Tuesday, May 20, 2008

American Idol - The Finale!

Well, friends, our season has come to an end. It's been a great year and I'm very excited about tonight's show. My family is downstairs having bonding time watching movies and playing video games. I honestly tried to think about waiting to watch this later, but then I saw the introduction with the boxing announcer and I just got way too excited. So, here we go!

VS.
  • Loved the boxing introduction with the robes at the beginning and the package they did with Clive Davis and Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Except that someone spelled ALW's last name wrong.)
  • David A. won the coin toss and chose to go 2nd. Wise choice, young padawan. The 2nd singer usually wins. In fact, the only year the 2nd singer didn't win was Season 2 - Ruben Studdard vs. Clay Aiken. Which I believe was also the closest number of votes and the most votes cast in a finale. I think tonight is going to follow suit.
To make things easier from this point forward, we'll be referring to the boys by their initials.

Round 1:
Clive's choice.
He usually picks good songs for the kids. No penguin songs here. (Poor Syesha.)

DC - "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2
I'm kind of surprised they got clearance for this. When Clive calls Bono, does Bono just say, "No problem! You can have someone sing our song on American Idol!" I can't picture it. But I digress. (Because Diggity is such a rabid U2 fan, I get protective of their songs. They are amazing songs and need to be sung well.) DC sounds great tonight. He's growling well and everything else he is doing still sounds healthy. I'm a little bored, but he sounds good. Excellent ending. He did a long run on the last note that was cool.
My Grade: B+
The Judges Judgment:
Randy - Copying me by calling David Cook "DC". Also copying me by loving the scoop at the end of the song.
Paula - Using a poorly constructed pun based on the song title. Didn't say anything else important.
Simon - Thought it was phenomenal.

DA - "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" by Elton John
Sounds great at the beginning. Sitting on the stairs. Starting to play with the melody a bit - careful. Elton crafts an outstanding melody. We don't need to mess too much... DA does sound excellent. Keeping his eyes open and singing his cute little heart out. Nice ending! NICE! A little gospel in there. Very good.
My Grade: A
The Judges Judgment:
Randy - Flawless and unbelievably molten hot.
Paula - Got chills (DA is getting teary.) Another poor reference to the song title.
Simon - "Tonight's performance was arguably the best you've done so far." Round 1 to DA!!

Round 2:
(I feel like I should have a ringing bell noise here with the continuation of the boxing theme all night long...)
New Song - Contestant Choice
  • Very interesting. Usually the producers force some horrible inspirational ballad down the throats of both contestants. This year, they were able to look at the top 10 song submissions from the online voting and pick which song they wanted to sing. After the obvious skew toward Jordin Sparks last season with the songwriter song, they are trying to avoid controversy. Smart.
  • Awesome. We have another video package introducing Round 2 and the songs. Clive and ALW are still there helping. ALW is mocking the lyrics from DA's song. I love it.
DC - "Dream Day" by Emily Shackelton
DC has the guitar and he's going to ROCK! I don't hate the performance. It's not a particularly well written song. ("If you don't dream big, what's the use of dreamin'." Meh. My middle school students could have written that.) The melody is kind of repetitive and boring. DC is singing the crap out of the boring melody though. He's really working hard for this.
My Grade: B
Randy - Not a fan of the song, but says DC is singing his face off.
Paula - She liked it. I don't know what else she said.
Simon - Didn't feel like a winning moment or a winning song for him. 6.5 out of 10.

DA - "In This Moment" by Ryan Gilmore
This song is too low for him at the beginning. Can't understand the words very well. Obviously it's going to get higher, but the beginning is a little low. He's trying very hard to emphasize the words in the verse. It's a typical inspirational Idol winning song chorus. What a crappy song. Good thing he's singing it well. He just did a cool head voice thing going into the last chorus of the song. He had one teensy pitch problem there on the word "I." That is such a horrible vowel to have to sing. Especially on a high note and at the end of a song.
My Grade: B+ (I can't get over the lameness of the verse on that song.)
Randy - Another "you could sing the phonebook" Get some new catchphrases, dawg.
Paula - She liked it. Again, she said something that I don't remember. I'm sure it was affirming.
Simon - DA chose the better song. Round 2 goes to Archuleta! Woot!

(Coldplay has a new iTunes commercial. I might actually like their new album if it sounds like that. I can't handle Chris Martin singing softly at the piano. Also, I'm going to be on a plane during the premiere of SYTYCD. The multiple commercials only remind me of this sad fact. Bummer.)

