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"Gone Country" is Highest Rated Series in CMT's History
Last Updated: March 11, 2008 at 08:06 AM GMT By Ed Martin It was no surprise to anyone when the judges named Christian Siriano the winner last Thursday on the Season 4 finale of Bravo's Project Runway, the most talked about reality competition series on cable television. Indeed, there would have been an uproar had Christian not taken the top prize, given his burgeoning popularity among fans of the show.
I'll admit that throughout the Runway season finale I found myself rooting for Rami, the obsessive draper of fabrics. I'm not sure if he was my choice because I thought his designs were better than Christian's or because I have conditioned myself to root for reality show competitors who are not popular favorites. As a viewer, underdog appreciation adds to the excitement of the typical season finale.
But damn, after the exasperating Season 1 finale of Gone Country last Friday on CMT I may have to re-evaluate my standard response to television contests. That is, even though I like a surprise as much as the next guy, and while I'm always thrilled when the winner on a reality series turns out to be someone the media did not target for success, I can't believe one-man judge and jury John Rich picked Julio Iglesias Jr. as the winner. He wasn't a standard underdog – he was my absolute last choice! And every fan of the show with whom I have talked during the last few days agrees with me.
The premise of Gone Country was that six musical artists from diverse genres (plus Maureen McCormick of The Brady Bunch, whose best known professional music experience was singing with The Brady Bunch cast) were brought to Nashville and educated and evaluated by Mr. Rich (of the superstar country duo Big & Rich) in the grind and guts required to become a country singer. The grand prize: A country single, produced by Rich and distributed to country radio.
Gone Country proved to be an entertaining diversion, a big success for CMT (its highest rated series ever) and a pretty decent travelogue for the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, showing off much of Music City at its best. In addition to Iglesias and McCormick, the competitors were Carnie Wilson, Dee Snider (of Twisted Sister), Sisqo, American Idol Season 3 runner-up Diana DeGarmo and R&B bad boy Bobby Brown. Gone Country proved charming from start to finish, even if it did devote a little too much camera time to Brown's unfortunate tendency to urinate in his sleep, often off the side of his bed, and sometimes in other parts of his bedroom. (In the episode that commanded the most media attention, Brown was shown sleepwalking over to the bed of roommate Snider and preparing to urinate on him. Fortunately he was interrupted before his stream started to flow.)
As the series progressed, it seemed to me that McCormick and Brown were taking the lead, not simply as the contestants who most captivated viewers and the media but in their understanding of what it takes to be a country artist – especially Brown, with his reputation as a party person of epic endurance. If country is all about investing one's heart and soul and laying bare one's emotions, there was no better indication of how far Brown had come on the road trip from the cover of the National Enquirer to the heart of Nashville than the episode in which the artists visited Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Before the visit has ended, Brown had bonded with a woman and her gravely ill daughter, who was not expected to live much beyond Brown's visit. Brown boldly broke down every emotional barrier he may have built up around himself throughout years of tabloid coverage during his marriage to Whitney Houston and let the tears flow. He seemed a changed man in every way after that experience. (According to an on-screen graphic, the girl made a miraculous recovery in the weeks that followed.)
In the finale, after two weeks of living together and being schooled in the ways of country life, the seven singers sang songs they had written on stage at one of Nashville's essential hot spots, the Wildhorse Saloon. (Sadly, the producers of Gone Country did not include footage of the cool life-sized fiberglass horses that appear to be charging across the club's three-story ceiling.) Sisqo and Snider were outstanding, but Sisqo added too many Michael Jackson-like flourishes to his performance and Snider characteristically flipped his middle finger at the audience – a definite country don't. DeGarmo, reeling from Rich's stinging criticism of her song and her attitude in the previous episode, powered her performance with enough emotional gusto to impress any country fan, and disarmed Rich in the process. Wilson was softly effective singing a heartfelt song about her daughter.
McCormick, meanwhile, effortlessly quieted the raucous Wildhorse crowd when she sang about her feelings for her late mother, and Brown was a revelation, simultaneously raising the roof and bringing down the house with the most soul-stirring performance of the night. Rich seemed bowled over by McCormick and Brown, and also by DeGarmo, who proved more than anyone else that she knows how to take professional criticism and run with it.
Iglesias, who was born in Spain and deserves major credit for taking on the uniquely American challenge of country crooning, didn't sound very country-like at all, although his tune, The Way I Want You, was a very decent pop love song. He hardly seemed like a winner, let alone a serious contender for the prize. It didn't help that he seemed to have been the least enthusiastic in most of the challenges that Rich put the cast through during the run of the series.
So Rich goes and picks Iglesias! He did this not because Iglesias learned more than the others or sang the best or most captured the spirit of country music, but because he saw dozens of young ladies screaming in the audience when Iglesias was on stage and decided that, as a producer, he wanted to tap the Latino market!
In other words, he smelled money, and that intoxicating scent trumped everything that the entire experience of the series had been about.
What a letdown! Fans are in an uproar. Message boards are filled with expressions of disappointment. I hope this outrageous betrayal of the spirit of the show hasn't compromised consideration of a second season, because up until the final moments of the finale Gone Country was great fun.
In fairness to Iglesias, I hope CMT will include his winning performance in the annual CMT Music Awards extravaganza next month. And I hope cast members from the show will be on hand as presenters or announcers – especially McCormick and Brown. Country fans and CMT viewers want to see more of them both!
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