This Season 7 final episode had it all. We saw the other finalists from this season, finalists from last season like Jordan Sparks and that beat boxin’ guy, ZZ Top, Bryan Adams and even George Michael (boy has that guy gotten old). We also saw some humorous commercials with both Davids in their underwear doing the Tom Cruise thing with a Guitar Hero guitar.

Tonight is the last night where just one contestant is picked as the winner of American Idol 2008 and David Cook takes home the award this year, winning by over 12 million votes leaving David Archuleta, the young man made for TV singing contests, as the runner up. Both of these guys deserved the win but we have to agree with this vote. David Cook was an underdog bartender that fans were able to relate and grow with throughout the season.

Congratulations David!

You don’t think we’d forget about Kristy Lee Cook though, do you? One last gratuitous pic:

I know our American Idol coverage has been lacking a little as of late, but in all fairness once Kristy Lee Cook was voted off my interest was cut to a fraction. Fortunately Syesha Mercado made the ranks into the final three and on looks alone she should be the winner, but there is some singing involved and Syesha was the one voted off of American Idol tonight.

Who does that leave? Well, if you’ve been watching the show it’s obvious, but for the rest of you, we can look forward to the two David’s going head to head next week on to decide who becomes the winner and American Idol of Fox’s season 7 competition. (more…)

It’s the voting episode of week six and coincidentally America’s votes bring the remaining American Idol contestants down to the last six as one gets voted off tonight. Throughout a series of performances and another puppet-themed Ford plug by the performers Ryan Seacrest weeded Carly Smithson, Jason Castro and Syesha Mercado into a small group of their own and another group consisting of David Cook, Kristy Lee Cook and Brook White across the stage. David Archuleta was held out to last since it would likely give away which group was the bottom three.

After some uncomfortable shuffling it ended up being Syesha, Brook and Kristi Lee as the three with the fewest votes for the week. I feel like none of these contestants should be in the bottom three overall, but it seems like a lot of voters go off solely the last performance which helps make a little sense of this weeks numbers. Also we need to remember that these people aren’t voted off, but are just not voted on as much as the others.

Unfortunately this time it was Kristy Lee Cooks time to go. Kristy had a shaky time earlier in the season but was really making a comeback in her performances each week but it just didn’t turn out to be enough to keep her going. I guess we knew it was going to happen eventually, but we’ll certainly miss seeing Kristy on the stage each week.

Well, it looks like we made it to the final 7 this year without having any type of embarrassment “vote for the worst” contestants on the stage. The loss of Michael Johns last week was a surprising result for everyone and actually added a little excitement to the show since this time it wasn’t as predictable as we were beginning to believe. (more…)

This week we have the top 8 American Idol contestants performing after the loss of Ramiele Malubay in last weeks voting. I guess they want to do something for everyone during the season and this episode sports some “inspirational songs” for the theme, which goes along with the extra special three-episode week.

Today we have the regular but “inspirational” performances which makes the show a little painful for us here, and on Thursday we’ll have the usual voting episode. But, for all of you hardcore AI fans tomorrow brings a special, extra-long 2.5 hour “Idol Gives Back” episode which goes along with all of the inspiration being belted out tonight. (more…)

Tonight the American Idol season 7 crew is brought down to the final 10 that will go on tour as one more is voted off the show. As usual Ryan Seacrest singled out the three with the fewest votes and then announced the one leaving today.

Carly Smithson was the first singled out as one of the bottom three and was clearly upset with the decision but didn’t seem all that surprised. It’s important to note getting tattoos for the American Idol doesn’t get you votes.
Kristy Lee Cook was our prediction of who would be going home this week and was the second one to be put on the stools in the bottom three. When Ryan made the announcement Kristy simply smiled and nodded in agreement as if she knew she was on her way out. Obviously she read PopTherpay.com yesterday so today wasn’t such a shock.
It looks like we weren’t the only ones that wanted to see Amanda Overmyer leave the show, or at least people wanted the others to stay more. Amanda is just a little too tough for our liking, and just doesn’t seem to ever open up and show any versatility.

(more…)

We’re down to the final 11 performing this week and believe it or not, just like last week the performers must again pick from the Beatles catalog for their songs. The Beatles do have a lot of tunes mind you, but does it really warrant two weeks in a row?

