long live giles li

08-24-07

Appreciation: William Hung

I’m sure nobody has noticed, but I’m embarking on a short series of Appreciation Posts here on BPRLive, dedicated to API trailblazers on the scene in music and performance. This is the third installment, and perhaps the most controversial. I am writing an entry to pay tribute to the hardest working man in show business: William Hung.

This is not some ironic hipster “so uncool that it’s cool” thing; I have a genuine affection for the man from whom so many folks wanted to distance themselves. I’m not going to link to the YouTube video because we all know what happened. William – an engineering student at Cal – walked into auditions for “American Idol,” a television show that has been incredibly lame since its third episode, and sang an a cappella version of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs.” Many people describe his performance as “off-key,” but go back and listen kids; that was spot on. It wasn’t that his singing was off-key, it was that his singing lacked charisma, and thus wasn’t very good. But more importantly to mainstream America, he looked like a kid who wasn’t supposed to have confidence in his artistic abilities: he was a short Asian man, obviously an immigrant, obviously booksmart, and a little awkward in that environment.

Click here to read the rest of this entry (at BPRLive.org)