The last time we saw Carrie, she was at a loss for words accepting her Entertainer of the Year Award, also looking perfect, but I’m a fan of the pink dress she wore to this year’s AI finale.
Last night, Kris Allen covered Kanye West’s “Heartless” on American Idol. After his most creative performance of the year, judge Randy Jackson said he liked Kris’ version “better than The Fray’s version” and better than the original.
Unbeknownst to many, The Fray had covered the Kanye West song in February 2009 with a much slower, more brooding style than Kris Allen’s. However, The Fray put a mainstream rock edge to the Kanye song, so the comparison was inevitable. Just like David Cook covered the Chris Cornell version of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Kris Allen did something similar with the Kanye West song, while putting his own unique spin on it.
In just a few hours, we find out of the Cinderella story that has been Kris Allen’s run to the Top 3 will continue. And I, for one, hope it does.
You get some guitar, sometimes some piano, some vulnerable David Cook voice, and some yelling voice David Cook. The songs seem to blend in with one another a bit, but a few of the songs I really like – including “Light On,” “Permanent,” and “A Daily Anthem.” Feel free to preview the first single on this snazzy widget below and choose for yourself if you want to support this year’s Idol with your wallet!
With David Cook’s album hitting stores next week after his still-shocking win in Season 7 of AI, it might not be a question of whether David Cook beats David Archuleta again, but a question of how much he will beat the early favorite by in terms of album sales.
A lot of people have been down on American Idol for the past few years, saying that “none of the Idols do anything.” (forgetting about Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Kellie Pickler, Jennifer Hudson, and others who have gone on to success in music and beyond) Season 7’s David Cook is here to change that and I’m willing to bet a lot that he will.
The Idols are facing the same thing as the rest of the music industry, decreased sales in a market that is becoming a lot more digital, where owning a physical album doesn’t really mean anything anymore. It’s a pretty huge achievement these days to go platinum or even really make a mark in the music industry, so it’s just not an easy environment to be in. Anyways, off my soapbox.
Season 7’s David Cook has a self-titled debut scheduled for a November 18, 2008 release and if his second single “Light On” is any indication of how he will fare in this music environment, David Cook is going to kick the Idol “curse” square in the face. “Light On” is a fantastic song with really high crossover potential, like Chris Daughtry’s “It’s Not Over.” Perhaps most importantly, David Cook actually really looks like a rocker, but not just a rocker, but a rock star. This song is already big on the radio and Cook really has a chance to make a big splash in the music industry with his upcoming album.
I’ve said before that David Cook winning American Idol Season 7 gave the series a few more years of life and I’m sticking to it. “Light On” is a fantastic start.
American Idol Season 7 winner David Cook launched his official YouTube page this week and left a message for all of his fans. Apparently, David is going to try and be a little more accessible than past Idol winners through his website and video blogs.
It’d be pretty sweet if fans got to go into the studio with him via YouTube so that they could check out the album’s progress, no? Either way, it’s a pretty cool way to get an already rabid fanbase to show even more love to this year’s American Idol.
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend both this year’s and last year’s finale parties. While the parties get extremely crowded, they always have good food, free drinks, and you end up running into some familiar faces, former Idols, and a bunch of other people who you’d otherwise never expect to see.
This year, a pleasant surprise was getting to meet much of the crew from last season’s So You Think You Can Dance, which premiered tonight on FOX, who were hanging out at a table together for much of the night.
While I saw the whole crew on the red carpet, I was working and wasn’t able to snap a picture of the side of their faces, let alone get a picture with them. As soon as I saw Lacey, who I believe to be the hottest dancer that I’ve ever seen, I couldn’t have been more excited and she was really cool about standing and smiling through some camera malfunctions.
Lacey, along with Ryan Seacrest, Lauren Conrad, and Eminem, is one of the few celebrities that I was still hoping to one day meet in real life. Somehow, I’ve been fortunate to literally have met most every celebrity that I’ve really dreamed of meeting, so getting to meet Lacey was an enormous thrill. I couldn’t be a bigger fan of hers!
Lauren Gottlieb and Sara Von Gillern hung out with one another for a good portion of the night. It was pretty cool seeing them just hang out and be regular, yet recognizable people.
The two went around taking pictures at the various sponsored photo booths and were really nice about snapping pictures with anyone who asked. I caught Sara’s mohawk on the red carpet earlier in the day and it definitely gives her a whole different look compared to what we were used to seeing! Both Lauren and Sara looked beautiful and took my admission that I lost all of last weekend to watching SYTYCD reruns on MTV in stride.
