Idol seasons are always a marathon, not a sprint. Even by those standards, though, Season Nine has been a test. Was it all worth it? Well… for a significant portion of the Idolsphere, the answer will not have been yes.

On Wednesday night, Idol sailed into uncharted waters.  Never hast there been this much uncertainty going from one season to next. There are enough… problems that Let’s first discuss the winner. Every year, there are a lot of complaints about who won, how they were undeserving, etcetera. This year, however… well, I’ll let the Idol writer from the Big Media I most deeply respect, Ken Barnes, do the talking:

Kelly, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia, Carrie Underwood and Jordin Sparks were better singers; David Cook and Kris Allen were more clever, and Taylor had more charm. So Lee would automatically become the least-qualified — and potentially most credibility-damaging — winner.

One word: ouch. The thing is.. he’s right on every point. As a singer, Crystal – and every other winner – blows him out of the water. For cleverness and creativity – there wasn’t a real heir to the David Cook/Kris Allen throne of successful rearrangement. We were never on the receiving end of a Heartless-like surprise that left us all stunned, bewildered, and then amazed. As for charm, well, to be honest, the judges combined showed more personality than the contestants did all season long.

Without closely examining the Idol voting records, it’s hard to say how, exactly, Lee was able to win. Here’s our guess, though: in the world of Idol, with a long-standing obsession with large numbers, not saying numbers means those numbers stink. What was missing from the results show? Vote totals. We know that power voters tend to be most influential when vote totals are (relatively) low; and this season was probably the lowest total in years. There’s also a good chance that more “casual” voters are the same ones who’ve tuned out literally and are responsible for the lower ratings of Season Nine.  (Here’s another sign: early ratings finale ratings say it was the least-watched finale since season one. Now, if someone has voted on Tuesday night, wouldn’t they be likely to tune in on Wednesday?)

In a normal year, Lee’s victory, by itself, would provide plenty of fodder for analysts like me. However, the tone among established analysts is more… ominous. The universal conclusion is simple: it was a lackluster season at best, and Idol needs to shape up – and there is a lot of skepticism that they actually can.

Me and a lot of people have been saying the solution is simple: Shut Up And Sing, as my friends at What Not to Sing said. That’s one thing that was lacking in the entire season – singing. Honestly, by my watch the performances on Tuesday night were about two minutes each. Over six performances, that’s twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of singing in the 40-odd minutes that an hour-long show has, sans commercials? I feel like doing my best Judge Judy impersonation and shouting, loudly, “Ridiculous!”

Ultimately, the basic problem with Idol of late is that what should be the focus – good music – has received short shrift. Would anyone really believe that Tim Urban was the 13th best male singer in the audition crop? Of course he wasn’t; he was put in because he was good for TV. If Idol is to succeed in the post-Simon era, that kind of thinking has to stop. The top 24 has to be the absolute best talent that Idol can muster. Just in case we lose good talent – as we did in the last semifinal cut this year – the rest of the field has to be able to take up the slack.

Of course, there is one rub with a shut-up-and-sing approach. Image has always been a key part of building a pop star, but of late it seems to be the only thing. Let’s take a look at some of the “fresh” stars that guested on Idol this year – Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Kesha, and whoever was Perez Hilton’s friend. All of them were uniquely awful. All of them are known for something other than their ability to sing well. Even outside of Idol-land, some singers sound reasonably well recorded, but not so good live (hello, Taylor Swift.)

That means that there is a lot of potential conflict between what could be considered successful commercially (i.e., what could create a good pop star), and good music to watch over the span of a few months. Lee was consistently praised as having a “commercial” voice. What exactly does that mean? As it turns out, that means “can be cleaned up in the studio”. Lee’s iTunes tracks are generally noted to be better than his live performances. What happens if a “commercial” artist, who might be able to sell millions – think Carrie Underwood/Kelly Clarkson levels – turns out to be mediocre live? So which is more important, 19E – producing a good TV show, or producing a marketable contestant?

Whatever changes have to be done at Idol, it’ll be done without a lot of people. Simon, of course, is leaving for X-Factor. Some of the more important musical people are leaving – both Rickey Minor and vocal coach Dorian Holley are headed for The Tonight Show.

The competence of rest of the crew left, frankly, is in doubt. The song featuring the Idol rejects was a disaster – as anyone with a functioning brain cell would have known. You do not, under any circumstances, hand a microphone for a live TV event to the types of people that are featured in bad Idol auditions. You might as well give the keys to a monster truck to a drunk. Even the rest of the send-off videos for Simon were full of the juvenile comedy we’ve come to expect from a finale. I’m not Simon Cowell’s biggest fan, but even I say he deserved better.

