This year’s winner, Cook, was stuck in a season that was just crippled by the ungodly narrow and old-skewing music themes. But like a salmon trying to swim upstream through sludge, he kept finding ways to “de-age” the songs by re-versioning.

So, Billie Jean, released 1983: arrangement chosen, Chris Cornell circa 2006. Daytripper, released 1965: arrangement chosen, based on Whitesnake from 1978 (available on YouTube and a whole lot of fun).

Also, when paired with an older songwriter, in the case of Neil Diamond and Dolly Parton, artists’ whose work goes back to the 1960s, he chose cuts the were among the newer available, from the 1980s for Diamond and from 2001 for Parton, while his fellow contestants chose better-known hits from the work of those same artists from the 1960s and 70s. So his choices those specific weeks, while not “young”, were relatively younger then the other singers.

And for two songs drawn from the 1990s, from Mariah Carey and Collective Soul, he wrote new arrangements that (a little less quantifiabley) made them “feel” more contemporary.

So his marginal advantage on “song recentness” was I think even stronger then it appears from the release date of the original song. His inner rule appeared to be: if limited by the age of artist-theme, choose from the more recent songs available; if limited by a date-driven theme, choose or create a more recent arrangement.

That leads to a side observation: Cook seems to have a quirky fascination with unexpected song arrangements, even off the show. Recently, booked for a “XL’LENT ACOUSTIC XMAS” concert at the Orlando House of Blues, he chose that memorable Bing Crosby classic. . .”Man in the Box” by Alice in Chains. He and talented lead guitar guru Neal Tiemann even found a way to work in the grungey guitar solo, acoustically. Yes, but why? I don’t know, but it’s very entertaining. (You can find vid by Googling David Cook Man in Box)

I’m not sure whether this “my hobby is making up WTF song covers” factor is reproducible by future contestants, or was one of those curious one time things that happened to help this one dude win this particular season.

But the general principle of “select younger songs–and if that’s not possible, select the younger among available options” seems to be something others can apply.

Or, you know, the show could just give the contestants more freedom!

Since Simon wants to get younger mentors on the show this season, I’m hoping the songs will be more current. No more Andrew Lloyd Webber! That whole scheme was inappropriate for the show. grrrr.