Country singers on Idol tend to go two ways. Most of them tend to… overstay their welcome and leave long after they really should have. (Two shining examples: Kristy Lee Cook and Kellie Pickler.) When country produces a contender, though… everyone else really has no chance.

Hell will freeze over before we get full Idol voting numbers, but it’s a safe bet that Scotty’s win may well have been one of the biggest landslide victories in Idol history. He established a fanbase with country voters and tweens solidly behind him. The one thing that’ll stand out from Scotty’s stay on Idol will be consistency. Yes, he had no real highlights the way so many of the other finalists had, but on the flip side he didn’t have real disasters either. When he got bad rankings, it was more due to fatigue with his near-constant style, not necessarily due to bad singing. It’s almost like Scotty was the tortoise and the rest of the field was the hare.

Despite his frankly underwhelming Idol record Scotty’s fate in Idol history will depend largely on how well he does post show. After the disappointing sales of Lee DeWyze it is important that Scotty do well. He’ll probably be in good hands, but nothing is certain. There’s at least some indication of anti-Idol pushback from some country radio programmers, but hopefully the Idol title will open doors – and keep them open, at least for a while.

What about Lauren? In hindsight, losing Idol may help her in the long-term. She’s amazingly talented, but needs a lot of development. Putting the pressure of being an Idol winner on her shoulders would have been a much riskier bet than Scotty. Scotty is better than Lauren right now, but in the long run Lauren has a bigger upside than Scotty does. She can take some inspiration from her idol, Carrie Underwood: she’s improved a great deal since she won six seasons ago, particularly how well she performs. In any case, I wish them both well. As an Idol fan, it only helps the franchise if its contestants do well post-show.

The good, the bad, and the ugly: Here’s our rundown of the good, the bad, and the utterly horrific of Season 10 of American Idol:

The Good

1. The talent pool: in terms of natural talent this may have been one of the best Idol seasons ever. You can quibble with how they developed (or didn’t), but there was a lot of potential in this year’s contestants. Even despite some fairly egregious robberies in the semifinals, you could do a heck of a lot worse than Season 10′s top 12. Just look at last year.

2. Jimmy Iovine: I suspect the real reason Iovine was brought onto Idol this year wasn’t just to mentor the contestants. It was to ensure that there was some sort of artistic continuity between what the contestants did on-show with what they did post-show. Too many Idols have released material post-show that didn’t mesh all that well with what they did on the show. That’s… not an ideal situation.

Whatever the reasons Jimmy was brought on, however, he’s improved the quality of the performances – not so much at the top end, but by removing the utter disasters. That, in itself, was worthwhile.

3. The finale episode: Compared to Tuesday night’s lackluster competition show, the proper finale was pretty good. (One person who may disagree: Lee DeWyze.) Entertaining songs, nice guest list, and the video packages weren’t utterly cringe-worthy. Great, great way to close out a season.

The Bad

1. Hour-long results shows: I know, the combined salaries of the judges and Ryan aren’t cheap. The money has to come somewhere. But… even a hardened Idol fan can only take so much. At least it’s not the most filler-tastic reality show. That dubious honor goes to Dancing With the Stars.

2. The Idol bus: Is it too much to ask for excessive meddling to stop? No? An Idol pundit can dream.

The Ugly

1. Horrific judging: If there was one thing that almost ruined the season, it was the judge’s comically bad “judging”. I’ve hit this point already earlier in the season, so I won’t repeat myself too much. I know they went to kinder, gentler panel as a clear sign they were moving away from the Simon Era. But they went too far in the opposite direction this year. Another season of cheerleading is liable to result in another season filled with frustration.

The voting system, again: The one topic that’s on the mind of the Idolsphere after every season is: the voting system. Few – if any – Idol fans have good words to say about the existing vote system. Radical suggestions (like one number, one vote) are unlikely to happen: there’s too much money for AT&T in all the votes that come in, and it would be an admission that something was wrong with the old system.

So, let me suggest a tweak. For the purposes of this experiment, I’ll be using estimates, but if the Idol PTB really want to fix the judging system they can generate the real numbers. Let’s say that the cutoff between casual and power voters is 500 votes. Up to that number, one sent in vote would count as one vote. Beyond that number, though, let’s say that each vote would be worth less than one. Let’s say it would be worth 95%. So if you voted 501 times, it would be worth 500.95 votes. Depending on how the math is set up, the values of each succeeding vote would fall really quickly, or more gradually so. Properly done, it would lessen the influence of power voters (totally neutering it by going to a number that is too small would probably be a bad idea.)