There may well be a silver lining to the departure of Simon, however. We can all agree that things need to change. With a relatively new crew in charge, one can hope that they open themselves to new ideas. Let’s face it: the Idol formula, which was sound for many, many, years, has been… problematic for the past few years. For a while, the fact that we got good talent out of what was a flawed process hid the problems. In Season Nine, however, the flawed process – combined with the worst crop of finalists in many years – served as the straw that broke the back of a million-dollar franchise.

Make no mistake. I like the Idol franchise. I want it to succeed. However, that means that I know exactly how difficult the fixes will be. Everything that has infuriated the Idolsphere – especially analysts like me – over the past few years – the manipulation, the lack of talent, the “but this is good for TV!” decisions – came home to roost. What happens from now on? I don’t know, but it’s clear that it will be a new era for Idol. I can only hope it is for the better.

Oh, and one suggestion from me about the new era. Replacing Simon Cowell? Don’t. If the focus is really going to be on the music going forward, why exactly do we need four talking heads when three used to suit us just fine? Our “radical” suggestion would be to let the remaining three judges develop some sort of rapport, have Randy and Kara actually use their so-called expertise, and not let them ramble on. Maybe a shock collar if Randy says “dawg” would be in order. Frankly, Simon’s shoes are impossible to fill. It would be a good message if Idol really is in a new era to leave that seat at the table unfilled.

Well, folks, it’s come down to this. Whatever else you can say about Idol this season… they still know how to get the pomp and circumstance down. It’s practically an Idol tradition.

One Idol tradition I’m happy to see go away, though: the Coronation Song. Frankly, is there anyone going to miss the smooth notes of No Boundaries, Do I Make You Proud, or This Is My Now? The only people not happy might be the songwriters hoping for a chance to turn their most ridiculous, over-the-top victory song into gold on the back of Idol.

Let’s do a round-by-round breakdown for how Crystal Bowersox and Lee DeWyze‘s final performances. Round one was their replay songs.

Strategically, it’s striking just how similar their choices were, strategically. Both The Boxer and Me And Bobby McGee were their better performances (though I wouldn’t call it their best for both of them), and just as importantly not terribly challenging vocally. I thought they both did reasonably well, and while they both sang it well… there wasn’t much magic in here. On the other hand, I’m rather biased against reprises on Idol – largely because I have to listen to each performance multiple times to write my recaps. Overall, I’d call this round a push – it was, essentially, a non-factor.

Round 2: Simon Fuller’s songs. Oy. Are we sure that Mr. Fuller hasn’t been kidnapped and replaced with a double on ABC’s payroll? Neither choice was particularly impressive.

Everybody Hurts is very similar to Hallelujah in that it’s a simple song that suffers if it’s complicated needlessly. That’s exactly what Lee did. Really, if this was a deliberately crafted trap… it’s hard to argue it would have been done any differently. To Lee’s credit, it wasn’t awful… but it came very close. It was astoundingly mediocre. This is what you put in the finale? Really? Lee overcooked his performance, as it was. (A disclaimer: I particularly like the Corrs version of this song; I tend to be rather harsh on people who cover songs I like poorly.)

Of course, Crystal didn’t have such a great time with Black Velvet either. Now, frankly, I didn’t know it was an audition favorite, but even then it wasn’t such a great number. With the arrangement that Crystal was given, it just didn’t work. The arrangement needed a more aggressive, more edgy singer. Crystal is a fantastic artist, but she’s not particularly great in that area. She did her best, but this was a salvage job. Again. (Now, if this had been given last year to Allison Iraheta, we might have had something much better…)

It’s a good thing, really, that Simon Fuller didn’t appear on the screen to justify his choices. Otherwise I’d have broken my TV and computer throwing stuff at it.

And Round Three… yikes. Usually the finale has at least some pretense of equality to it. At least for the last song, though… yikes. Crystal absolutely leveled Lee in the last round. There’s no other way around it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that the final song – their singles – were chosen by Lee and Crystal’s own choices. If so… yech. Lee made one of the classic mistakes: he chose a song he may have liked, but not necessarily one he could do. Bono is one of the best frontmen in the world, and Lee can’t do Bono. He’s not that good. He just got swallowed up and eaten by the material. It was also some of the worst singing, period, that we’ve seen from Lee in a while. It was nothing short of a disaster.

Lee was a disaster… but Crystal was far from it. Take Me to the Mountain was, indeed, aptly named. I’d go as far as saying it was Crystal’s best song of the entire season. It was perfect for her. She sang it well. She was emotional. Even the “props” – the backup singers – added to the performance, and did not distract from Crystal’s fantastic vocals. Really, everything came together for crystal. It was beyond incredible. Crystal has been dominant all season long – and really, could she really close the season any other way?

