# What Really Happens to American Idols **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 19, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413 "2011-05-19T04:17:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/21 "2011-05-19T16:49:39Z")
Just a comment that [advances aren’t earnings](http://www.negativland.com/albini.html). ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/22 "2011-05-19T17:04:34Z")
> [@carlb](#): > > I always figured that the “artistic freedom” angle comes from the notion that the Powers That Be would simply pay more attention to and be more invested in the winner than someone further down the food chain. Yes, 19 Entertainment would likely be producing or managing everyone in the Top 12, but I suspect they would be more involved in promoting and packaging the winner. It seems like the PR for “Winner of American Idol!” is easier than “Fourth Runner-up of American Idol!”, and so they might be more willing to give a runner-up their head in terms of what kind of music they put out. OTOH, it’s entirely possibly that that a business as huge as AI knows full well what we expect to happen to people who place differently. We, the public, expect the winner to be a pop star so they make them a pop star. If Haley (for example) finishes third place, we expect her to “go off on her own” and do some bluesy stuff, so AI might make it look like she’s “going off on her own” and doing some bluesy stuff even though AI is still controlling every note that comes out of her mouth. This is one of those cases where you have to believe that AI/19 Entertainment really does know how to extract every dollar out of every contestant. Of course I could be wrong. WRT to the OP, I suppose I was one of those people that was wrong about what happens to first place vs the runners up. I think once you get down to the last handful of people they’re all of pretty equal talent more or less and winning at this point doesn’t really mean anything. The only reason someone wins AI is because someone HAS to win it. I’d be willing to bet if you ended AI at the top three every year instead of declaring a winner you’d have the same results looking at their careers a few years down the road. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/23 "2011-05-19T17:12:20Z")
**yoyodyne** , can you summarize that article? I didn’t want to read it as it was too long. I don’t really understand about advances (I’ve always wondered)… are they kind of like a loan that you don’t have to pay back if the sales reach that high? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/24 "2011-05-19T17:15:55Z")
Another good post from Chris Sligh that really gives you some insight into the post-Idol life: [The Double-Edged Sword of American Idol](http://frommymindtoyoureyes.blogspot.com/2010/02/double-edged-sword-of-american-idol.html) Getting back to how much they make on tour, there’s this snippet from Chris’s earlier post: > [@](#): > > .your tour savings will fly out of your bank account faster than you realize. $200k or whatever looks like a lot of money until you have to spend it. You need to finance your lifestyle and though a few gigs will pay big bucks most won’t. So live WAY below your means. $200k now doesn’t mean you will make remotely close to that next year. It sounds like he came out of the entire Idol experience including the tour with about $200,000 in his pocket after all his expenses. That’s probably what a typical Top 12 contestant will wind up with if they don’t get a contract with 19E. It sounds like a lot, but as he says, if you’re going to try to use that as your bankroll to finance a move to Nashville or LA and try to break into the music business, it’s not going to last you very long - especially if you have to go it on your own and self-finance your own tour, get T-shirts and posters made, etc.. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/25 "2011-05-19T17:16:08Z")
Prince didn’t write “Slave” on his face for no reason. The contracts sound predatory to me, too, but what 17 year old wannabe is going to care about that? Good topic and research, **Sam**. Chris Sligh’s blog should be mandatory reading for everyone trying out for American Idol - what he’s saying doesn’t surprise me, but it does confirm that the music business is not for the faint of heart (and getting your golden ticket to Hollywood doesn’t mean that your retail days are over). ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/26 "2011-05-19T17:25:13Z")
