It's the second all-male final in Idol history, and going in, it looks to be the closest final since Clay & Ruben. But it won't look that way coming out.
The rundown:
We begin by establishing an uncomfortable boxing metaphor that will be clubbed into the ground all evening, as a boxing announcer introduces David "Sugarfoot" Cook and David "Baby Face" Archuleta, both wearing robes and boxing gloves, and both looking really embarrassed by such foolishness.
For Round 1, the barely mobile body of Clive Davis is wheeled out to make the song selections; he's joined by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who will offer advice to the singers throughout the evening. As much as I enjoy making fun of Clive, I am happy to see him back, as I think he is a master of picking the right songs for Idol contestants. (I maintain that Diana DeGarmo wouldn't have been a finalist but for Clive assigning her "Don't Cry Out Loud.")
Clive has chosen "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" for Cook, and it's a terrific choice. The first voice is goosebump-y good, and though Cook can't maintain that level throughout -- his enunciantion, as it so often does, gets a bit mushy when the drums kick in for the second verse -- it's a terrific performance. There's a silly bit of showoff gliding on the final note, but that's in the grand Idol tradition of pointless codas.
For Archuleta, Clive picks "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me;" it's the right type of song for his style and for the sound of his voice. The problem is that Archuleta's a 17-year-old kid, and (if the horror stories about his overprotective stage dad are any indication) a sheltered one at that, so when a song comes along that's all about relationships, romance, other people, or emotion of any sort, he's at a loss. The song is a series of very pretty notes, but it's emotionally vapid.
Round one to Cook.
Round two: Instead of making both singers tackle the same insipid anthem, they've been allowed to choose their favorite from the top ten finalists in the Idol songwriting contest. This is, I assume, at least partly a reaction to last year's finals, when the sappy ballad chosen was so far out of Blake's comfort zone that he never stood a chance.
Cook has chosen "Dream Big," which is slightly less sappy than any Official Idol Anthem (OIA) from years past (or maybe it's just that he's giving it a bit more rock edge than any OIA has ever had), but it's still a remarkably bland song, and Cook can't do much to salvage it. He's at his best in the chorus; he's mushmouthed as ever on the verses.
Archuleta chooses "In This Moment," which sounds much more like a typical OIA. It's an adequate performance, but Archuleta looks (as he does all night) so tense and uncomfortable that he's having trouble selling the song convincingly. When the key line of the song is "I want to be in this moment," you have to actually look happy to be there; Archuleta looks like he'd rather be having a root canal.
Round two is a draw of dullness.
Round three is introduced, as all rounds have been, with comments from sportscaster Jim Lampley, who's helping to pound us over the head with that boxing metaphor. "The first two rounds may be about boxing," he tells us, "but the last round is always a fight." Anyone who can explain what the hell that means is smarter than I am.
The singers have been given free choice for the final round, and Cook chooses Collective Soul's "The World I Know." It is a god-awful performance. There are two pretty falsetto notes at the very end of the song, but he could have been singing in Greek for all of the lyrics that could be understood. I almost began to wonder if Cook is trying to lose this competition; he's never been as incomprehensible as this before.
Archuleta opts to return to a song from earlier in the season, giving us a second performance of "Imagine." The song isn't really the uplifting inspirational ballad that he thinks it is, but he manages to sell it as one (omitting the "imagine no religion" verse makes the task a lot easier). There's a bit too much frill and frippery for my taste -- this song works better the more simply it's sung -- but clearly, the audience and the judges love it.
Round three to Archuleta.
For the night, the winner -- largely on the basis of song choice -- is Archuleta, and though I think Cook has been the more consistent performer throughout the season, his performances tonight were weak enough that what should have been a close vote will likely be an Archuleta landslide.
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