American Idol Season 7 (Yawn!) Finals

Posted by Professor Chan on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 9:42 PM EDT
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What’s with the lame Rocky theme music and boxing pun-work? This is one of the wussiest, least masculine shows, and this is one of the wussiest, least masculine American Idol finals. And that includes Fantasia Vs. Diana DeGarmo. Why don’t the Producers take some of that Jim Lampley/Michael Buffer money and spend it on some new songs? Do the average Idol fans even know who these guys are? Also, just when this show needs to do it’s best to be taken seriously they dress up the Davids in ridiculous boxing gloves and trunks and turn the whole thing into a huge joke.


Oh, and one more joke… More people aged 65 and over watch Idol than people 18-24. And ratings are down with the young’uns as well. How is that for pop music relevancy… Whoo!


The million dollar question that everyone is asking right now is Did David Cook take a dive? Let me know what you think.

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Round 1 – Clive Davis Song Choice


David Cook

Song: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m looking For” by U2.


Notes: One thing that we can all agree on is that Clive Davis should never, under any circumstances show his zomie-like face on TV. They should do a “Deal or No Deal” thing where he delivers all of his announcements from a dark room.


The other thing we can agree is that Clive set up Cook for a failure on this one. It’s such an iconic song that it would almost seem sacriligious to mess with it. Almost, because I’m not the biggest U2 fan, and because the melody isn’t the strongest. But David Cook delivers up a tepid version of a tepid song. It gets a little better towards the end when Cook goes into his standard grunge singing, which changes the song up a bit.


Randy, the Bobo declares it “Great song choice.” Except that Cook didn’t choose it you moronic tub of goo.


VS.

The Archulater

Song: “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me” by Elton John


Notes: This was the big, syrupy ballad that we all knew Gaspy would sing. Hey, he’s using a teleprompter! That puts Cook at an unfair disadvantage, since he was probably counting on Archuleta forgetting the words a few times. Maybe that’s why Cook decided to suck a little harder tonight.


It’s a pretty restrained performance by Boy Wonder standards until he did his vocalese work-out on the big chorus. Actually it’s an exceptionally good song by Archuleta standards. Good lyrics, good melody, not too treacly.


ROUND 1 Winner: DRAW – I think both guys did their thing so it’s hard to call it one way or the other.

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Round 2 – Crappy Cliché’d Idol Winner Song


David Cook

Song: “Dream Big”


Notes: Cook needed more of his grunge thing on this one because this song had ‘80s action movie theme written all over it. I’d say “Iron Eagle 16: Lou Gossett Will Act For Food” or maybe “No Retreat, No Surrender 26: Return of Captain Comb-Over.” I can’t really say what the song is about because Cook mumble-growled through most of it. The whole thing sounded like a Fall Out Boy B-side. It was a little cheesy and a little boring, just like David.


VS.


The Achulater

Song: “In This Moment”


Notes: In this moment… I’m going to puke. After singing well in Round 1, to mix it up David gives his B performance. Lots of gasping, lots of squinting, lots of bopping up and down. It sounded like something from a horrid Disney Musical… like some song Prince Charming sings right before fighting a goofy dragon voiced by Carrot Top. I haven’t heard this song before, but I could tell Gaspy sounded off-key.


Paula calls it “Pure Magic”, more like Pure Shit. Simon said the song was “More appropriate for this competition.” In other words it was deathly dull and nacho cheesier.


ROUND 2 Winner: Archuleta. You knew Archuleta could deliver the velveeta like the best of them. He’s the 2008 version of Donny Osmond… He eats up Disney tunes and craps Thunder.


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Round 3 – Cook needs to wow us soon because he’s swirling the drain tonight.


David Cook

Song: “World I Know” by Collective Soul


Notes: Cook declares it’s a song he’s never sung before. How about that for handing the victory to Archuleta on a silver platter?


Cook picks the worst week to do his absolute worst song arrangement to date. This was horrible: slowing the song down to a crawl and flushing away any melody that once was there. Come on, this guy made “Hello” entertaining, but here he has a good song and just wrecks it. What did Collective Soul ever do to you, David Cook? As I was suffering through the longest two minutes in my life since Archie sang “In This Moment.” I kept telling my TV “This better start rocking soon.” And… it never did. Blechh!