From Chris Sligh’s blog: > [@](#): > > Work, work, work, work, work. Period. You have to work. Nothing and I do mean nothing is going to be given to you. 19E is not going to come back around. They’re done with you. The music business, for the most part, will treat you like an outsider. And they should. You are just a game show contestant who still needs to prove why you should be here. They don’t know you’ve worked for years in clubs or worked as a songwriter or developed your piano skills amazingly - all they know is that you’re a game show contestant who is more famous than them for doing nothing other than making it on a tv show. Yup. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/27 "2011-05-19T17:32:15Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It’s a pretty predatory contract. No wonder no one of any genuine musical importance has ever been a contestant on the show. Not only that, but for a lot of them, actually being on AI screws them over because they come out of it stigmatized. Sligh says that it’s hard for the lower-tier AI contestants to get radio play because some stations automatically think that it’s not authentic, and apparently it can be hard for them to get gigs because club owners have been burned by previous contestants who have acted like divas, or who have come in expecting all the promotion and advance work to be done for them by 19E, and it’s not. So their concerts bomb, they act like jerks, and then the contestants who come later find the waters poisoned. Also, expectations are set high for them. Sligh went into the Christian music field, and his first album sold 60,000 copies. He says that’s an excellent number for a new artist in that genre (and backs it up with industry stats), but because he was on American Idol, the tagline to the story was, “Ex-Idol Contestant debuts to mediocre sales”. Still, overall he says he thinks being on American Idol helped his career, even though he was already close to signing for a record label before he went on the show. I don’t know that their contracts are predatory - I think they’re just pricing in the fact that they’ve already given the contestant much exposure. All the articles I’ve read say that 19E is actually very generous with the people it actually signs. It’s the ones who don’t get signed that get dropped like a hot rock. For example, Sligh says that all of the Top 12 are attached to CAA (the Creative Artist’s Agency), which one maybe the biggest talent agency around. That sounds like a great deal, but the ones who don’t get signed to a record deal right out of the gate find out quickly that CAA isn’t really interested in doing much of anything for them. Sligh said the best bet is to simply forget them and do all your own promotion and sales yourself. > [@](#): > > I’m glad to see that most of them crash and burn and become miserable after their seasons. I find that gratifying. I get where you’re coming from: The “American Idolization” of the music industry is a negative thing overall. I hate inauthentic artists who come packaged and styled and put into little formula boxes by ad men and record company weasels, and there’s already way too much of that around. But once in a while American Idol gets a real musician coming through who won’t bend to their system, and they generally wind up getting turfed somewhere in the top 12. Those are the ones I feel bad for - they lost because they wouldn’t submit to manipulation, but they still wind up stigmatized. But I think you’re being too harsh by wishing misery on the contestants. I don’t blame them for taking a shot at the show - the music industry is hell of a minefield of creeps and advantage-takers, and most artists get eaten alive by it. I can imagine that after years of broken promises and shady deals and playing $100 gigs in empty coffee houses and bars it would be tempting to try out for AI and leave the whole sordid mess behind - especially if you suddenly find yourself with a spouse and kid and realize you need to either break through now or give up your dream. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/28 "2011-05-19T17:47:53Z")
I think it is true that being in the top 10 or 12 of American Idol is certainly no guarantee for future success. That said, it is really difficult to break into the music business - period. My guess is that few, if any, of these performers would have gotten a recording contract any other way. This is their shot. If they go off and appear in a few clubs, and later become managers at their local McDonalds, they will not be the first one-hit wonders to do so. Still - appearing weekly on television in front of millions of viewers is something many B-list singers would kill to have the chance to do. Just look at the acts that appear on the results shows - they aren’t doing it to get that paltry AFTRA fee. It is a shot at the brass ring - a chance to get our name out there. If you have the talent, the personality and the luck of picking a few good songs after the show ends, you can create a decent career. If not - well, at least you never have to wonder “what if” regarding having a chance to perform in front of millions. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/29 "2011-05-19T17:48:36Z")
