Ava Maybee

by

Summerfest

“American Idol” is seemingly long past its ability to create stars whose talent resonates beyond the TV show's voting viewers. Though she wasn't the winner for the 2022 iteration in which she competed, Ava Maybee came in petty high by season's end. She is also hoping to break the spell of “Idol's” apparent irrelevance to the greater pop music ecosystem, long in gestation though her breakthrough seems to be.

Oddly enough, Maybee well could have saved herself the trouble of her “Idol” tenure by exercising what might be her birthright. Since Maybee is the daughter of Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith, she must not have needed the gatekeeping of the network television-watching public to access the road to stardom. It's probably to her credit that she felt to need to prove her bona fides without being thought a nepo baby in the process.

That said, it's also understandable that her mother was the only parent showing up to offer morale support during Maybee's run on Ryan Seacrest's show. And though there are elements of soul and club music to her aesthetic, the daughter is a far cry from the funky metal for which her dad hits his skins. A more musically organic midway point between Billie Eilish's histrionics and Sabrins Carpenter's coquettishness would be a fair way to describe Mabee's sound.

 The culmination of it all thus far is the release of her first EP about a month prior to her Summerfest appearance; as with so many artists nowadays before making their proper debut, however, digital singles prefaced her more substantive statement. It should be interesting to see how much of Maybee's Big Backyard crowd is drawn by her reality competition show appearances and who's there from the viral spread of her music.