Speaking of the Beatles catalog and tunes, we really thought we would hear something about the Beatles catalog coming to iTunes by the end of the show, but no such luck. There were plenty of MacBook Air commercials to tease us for a couple of hours, however. That being said lets jump into the performances from these top 11 and their second Beatles song choices. (more…)

Tonights American Idol has one contestant of the final 12 voted off of the show. Ryan Seacrest brought them up in small groups and throughout a commercial-filled show with Jim Carey as a guest promoting his new Horton Hears a Who movie, he slowly narrowed them down to the bottom three shaky contestants.

	Syesha Mercado led out the show last night and is one that we thought might last a little longer than this. This week she was also the first to be put in the bottom three having the least votes out of the final 12. Syesha appeared to have some of the most experience of being in front of the camera but just isn’t pulling it through for the fans.
	Kristy Lee Cook is one that we are not surprised to see in the bottom three this week as she was the second to be put in the bottom three group. She was marginal before last week but after doing Eight Days a Week on the banjo it just put her over (or under) the edge.
	David Hernandez as the third in the bottom three was probably not a shocker for many, either. Yesterday and tonight he sang a rather drab version of I Saw Her Standing There and is just lacking the personality and energy needed for this level of competition.

(more…)

We’re down to the final 12 for American Idol and all of these performers will enjoy at least some fame after the season is over no matter how soon they get voted off. Usually we’ll see some significant improvements from here forward in performances and presentation. Tonight is Beatles night which gives the group a lot of fun and popular choices so let’s see how they do this week.

	Syesha Mercado kicked off the Beatles night with “Got To Get You Into My Life” from the Revolver album and looked a little bit nervous. Syesha has some performing experience before American Idol so we were surprised to see this coming from her. She did a good job on the song though, has an impressive stage presence and remains easy on the eyes with some better hair this week.
	Chikezie put some serious “Chikezieness” on She’s a Woman with a real down-home feel. We were surprised we didn’t see someone playing a jug at some point which would have fit in well. While I really didn’t care for his rendition of that song, Chikezie really seemed to find is own groove and showed it off with an impressive performance that was well received by the audience and ALL of the judges. Yes, even Simon.
	Ramiele Malubay continues to impress us with such a big voice from such a small person but aside from that there wasn’t a whole lot impressive about Ramiele this week. The expectation is that the performers will kick things up a notch or two for the final 12 and she just didn’t do it this week.
	Jason Castro – dude, do I ever like to hear this guy talk. He’s seems to have the classic laid-back and care-free attitude that you would expect from any “free spirit”. He sang “If I Fell” and put his own, even more laid-back twist to it. We felt like he did a good job but the particular song didn’t reflect Jason’s attitude no matter “cool” he made it. He needs to pick up songs with lyrics that reflect the vibe he’s putting for us to really enjoy his performances.
	We learned this week that the American Idol crew shacked Carly Smithson up with Amanda Overmeyer in an apartment for the remainder of their tenures with the show, which I’m sure will turn out to be a spin-off of its own. I have to say that this is the first performance of Carly’s that I actually liked. She sang Come Together by the Beatles and it really looked like the right kind of song for her and she did an awesome job. This was a huge improvement for her from last week and for us changed in status from “dislike” to “tolerable”.
	David Cook did an incredible job last week and we were looking forward to an even better performance this week. He put on a rock twist that we didn’t even think was possible with Eleanor Rigby from the Beatles Revolver album and got a standing ovation from the crowd. At the beginning of the song we weren’t so sure but he actually pulled it off with some pure talent. It’s a must hear if you can get it off of iTunes later on.
	Brooke White performed “Let it Be” and showed off some of her piano skills this time instead of the guitar. She’s got a good voice but for us just never stands out. The Idol hair and make-up crew looks like they are doing what they can but Brooke just continues to look like an older Carly Simon to us. We can’t deny she has singing talent and is a good performer but just doesn’t strike us as an American idol. Keep on truckin’, Brooke.
	If you’re behind on the gossip, David Hernandez is the one that is rumored to have been a stripper in a prior career. I think there was more to the story and of course today he just mentioned a previous job at a pizza bistro which is much less exciting but also less controversial for David. His version of “I Saw Her Standing There” was just a little boring for us. He sounded a lot like the original version when the Beatles did it, but not near as good. I’m not sure if it wasn’t his song or not his night but either way David Hernandez is at risk to be voting off the show this week.
	Amanda Overmyer gave it her all again this week with a gravelly voiced “You Can’t Do That”. I’m just not picking up what Amanda is laying down in this competition. She’s obviously doing well since she’s gotten this far but I still think she could do even better if she would quit trying to act so tough and just perform.
	The Aussie Michael Johns sang “Across the Universe” from the Beatles’ “1970″ album and although he’s got a voice on him it was really an uneventful performance. We had to agree with Randy Jackson and define this as a little sleepy, no matter how well it was sung. He should have added a little more “Michael Johns” to the song.
	We have to continue with our theory that “hotness” will get a girl quite a ways in the music business. This week Kristy Lee Cook put a country twist on “Eight Days a Week” complete with a fiddle and banjo which was just plain weird. Simon’s quote was “Dolly Parton on helium” and we think she went out on a limb that broke. If this one is available on iTunes you should hear this one too, but not if you have to pay for it. She sure is good lookin’, though.
	David Archuleta did his rendition of “We Can Work it Out” and set a high bar for himself in previous weeks which he just didn’t meet this time. He mimic’d a Stevie Wonder version of the song and I think he forgot some words early in the song which was maybe some of his youth coming through in his performance. Still the same young, smiley kid but not so good this week.

