They've decided to air an encore of the Michael Jackson themed episode of American Idol from this past season. In it, the Top 13 contestants performed from Jackson's catalogue. It's a bizarre choice, because despite a few good performances, notably from Kris Allen, Alexis Grace and Allison Iraheta, most of the performances were either okay or downright terrible. I'd think you'd want some good singing of perhaps some of his better known works to honor the man.
1. He's gay. 2. He's "glamboyant." (To quote Liz Lemon, that's a thing now?) 3. He doesn't tuck. 4. He had a crush on Kris Allen. 5. He has only dressed in drag three or four times. 6. He's not a civil rights leader. 7. He had a "psychedelic experience" at Burning Man 8. Seriously, he's gay.
It's also interesting that Idol rules state that power texting, the kind of texting that AT&T reps showed Kris Allen fans how to do, is against the rules. Isn't there some sort of built-in safety net for the voting? How can one fan vote over 10,000 times for one person? Shouldn't it be one person, one vote? Or one household, one vote? Or maybe one phone number, one vote? I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the results. I have no idea. But it does seem that a better system could be in place.
Fans of Kris Allen feel justified that their favorite won American Idol this year. Fans of the presumed favorite to win, Adam Lambert, have been lamenting his loss. Looking for reasons why Adam lost, as Bob reported, they've put some of the blame on AT&T. I think it's more a matter of the jaded state of California, where Lambert hails from. They're not as impressed with a famous singer in their midst as the people of Kris Allen's Arkansas are.
People in the Midwest and South don't have celebrities around every corner, and we're not as "hard" as the East Coast. So we still get excited when a "hometown" boy or girl does good. Think back to Season Five when Katharine McPhee went "home" to Los Angeles to a crowd of hundreds while Taylor Hicks was blown away by tens of thousands in Alabama (and they already had one Idol!).
So Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert by a ton of votes last week. You knew there would be a controversy, right? This one is based around AT&T. Seems they might have pushed the results toward Allen by having their reps at parties organized by fans of Allen and teaching them how to "power text," which apparently means sending 10 or more text messages at once. The New York Times has all the details.
I am not going to pay $29.95 a year to read the blog entries of Clay Aiken. So I'm glad that someone else does and can post the following quote from Aiken. Guess theAmerican Idolrunner-up isn't a fan of another runner-up, Adam Lambert.
I couldn't be happier with the way AI ended this year. I only turn the show on once a season and only to see what the set looks like. This year, I happened to turn it on during the minute that Adam Lambert was singing "Ring of Fire," and, at that moment, thought my ears would bleed. Contrived, awful, and slightly frightening! I wasn't really a fan and found myself surprised whenever folks told me that they liked him.
If you haven't seen our game before, we give you a picture from a recent episode of a TV series and you provide the caption! Last week we had a picture from the crazy season finale of Lost. Our winner is Ryan, with this caption:
"Sorry Ben, but the tribe has spoken and you're voted off the island."
This week it's a picture from the equally crazy finale of American Idol, with Adam Lambert and friends.
The week before the American Idol gigantic-mahunga-godzilla two-hour-plus finale aired, Simon Cowell predicted it would be a "ding-dong finale." Of course, that brilliant prognostication was hype personified, but Simon did his job. The finale drew 28.8 million viewers. Ironically, the buzz in the biz when those figures were revealed skewed it as a bad thing. It was the lowest-rated American Idol finale ever. But it still drew a tremendous amount of eyeballs, so why is it being characterized as a flop?
The answer is simply this: American Idol is competing with itself. It's expected to exceed its highs year after year, and generally speaking in television, that just doesn't happen. Older shows decline, and yes, even superhits like American Idol can't stay on top forever. Look at ER or CSI.
At long last, the season 8 finale of American Idol has arrived! It's been fun watching all of the Idols grow in their musical prowess (that's a Paula word), especially Adam Lambert and Kris Allen, the final two performers who couldn't be more different, but are both awesome in their own way.
Ryan started things off by introducing the judges, along with a funny video clip for each of them -- Randy Jackson saying "For Me" throughout the season; Kara DioGuardi saying "sweetie" and "honey" to people who didn't make it past the audition process; Paula's round-up of colorful adjectives (vocal prowess, masterful and effortless, palette, etc.); and Simon's issues with hearing what people say (as in, he could probably use a hearing aid!).
