting’s “Desert Rose” for Jaguar).
And since the Flaming Lips’ unexplainably weird appearance on “Beverly Hills 90210” years ago, hipster bands no longer regard TV as gauche.
Death Cab for Cutie and the Killers enjoyed sales boosts after appearing on “The O.C.” “Bands are becoming more open to TV,” says Alexandra Patsavas, “The O.C.” music supervisor. “They’re looking for an opportunity to reach more people. Radio’s harder to break than it used to be. Sometimes you can find a special moment (in a show) between what you see and what you hear.”
Patsavas points out that the “special moment” is key. Her song selections always are based on characters and scenes; she doesn’t try to shoehorn hip bands into an episode.
The poignant stuff is tough to get right. Many a TV drama has employed the late Jeff Buckley’s melancholy cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for a tear-jerking scene.
“Sometimes we joke, ‘Oh, another closing montage, it’s time for ‘Hallelujah,”‘ says Mary Guibert, Buckley’s mother, who now tends his music.
TV uses the song, she says, for “anything having to do with dead bodies or people in church making confessions or reflecting on their lives – which is funny. If you listen to the lyrics, it’s about a failed love affair.” But even “Hallelujah” hasn’t tipped into the cultural mainstream: Buckley’s album Grace, which contains “Hallelujah,” has sold a strong, but not huge 500,000 copies over 12 years.
Which returns us to Powter’s bigger “Bad Day,” a song with a weekly audience in the tens of millions, many of whom have sought out Powter’s album.
Some of Powter’s handlers fret about the song’s link to “Idol.” He’s not an overnight prefab talent; he’s performed for years. They don’t want him to be the “Bad Day” guy.
Two similar song/TV relationships justify the concern. Billy Vera and the Beaters’ “At This Moment” was an obscure brooding weeper until it accompanied a breakup involving Michael J. Fox on “Family Ties.” Macy Gray’s “I Try” was a brooding funk cut that also accompanied a breakup involving Michael J. Fox on “Spin City.” Besides the Michael J. Fox connection, the two songs share another trait: They were one-off successes that neither artist has been able to duplicate.
But one-off success is better than no success at all, as “Idol’s “also-rans learn each week. At best, TV can give an artist a career that otherwise wouldn’t be there. At worst, there are invitations to sing at boat races and baseball games. And who would call that a bad day?
