The Great Korean Hope

One week into American Idol watching, Big Mike is still in it, and I'm already annoyed by about half the contestants. And I know which ones will be most annoying - the ones who aren't all that good, but who are cute and popular. This is the nature of the game - it's a popularity contest, and being a talented or interesting performer isn't the only way to be popular. Some of the guys are popular because they're cute. Big Mike's popularity in part stems from his inspirational story. And John Park is trying to do something unprecedented.

Based on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter followers, John Park is the 2nd most popular performer. He's cute for sure, but he's also attempting to become the first Asian-American pop star (well, male pop star if you count the Singaporean Tila Tequila as a pop star, but she falls more into the famous for being famous genre). It's hard to figure out why this is. The major Asian countries are huge music markets (Uncle Jesse's band on Full House was legendarily "big in Japan," as was Cheap Trick). The Asian-American population is large, particularly in New York and California, and they love music too. Heck, they invented karaoke! Who doesn't love karaoke?

So, why is there this lack? Perhaps because, unlike Latin music, Asian pop isn't a distinct musical style from American pop. But it's surprising that the music industry hasn't attempted to pander to this market. That's the void that John Park appears to be stepping right into.

As I type this, he's doing what is, to my ears, a pretty mediocre version of John Mayer's Gravity. SEGUE~! - tomorrow I'll be talking about the John Mayer live experience, and the douche:awesome ratio.