"Reality" Watch: Rock Star: SuperNova

Hey, I'm back--rested and refreshed. Well, not exactly. I came down with a cold this weekend which I'm still fighting off, but I'm nonetheless ready to resume my self-appointed duty to share my ill informed opinions with you, the starved for a social life denizens of cyberspace.

So, what's been going on in the world of Pop Culture since I last posted herein. Well, Superman Returns and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest both hit theaters, and on TV the summer onslaught of "reality" shows continued unabated with the debut of new seasons of Big Brother and Rock Star.

I will be going on at length about the goings on in the Big Brother house over the course of the next couple of months, so today I'm going to say a few things about Rock Star: SuperNova(That's the full official title).

One thing I like about RS compared to other American Idol style talent searches is that they skip showing you the audition phase and cut right to the meat of the competition. After all, there's only so many times you can see self-appointed entertainment industry "experts" delivering savage groin kicks to the hopes and dreams of naive and untalented youngsters before it starts to get old. RS also flies in the face of the Idol template by failing to include a snotty, pain in the ass Brit amongst the judges. (Maybe its because all the other "reality" shows have already taken all the jerks in Britain and all thats left over there are the nice guys--but I doubt that. The world will never run out of jerks.)

The advantage that this season's edition of Rock Star holds over last year's, for me, at least, is that I can watch it without feeling like some sort of ghoul. As I wrote at the time, I felt that the idea of INXS replacing their deceased lead singer in a televised spectacle that was more about ratings than rock and roll was tacky and disrespectful to the memory of Michael Hutchence. SuperNova, however, is a brand new band with no history or baggage of its own (though the three members, especially Tommy Lee, have plenty of history--some of it caught on tape and distributed over the Internet), so I don't feel bad about enjoying the performances.

By the way, am I the only one who noticed that the chick who sang "Pinball Wizard" messed up the lyrics. Dave Navarro and the members of SuperNova didn't seem to notice, but where the songs says,"...The Pinball Wizard has such a supple wrist" she sang "subtle." Admittedly, it's a small, nitpicky kind of thing, but it does change the meaning of the phrase in subtle (or is it supple) ways. Actually, "...such a subtle wrist" renders the phrase meaningless; it's nonsense. Once again, it's kind of nitpicky, but I'll bet that if Pete Townshend was watching, he was screaming at the TV, "It's 'SUPPLE'!!! SUPPLE--not SUBTLE!! You f****ed up me bleedin' song, you bloody wanker!!" (He's British, ya know--they talk like that.)