So there we have it for the first week of the American Idol top 12. Overall the contestants did well, however a lot of these have more professional performing experience than contestants we’ve seen in previous seasons. Poor David Archuleta messed up on his lyrics which normally would be the end for a contestant but David’s rep will likely pull him through.

On a side note, when it was announced that tonight was Beatles night we were hoping it would coincide with some announcement from iTunes that the Beatles albums would finally be available for download, but no such announcement happened. I guess we’ll have to just keep waiting.

It’s Thursday night which for us American Idol fans means only one thing – the announcement of who got voted off this week. Two guys and two girls were voted off American Idol and we got to see how close our predictions were from last night. (The picture of Simon repeatedly making Moose hand gestures last night was just too good not to post.)

Tonight Ryan started with the guys and Jason Yeager was the first to go. I can’t argue with one; Jason didn’t really look like he was genuinely enjoying himself and didn’t seem very comfortable on stage. He was also a little defensive with criticism and I think he decided he was on his way out before any of the voters did. It’s too bad because he’s a good singer but just didn’t have all the pieces. This makes us 1 for 1 in our predictions from last night.
In round two it was the girls turn and Alexandra Lushington was the second to get the boot for this week. Alexandra was another one that just did not stand out from the crowd. She has a voice but just lacks the charisma found in most popular entertainers or bloggers, like yours truly for example. So far the ‘Therapy’s predictions are 2 for 2 this week.
We didn’t see this one coming. I didn’t think Alaina Whitaker would make it very much further but I also didn’t think this week would be her turn to go. Also, from the look on her and Kady’s face when Ryan made the announcement, I don’t think they thought Alaina was heading out tonight, either. The poor girl is only 16 year old, but if she’s going to be in this line of work and on this type of show she’s got to toughen up a little bit. No crying Alaina, you have years of dealing with ill-knowledged music critics like me ahead of you! We thought Carly Smithson would be the other girl going out this week so that puts us at 2 for 3 in our predictions. Carly probably is the better singer but hey, its not all talent you know. Don’t be so narrow.
Now this one I am actually surprised at. I definitely did not expect Robbie Carrico to be going this week, I’ll bet it was a close vote. Our other guy prediction was for Michael Johns to be the other guy voted off, so this makes our predictions 2 and 2 for the night. We picked Michael because he was the one that stood out from the crowd the least for us. Simon repeatedly questioned Robbie’s authenticity of being a “rocker” and it did seem like Robbie wanted to be a rocker more than he was, but at least he stood out. He had some attitude and a distinguished bulldog under-bite that kept our attention. Keep on pretending to rock Robbie, don’t ever quit!