No matter how well the singing went, though, make no mistake: Tuesday night was completely irrelevant to Wednesday’s results. No Idol finale result has ever depended on the previous night’s singing. Who ultimately wins is the result of their performance all season long, not just one night.

That said… Crystal really put the icing on her cake with her performance this week. To my mind, she has been a frontrunner since the season began, but she’s slacked off of late. To a large degree, it’s because she hasn’t had someone to really push her artistically. For the finale, though, she rose to the occasion and closed the season out with the bang it’s lacked all season long.

There are some similarities, voting-wise, between this year and last. Crystal is the heir to Kris’s fanbase – probably broad, but not made up of power-voting fans that are willing to a relatively small number of votes. Lee owns the power-voting demographic that Adam owned, essentially, from the start. (Even online there’s a lot of similarity: the Lee bandwagon feels to me too similar to Adam’s last year.)

Fundamentally, the only factor I can think that’s in Lee’s favor is he has power voters in his corner. Crystal’s been the better singer all season long. As my friends at What Not to Sing pointed out, Crystal doesn’t have people voting against her as Lee is bound to have. (Of course, another point that’s sort of in Lee’s favor is he doesn’t have the… baggage that Adam had last year.)

Here’s another factor. There is the perception that Lee is The Chosen One of the judges of late. Certainly, the fact that he keeps getting the “grand” production numbers – bagpipers,  gospel choirs – more frequently than the others did. You can also point to the relatively soft critiques Lee has received – including our personal favorite, that he has a “commercial” voice. (I translate that to mean “we can clean this up in the studio.”)

However, of late, TCO finalists have fared… poorly. David Cook was famously thrown under the bus by the judges. He won. Adam Lambert was pimped by the judges all season long. He lost. While Lee did not receive any favoritism that was anywhere as… blatant, it’s still not a good place to be in the finale.

The only wildcard in the calculations: the lower vote totals could, theoretically, shift power to the power voters. My gut, however, says no. even 30-odd million votes is a lot of votes for power-voters to change in their favor. It might be narrow enough for Ryan Seacrest to actually announce percentages, but I still think it won’t change the result. I’m going to call it…

The winner of American Idol is: Crystal Bowersox.

The Top 3 performance night has seen some all-time classics. Bo Bice did In A Dream in that spot five years ago. Katharine McPhee followed up with Over the Rainbow a year later. Last year had Heartless. This year we had… nothing close, really. It really sort of sums up the whole season that in a night where, historically, Idol contestants have sent people home happy that this bunch wasn’t anywhere close.

It’s easy to see who did the worst. Casey James had to impress to get into the final two… and he didn’t. His first song was not alright with us. It might have been tolerable in the semis, but in the top 3? It was a complete and utter mess. His second song was mediocre, at best. Casey had to make a statement to get into the final two. He didn’t.

However, the statements the top two made were mixed at the best of times. Crystal Bowersox‘s version of Come To My Window felt authentic. However, neither did it feel exceptional. It felt like a song on her album that was put in there to fill up the CD, and nowhere near single material. Maybe I’m Amazed was appropriately named, with the emphasis on maybe. It was good, but it was far from her best performance either. The lyrics – clearly meant for a man – didn’t fit particularly well with Crystal either. Good, but not great.

If there’s one thing the Idol producers have probably learned from the past few years, it’s that kneecapping and de-pimping doesn’t work. So they went the opposite route with Lee DeWyze.  To be fair, he did win round one (their own picks) fair and square. Lee was confident, sang reasonably well, and showed off his strengths and hid his weaknesses. “Crushed” the rest, though, is a strong word. And an exaggeration.

As for Hallelujah… I was not particularly impressed. As a song, it works because of its simplicity and the ability of the singer to portray emotions. Both of those went out the window with Lee’s version. I’m all for changing up songs, but this was a bit too much.

And let’s not even get into the blatant favoritism. Lee – or, maybe, TPTB – loves the big intros. First a bagpiper, now a gospel choir – what’s next, an entire marching band? Idol Chatter guest-blogger and Season Six runner-up Blake Lewis called out 19E on it, and he is absolutely right.

All in all, I put the top 3 as:

1. Lee DeWyze
2. Crystal Bowersox
3. Casey James

The gap between Lee and Crystal is pretty small, though. Lee’s good song was slightly ahead of Crystal’s good song, while Crystal’s “bad” song was not quite as… grating as Lee’s bad song. Casey was far and away the laggard.

With that, it becomes a simple choice. Yes, I’ve said it before, and been proven wrong. But I have a very hard time thinking Casey, with his off night, can advance ahead of either Crystal or Lee. Not when he’s facing two proven fanbases.

Casey James to go home.