Lauren was actually a lot taller in real life than I expected! Not like she was a towering giant, but when she was always dancing with a male partner, it was oftentimes tough to tell that she’s actually pretty tall compared to the other girls in the competition.
Of course, Lauren is one of those girls who is so incredibly good looking that it’s almost hard to look her straight in the face because you know that you’ll pretty much just forget whatever you were about to say. So yes, I had nothing insightful to say to “Misha Chan,” but it was still pretty sweet to meet her!
Hanging out with Lacey, Pasha, and Anya for much of the night was hip-hop/breakdancer Hok Konishi. With his trademark ‘do, Hok is clearly impossible to miss. On the red carpet, he definitely looked happy to be hanging out with SYTYCD’s Dominic, who did some flares and halos on the red carpet right behind one of the TV Guide booths where Justin Guarini was taping a segment.
Ballroom partners Pasha and Anya were hanging out with the SYTYCD crew as well and I was hoping that they would bust out a few moves on the dance floor, but they didn’t as far as I know. I was outside with my co-workers for most of the night, so I might have missed out on a bunch of action.
I know that there will come a point in life when my luck runs out and moments like this won’t come up every couple months, so I really just tried to take it all in this year with less wide-eyed “oooooh Idol!!”-ness this time around.
Much of the Top 12 showed up to the party, but they were getting so mobbed with fans that it made it tough for any of them to really hang around. A bunch of them (Kristy Lee Cook, Jason Castro, maybe some others that I didn’t see) could only come in for a second, take a few pictures, then were quickly escorted away (to another party, I’d assume).
From this year, Michael Johns, Ramiele Malubay , Jason Yeager, Amy Davis, the night’s biggest celebrity Renaldo Lapuz (who took pictures all night long), along with Idol alumni Jasmine Trias, Sanjaya Malakar, and AJ Tabaldo braved the crowds, which actually weren’t nearly as bad as they would have been last year in the much more crowded venue next to the Kodak Theatre.
Amy Davis gave both Lacey and Lauren some competition for the title of “hottest SYTYCD/AI Alumna” at the afterparty. She had on a really pretty and glamorously short (if there is such thing?) white dress that made her impossible to miss all night. Amy was one of this year’s prettiest contestants. After meeting her, TV did not even get close to showing how beautiful the model and Idol semi-finalist is in real life!
The Idols all took the attention in stride and actually got to have some pretty normal nights, though Michael Johns was so instantly recognizable that a crowd seemed to follow him everywhere, but he was totally gracious about it. He made some half-jokes about how the second he stood still, everyone managed to find him, but if he kept moving, it was pretty normal.
I know a lot of people always wonder what the Idols are like in real life. While I didn’t spend an overwhelming amount of time with any of them, all of my run in’s with the Idols this year have all been beyond pleasant and it has been a joy to meet them.
They never seem bothered to exchange a few words and it would be tough for anyone to be dealing with the fanaticism and huge crowds that follow them everywhere that they go. They are constantly doing press, rehearsing, and nonstop interviews, while running on little sleep. I have no doubt that it gets exhausting, which is what makes it that much better that they are always as nice as they are.
Before I left, I got to meet Jasmine Trias, who came in third place during Season 3 (Fantasia’s year). Jasmine was spending a bunch of time with Ramiele Malubay and AJ Tabaldo at the party, but she made a point to take pictures with any fans who wanted to meet her. I was a huge Jasmine fan during Season 3 and lost a lot of sleep voting for her, so it was very cool to actually meet her in real life.
All in all, it was a hectic, but unforgettable night. Meeting Lacey Schwimmer was one of those once in a lifetime moments that I’ll never ever forget, along with having the chance to microblog the red carpet arrivals on the site’s biggest traffic night of the whole year.
Seeing as So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol are by far two of my very favorite TV shows, having them come together in one place for the perfect storm of perfect finale party made for a really great night.
And of course, congratulations to David Cook, our American Idol!
I didn’t see these because I was watching the show on a live press feed, but these David Cook and David Archuleta Guitar Hero commercials are pretty fun!
Having commercials like this during the American Idol finale reminds me of how EA’s NCAA Football games are advertised during the NFL draft. It’s pretty cool and I think people don’t mind commercials like these!
