Do We Really Need Any More American Idols?

Star power.

That's what American Idol is all about, right? And the new season, which begins Wednesday, is really wheeling out celestial objects of admiration.

Jennifer Lopez, or just JLo, and Steven Tyler, the 62-year-old Aerosmith doyen.

Will the addition of these two stars and their credentials, musical and otherwise, somehow compensate for the departure of the biggest star of all?

That would be the beautifully cruel and unusual Simon Cowell, a man who was the eminence noir in a show in which the singers were merely the straight people for his act.

Some still choose to bask in the idea that American Idol produced such vast cultural phenomena as Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood.

We would all be living loveless, irreligious lives if it weren't for these two, who gave us, among other classics, "My Life Would Suck Without You" and "Jesus Take the Wheel".

Yet the show was really about the young, the naive, the unpolished, the provincial overcoming the whiplash of the worldly Cowell's tonguelashings.

His eyes offered them all the altruism of Vladimir Putin, as he uttered a resigned critique of their pitch, their personality or their pelvis.

People might have enjoyed the rags to riches trip-a-thon of the singers. But they got emotionally involved in the gut-punching brutality of Cowell's zingers.

It wasn't even always fun for those who won.

Many have teetered on the brink of obscurity, sometimes falling in, with no Chilean rescue team to save them.

Whither Taylor Hicks? He withered. Reuben Studdard's career stuttered, rather than being star-studded.

And the last three winners offer the shivering suggestion that the show had become more predictable than former Idol judge Paula Abdul's optimism.

Last year, it was Lee DeWyze, a nice-looking boy with an acoustic guitar.

The year before, it was Kris Allen, a nice-looking boy with an acoustic guitar.

The year before that, it was David Cook, a nice-looking boy with an electric guitar.

To be fair to Cook, he did try the occasional foray into originality, but it's not as if the world is sucking in its collective lungs until Cook releases another magnum opus.

Perhaps the truth is that America isn't in such great need of stars.

We go on iTunes, we buy the songs that we like, we put them in the order that we like and there are billions of them out there.

American Idol created a few very temporary phenomena who drifted away as quickly as did our attention, which is far more focused how much of our lives we can live through our gadgets.

Most of the acts that earn big money touring are now aged over 60. They have a vast back catalog of songs and audiences that want to hear them just one more time before they (the audience or the stars) die.

Now, a song's longevity has been reduced to that of a game show contestant.

It has to compete with so many more songs and so many more sources.

It's not as if we're just listening to the radio any more. It's not as if we're listening to the radio at all, in fact.

Unless it's to listen to middle-aged men blowing hard, but rarely melodiously.

American Idol was always a reality show in which people enjoyed the reality as much as the idea that the winner might turn out to be a real, lasting star.

It began in an era of fear. It offered benign reassurance that folk from next door could perform covers of Michael Jackson songs in the face of a troubled world, personified by the wincing Cowell.

In the new American Idol, it may well be that the producers will ratchet up the reality and accept that any stardom will be in the hands of a fickle world, one that they can control about as well as the ragged crowd that organized the Golden Globes could control Ricky Gervais.

Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez will be an essential element of that reality show. Their role lies less in finding a new star and more in being able to contribute to drama, intrigue, gossip, hissy-fits, and tears.

Neither is likely to hold an audience as could Cowell. Neither is likely to make contestants cower and viewers glower with their mystique or their critique.

In Cowell's era, the hatings brought the ratings.

Now, American Idol is likely to become even more your Big Brother, the Survivor of Hell's Kitchen, as he outdoes the Biggest Loser in an Amazing Race.