Swompdonkey

Idolology

I managed to avoid American Idol, for the most part, for six-and-a-half seasons until last year, Nesrine called me into the room to listen to David Cook tear the roof off the place during one of his bravura performances. For the first time, this year I managed to watch beyond the early episodes -- you know, the ones where cruel people like me get to indulge our shameful schadenfreude as Simon Cowell systematically dismantles the hopes and dreams of deluded mediocrities-- and I actually found myself getting into it!

I picked Danny Gokey to win early on, but as the Idol contestants headed into the homestretch, I found myself thinking that Danny-Boy was starting to flag. Maybe this is just hindsight, but in retrospect his last couple of outings just did not pack the punch that earlier performances had shown he was capable of delivering. What's more, when I saw how the final five was shaping up, I starting to think that inverse vote-splitting (vote consolidation?) would come into play. I thought I knew who the final three were going to be (Danny, Adam, and Kris)--and when it turned out I was right, I told Nesrine who I thought was going to win: "it's either Danny or Kris".

Nesrine, who was a Glambert backer from Day-1, thought I was nuts, so I explained my theory:

Danny and Kris, for all their stylistic differences, were essentially from the same AI template: The safe, radio-friendly boy-next-door unit-mover. Adam, however, was an alien from another planet. Sure, the theatrical, sexually-ambiguous vocal powerhouse had all the pundits on his side, and by the time we got to the final three, conventional wisdom was that he was a lock to win, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that the math did not add up.

I tried to imagine, in some alternate universe where the Idol results were determined by preferential ballot, how many people who picked Danny or Kris as their first choice would likely pick Adam as their second. I just could not see it being that many. The kind of people who dug the earnest, religious guy from Arkansas' brand of easy-listening adult contemporary music would probably be drawn more to the earnest, religious guy from Wisconsin's brand of easy-listening adult contemporary music. And on top of it, Adam's opponents appear to have hedged their bets with some effective attack ads:



Let's leave it to others to comment on the red-state/blue-state subtext to this year's finale. I'll stick with the facts: Given that American Idol viewers voted two fairly similar contestants into the top three, it stands to reason that third-place-finisher Danny's fans --those sufficiently motivated to continue voting, at least, would be more likely to switch to something similar, i.e. Kris. That means that Adam, our odd-man-out, would have to have a pretty commanding lead going into the finals if he hoped to see off a contestant who might be boosted by "second choice" votes from disgruntled Danny supporters. Anecdotal evidence prior to the finals suggests that was not the case.

Adam, a juggernaut when it came to buzz and hype from music-biz types, turned out to be more vulnerable when the voting public had their say. After all, he came in the bottom two(!!!) during Rat Pack standards week. Maybe his legion of fans got complacent that week and forgot to vote, but anyone with a huge lead would not have slipped that far down the rankings. So maybe Adam was the giant with the feet of clay, and maybe Danny, who seemed to me to be the superior singer, concealed his own vulnerability with a smug grin as his performances contined to deliver increasingly diminishing returns. I think humble Kris was more than just a dark horse. Just go have a listen to his version of Kanye's Heartless, and tell me that isn't marketable to the Tweens.

With his likeability/inoffensiveness, and his undeniable talent, Kris Allen may have been the stealth frontrunner the whole time.