Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2008 > May > 21
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
5/21: David Cook wins season seven of “American Idol”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Cook wins! David Cook wins! He’s truly overcome with emotion. Sweet!
“I started this season much to Simon’s chagrin as the ‘word nerd,’ ” he said. [Cook likes crosswords.] “I’m at a loss for words. Thank you guys. This is amazing.”
We get to hear the coronation song “Time of My Life.” He does a wonderful job. He makes even drivel like this sound reasonably good. Overall, it’s an emotionally satisfying ending with the top 12 standing on that stage behind the judge’s table with Cook. He has his arms around Archuleta. Class act, sharing the spotlight. And the brother who convinced him to audition joined him on stage earlier, too. (The sick one wasn’t there.)
My prediction in March was Archuleta, with Cook as runner up. And immediately after last night’s show, I wasn’t 100% sure if Cook could win. Bu Cook ended up with an 11 million-plus vote lead, very very comfortable. I can’t imagine Simon’s pre-coronation of Archuleta helped the munchkin. In fact, Simon’s words may have caused Cook fans to work triple time to ensure Cook won. In the end, I’m glad I was wrong.
And look, 19 Entertainment will sign both Davids anyway. I’m sure the record label is thrilled to have Cook, who is far more radio friendly than Archuleta. We can talk more later this week in terms of who is worth signing to a record deal and who isn’t.
Earlier, I was at the Mike Farrell (of MAS*H fame) book signing/talk right now and watched the finale late. Not a bad thing because that meant lots of fast forwarding!
Anyway, I started writing this at just past 9 p.m. and played catch up all night.
8:02 p.m. Vote numbers: 97 million plus, smashing the past record by 23 million. Thank you texting Arch Angels! But the results are not close. 56% for the winner. If dialidol.com were correct, that means a resounding David Cook victory, right?
8:04 p.m. Group sing with the top 12: Very few closeup shots, lots of quick cuts, plenty of distracting “So You Think You Can Dance” singers, so it’s difficult to ascertain the singers who can dance. Then again, the choreography is dumbed down so even Amanda Overmyer can handle it (more or less). David Archuleta, though, clearly could use some dance lessons. Kristy Lee Cook can move. And so can David Hernandez. Of course, ditto with Syesha. Brooke White? We know, we know. Stay at the piano, please!
8:06 p.m.Audience celebs: Is that Janice Dickinson? Or her preserved body parts?
8:09 p.m. Duet #1: the two Davids. How apropos for Cook— a Nickelback song! Not Archuleta’s territory. Passable harmonizing. Not foreseeing future (voluntary) collaborations between the two of them.
8:12 p.m. Pointless extended, imbedded promo: That Mike Myers film I won’t mention. Let’s just say, Ebert and Roeper, your jobs are not threatened by the two Davids.
8:17 p.m. Duet #2: Syesha works the stage with Seal with his tune “Waiting For You” and she’s outmatched. Hard to beat such a distinctive voice and presence.
8:23 p.m. Castro sings rather than talks: He reprises arguably his best past moment with “Hallelujah.” (Melinda Doolittle sighting afterwards)
8:30 p.m. The Davids win Hybrids, win or lose. I wouldn’t mind one of those in this day when some local Atlanta stations hit $4 a gallon.
8:31 p.m.: Top six gals. Poor Amanda Overmyer has to do more choreography and singing Donna Summer to boot. One..two…three.. don’t trip! Remember words…to… “Hot Stuff.” Phew. Made it! Carly blows the roof. Then Ramiele (who?) sings. Donna appears with what looks like an attempt at a modern ‘do. Someone bejeweled her mike. How cute! Okay, Donna’s wearing slimming black slacks but she’s clearly no longer 1978 “Bad Girls” thin. (She is almost 60.) And unfortunately, her new single ‘Stamp Your Feet” is only tap-your feet-worthy. At least she can still sing “Last Dance” with slightly deeper tenor than she did 28 years ago. Syesha does a better job than she did with Seal.
8:38 p.m. Duet #3 The former Fado waitress and former Fado performer join up for a little Joe Cocker “The Letter.” This is much better than their “One” they did a few weeks back. Carly has worked hard to scale back Killer Bunny Look From Outer Space. And Michael is relaxed and cool. They make a fun duo.
8:43 p.m. Kimmel goes for the kill “I just valet parked outside. How much should I tip Sanjaya?” Sanjaya, in the audience, laughs uproariously. Ryan without his “Lee Press On Nails” and frosted tips, would look like… Chris Sligh. “I learned if you put all your awful things to music, it’s quite beautiful,” he notes and they summarize many of his negative comments to “Pop Goes the Simon.”