Paula gets the line of the night with “You’re there, standing in your truth.” Then David gives some consolation speech about having fun and not caring if he wins, or something like that. This whole “I’ll give it 100% until the Finals where I’ll tank it hard like Blake Lewis did last year” attitude will kill the show deader than 18 more weeks of crappy Neil Diamond renditions and Mariah Carey wail-a-thons.


VS.

David “American Idol Champ and VFTW Choice” Archuleta

Song: “Imagine”… of course.


Notes: This was much worse than Archuta’s first butchery of the song. But it doesn’t matter. He hits the notes, he does his vocal runs and pisses on the melody some more. He’s The Archulater, and he’s going to Disneyland after he wins tomorrow.


Winner and New Idol Champion: David Archuleta, by TKO.

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Well that certainly continued the theme of this season. Boring and pointless and mostly awful TV. Still, I want to congratulate Archuleta for giving 100% this week and taking it away from David Cook. The votes still have to be counted, but Gaspy gave it everything he had and I give him credit.

David Cook, despite the tears, didn't convince me that his heart was completely in it. And if it is, and three boring, schlocky fake grunge songs is a taste of what his career is going to be about, then he joins my Daughtry/Constantine "You Suck" list.

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Well, now that it’s all over except for about 15 hours of embarrassing singing, making fun of the slow kids, painful group numbers and has-been pop stars shilling their new albums, which is called The Idols Finals… what did you guys think? Let’s hear you clear the air and voice your opinions. It’s not healthy to keep anger bottled up, so let it flow.


I want to thank all of you guys and girls who stuck it out to the bitter end with us. This was a rough season to stay awake through but all the discussions, fun times and conspiracy theories made it enjoyable for me. I love you all.


I will be back tomorrow with my recap on the wet turd Final Results Show.


Class Dismissed.

--Chan







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Juon13
Posted: 5/20/2008 at 10:18 PM Reply with quote

It's gonna be David Cook winning this one I think regardless of the final performances. I don't give two shits which one wins mind you since my favorite Jason Castro is no longer there. Dammit it would have been awesome if he would have won! He really did make some of my favorite song choices and he always looked like he couldn't care less about what the judges said. But no he didn't fit the mold being a folk rock singer that didn't throw a run into every single note and constantly go for the over the top glory note. A stoner with dreads becoming the next American Idol? Man that would have been sweet. It's gonna be awesome when Archie does not win. Just imagine all the preteens crying in the pit while simultaneously throwing their training bras at the stage. Meanwhile Archie's dad changes into the Hulk and kills everyone in the Nokia theatre. It will be great.
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the shark
Posted: 5/20/2008 at 10:35 PM Reply with quote
Location: new york

Great recap as always! The best part of the whole show was when Constantine practically leaped out of his chair when the camera panned the audience, desperate to be recognized.

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Rhia
Posted: 5/20/2008 at 10:36 PM Reply with quote

Dial Idol is calling this one for Cook. So if he really wanted to lose? He failed.

Archie wanted to win so bad he could taste it. That said, I loathed his 'Imagine' as much as I did way back when he sang it first. I still remember the rant I went on after hearing that and the judges pimping it out. My roommate remembers it too since I ranted it at him.

I think the Cook voters voted their fingers off tonight because the judges were tossing him under the same bus, they tossed Brooke, Jason and Syesha in the past three weeks. Backlash time, really.

Can we send gags to the judges for next yr? I really do hate them telling us how we should think about a performance.

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DutchGirl
Posted: 5/20/2008 at 11:14 PM Reply with quote
Location: Eugene

Am I the only one who found Archie's performance of Don't Let The Sun Go Down to be absolutely horrible and frequently off key, shaky and amateurish?

I also don't understand why there seem to be hundreds of people complaining about the show being "obviously" fixed for Archie. DialIdol has shown David Cook to be consistently at the top, and DialIdol is almost ALWAYS right.

And sure they obviously try hard to pimp some contestants and unfairly limit others in numerous ways (including through ridiculous judges' comments), but does anyone think they're actually fixing it to the point of handpicking the winners and losers?!? Most people are idiots, so t heir manipulation of the candidates is all they need. Besides, DialIdol, completely independent of American Idol, has always predicted the same outcomes we saw on TV, so I doubt the votes have been fixed.

It's like when everyone was "astonished" that Christ Daughtry got voted off, and they all called it "fixed", yet DialIdol had correctly predicted the outcome 24 hours earlier.

