Sparks Fly for AMERICAN IDOL Finale
May 23, 2007 by Kath Skerry
We use the word “awesome” so much that it has lost some of its meaning. But tonight’s AMERICAN IDOL finale was truly an awesome television event. The eclectic mix of musical genres from different eras gave everyone in Idol’s vast and diverse audience something to smile about. From performances by past Idols, to today’s hottest stars and musical legends, the night was something special. With all the amazing performances I almost forgot that we were there to crown the 2007 American Idol. And to be honest, the way the producers just threw in the announcement at the end of the show it seemed like they almost forgot too. But after a record high 74 million votes JORDIN SPARKS was named this year’s American Idol.But really, I could care less who won tonight…it was all about the show. Here were some of the highlights and lowlights for me:
Blake and Jordin…
Recognizing that Blake and Jordin’s musical styles are very different, the producers made the wise choice not to force them into awkward duets all night. The two finalists did however kick off the show with a cute rendition of “I Saw Her Standing There”. It was fun, but if I’m being honest I was completely distracted by how Jordin towered over Blake. That girl is tall.
American Idol Hall of Fame…
All the past American Idol winners (with the exception of Fantasia who is starring on Broadway) took the stage tonight to show the young kids just how it’s done. The one, the only, the original Idol Kelly Clarkson took the stage and brought down the house. Damn, that girl is fierce. Her voice is raw and always on the verge of breaking but in a way that makes you feel the emotion of the song. Country superstar Carrie Underwood performed “I’ll Stand by You”, the song she recorded for “Idol Gives Back”. The girl is gorgeous, there is no denying that, but what was she wearing? The top half of a gown coupled with jeans? Huh?! Next up we heard from current reigning Idol Taylor Hicks. It was nice to hear from Taylor…since we haven’t heard from him at all since last year’s show. Hey, I’m being honest. Let’s face it…Chris Daughtry was clearly last year’s winner, but it would be in poor form to bring him out rather than Hicks…right? Ruuuuuuuuben Studdard performed a duet with winner Jordin Sparks. I forgot just was a gorgeous voice Ruben has. It’s bewildered me why he hasn’t blown up (no pun intended). Did they just not know how to market him? The boy can sing!! And for one final time, the Idols of yesteryear came together with this year’s Top 12 in a tribute to Sgt. Pepper. I’m usually against reality TV all star shows, but damn how I would love to see all the top Idols go against each other – never going to happen, I know.
Moving On…
While I found last year’s 2-hour season finale to be painfully drawn out and clunky, I really thought they pulled things together nicely this year. That being said, there were still a few painful moments.
First up…Clive Davis may be a musical producer of the highest caliber but he should never, repeat never be able to ramble on like that during a live show. It really slowed the momentum and I came pretty close to changing the channel. The guy is old, and sometimes old people ramble. Sorry but I call ’em as I see ’em.
No Daughtry? I waited the whole night to see Daughtry perform. The guy is one of Idol’s biggest success stories, he was a contestant just last season, and he sang the Idol buh-bye anthem. You mean to tell me they didn’t ask him to come back? I can’t imagine he had plans more important than playing to the largest audience of his career? Dude, he played Boston’s Kiss 108 FM concert this weekend, I’m sure he can find time for the Idol finale.
The Golden Idol Awards. The worst part of last season’s finale was brought back. The Golden Idols are given to contestants who proved to be so bad they were memorable. Thankfully they cut the number of awards this year to three, but it was still three too many. Let’s lose this for next year, ok?
The Stars…
The Idol finale is the hottest ticket in town, and the audience was filled with past Idol contestants, stars of the big and small screen and anyone and everyone appearing in Fox sitcoms. Some familiar faces included Jennifer Hudson, Justin Guarini, Ace Young, Brad Garrett, Denise Richars, The Hoff, Teri Hatcher, Jerry Springer, Constantine Maroulis, Joely Fischer, and Greg Grunberg (yeah I have eagle eyes) among many others.
The Performances..
Gwen Stefani performed via satellite from her world tour. Green Day took the stage to play a tune from their new charity album. And Tony Bennett – well he’s still alive and kicking so we have to give him credit for that. The legendary Smokey Robinson performed with the Top 6 Idol men, as Gladys Knight asked the Top 6 Idol women to be her pips. It was a nice blend of music across generations.