[QUOTE- Sam Stone] But I think you’re being too harsh by wishing misery on the contestants. I don’t blame them for taking a shot at the show - the music industry is hell of a minefield of creeps and advantage-takers, and most artists get eaten alive by it. I can imagine that after years of broken promises and shady deals and playing $100 gigs in empty coffee houses and bars it would be tempting to try out for AI and leave the whole sordid mess behind - especially if you suddenly find yourself with a spouse and kid and realize you need to either break through now or give up your dream. [/quote] Yeah, like Brian Johnson was saying in his interview, that while he thought the whole thing was bullshit, he felt bad for the kids being made stars one week and nobodies the next. It’s one of the oldest stories, though… ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/30 "2011-05-19T17:53:55Z")
I think people who really have talent will rise to the top. Most of these people are not anything special, and don’t _deserve_ anything special. I learned that the hard way. the hubris of youth made me think I powerfully talented and entitled to fame and fortune. At a certain point I had to face the reality that, while I was a better than average songwriter, as a pure performer, I was dime a dozen. I can remember going to see this kid from Fargo who was advertised as a prodigy and playing some local nightclubs in North Dakota. He was billed as “Kid Johnny Lang” at the time. He was like 14. I remember realizing right there waht real talent was, and that this kid was already out of my league at 14. It was a wakeup call. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/31 "2011-05-19T17:56:21Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > Yeah, like Brian Johnson was saying in his interview, that while he thought the whole thing was bullshit, he felt bad for the kids being made stars one week and nobodies the next. It’s one of the oldest stories, though… So many of them are so self-impressed and entitled, though. I think the ego blow can only do them good. And it’s not like they’re being killed or sent to Siberia. They just have to get real jobs and be ordinary people. Why feel sorry for them? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/32 "2011-05-19T17:58:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > \ I can imagine that after years of broken promises and shady deals and playing $100 gigs in empty coffee houses and bars it would be tempting to try out for AI and leave the whole sordid mess behind - especially if you suddenly find yourself with a spouse and kid and realize you need to either break through now or give up your dream. Well, _think_ you’re leaving the whole sordid mess behind you, anyway. I feel bad for young musicians now, too - I don’t think any of them realize how quickly fads shift now. You’re number one this week, and no one has ever heard of you next week. I suspect every one of them thinks that it will be different for them, because of their special, higher-than-usual calibre of talent (it isn’t). ETA: You make a good point about them just having to go on and be regular people, **Dio**. Now you’re making me wonder why I feel bad for them - because they’re self-deluded? Because people have been lying to them? Because their realization that they’re not a star any longer is a much longer fall than never thinking you had a chance at all? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/33 "2011-05-19T18:01:52Z")
Well, young folks get stars in their eyes, and while it’s naive, hey, that what being young’s about. I do agree the letdown is inevitable and usually necessary, but I also think the Idol people and other predatory pimps prey on that naivety and that’s the part of it I feel bad about. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/34 "2011-05-19T18:06:35Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > **yoyodyne** , can you summarize that article? I didn’t want to read it as it was too long. I don’t really understand about advances (I’ve always wondered)… are they kind of like a loan that you don’t have to pay back if the sales reach that high? Typically an advance is a payment against future royalties that does not have to be paid back, even if the royalties don’t emerge. Therefore, the size of the advance you can get from a record company will be based on their estimation of how much money they can reasonably expect to get out of you in the worst case. The problem with advances (or the benefit of them from the studio’s point of view), is that to a starving artist, an advance looks like a giant pot of gold, and they’ll sign really crappy contracts to get it. It gives the studio big negotiating leverage, and they use that to their full advantage. So what will happen is that an artist will get a $100,000 advance against royalties (typical royalty for a songwriter: 9.10 cents per song). So let’s say you’re an artist and you write all your songs and put out a ten-song CD. You’ll get 91 cents per copy for the songwriting (there are other royalties for performance that might bring your take to $1.25 per CD sold or something like that if you wrote all the songs). Also, I believe the royalty rate from BMI or ASCAP is about 3 cents per radio play. So let’s say you make an album, and it does reasonably well and sells 250,000 copies, and gets 1 million radio plays. So you get maybe $250,000 in royalties from sales, and $30,000 in radio royalties. Then your record company comes to you and points at the fine print in your contract, which says that production costs, advertising, promotional fees, legal fees, and management fees will be charged to you against your advance. 