(And yeah, they could mess with the phone lines/dial signal, but was anyone REALLY surprised at the order in which anyone was voted off? Compare it to number of posts for example on the AI boards, etc. Everything suggests that Idol sticks to the viewers' votes. And why need to fix it, if you can manipulate voters in a much more sophisticated way through the performances/judges comments/top 24 plant-picks?)

I'm sorry to see David Cook win though (and I'm happy to put $1000 on that right now, based on DialIdol). As annoying and big headed he is (literally and figuratively), he's a lot more talented than Archie, and does not deserve to get stuck in that crappy AI winner's record deal, with its limitations.

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DutchGirl
Posted: 5/20/2008 at 11:32 PM Reply with quote
Location: Eugene

BTW: To add to my previous post, just noticed that CNN is also reporting on how the judges called Archuleta the "Idol" of this season.

If Arhculeta wins this after all, I will take back what I said about the votes not being fixed, and I will accept unconditionally that Idol is fixed (not simply as I mentioned, through manipulation) but entirely, 100% fixed.

But David Cook is going to win. Because they DON'T fix the votes.
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blooncrazy
Posted: 5/21/2008 at 12:14 AM Reply with quote
Location: Indianapolis

Sorry, DutchGirl, but until certified vote results are delivered by an independant accounting firm, the vote IS fixed.

DialIdol and Zabasearch? Statistical averaging based on busy signals? Oh, come on. . .

All the people "voting their fingers off" are lemmings, proverbially running over a cliff. For them Idol matters, whether they claim to hate it or not. It matters a great deal.

Thanks for the good laughs this season, everyone.

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whattheheck
Posted: 5/21/2008 at 12:57 AM Reply with quote

Well, if there was any question before the show who they were going to pimp, there is no question now. WTF was with all the Gaspy stroking? Holy Christ, you would think Jesus had come to AI to entertain the judges. I don't really care who wins, to be honest, I'm a huge Jason fan and I haven't cared since he left. I think David C. is MUCH more marketable and there is no way I could see people actually paying to see Gaspy in concert. Sure, the crazy fanatics who don't mind looking at cardboard if they like it, but not anyone else. He is so damn boring.

Cook definitely did the right thing by saying what he did about his last song. Not only did it help him, but it also made Gaspy look bad because he was singing Imagine again. But, I got the Jason vibe from David C last night, like he doesn't give a shit if he wins or not. That's cool.

I do still think he is going to win though. He is more versatile than Gaspy and I don't think last nights show is going to make much of a difference with the fan base and voting going to David C.

Of all the things I think they could do to fix Idol for next season, I now have only one tiny request and I don't even care if they change anything else. Please AI, do not allow Constantine Maroulis to ever be in your audience again. I find myself always reacting the way Simon did with Fantasia every time I see Constantine mug for the camera. He needs to be permanently banned. I beg of you.

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whattheheck
Posted: 5/21/2008 at 1:04 AM Reply with quote

Is it me or is Randy the new Paula this season? Or maybe she just shared some of her stash with Randy. Not only did he say it was 2007 in one of his critiques, but he also brought out the old 'you can sing the phone book' line that he has used at least two other times this season. A few weeks ago, he used the phone book line on two contestants on the SAME SHOW.

I think the judges are getting as tired of AI as everyone else. At least they get paid to watch this trainwreck, what's our excuse? We like to torture ourselves?
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lunareclipse
Posted: 5/21/2008 at 1:17 AM Reply with quote
Location: Anachronistic Antidisestablish- mentarianism: A Case Study.

I'm surprised no one noticed Randy seemed a bit more "Bo-Bo" than norm. He called this year, 2007 for one. Dial Idol has Cook on top but the show's panel had Arch on top. Let's see where's the accuracy tonight.

Change that, one other poster heard the Bo-Bo speak inanities as well. Yes, Randy it is 2008. At least in this time warp.
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brownstia0020
Posted: 5/21/2008 at 1:30 AM Reply with quote
Banned Location: dayton

Dr. Chan writes another bogus recap of the performances. I don't care who wins because they're both awesome but, David Archuleta won the 1st round, the 2nd was the draw, and the 3rd David Cook wins automatically for picking a song he hadn't sang in the contest in previous rounds. It should be an awesome finale. These were my favorites to be in it, but I am leaning towards David Cook because there hasn't been someone like him who has won it all before.
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