Giving us a little taste as to why we still be talking about him for years to come, Blake Lewis took the stage with legendary hip hop artist Doug E. Fresh. The performance was beyond amazing…it was fascinating (I’ll be sure to find it on youtube and post it tomorrow).
As I mentioned before, Jordin took the stage with Ruben and performed a soulful duet. But it was Melinda Doolittle’s performance with the CeCe and BeBe Winans that proved why she deserved this year’s title more than anyone else. Melinda’s natural talent and stage presence stole the show right under Jordin and Blake’s feet.
In a video segment that likened him to JFK and Ghandi, Sanjaya took the stage with Joe Perry to perform as only Sanjaya can. And yes, that annoying crying girl was in the audience and yes, she was annoyingly crying. Someone give her some Zoloft and be done with it already,
One of my favorites, Bette Midler, sang her classic “Wind Beneath My Wings”. Now I personally adore the Divine Miss M. but as Randy might say “yo dawg, I don’t know…I wasn’t feeling it tonight. I don’t think it was your best performance.” But hey, she’s Bette so whatevs. She still had Jerry Springer crying…ha ha.
I’m going to give the performance of the night to the African Children’s Choir. We first met these adorable kids when they sang alongside Josh Groban during “Idol Gives Back”. But tonight they were here, sans Josh and commanded the audience with their sweet voices and smiles so big that they actually made Simon Cowell smile. Assuming Angelina Jolie is going to adopt all of them, I am the first one in line to babysit…provided they can sign for me all day. They were joy!
The Winner…JORDIN SPARKS
In quite the anti-climactic moment, Jordin Sparks was named your American Idol. It wasn’t a shock to the audience, the judges, Jordin or Blake. And to be honest, I think Blake is just with NOT being named Idol. Taking in the moment, Jordin sang her final song and she and I fought back tears…come on, it was emotional. I know I might seem cold but I do have a heart.
So that’s it! American Idol is done…well, until at least January. Sparks joins Clarkson, Studdard, Barrino, Underwood and Hicks on the elite list of Idol winners. Congrats Jordin!!
NEXT: Idol is OVAH…bring on SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE?! YAY!!!
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Filed under American Idol, American Idol Recap
[…] UPDATE (May 23, 2007): Congratulations Jordin Sparks!! For a full recap of the AMERICAN IDOL Season Finale click here […]
I missed the last hour because I switched over to Lost. Thanks for the highlights.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention The Beek being in last nights audience. I’d recognize that head anywhere!
Chris Daughtry isn’t too big for the show. He performed “Home” on Tuesday night. I think a lot of people missed it, because the show went a couple of minutes past the hour. But Chris performed “Home” and it was beyond awesome.
Thanks. I didn’t actually see Daughtry perform the other night…I guess my TiVo cut it off. I wasn’t implying that Chris thought himself to big for Idol, I was actually blaming the producers for not asking him back. But if he was there the other night, that makes sense.
And with regards to the TiVo cut off…I bet plenty of people are going to be pissed that Idol went over and the TiVos cut off before the winner was announced.
Jordin can sing, but she doesn’t hold a candle to Melinda. But then again, whoever said winning American Idol=great singing talent?
I thought last nights results show was an absolute train wreck… but it had me staring the entire time.. I loved how Melinda sang with the the Winans. It definitely showed that she is no longer a back-up singer and can belt it out like the rest of them.
Blake and Doug E. Fresh was amazing. I really wish I had been in the audience for that one. I didn’t think it was necessary for Gwen to be on- despite that I love her- she could have easily been cut to avoid the time crunch that they ended up hitting. As much as I like Bette Midler, and I do, I really do…. Wind Beneath My Wings was very hard to listen to. I really don’t know how she is going to pull off an entire Vegas show every day next year- she sounded like she was straining to pull off this one.
I really think that Blake was as happy as Jordin was about the winner. Blake clearly didn’t want to sing that horrible song as his first single and wants more creative freedom when the time for his album to be cut. I’m much more likely to buy his album than Jordins, and wil probably purchase Melinda’s before Jordins as well.