8:46 p.m.: Bryan Adams turns in his grave Oh, wait, Bryan Adams is still alive, right? “Summer of ‘69” first. Michael Johns sings it best. Probably sang it a lot at C.J.’s Landing. The two Davids go to “Heaven.” Cheesy ballad! This is actually Archuleta territory. Oh, look! It’s the real Bryan Adams, looking reasonably well preserved, singing some song we don’t know, because isn’t that the point? (See Seal and Donna Summer)
Time to speed through David Cook and ZZTop doing “Sharp Dressed Man” (checking in later—pretty good!), Graham Nash and Brooke White on “Teach Your Children” (lovely!), sop to the tweens the Jonas Brothers with “S.O.S.” (superfluous for me), a review of the worst auditioned including a live take by the dude Renaldo Lapuz who reprises that hilarious song “I Am Your Brother, Your Best Friend Forever” with some marching band (comic relief, of course!), OneRepublic with Archuleta, Jordin Sparks working her next single “One Step At a Time” (largely recovered from her vocal problems though far from peak form). Hey, look! Blake Lewis in the audience! Remember him?
Okay, I have to stop to see the Gladys Knight & the fake pimps circa “1972.” It’s Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr.! A little shoutout to our little state of Georgia! Season four winner Carrie Underwood then does her latest single “Last Name.” It’s now 9:35 p.m. I’m almost caught up! 15 minutes behind… phew. [Later, checked out Carrie and yes, she warmed up the entire theater by 10 degrees. She’s come a looong way, baby!]
It’s now 9:42 p.m.. The top 12 do a George Michael medley. Oh, boy. Pointing and wiggling your hips. Damn, said Amanda Overmyer. I’ll slur my way through “Faith,” then keep me out of camera range as much as possible! The guys do Ace Young’s favorite tune “Father Figure.” Note how David Hernandez says the word “naked” with such enthusiasm! Jason sounds really awful! At least his voice doesn’t fit this song. Then it’s “Freedom.” Keep me out of the solos in this song, Amanda said. Producers say, of course!
George Michael then shows up to do a very clean rendition of “Praying For Time” and I fastforward again so it’s now 9:55 p.m. and I’m caught up! There were some rumors of Paula performing live but that didn’t happen—probably just as well!
9:58 p.m. We’re so so close: What is Randy Jackson wearing? Did he raid a carnival? Paula is resembling a pineapple with that hair. Simon has his buttons down to show off his chest. Ick! He admits that it wasn’t as clear cut as he had announced it for Archuleta. “For the first time, I don’t really care who wins. You both have done terrific,” he said.
I checked my office pool (via DJ Slim) and came in a respectable sixth place.
Permalink | Comments (243) | Post your comment |
5/21: Tuesday ratings up year over year, finale spoilers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With only a couple of exceptions, year over year ratings have been down for “Idol,” on average 8 to 10 percent.
But interest waned a bit last year for the Jordin/Blake faceoff. (I don’t remember a single thing from last year’s finale show.) So it’s good to know the David vs. David finale performance show last night actually did slightly better than Jordin/Blake. The early ratings show 26.1 million viewers vs. 25.3 million last year. Usually, “Idol” actually goes up in the final numbers so it might be closer to 26.7 or 26.8 million in the end. Among those 18 to 49 year old viewers, ratings were flat but will end up being slightly higher.
Last year’s finale pulled in about 30 million viewers. I anticipate tonight’s will probably do about the same.
I don’t have a clue how zabasearch does its methodology but it claims that Cook beat Archuleta by about 1 million votes out of 63 million or so votes. Check out the chart here.
SPOILER ALERT E! reports that George Michael may be the big star who shows up tonight. (Michael is doing his first big US tour in 15 years and will be at Philips Arena July 31. He has kept a low profile for years, outside of that little park incident in the bathroom, but he did show up recently on the ABC show “Eli Stone.” He looks a bit Botoxed up nowadays but not horrible.)
Other names popping up, courtesy of MJsbigblog: Donna Summer, Seal, ZZ Top (strange!), Jonas Brothers, OneRepublic. And expect lots of former Idols.
-Neither song sung last night from the songwriters’ contest finalist pool will be the actual coronation song. Instead, it will be “Time of My Life,” which presumably won’t sound anything like that Bill Medley/Jennifer Warnes song from “Dirty Dancing.” More info here in USA Today. And more info on the songwriter here.. He also co-wrote a song on Clay Aiken’s album.
Sample lyrics: I know this is the time/This is the time/To be more than a name/Or a face in the crowd/I know this is the time/This is the time of my life/Time of my life
More “Idol” news to come as we count down to the big two-hour finale.
-Clay Aiken’s second week in sales land was rough. After opening at about 94K, his latest dropped to just 20K and has sold 114K total. Jordin sold another 17K and has 758K total. Carrie’s latest sold 16K and is up to 2.1 million. Daughtry moved another 15K and is up to 4.06 mil. Carrie’s first album moved another 9K and is up to 6.4 million. That’s it for Idol folks in the top 200.
