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.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Season Ten. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.