Ok, enough rambling. I was rather bored throughout the entire episode, despite the fact that I loved Carrie and Kellys songs and it was great that they were there.
Does anyone else think that by bringing back Kelly Clarkson it only makes AI seem kind of ridiculous? She is consistently powerful and by far the best Idol winner….so the the show has only gone down hill since the beginning. Watching this Idol Hall of Fame show made that painfully and obviously clear.
I only saw about the last 10 minutes of it so I didn’t see Jordin and Blake sing together all night. The first time I saw them together was at the end and the first thing I thought was, “Holy crap, that girl is statuesque.” And I don’t mean just tall…I mean leggy and GORGEOUS.
Does anyone else think she looks a bit like America Ferrera?
I’m a huge Blake fan and last night I was actually hoping he’d lose so he wouldn’t be stuck with that horrible song on his first record. I bet you he will pull a “Daughtry” on us and blow all other contestants from this season out with his record sales. I loved that they brought back the previous AI winners with the exception of Taylor (sorry but he’s boring). I, too, had forgotten what a fantastic voice Ruben has. Somebody needs to help him find some good songs to sing. My favorite of all, Kelly, rocked it last night! And Carrie was awesome too, although I’m still not clear what Clive Davis was actually awarding her with??? This finale was better than all the other past finales. I was THRILLED that they didn’t do all the hometown footage for Jordin and Blake with annoying former AI contestants. That drove me crazy in years past and I would always fast forward through all that. Good job AI producers on leaving that out! The only annoyance this year was those horrible awards-please cut them out next year. Thanks GMMR, for all your great recaps of AI this year. It’s been fun reading them.
Chris Daughtry’s performance Tuesday night was FREAKING AWESOME!!! He should have won last year. He’s amazing.
I think that they knew the couldnt have Chris Daughtry perform on the finale because the only other performers were the “technical” winners. Plus, I have heard that Taylor Hicks is such a diva that I would believe it that he’s too threatened by Chris Daughtry’s success when he ended up being pretty much a flop. Anyone else think that?
Plus…Go JORDIN! Im so glad for her…I think she will do big things in the future…and congrats to Blake as well…I think he’s probably happy with how it turned out. I think he will be incredibly successful too! 🙂
I hated that they brought back all of those Idol rejects from earlier in the season. Why couldn’t this night be about singing instead of about embarassing people on national TV? I liked that I was forced to tape the last hour of AI because of the Lost overlap, so that I could fast-forward through all of the Taylor Hicks. Boooooooooooooo. Anyway, I’m glad Blake lost so that he can go on to better things than American Idol!
Great point about Kelly Clarkson – she just makes everyone else look weak, she is THE American Idol. Every time she takes the stage I just sit there, mouth open in amazement and repeat to myself over and over again how great she is.
I think this played out exactly as it should have, Jordin winning and releasing a nice Idol’esque album, Blake going on to do his own style album, some collaborations and maybe even some producing.
Ruben – sounded great last night, a highlite was him and Jordin’s duo.
Taylor – ah, boring.
Bette – not your night honey.
Green Day – cry me a river
Beatles Tribute – what, why?
Smokey and the Top 6 – excellent
Gladys and the Top 6 – not as good – but I liked seeing Gina again
Blake and Doug E Fresh – best performance of the night!!!!!!!!
Congrats Jordin – Thanks GMMR!!!
GMMR, Totally agree that RUBEN needs to be marketed!! I love that guy and wish he was out there more!! Did anyone notice that Carrie Underwood should now be called Carrie UnderFED???? She is skin and bones! What the heck happened to her??? And…..all I could think of was you when they mentioned that tonight is the premier of this seasons’ SYTYCD! I am sure you will be watching! As will I since the Thurs shows are in repeats!!!
You forgot to mention Fantasia Barrino.
Here is the most orignal performance on idol maybe ever…and whadda ya know, no singing at all! 🙂
Blake is going to be a star.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WnFtTwp6Cc
(I saved you having to find it!)
Best performance of the night was hard to call, but I’m going with Clarkson singing Sgt. Pepper. I replayed it over and over on Youtube today. I love her.