American Idol Finale

I wish I would have had this idea at the beginning of the season....Paula Abdul quote of the night: "You're standing in your truth." WTF?? I love Paula, she brings the crazy.

Do you think Simon reads my blog? Just humor me and say yes. I know he doesn't, but sometimes he says things that are exactly as I've written them, and I have wild fantasies about him logging in to see what I have to say after every show. God I love delusions.

Anyway, last night was the big showdown. The whole boxing theme was lame, from the "Are you ready to rumble" guy announcing the contestants, to the silk boxing robes, to the guy giving useless boxing commentary throughout the show. I know they're trying to spice things up a bit on that show, but last night's "theme" was not the right approach.

Archuleta got the pimp spot after a coin toss the day before (being the last to sing is considered the "pimp spot", for those of you who are in the dark...it's a definite advantage to be the last voice the audience hears). Tough break for Cook.

Out of the gates, I knew which way this competition was going to go, just based on the songs chosen by Clive Davis (I thought he was dead...what is he, like 150 years old?).
Cook was assigned "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2. Nevermind the fact that I can't stand U2, and nevermind that of all U2 songs, that one is a huge snoozefest; there are a million other songs that would have been better suited for Cook, and Clive knows it, don't you Clive? You conniving old bastard. And wait, what the hell is Andrew Lloyd Webber still doing there?? Gross. He creeps me out. I think he has a crush on Ryan....sorry, I digress. Cook did as much with the U2 song as he could...or did he? It was sung well-ish, but not his best, not by a mile, and certainly not good enough to rise above Archuleta. I was a bit perturbed. But anyway.
Then came Archuleta, who had been handed "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". (Note to most of the folks who read this blog regularly: don't even try to pretend you didn't snicker when you heard he was doing that song. I could not get "Don't let your son go down on me" out of my head the whole performance.) Plain and simple, that's a better song than Cook's, in many ways. In typical Archuleta fashion, he sang the crap out of it, stuttered and mumbled his way through the comments and accolades, and was declared the rightful winner of round one.

Round two allowed the Davids to choose their favorite of the best songs from the country-wide songwriting competition. Bring on the trite, sugar-coated goodness.
Cook sang...huh? A rock tune? Wow, I wasn't expecting that. It was a far cry from "A Moment Like This" or the other drivel that's usually forced upon the finalists. It was ok, but not great. Sung well, but the vocals didn't make up for the fact that the song didn't have much depth. I don't know, maybe I was just distracted by the fact that it could easily have been on the soundtrack for "Footloose" or something. A Kenny Loggins comeback tune maybe. You know what I mean. (Still, in the back of my mind I was thinking "mysterious...he's not bringing his 'A' game, and he knows it...why?")
Oh THERE'S the drivel....I knew it couldn't be far, turns out Archuleta was hoarding it all. His song was typical AI finale, typical Archuleta. Very predictable, but also sung very well. I'm talking VERY well. I gave round 2 to Archie, and so did Simon.

The final round was contestant's choice. As I said in last week's blog, and as was echoed by Simon, the logical choice for Cook would have been "Billie Jean" or "Hello". But what did Cook do? He chose a song by arguably the worst band in history...for his final song...the deciding song. Really? Are you kidding me? "The World I Know" is a crap song, and he knows that. It's at this point of the night that I realized the reason for this bizarre evening of performance: are you ready? David Cook threw the competition. Oh ya bitches, I said it. First song? Ok, but not great. Second song? Same thing. And then, with a choice of any song in the entire world, including the option to perform a song touted as the best and most original AI performance ever, he chose Collective Soul? This guy who has made incredible song choices the entire competition, mucks everything up on finale night? I don't think so. Cook knew he had made his mark. He knew that regardless of tonight's outcome, he'd have a record deal. And so instead of choosing a career of syrupy, pre-written love songs, he bit the bullet, sucked it up, and intentionally lost. It's probably best for everyone, and I applaud the master of using American Idol to his best advantage.
Roll out the red carpet, cause here comes Archuleta onstage to oversing "Imagine" by John Lennon. He really could sing the phone book and it would sound beautiful. He could have laid off the runs and the warbling a bit, but in any case, he killed it.

So at this point it's pretty obvious: David Archuleta is going to be the winner of American Idol Season 7. Good for him, he deserves it. I can't wait to watch him in interviews over the next few months, and then on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in about 10 years.