15% off the top for management fees. $50,000 for studio time (and they own the studio, so they’re charging themselves for their own services and billing it to you). $30,000 for the session musicians who cut your album. Maybe five of your songs were ‘co-written’ by one of their in-house writers like Kara Dioguardi, so $100,000 goes to her. Then there was the cost of tour promotion, your hotel room they put you in, the cars they sent for you to take you to gigs… All charged to you at the highest prices they can possibly get away with. In the end, you discover that you actually owe the studio $150,000. You don’t actually have to pay them that, but it will be charged against future royalties. Now they own you, and you’re under contract with them for six more years, or your next three CDs… What the songwriters are really hoping for is that other artists will cover their songs. They get their royalties, and don’t incur any costs other than agent/management fees. A few of the idols are doing quite well because their exposure got their songs purchased by other artists. Chris Sligh had one of his songs picked up by Rascal Flatts and it went to #1 on the country charts. I think I remember Phil Stacy having some success that way as well. And so it goes. It’s even worse for the performers who don’t write their songs, as all they get are the performance royalties, and that’s not much. Courtney Love wrote an article a few years ago about that, and said that a member of the band who doesn’t write songs could expect to earn maybe $30,000 from a million-selling album. Even in famous bands, the guys who don’t write songs can have a tough go at it. I remember when the Who re-formed and went on tour, Pete Townsend said that he did it basically to help out his buddies, who didn’t write the songs so they were struggling financially and needed to tour to make a living. This is ultimately why so many good artists are dropping off the big labels and going indy. They’d rather give their music away for free or sell it on their web site, and then use the publicity from that to build up fans that they can form a viable tour around. The albums become almost marketing vehicles for the tours, and they make their real money from T-shirt sales and gate receipts. When the record companies bitch about MP3 downloads and Peer-To-Peer downloading of illegal songs, it’s not the artists they’re protecting. The artists themselves may even benefit from the additional exposure. But P2P downloads threaten the labels’ business models, which depend on maintaining a tight leash on the artists. To give you an idea of how tough the music biz is (and why these people try out for American Idol in huge numbers), here are some stats from [Songwriter Irene Jackson’s Blog](http://www.irenejackson.com/money.html): > [@](#): > > 48,000 = number of writers and artists in Nashville trying to “make it.” > 1,350 = number of songs recorded in a year on major labels. > 85% = percentage of songs recorded going to “insider” writers, publishers, producers, etc. > 75 = number of songwriters getting 1 or more cuts per year in Nashville. She also says this: > [@](#): > > Okay, you probably didn’t come here for a lecture, you want the cold, hard facts. Here are some facts: > > 1. Songwriters make some of their income from mechanical royalties. In the US, the royalty used to be 8.5 cents per song per unit (CD) sold. On January 1st, 2006 it became 9.10 cents. An album that sells 500,000 copies in 2006, would give the songwriter $45,500 per song. Sounds like a lot, eh? 🙂 But… > > 2. Less than 1% of ALL ALBUM RELEASES (I mean, ALL of them) sell more than 1,000 copies. Less than 1%. That means more than 99% of the albums released in 2006 will sell less than 1000 copies. And, because fewer people are purchasing CD’s, that number might be expected to go even lower. > > 3. Let’s put this together: It will likely take you at least 7 years to get a cut on an album, which has a 99% chance of selling less than 1000 copies. If it sells 1000 copies, you make $91. Read that to your kid if he or she plans to make a zillion dollars as a music star. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/35 "2011-05-19T18:06:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > So many of them are so self-impressed and entitled, though. I think the ego blow can only do them good. And it’s not like they’re being killed or sent to Siberia. They just have to get real jobs and be ordinary people. Why feel sorry for them? Yes, a healthy sense of perspective is good, and too often absent among those aspiring to stardom. