Recap Grand Finale

After what seems like ages of American Idol Season 7, we finally come to the end.

For some reason there was an unprecedented number of votes for the grand finale performance. Sure we expect the previous record to be broken, but by more than 20 million?? 97.5+ million votes folks!

This final episode was filled with a number of performances, featuring the likes of the Top 12, Donna Summer, Jimmy Kimmel, Gladys Knight, Carrie Underwood, among others. One of the biggest highlights for me was the return of the white suit guy who sang the "I am your brother" song.

This recap will mainly be of a pictorial nature. I think this years finale was much better than last years. One reason is that last year there was no doubt who the winner was, while this year it was always dubious. Also, the line-up of performances for the occasion was generally more interesting, though it was mixed with the boring and nice.

First main item was a group performance by the reunited top 12 with contestants from So You Think You Can Dance. (Wow! Did anyone else totally forget about Amanda?)

The two Davids perform together. The clown on the right is supposed to be the Love Guru

Syesha with some guy. Castro doing Hallelujah.

The two Davids being told they have each been given a Ford Hybrid

The top 6 girls do some Donna Summer stuff. Then Donna herself joins them on stage.

Carly Smithson and Michael Johns do a duet. Carly sounded really good, and Michael wasn't half bad.

Top 6 boys performing, doing a nice job. Brian Adams comes out to join them.

Brooke White and some guy (Grand Ash?) doing a duet

Remember this character? They brought him back! Paula and Randy joined him on stage along with the nice girls.









Jordin Sparks (left) and Carrie Underwood (right), two previous American Idol winners. Jordin was ok. The only highlight of Carrie's performance was her legs!

George Michael. This guy put me to sleep.
I actually missed the announcing of the winner because of him.

Just before the results are divulged, Ryan asks the judges for their finals words. Simon apologises to David (Cook?) because he bordered on being disrespectful to him. He admitted it wasn't so clear cut when he watched over the show the night before. He also said he didn't really care which one won as they're both good.

Finally we get to what the show is really supposed to be about -the revealing of the winner. Ryan declares Cook the new American Idol, winning by over 12 millions votes. So my calling the result from last night turned out to be just wrong. I guess with my calling it coupled with Simon's declaring it a knock-out, the public decided to vote extra hard for Cook and it paid off. I should also note, that this could be the only result that can be vouched for.

Naturally Cook is overwhelmed by emotion and breaks out into tears. After he composes himself, he sings the final song as the show ends.

In one sense it seems the season has been going on forever. Yet at the same time, it seemed to have gone by so fast. I had an abundance of theories to post, but things kept going by so fast. Well I'll see what I can do. Perhaps I can still post some. I'm sure you'd be interested to know why this will probably be the last ever American Idol season.

Recap Grand Finale Performance

First of all, let me apologise for not bringing you the recap for the Top 3 week. I was sent to a far away place and was not able to watch the show.

After many weeks of American Idol, we have finally arrived at the grand finale. It is down to David Cook vs. David Archuleta, which isn't really surprising. Not since the days of Clay Aiken have we had a finale with two males. Also not since then, have we had such a talented pair in the finals.


The final performance show opened with some guy introducing the two contestants in the manner of a boxing match.

Some clips from Clive Davis and Andrew Lloyd Webber are shown where they are coaching the 2 contestants.

There'll be 3 rounds, where each contestant will deliver their final set of competition performances.

For the 1st round, the songs have been chosen by Clive Davis

Up first is David Cook. As usual, I thought he was good, not bad at all. Randy exclaimed that it was a great way to start the show. He said it was a very nice song choice. He loved the scoop with the note at the end and thought it was "hot"! Paula said we have found David Cook. She commented that he was "in great voice tonight". Simon articulated his observation that at start of show, David looked very tense, very emotional, and taking all that together, said it was phenomenal.

David Archuleta sang Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, a song that now belongs to Clay Aiken. While it was good, it highlighted for me the difference between Clay and Archuleta. I don't think David was as good as Clay. Randy felt this was one the best performances of the season. He went on to say it was "flawless" and "unbelievably molten hot. Crazy vocals." Paula claimed it gave her chills up and down her arms. She thought it was a beautiful beautiful stunning performance. Simon remarked that last week he was ok, but tonight, arguably the best he's done so far, and taking everything into account, gave round 1 to Archuleta.

For Round 2, a new song is selected from the song writer's competition. The contestants get to choose from top 10 entries.

Cook's 2nd performance was quite decent. It could actually be a catchy song. Randy said the song was just ok, but what made it work was his voice. Paula believed it a great way to take a song and make us fall in love with it. Simon said, using the boxing analogy, it was a lightweight. He lamented that it is supposed to be a winning song, and that didn't feel like a winning moment. For that he gave 6.5/10.

Archuleta's follow up was ok. His song choice was different by the way, and I would think more suitable for the finale. Randy wasn't too crazy about the song, but felt he's so in the zone, he could sing the phonebook, it would still be good. Paula said it was another heart felt performance, like he's on fire tonight, and called it "pure magic". Simon loved the egotistical lyric (of course) and thought it was definitely a better song for the occasion than Cook's. He also gave round 2 to the younger David.

In Round 3 the contestants could choose any song they wanted. Cook chose a song he hasn't done yet. Archuleta, chose Imagine, one he did before since it's one of his favourites.

Cook - Listening to it, I felt it probably was not the best song choice. It was good singing, but too close to boring. Randy thought it was very nice sensitive side to David, and said it was a very nice job. Paula remarked that he was delivering unbelievable songs with integrity and originality and then proceeded to give him a standing ovation. Simon started by acknowledging in public that Cook is one of the nicest most sincere contestants we've had. He said it was a beautiful song, but completely and utterly the wrong song choice. He suggested Billy Jean or Hello as better alternates. I have to agree with him. Cook needed to do a number that America had heard and loved from him before.