Of course, as far as the producers are concerned the system isn’t broken. It makes for good TV. If there’s going to be change, it’ll have to come from inside. Depending on how this year’s crop turns out the force for change might be, of all people, Jimmy Iovine: his priorities are different from Nigel Lythgoe or Fox. His interests lie in getting whoever he signs to do well in the music industry: “shock” boots may not help there.

How to sell music, in the Web 2.0 world: One of the Idol franchise’s problems in recent years has been the supposed commercial failure of its contestants. Kris Allen and Lee DeWyze, in particular, have been blamed for this problem. They may have been tarred a little unfairly, in my opinion.

For nine seasons, the basic formula for Idol winners was the same: after the show, go on tour for a few months. After that, hurriedly cut an album for release in mid-November. Up until about Season Five, I’d argue it worked.

What happened? The Internet happened. The old business model – dependent on relatively expensive CDs and full albums – didn’t work anymore, either for consumers or the sellers. Digital sales – which cost less – became more prominent. The attention span of the popular culture fell as well: it’s as if the whole culture suffered from ADHD. To that kind of thinking, the months between an Idol victory and the November album release dates might as well be an eternity.

What was the response from Idol? Sell tracks on iTunes during the show. Right. Post-show, they basically changed nothing from Kelly Clarkson’s day to Lee DeWyze’s. Of course the record sales were going to fall; the whole strategy was from a bygone era. Let me put it this way: if you magically transported 2005-era Carrie Underwood to today, her debut album wouldn’t sell 7-plus million. The conditions to do that just don’t exist anymore. The times changed, but the tactics did not. Failure was just about guaranteed.

Since Lady Gaga was on the finale, maybe we can use her as an example of how much the music industry has changed. Born This Way is being sold and promoted in ways that would have been unthinkable or downright impossible just a few years ago: available for as low as one dollar on Amazon, being promoted (and given away) via Farmville – say what you will about her music, but the marketing guys handling Lady Gaga know their stuff. Obviously, the same tactics won’t work for Idol alumni – their image and target audiences don’t match – but today’s music industry requires that kind of clever and unique thinking to create a star.

The most important move Idol made may have been changing record labels. Sony was frozen, sticking to a model which they knew had worked. Even if UMG has been as hard hit as anyone by the downturn, they still bring fresh eyes to look at the problem of Idol promotion. The rumors that we’re going to see singles from Pia and Haley relatively soon is, to me, a very good thing. At least they’re willing to consider new ways to sell the music of Idol contestants – ways that fit today’s connected world, as well as the unique promotional medium that is America’s top singing competition.

Random notes: Steven Tyler is a freak of nature. All the abuse he’s put his body through and he can still nail the Dream On scream?

You could do a heck of a lot worse than to be in the shape Tony Bennett is at 84.

If music doesn’t work out for Casey, he should find work in TV. He is absolutely golden in front of a camera.

Chances that we’ll see Latino night, mentored by Marc Anthony, next year: Pretty damn high.

Ford says Scotty and Lauren can have any Ford car they want? Pity the Ford GT stopped production in 2007, then.

For the ultimate in reality show crossovers, John Rich should have come out singing an Idol version of You’re Fired. Aimed at the judges. Fans displeased with the walking stock phrase machine that is Randy Jackson can only dream. Failing that, how about this guy making an entrance and dealing with the judges? Cue the breaking glass sound effect and James going absolutely nuts.

Closing thoughts: There was one question that this season had to answer. Could the Idol franchise survive the loss of its headline act, Simon Cowell? The answer: you bet. Towards the end, ratings were better on a year-on-year basis with Season Eight; doomsayers had predicted large declines. Nigel Lythgoe’s return made the Idol ship run more smoothly and efficiently – even if more than a few times, us passengers asked “where the hell are we going?”

Much will depend on how well Scotty, Lauren, Haley, and the rest of this year’s contestants who get signed do after the show ends, but there are encouraging signs even there. For me, at least, this season didn’t bring the overwhelming feeling of “thank God that’s over!” that reflected last year’s disaster. To me, the litmus test of a good Idol season is right after its finale is: overall, did America and the rest of Idol‘s audience around the world get introduced to some great singers they didn’t know about when the season started? I think the answer is yes.

