American Idooooool!!

Tomorrow's gonna be the last episode of American Idol for the season! And they're gonna crown the new American Idol! Excitement and buzz is all around! Woohoo!

Well, I've watched every episode of AI since the season started (except for the week where Ace Young got kicked. Arrrrgh!!!) and I have to say this season's contestents are certainly more interesting than last season's (in the words of my brother, last season's final three didn't even make a bleep on his radar, unlike Fantasia, who won two season ago. But I didn't watch that one). This season's final twelve were all pretty good, diverse and interesting in their own way. There was the cute Little Chicken guy whose name I forgot and sang pretty ok but certainly wasn't idol material. And there was Lisa Tucker, who was a dang good 16-year old singer but got kicked because of too many bad song choices. And then there was Mandissa who was super huge size but a super huge voice to go with it, and I have no freakin' idea why she got kicked pretty early on. And then there was Ace who was such a cutie but not the best singer. I knew he'd go eventually, but wouldn't have minded him staying on longer just for eye candy. :D And there was Kellie Pickler who also wasn't the best singer but was also cute in her 'naughty little minx' way. And then there was Bucky, who definitely wasn't going to win and I had no idea how he managed to stay on so long in the show when he wasn't all that great a singer. And there was Paris Bennett who had very good showmanship, but towards the end, her voice started to morphing into some weird grandma-ish thing. I dunno what was up with that, but I knew she'd get kicked and she did. And then there was Chris Daughtry, the rocker dude who sticked to his rocker roots through most of the songs and should've been in the finals, but got kicked out of the final four. And last week, Elliot Yahmin got kicked out of the final three by a ridiculously small margin of less than 1% between the three finalists. But I knew he wasn't going to win either, and was pretty sure he would be booted that week. I'm wondering why he didn't get booted the week before instead of Chris, but oh well...

Now the final two left are Taylor Hicks, with his crazy stage antics and great song choices, and Katherine McPhee, whose got the big voice and the looks. IMHO, Katherine most definitely can sing super well. But most of the time she takes a perfectly good song and overdoes it with the ad-libbing instead of simply...singing the song. And she smiles too much, even during the sad songs. Of course she had a few great performances. But my money is on Taylor to win. Vocal-wise, his range is nowhere near Kat's. But nevertheless, he can still sing very well, he knows when to ad-lib and when to just sing the song as it is, and he knows how to make most songs interesting in his own way. And he dances like a spastic old man in an endearing kind of way, which makes him interesting to watch. He's definitely the one who stood out among the contestants, and in the final show, his performances were way better than Kat's. They each had to sing two songs they had already performed throughout the season as well as their supposed debut single if they win idol. But Kat really dissapointed me with her 'debut single'. Not only was the ballad super boring and 'safe' (which is not her fault but the producers' fault for being such lame songwriters!) but she was soooooooooo out of key throughout the song. I mean, even the judges agreed it was a sucky song, but even with a sucky song, a really good singer can turn it around and sorta make it a good song. She just messed up what was already a bad song to begin with. Taylor's song on its own wasn't much to shout about either, but at least he wasn't that pitchy, and in the end, he made the sucky song sound awesome. There is no doubt in my mind that Taylor will win. And the best part is that during his first AI audition, Simon didn't want to give Taylor a pass coz' he thought Taylor would never make it to the final 24. Luckily, Paula and Randy had the sense to let him through, and now Taylor's pretty much got the AI title nailed. Well, we'll find out tomorrow!