When Adam was singing "No Boundaries," the new song written for the American Idol winner, I couldn't help but think that things were stacked a bit in his favor. I also was agreeing with Kona that it was a terrible song. But the fact remains that Kara DioGuardi should have done a better job of writing a song for all of the potential finalists. I'm not sure when she wrote this song, but why did it have to have such a huge range and be so high? Was it so Adam would win?
The last impression is very important, and writing a song that not everyone can sing isn't fair to do to the contestants. Especially if "the show," or at least a representative of the show, is involved in the writing. Should Kris be punished for being a different kind of singer than Adam, or for not having his upper register? Hell, even Kara said that she hoped Kris wouldn't be judged based on that song, so she knew it wasn't a good song for him. And yet it was her job to write a song that all the finalists should be able to sing well. Shame on you, Kara!
"Two are left standing, but only one can take it all." Seacrest breaks it down for us this evening, just in case there was anyone who didn't know what was going on. Each contestant is performing three songs tonight: a song that they've already performed on the show, one chosen by Idol producer Simon Fuller, and the winner's single, co-written by judge Kara DioGuardi.
And what a winner's single it is. Hoo boy. I had no idea a song could be that awful. It truly plumbs the depths and nearly ruins the entire night. Luckily, the guys have two previous performances that hopefully people will remember instead of the final one. Because, wow. Just, wow.
I have no stake in the "who's cuter and more talented, Adam or Kris?" debate, but this attack ad from Jimmy Kimmel Live clearly shows that young girls are on Kris' side. We're waiting for a response from Adam's fans.
Attention, Rosie O'Donnell: Simon Cowell promised that next week's American Idol will be a ding-dong finale. Break out the Drake's Cakes! Actually, Simon wasn't referring to Rosie's favorite chocolate cake treat, he was using perhaps the strangest euphemism he could come up with to hype the finale which he anticipates -- and rightfully so -- a great showdown between two singers who could both be deservedly crowned the winner of American Idol.
Adam Lambert vs. Kris Allen might seem like a heavyweight versus a bantam weight, one guy who's already been splashed on magazine covers -- last week's Entertainment Weekly -- as the presumptive champ, while the other was nearly knocked on his butt by the judge's song choice that was so bad that Simon faulted Kara and Randy for setting him up to fail.
It's getting down to the wire, and all three of the remaining contestants are certainly talented enough to be crowned the next American Idol. While I've been an Adam Lambert fan all along, I'd be fine with whomever wins this season.
Things start off tonight with the Ford commercial, kind of a fun little cartoon-oriented ad with Adam, Danny and Kris singing "Break My Stride." It must be really fun to see yourself as a cartoon/comic book character.
For the most part, people tend to make their picks for who should win American Idol pretty early on. And for now the odds-on favorite remains Adam Lambert. Last night Simon told Kris that he'd all but written him off for the finale, but after his second performance he'd put himself right back into the thick of things. It's hard to argue that all three of these finalists are amazing talents. But has anyone done anything to make you change your mind about who should go to the finals or possibly even win the whole thing?
We've been building to a Danny/Adam finale pretty much since the beginning. Kris though, Kris kind of came out of nowhere early on, and I think he blew the other two boys away last night. Yes, I know Adam fans think he was amazing, but he again worked his patented "rock scream" into both songs and it didn't belong in either, particularly "One." Danny opened disastrously before redeeming himself, but Kris had that something special in both songs. Is it even possible to change people's minds at this point?
In the wake of his surprise death yesterday, the networks scrambled to cobble together retrospectives of Michael Jackson's life and works and get them on the air as quickly as possible. I expect we'll see more carefully planned tributes coming down the road. But none perhaps more bizarre than Fox's proposed tribute to the King of Pop, coming up this Monday, June 29 at 8 ET.
American Idol runner-up 
If the reports coming from the 
Fans of Kris Allen feel justified that their favorite won 
I am not going to pay $29.95 a year to read the blog entries of Clay Aiken. So I'm glad that someone else does and can post the following quote from Aiken. Guess the 
If you haven't seen our game before, we give you a picture from a recent episode of a TV series and you provide the caption! 
The week before the 
When Adam was singing "No Boundaries," the new song written for the 
Attention, Rosie O'Donnell: Simon Cowell promised that next week's 
For the most part, people tend to make their picks for who should win American Idol pretty early on. And for now the odds-on favorite remains Adam Lambert. Last night Simon told Kris that he'd all but written him off for the finale, but after his second performance he'd put himself right back into the thick of things. It's hard to argue that all three of these finalists are amazing talents. But has anyone done anything to make you change your mind about who should go to the finals or possibly even win the whole thing?
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