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/36 "2011-05-19T18:08:32Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > Just a comment that [advances aren’t earnings](http://www.negativland.com/albini.html). I can’t say I’m surprised. In a previous job of mine, I dealt quite a bit with musicians, mainly second and third tier acts who were a few years past their heyday, and most of them don’t have very nice things to say about the recording companies. That’s why the argument the record companies back in the Napster days about how illegal downloaders were ripping off musicians never held much water with me. Not to say that illegal downloading isn’t stealing. It is. But for the record companies to make the argument that they did just seemed kind of silly, seeing as how they’re basically the biggest ripoff artists of all. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Not only that, but for a lot of them, actually being on AI screws them over because they come out of it stigmatized. Sligh says that it’s hard for the lower-tier AI contestants to get radio play because some stations automatically think that it’s not authentic… To be fair, though, does Top 40 radio these days really care all that much about “authenticity”? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/37 "2011-05-19T18:21:36Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I think people who really have talent will rise to the top. Most of these people are not anything special, and don’t _deserve_ anything special. I learned that the hard way. the hubris of youth made me think I powerfully talented and entitled to fame and fortune. At a certain point I had to face the reality that, while I was a better than average songwriter, as a pure performer, I was dime a dozen. > > I can remember going to see this kid from Fargo who was advertised as a prodigy and playing some local nightclubs in North Dakota. He was billed as “Kid Johnny Lang” at the time. He was like 14. I remember realizing right there waht real talent was, and that this kid was already out of my league at 14. It was a wakeup call. Yeah. The world is full of technically good musicians, but then there are the few who really have a gift. My wakeup call to the average level of talent most AI contestants have was when my daughter started performing in music festivals. She’s much more talented than I was - she sings, she plays violin and piano - Royal Conservatory stuff. When I go to the music festivals and concerts for the students of her teachers, it always strikes me that some of them are as good as or better than the contestants you hear on AI. And this is just a group of maybe 30 students for one vocal teacher in an obscure music school in a Canadian city. It’s just not that big a deal to find someone with good range and the ability to stay on pitch when singing a ‘pop’ song. Hell, most karaoke bars have a local ‘star’ or two who can really sing, and they’re just doing it for yucks. That’s why the only people who interest me on AI are the ones that seem to bring something different to the table. I couldn’t care less about Lauren or Scotty, because people like them are a dime a dozen. There are a thousand guys in Nashville who sing like Scotty, who are still hoping for some kind of break. Haley at least has some stage presence and fearlessness in her performances that makes her interesting to watch. But none of them are ‘great’, and none of them would be going anywhere without American Idol. Hell, Haley’s family has been playing gigs as musicians, and she’s been playing with them since age 7, and she never got anywhere until AI came along. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/38 "2011-05-19T18:25:56Z")
That’s what I thought - I have no problem paying an artist for their music, but I don’t feel at all guilty for cutting a label out of their money-for-nothing. In that vein, here are two independent artists that I’ve seen live that are quite good - [Geoff Byrd](http://www.geoffbyrd.com/?section=music) and [Lindsay Ell](http://lindsayell.com/blog/). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/39 "2011-05-19T22:16:47Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > About a year ago, I was at the casinos in Tunica Mississippi, and I saw a promotional poster and billboard for Danny Gokey (bleeech) who was performing at one of the casinos. Boyish crooner John Stevens is fronting for the Beantown Swing Orchestra at [weddings](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym5AiiBB1JE&playnext=1&list=PL305870BDA7D0B5C7)and country clubs around New England. ---
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413/40 "2011-05-20T04:54:01Z")
My flip answer to the question was going to be that, “one day they wake up and discover how thoroughly they’ve been screwed.” But it seems like the OP has that covered. It’s an open secret in the industry that the TV talent quests like Idol are some of the worst deals going for artists. While I’m here, I’ll note that the company signs up all top twelve contestants to stop them stealing the show’s thunder. There’s no serious intent to promote all twelve of them. They’ll promote two or three (at most) and keep the others tied up with contractual obligations so they can’t go off and compete against the idol winners. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-happens-to-american-idols/582413.md?page=3)