Is Season Ten going to be remembered as a “classic” season? No. The problems of bad judging and no growth from most of its contestants keep it from that lofty title. What can be said about Season Ten, however, was that it laid the foundation for a successful post-Simon Idol era. There are problems that need fixing, but the solutions are there to be found. Considering all the uncertainty that we had when the season started, that’s a pretty good achievement in and of itself.

Much has been made of the arrival of competing music-based shows like The Voice and Cowell’s own X-Factor.The flaws of the Idol mothership hide the fact that both prospective competitors have – or will have – problems of their own. We’ll see in the end how those shows fare, but I can say this: after this season, the Idol franchise is healthier than it’s been for quite some time. There’s no feeling of “oh crap, what did we do wrong this time?” that I saw last year. Whether you agree or disagree with all of Nigel’s… shenanigans, one thing is clear: he did a heck of a job this year. Welcome back Nigel, we missed you.

A few personal notes. This means that it’s time for me to enter the hibernation chamber and re-emerge in a few months time for the next season. I’m not going to cover X-Factor like I do Idol; I’m frankly not up to covering two shows so close together. The creative juice has to recharge. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be talking about it on my Twitter account @theidolguy, which you can get to by clicking on that link or by hitting the small-t button at the top of the page.

Unlike some (maybe even most) Idol pundits, I don’t buy an awful lot of music from Idol contestants – it just happens to be that my personal buying habits don’t cross with what Idol produces very often. In fact, I’ve only done it for two contestants. After this season, I’m going to make it three: I’ll be waiting for Haley Reinhart’s debut with more than a little anticipation.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good time visiting this year, and I hope to see you all again for Season Eleven. Idol Guy, out.

Expectations for this week’s finale really depended on if you liked country music or not. I didn’t expect a brilliant final competition show, but historically finales have not always been that great. What we got… was cheese. A lot of it. Finalist home videos and a visit from a doctor? (More on that little publicity stunt a little later.)

First round wasn’t just a slight edge to Scotty; the gap was pretty wide in his favor. I didn’t particularly like the first version of Gone, but this week’s version was a little better. Scotty still looks awkward when he tries to perform, but at least this was marginally entertaining.

Lauren’s Flat On The Floor, though… well, she tried. That’s really the best you can say. Her vocals were just rough, particularly when she went for the power notes. A for effort, but ultimately not particularly good. Advantage Scotty for Round One.

The second round… I really wish we’d gotten at least video clips for the picks. We know why Carrie chose Maybe It Was Memphis – it was a song she’d wanted to do during her own run – but not George Strait’s. Of course, it could be something as simple as self-promotion, but I’d like to think there may have been more noble reasons. In any case, both choices worked reasonably well.

Check Yes or No was another Scotty Special. Competently sung, adored by his fans… lukewarm to me. I know I’m going to get crucified by country fans for this, but you could almost imagine this performance serving as the background to a scene from a romcom movie set in a country-themed nightclub. It was decent, but didn’t set the stage on fire.

I can’t help but wonder for what week Carrie wanted to sing Maybe It Was Memphis. It was a very respectable performance – it didn’t suffer from the vocal issues that her first song did, and it was a good fit for her. It seemed a little slow and lethargic in spots, but chalk that up to the Idol Finale Bug. For the round, advantage Lauren.

The last round, with their future singles… yikes. I Love You This Big had the silliest lyrics this side of This Is My Now. It was awful, no two ways around it, but I can’t blame Scotty for it: he had nothing to work with. Nothing. You may as well have sent him out to the O.K. Corral with a rubber prop knife. He’s a good storyteller, but a good story has words better than what he got. I mean, Friday would have had more coherent words than this giant piece of garbage that Scotty had to sing.

If Scotty had to jump through silly hoops for his single, Lauren’s was a good fit. This was the sort of emotional ballad that Lauren has done fairly well on – if with a bit too much beauty pageant affectations – so of course she was at least going to do well. As it is, it was as good an Idol coronation song you’re ever going to get. Which is still pretty far from great, but it was good – sappy, but good. Best song of the night.

Overall, Lauren “won” the night, but I doubt it mattered. The episode itself was remarkably listless and dreary – and before anyone says I have a bias against country, it’s not because of the genre. It’s because neither of the two finalists really sang to the caliber that most people expect of an Idol finale.

Audience Manipulation 101: I’ve got to say, that was a masterful bit of audience manipulation from the Idol powers-that-be before the show. Spreading rumors that Lauren would have to drop out due to sickness, that Haley would have to fill in at the last minute… puh-lease. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if somebody realized from the dress rehearsals how dull the finale would turn out, so it needed some last-minute buzz. Nigel, whoever that guy/gal was, give ‘em a raise. He/she deserves it, even if it didn’t work.