Round 3:
Contestant Choice

DC - "The World I Know" by Collective Soul
DC goes with a new song. Interesting choice. This is usually the opportunity to bring your best performance back from the season. And this performance is kind of boring. It sounds like the radio version. I'm slightly disappointed. He's known for his daring and I don't feel like he brought that tonight. He sounds great, but it's a boring performance. Sad.
My Grade: C+
Randy - Kind of record that DC should make. (I agree. But this one has already been made.)
Paula - She just said something about standing in your truth. Then she stood up and applauded.
Simon - Says DC is one of the nicest, most sincere contestants we've had. But, he chose the wrong song. Should have sung "Billie Jean" or "Hello." (I agree. I can see why he wanted to do a new song, but he should have done one of the songs Simon mentioned. Remind people of why they have loved him all season. Those two singles in particular were HUGE sellers on iTunes and he should have done one of those.)

DA - "Imagine" by John Lennon
Going the complete opposite route, DA is going to sing "Imagine." Same arrangement and everything. That note on "brotherhood" really is so beautiful. He's having a hard time keeping his eyes open. He sang this song so much before getting that criticism from ALW, the habit of shutting his eyes is ingrained in his performance of the song. It sounded great. The girls screamed. All was right in the world.
My Grade: A-
Randy - DA is what this show is all about. Finding the best singer we can find.
Paula - Left her speechless. Yet, she continues to talk...
Simon - Tonight, this was one of the great finals and DA came out to win.

I couldn't agree more. DA brought it on all three songs tonight. Vote for our little Archey, won't you?

1-866-IDOLS-02, 1-866-IDOLS-04 or 1-866-IDOLS-06

Ruben is going to celebrate us all home! He's here LIVE! He's lost some weight. Looking good, Rube! He still sweats too much when he sings, though. See you tomorrow night!

8 comments:

Jen said...

I agree- I'm watching right now- I get do pumped about this season! It is awesome to watch. I feel like DA is my little bro or something!

Dana said...

Even though I watch the whole show, I love to read your recap. Cracks me up. Are you going to do the same for SYTYCD...so excited!

Miranda J said...

Love your recap too. Have texted for Dave Archuleta about 20 times, though I don't know that I needed to. He really trounced David Cook. What happened? He faded away.

Yes, agree with Dana. I want your SYTYCD recap too!

Whitney

Macy said...

Awww....thank you. You are excellent friends.

I'm still surprised at David Cook's performance tonight. He wasn't true to himself and how he has performed all season - right, Whitney? Is that it? DA, on the other hand, was amazing.

I will probably recap SYTYCD as well. I love it even more than AI, if that is possible. :)

Stacie said...

Ooh, please recap SYTYCD. I love it more than AI, hands down. And I downloaded the new Coldplay song a few days ago and I LOVE IT!! Here's to hoping the new album is just like it.

Michelle said...

I just thought you might want to know that my brother flew to L.A. this morning and was in the audience at the live show tonight! Fun! Can't wait for the results tomorrow!

Miranda J said...

I can't wait for your recap of the finale to say that I lost some respect for Simon tonight.

Methinks Simon saw Dial Idol and that David Cook trounced David Archuleta in the votes by 10 percentage points), and decided he didn't want to be on record as being wrong about David C. and so he did some major backpedaling.....

I never thought I'd see him be disingenous. It's truly a disappointment.

Happy for David Cook -- he's a great singer, musician and talent, but my heart belongs to David A.

12 million vote differential.

Wow.

Macy said...

Sorry to keep you waiting, Whitney. :) I really thought it started at 9:00 tonight. I don't know why I thought that. So I was an hour late watching it on Tivo and didn't get the post up in a timely manner.

That said - I didn't check Dial Idol or anything else today. I wanted to be surprised. I think you are right about Simon, though Diggity said something similar to me last night after reading my comments and watching the performances on super fast forward. He thought I was a little hard on DC. I was just expecting him to come out and do something amazing with one of his songs last night, and he really didn't in my estimation.

As an aside on this topic - I would really love to be there in person and then watch the show back later. My vocal coach was there watching during top 3 and said that DA sounded much worse in the auditorium that night than he did on the recording later. I'd love to hear the difference. I do appreciate that Simon takes the time to watch it back after being there in person. He did backpedal though. If he had just tossed in a remark, it wouldn't have been so obvious. But he commented several times.

I'm still a little surprised that DC won.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin