Well they knocked out the runner ups one by one, and although the order they went may not have been in the order I predicted we all expected this final two to be the Davids. And the winner, either despite the judges calling of the finale night for Archie, or because of it, was Cookie.
I have never gotten the whole David Archuletta attraction, I find his voice at times good but overall has a weird strained quality to it (he apparently had some vocal issues early on in his childhood), I found his song selection to lack any sort of interest – all balladesque and not all that emotional, and overall I found his youthful asexual presence to be lacking energy and connection. But he was unquestionably able to hold up vocally week after week and he’s comes across as a sweet kid.
David Cook on the other hand was working the rocker vibe. He pretty consistently gave what was actually a performance and tried to make interesting choices on his songs picking an alternate arrangement or rearranging a bit on his own. He worked the electric and acoustic guitar and was actually able to back it up vocally. He was working to balance out that cocky/cool attitude but he too comes across as a good guy.
For the finale Archie’s final performances were all quite good. As Randy Jackson says if you can sing, you can sing a phone book, and he picked a good time to peak. But again the songs weren’t all that, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, “In This Moment” (a songwriting competition runner-up), and a reprise of his “Imagine” performance.
Cookie didn’t have a wow moment in the night but he showed us some of the reasons why we like him. He’s got range, he’s got presence, and he’d rather take a risk on a song than do something safe. And as Randy put this one he sang his face off with “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Dream Big” (songwriting competition runner-up), and “The World I Know.”
Oh and as for the over bloated 2+ hour finale show… I forgot to tape it. I went as far as to check that nothing else was conflicting that I needed to record… and I never put it in as a season pass because I was in denial all season that I was going to watch every episode. And although I enjoyed the season I’ve had my fix and I plan to not get sucked in again.
Though rumor has it they are going to retool things a bit next year to catch some of the ratings drop this blockbuster has started to suffer. They will at least narrow the results to a half hour and if the populous has any say they will find some way to get rid of some of those dreadful group numbers and limit the theme shows so that they can still push the singers to show some range but allow them to stick to songs that are remotely relevant to what their career might be.
As for last night’s ep it was reportedly a little more interesting, though still containing must ffwd through moments, with the full gang back together again and mixed with performances and duets by real artists. I’m sure I’ll catch most of it online, where I can probably waste more than the 2+ hours. Other than that I’m actually a little curious to see what Cookie will do with his first album, other than being forced to sing a dreadful Idol inspirational pop song of course.