The finale may have needed that additional buzz: going from up 15% year-on-year last week to down 7% this week? (Note that fall is in ratings points, not raw number of viewers, which was about the same. Guess which one Fox is playing up.) That’s a pretty sizable change in direction in just one week. Now, of course, Nigel is playing up the number of votes, but 100 million plus votes is less impressive than it sounds. Remember, the voting was over a four-hour period. Obviously, it’s not a straight-up doubling of votes, but 110+ million votes shouldn’t have been out of the question if the voters were as “hot” this week as they were last week. Obviously, they were not. I wonder why…

Pre-ordained finale: Idol finales are never decided on the last performance night. By that time just about everyone who votes is locked into someone, and the finalists are good enough to avoid the major fiascos that might actually hurt their chances.

Scotty’s fanbase has been bulletproof since the start. Never in the bottom two, good support from country voters and tweens… it would have taken an exceptionally good Idol contestant (good in the “crafting a strategy” way, not just the “singing” way) to get past that. There’s no doubt in my mind who’s going to win.

The winner of American Idol season 10 is… Scotty McCreery.

Before Haley Reinhart firmly established herself with songs like Bennie and the Jets and Rolling in the Deep, the word I used to describe the season was: frustration. Frustration with contestants who had not improved; frustration with lousy judging, frustration with a season that had not lived up to its full potential.

With Haley’s exit, that’s where I am again. Both Scotty and Lauren are good singers with potential, but I have a hard time caring about “potential” if it hasn’t been demonstrated on the Idol stage at least once. I need a showstopper moment from a serious finalist – at least once in a season of about three months. If you really are worthy of the finale, that should not be too hard.

Let’s do some checking of the What Not to Sing database. How many five-star performances do Scotty and Lauren have combined? *checks* One? Are you serious? *double-checks* Yes, only one.

That one statistic sums it up. Both Scotty and Lauren have managed, between them, exactly one performance that a good chunk of the Idolsphere considered a showstopper. It was Lauren’s version of Flat On The Floor – which I thought was well-done, but not exactly the most original song in the world. In short… while both Scotty and Lauren have largely avoided utter disasters, set audiences on fire they have not. They’re the epitome of the “safe” performer.

That sums up why I’m disappointed with this finale, and to a large degree the season as a whole. In terms of natural talent, they may well be one of the better pairs in the decade of Idol finales we’ve seen. In terms of growth, however, there’s no argument: they’re the worst pair ever, bar none. Scotty’s trademark line – baby lock the door and turn the lights down low – dates back to his audition. That’s unreal. It’s like the past three months or so never happened.

You also have to wonder what signal this sends to the Idol viewers at large. Country music is a popular genre, but no single genre dominates the American music landscape. Yet two singers from the same genre ended up in the finale. Based on Nigel Lythgoe’s own tweet, Haley only got around 25% of the vote. As one of my Twitter followers pointed out, that doesn’t quite mean the remaining three-fourths are all tweens and country voters, but never have two voting blocs combined to do such a number on everyone else.

More than that, though, I worry for future seasons. In Scotty and Lauren, we have the two contestants of this season who have made some of the most pedestrian, predictable, and safe song choices of this season. The contrast to Haley – who, as far as song choice is concerned, is everything the country pair is not – is stark. They got to the finale by playing safe. Is that what we’re going to see next year? As an Idol fan, I sincerely hope not. But Idol contestants are rational people: they see taking risks “rewarded” by criticism, safe songs rewarded with praise. Which will they pick?

Finally… what can I say about Haley. She rose from cannon fodder to become the most electrifying person on the Idol stage. That was something that’s never been done before, and frankly, may not be done for a while again – if ever. She delivered what will be, in all likelihood, this season’s standout vocal in House of the Rising Sun. And that sing-off… for a Haley fan like me, it doesn’t get better than that. It was appropriate that the song that put her on the Idol map was the one she chose to sing out to. Well done Haley, well done.

If people were looking for some sort of knockout blow to be delivered to someone’s finale hopes in the final three episode, they left disappointed. There was no single standout performance that elevated someone the way Heartless did, but neither was there really a performance that was so bad as to send them back home immediately, tail between their legs.

