"There's a lot of talent in this city, and we're looking for the best of the best to be in Houston's next all-girl group singing sensation," said a statement from Matthew Knowles, Music World/ Sanctuary's president. "Auditions will be tough. Unlike most local talent contests we are bringing in reputable judges that have made a name for themselves in the global music industry. I'm confident we'll end up with a ton of great talent." (American Idol's Simon Cowell would disagree, but never mind. Most of those lousy contestants at Minute Maid were Okies, Cajuns and Arkies, anyway.)
If you're just reading this now, you're a little late for this go-round. Project Popstar, the contest that the conglomerate has put together to assemble a new girl group along the lines of Destiny's Child, officially got underway at 7 a.m. last Saturday at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
There, the first 500 contestants in line auditioned by singing a cappella 30 seconds of one of these songs: Beyoncé's "Dangerously in Love," the Whitney Houston version of "I Will Always Love You," Jessica Simpson's cover of "Take My Breath Away," Evanescence's "My Immortal," or "Amazing Grace."
But in addition to having perfect pitch, poise and powerful pipes, these contestants had better be either shameless or spotless. Racket downloaded a copy of the contest's rules and clauses, one of which hinted that a reality show might be in the offing, though nothing has been announced yet. Here it is, in part. Call it the Omarosa clause: "You understand that you may reveal and other parties may reveal information about you that is of a personal, private, embarrassing or unfavorable nature..." the portrayal of which in the contest may be "disparaging, defamatory, embarrassing, or of an otherwise unfavorable nature which may expose you to public ridicule, humiliation or condemnation." And the producer has the right to broadcast that juicy stuff "in any and all media known or hereafter devised...throughout the universe in perpetuity."
Don't you just love lawyers? I can just imagine the Starbucks-addled briefcase-toting bottom-feeder who thought that clause up. "Let's see -- what if some Zyklotrops on Betelguese-16 is practicing Murgletronic Mind-Melding in the year 106,959 AD, and he receives a transmission of one of the Project Popstar's contestants saying that another one's 'extensions are so ghetto?' And what if he travels back through time and space to Houston today, assumes that aggrieved contestant's shape, kills her off and sues for slander? What then? We'd be fucked, gentlemen, that's what. Better put in a line about it applying to 'every medium that has or will be invented in the whole goddamn universe for-fucking-ever.' "
Anyway, back to the contest. Out of the 500 contestants, 20 winners will be selected to attend Matthew Knowles's physically and mentally rigorous Music World Bootylicious, er, Boot Camp, where according to the official contest rules, they will receive "intense vocal training, detailed lessons on wardrobe provided by industry stylists, choreography training and in-depth lessons on public relations and speaking." Four or five of the survivors will make the band and might be the proud recipients of a Music World/Sanctuary record deal-management contract. Wisely, Knowles and the rest of the Music World/Sanctuary brain trust only are going to go whole hog behind the winners if they think they are up to snuff.
In addition to standard sponsors such as Pepsi, KRBE and Tommy Hilfiger, Knowles has one unconventional partner in the City of Houston. At the sweltering press conference in the Music World parking lot last Monday afternoon that launched the campaign, amid posters of a lolling, barely clothed Beyoncé seductively advertising Tommy Hilfiger's True Star fragrance, City Councilwoman Ada Edwards and Mayor Bill White's Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Lapin were on the podium with Music World's Heather Wagner and Marcus Harris. (Knowles was away on family business; White sent word he had a last-minute engagement.) Among the items in Lapin's job description includes one about overseeing the review of the "city's convention, entertainment and tourism functions," so he is the local analogue to what the British call their culture minister -- "The Minister for Fun."
But it was Edwards that was having fun at the press conference. "We can't be stopped!" she enthused. "New York, L.A. -- y'all better get in line! It's our turn!" Clearly the city sees helping out Music World/Sanctuary as a way to escape the still-lingering national and international impression of Houston as Hicksville. "We're being selfish with this resource," Edwards continued, speaking of the "Houstonians only" stipulation in the Project Popstar rules, before adding, "We will no longer be looked at as a cowboy town."