Archuleta - Well pretty much everyone loved it when he had first done Imagine, and no doubt it still came across as good tonight. Randy exclaimed that this is what the show is about and declared David the best singer of season 7. Paula said it left her speechless, and thought he was stunning tonight. Simon said we witnessed one of the great finals. He believed David A came out to win tonight and what we witnessed was a knock-out!

So it is quite obvious who the judges think will and should win. Objectively speaking, Archuleta was the stronger contestant tonight. Cook just did some wrong songs. Anyway, I suppose it doesn't really matter who wins. They both are clearly very talented and should have great success post idol. But Archuleta is the new American Idol!

The show closed with a live performance by Ruben Studdard, doing the song they have been playing all season when a contestant goes home.

Recap Grand Finale

So the couple hours we were all waiting for, finally arrived - The Grand Finale Results show! What a waste of time. In character with the whole season, the closing show was boring and filled with commercials that probably had as much time as the actual show.

I refuse to give the step by step event progression in the kind of detail as I normally do. I shall simply select the most entertaining bits, and make mention of some of the other items they hoped we would have found interesting.

The show was filled with singing performances by a wide assortment of celebrities. The actual Idol contestants were for the most part relegated to background music.

Opening the show were Jordin and Blake singing I Saw Her Standing There. As I listened, I muttered to myself, "damn it! Blake is ruining everything". Then Jordin started to sing, and I was like, "good grief! Jordin is messing it up too". Gwen Stefani did a number. Not sure why. Really, if she was not sexy, would anyone care about her singing?


So very poor start to the show. Kelly Clarkson sang Never Again, and I hope she never again does it. It was a most unfortunate choice of songs. Seemed to me like she was shouting for a good deal of it.

Finally the show begins to brighten up as Ryan introduced the Golden Idol Awards. Essentially an award is given to some of the strangest contestants who auditioned, for something. There were 3 such awards presented, but I think we'd all agree only two were particularly interesting.

The first award went to Margaret Fowler. This is the one Ryan once referred to as Big Bird's long lost cousin, or something to that effect. The other nominees for this category of Best Presentation, were also serious contenders for the prize. Miss Fowl...err..Fowler stepped up to receive her prize and gave Ryan a huge wet one right on the lips, taking him down to the ground. Oh, her cell phone actually rang while she was collecting her award. LOL! I really wasn't sure if that was scripted or not.


The third award which was for the category of Best Buddies went to Jonathan and Kenneth. However Ryan and Simon came pretty close to taking the title. Another notable nominee was Antonella Barba and her friend. Jonathan is the guy Simon said looked like a bushbaby. He actually thanked Simon for saying that, as it has apparently brought him a lot of fame since.


The top 6 guys did a number with Smoky Robinson. I think it would have been better without him. Not that there is anything wrong with Smoky, but as we have not seen and heard some of these guys for some weeks now, it would have been nice to hear more from them. It was the same problem with the girls. They performed with Gladys Knight, mainly as background singers. At least there was more entertainment to their item. And it was refreshing to see the Lovely Haley once again.


Melinda got to do a little more backup singing with the folks she normally sings with. Ok, to be fair, she did get to showcase her stuff somewhat. Anyway, this was a pretty decent item.

Blake and Jordin were given a car each (mustangs).

Carrie Underwood performed I'll Stand By You, the song she also did on Idol Gives Back show. I liked it then, and I liked it now. I was never a Carrie fan, but I did enjoy this performance. I suspect the song itself has a lot to do with it, but I don't want to take anything away from Carrie, as it really did sound good.

Clive Davis gave a little speech, where he highlighted the fact that Daughtry has out sold Taylor and Kathryn by a lot. He mumbled some other stuff and then voila! Carrie Underwood is presented with an award.

The African Children's choir were back, and performed an item that they sang in their own language. Nice to see them doing well.


I guess as part of the comedy aspect of the show, Sanjaya was back, performing with Joe Perry. The introduction to this segment had Sanjaya at the end of a list of notable folks such as Einstein, JFK and Gandhi. Well Sanj boy was in his element and did not fail to deliver the kind of performance that we've come to expect from him. Even the Crying Girl, who was back in the audience, was brought to tears again.

Taylor Hicks made his season debut performance. He's still doing the weird looking dance moves, and still milking the old harmonica gimmick.

There was a duet with Jordin and Ruben. Yes, long lost Ruben Studdard. Apparently he is still around. Well the duet was actually fairly decent.


Towards the end of the show Kelly Clarkson came back and sang solo. As she finished her bit, she introduced Taylor Hicks. He did a little something, and then introduced Carrie Underwood. During her singing, the top 6 girls of this season appeared in the background. Ruben Studdard got his introduction and then the top 6 guys of this season gave some background support. This led to some singing by the current Idols themselves. What a breath of fresh air to hear the Lovely Haley Scarnato again. Only Idol winner absent, was Fantasia.



Other items that some possibly found interesting were:
Blake beat boxing with Doug E. Fresh (who was much better than Blake at it)
Tony Bennett singing
Bette Midler...(sounded not good)
Ford video

Ok, so that wraps it up for the grand finale, or is that grand flop?

Oh, I forgot to mention one other thing that transpired in the last few minutes of the 2 hour presentation. There were over 74 Million votes (a record btw), and Jordin Sparks won. Well I already declared her the winner from last week, so it's already stale news to you readers.

Folks, I intend to update this site as need be, but I do expect that I'll be scarce between now and next year. However, feel free to post here any American Idol ideas or theories you find interesting.

Congrats Miss Sparks!