Idol Finale Recap: In battle of two Davids, Archuleta scores a knockout...
That was fun! David Archuleta is scary good, was scary focused and I'll be shocked if he is not crowned winner tomorrow night. But David Cook is my guy, the one I want to see in concert, whose CD I want. Here is my round-by-round take on how things went down during tonight's finale:
Clive Davis' Pick:Round 1:
Cook: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
This is one of my favorite songs not only because I'll never forget seeing U2 sing it in concert at the LA Coliseum in 1988, but because Cher has opened a million of her concerts with it. Cook sang it as well as anyone with energy and confidence. I loved the way he kicked things off. It was really a case of a song and a singer being beautifully matched.
Archuleta: "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"
He pulled out the stops on this and gave the perfect kind of finale performance. The judges were wild for it. I personally prefer Cook in this round but can understand why Simon Cowell said the first round went to this David.
(BTW, Simon's opinion mattered even more than usual tonight because he was the only judge who seemed to be able to assess the performances. Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul were mostly just full of hyerbole.)
Round 2: (Songwriting competition)
Cook: "Dream Big"
A real, rock-solid performance but he is hurt a bit in this round because the song itself is not stellar, not very memorable.
Archuleta: "In This Moment"
He sold the hell out of it, hitting all his notes and just soaring. I was really impressed with his performance in this round on a song that is not well known. I agree with Simon that David A. chose the better song, one that he was able to make memorable.
Round 3: (Personal choice)
Cook: "The World I Know"
This is where he loses the competition. It was a nice, controlled performance but this song did not end things with a bang. Simon said he should have sung "Billie Jean" or "Hello." In response, Cook said he looked at it "as a progression and why do something I've already done." Why? Because it could have helped you win! But winning isn't going to be everything for Cook because what he did was make us want to buy any record he makes.
Archuleta: Imagine"
He picked perfectly, a sure-thing that reminds people of his best performance and brings things full circle. All he had to do was not screw it up and he did not. Randy said he is "exactly what this show is all about." Simon; Tonight, I think we witnessed...you came out here tonight to win and what we have witnessed is a knockout."
I gotta agree...
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Greg Hernandez, Page 2 "News Lite" columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, gives you a fly-on-the-wall account of the Oscars and other awards show, movie premieres, film festivals and various star-studded events. He also shares his celebrity interviews as well as specially-selected videos and photos. He writes about all things pop culture through a gay man's eyes ...
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Greg, Archie may have "technically" won the night but I think their core voting blocks were set weeks ago. If you believe DialIdol.com (and it has a very good predictive track record), Cook has been consistently getting more votes than Archie every week for the last month. I don't think casual fan voting can make up the difference in Archie's favour.
Why do I say Archie only technically won the night? Well, I felt the performances for the 1st song were fairly even. Archie got a more showy Elton John number but Cook really did well with the U2 song.
For the 2nd song, Archie chose a more typical Idol coronation song than Cook's choice but let's face it, all of the song choices (you can hear them all on Rickey.org) are horrible. Cook's rendition of his song at least breaks the sappy sweet track record of AI winner's songs and current rock radio might be more inclined to play it.
In terms of the 3rd song, Archie made a safer choice by going back to the song that gave him his best audience and judges' response, "Imagine". Cook, to his credit, wanted to show people more of the type of artist he is. The Collective Soul song unfortunately doesn't have as much of a melodic hook in the chopped down version, compared with a shortened version of Imagine.
Ultimately, I believe the voting lines were drawn long before last night's performance show. Short of a disastrous showing by either competitor, I don't think the performances affected the eventual voting outcome, but we shall see.