Round one clearly went to Haley. It was the gutsiest choice – by far – in the opening round. Led Zeppelin? For real? And, if one believes the account from Haley’s parents, it was members of the band that offered Haley use of their songs. If that is what really happened: wow. The performance itself: it proved that yes, Haley can rock out pretty damn well. Good vocals, amazing confidence and stage presence, and she recovered nicely from her trip on the stairs. Hopefully, her heels next week will be a touch lower to prevent accidents like that. Well done Haley.

Scotty’s Amaze wasn’t quite amazing, but it was decent. Judging and recapping Scotty has, honestly, become impossible. He does every song in so similar a way every week that people like me run out of words to describe what he does. He did what he does best here, with maybe some more vocally challenging parts. It was okay, but not much more.

Rarely has there been a song title that suited the performance less than Lauren’s pick of Wild One. Could you ask for a more un-wild performance? This was just… dull. She sang it well, but truth be told it wasn’t much of a challenge in that department so I can only give her so much credit.

Second round rankings are… the same as the first round. Rhiannon was a good song for Haley, but I can’t call it great. Haley’s best material has a touch of aggressiveness and anger in them. Something like this needs a different kind of intensity from her favored territory. I actually preferred the start – with its slow, haunting arrangement – rather than the middling midtempo portion which followed. It was good, but it didn’t feel special – not next to the other superior songs she’s pulled off before.

Are You Going to Kiss Me or Not was one of the better songs we’ve seen from Scotty, and it was – by far – the best of his night. For the first time, Scotty actually sounded halfway interesting. Vocal masterpiece? No, but it was entertaining – and wasn’t another warmed-over midtempo McCreery Special. Not bad at all.

Worst of the second round was Lauren. What was going through Jimmy Iovine’s head with this song choice? The song didn’t play to Lauren’s strengths at all; she’s at her best with fast songs that let her move around the stage. She does not do well with slower songs that expose her biggest problem: she can’t do emotions all that well. She can’t make you suspend disbelief the way good singers really can. It just felt… weird, I guess.

The judges’s picks… except for Lauren’s they just didn’t work. I Hope You Dance kept things simple: song choice that was perfect, Lauren sang it very well, and it avoided the kind of slip-ups that are a frequent problem for Lauren. Still, the KISS principle was at work here and delivered for Lauren. Well done.

Scotty did what he could with She Believes In Me, but the pick was just too… stupid to make any sense. I understand showing variety, but after the breath of fresh air for Scotty that was Thompson Square this was a big downer, and frankly left me bored. It never went anywhere for me.

For once, the judges got Haley’s You Oughta Know right: the choruses were great. The rest… not so much. She sounded like she was mumbling in parts, to be honest. Rarely have I seen a song where I liked some portions as much as I disliked the rest. Maybe a better arrangement would have suited her, but truthfully rearrangment is not part of Haley’s talents. She may be one of the best Idol has ever seen at picking songs, but she doesn’t have the ability to thoroughly transform a song the way David Cook or Kris Allen could. Still, the chorus was pretty good and hid at least some of the problems with the rest.

Overall, it was a good show, but the stresses of a hometown visit and three songs may have been a bit much. I don’t think it was anyone’s best night. Partially because of that, this was a draw for everyone involved: everyone has something to point to that they “won” the night, and everyone has something to hide that says they “lost” the night.

Semifinal pick: Let’s start off with the obvious: Scotty isn’t going home. Hell, chances are he’ll probably be the first one sent to safety. So it comes down to either Haley or Lauren.

Haley doesn’t quite have the momentum she had going into this week, but it’s not like she had an off night – but neither was it her best night. Would she have been better advised to take easier songs, especially with this week’s time-limited schedule? Probably, but Haley doesn’t believe in playing safe.

Lauren arguably gained a little momentum this week with a good performance in the last round, which may be the one that sticks most in people’s memory. On the other hand, she did have two more disappointing numbers.

Haley’s better night overall should be enough to send her to the finale, but here’s what seals the deal. For the “Country Idol” finale of Scotty/Lauren to happen, you basically have to accept that country or country-influenced votes make up around two-thirds of all Idol votes. That just doesn’t strike me as likely. Country music is liked by 36% of American adults, according to a 2008 study by the NEA. Even if you account for Idol‘s slightly “red” audience, which probably increases the number of country music fans in it, the math is still hard. There’s a reason vote-splitting is such a huge issue in the middle rounds. I don’t think it will be any different this time.

The pick: Lauren Alaina to go home.