If the results were based on tonight’s performances, David Archuleta would win American Idol Season 7. However, with over two hours of votes still to be tabulated, David Cook, who many chose to win (like former Idol runner-up Bo Bice), still has a chance of joining one-namers Kelly, Ruben, Fantasia, Carrie, Taylor, and Jordin as this year’s winner of American Idol.
From top to bottom, David Cook was outsung and shockingly outperformed by the younger, oftentimes called robotic David Archuleta. While I believe Cook consistently performed at a higher level throughout the season, Simon Cowell was spot on when he said that Archuleta’s three performances on the night equaled a “knockout” in the boxing themed night complete with Michael Buffer’s trademark introduction.
When David Cook performed tonight, he was good. When David Archuleta took the mic, it was electric. With Cook heavily favored going into the finale, a subpar night from him paired with Archuleta’s strongest ever night could equal results show that rivals the contest between Clay vs. Ruben.
Cook’s performances all night were pretty good, notably his performance of “Dream Big,” one of the Songwriter competition songs that could potentially be a “winning moment” song. In a rare occurrence, an Idol’s best performance was a “finale song,” which is usually one of the lesser performances on the night (see Blake Lewis performing “This is my now” and looking like he wanted to gouge his eyes out).
“Dream Big” was a good finale song that showed good range from David, but it also felt a little bit ominous that David will have to be extremely careful with his career to walk the line between pop and rock.
While Archuleta closed out the show in the with his Star Search winning song, “Imagine,” David Cook decided to go with a new song for him, “The World I Know,” which I felt like was a poor choice for him to leave as the last memory of him on stage. We’ve come to know David Cook for semi-hard rocking performances like “Billie Jean,” “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and “Eleanor Rigby,” and this song was really missing those David Cook big note moments.
I respect Cook’s desire to perform new material, but he was going up against Archuleta’s bread and butter song that he’s been winning competitions with for years. It would have been fun to see Cook’s “Billie Jean” face off with Archuleta’s “Imagine.”
From Archuleta’s first performance of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, which blew away Cook’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” David showed a stage presence and desire to win that we haven’t seen from him in weeks past. It was a pleasant surprise and one that would make even some Cookies be ok with seeing David Archuleta win tomorrow night.
If David Archuleta wins American Idol on Wednesday, he earned it tonight. It would be tough for anyone to say otherwise and this is coming from a David Cook fan. David A. was passionate on stage, reaching for bigger notes than normal, and there was an “I didn’t come this far to lose” determination in his voice that made you believe that he was ready to join the American Idol winners’ ranks on Wednesday night.
And while Archuleta’s finale song, “In This Moment,” could have easily been renamed “This is my now Part II” and was one of the corniest songs ever performed on AI, he was so on fire that you could picture him performing the song under a shimmering golden curtain of fireworks on Wednesday night. The song was god-awful, but Archuleta made it work and that continued his surprise “Wow” performances all night.
After a performance of his staple “Imagine” that brought the house down, will Archuleta see his moment tomorrow night?
These two have long been front runners in the competition and their diverse talents were on full display on Tuesday night. Archuleta shone brighter, with one of the top performance nights top to bottom in American Idol history, but Cook arguably has more memorable performances from earlier portions of the competition.
Will David Cook “Dream Big?” Or will David Archuleta be crowned the winner “In This Moment” tomorrow night?
Hold up a second, Arch Angels, the odds appear to be on David Cook to win this week’s American Idol finale compared to all-season favorite David Archuleta.
E! Online reports that BetCRIS.com is showing a 74% chance for Cook to become the first-ever rocker to win the American Idol title (avenging the on-stage ghost of Chris Daughtry) on television’s most-watched program. In that same news item, while not scientific at all, nearly 75% of E!’s readers chose David Cook over David Archuleta to win this week’s finale.
Somehow, though I’m a Cook fan, it would still feel like an upset to see anyone but Archuleta win Season 7 of American Idol. David Cook has struggled at times when the pressure is on him to perform and it will be no greater than this coming Tuesday night. I’m not yet ready to give Cook the crown, but I’ll still be surprised if he wins with all the momentum and crazy fanbase that Archuleta has carried all season.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d2caec02-ba2e-424c-ba4b-2211df4b4fa7)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b11d4e1a-a3de-48b5-b6dd-d1f9ad1677d0)
If the results were based on tonight’s performances, David Archuleta would win American Idol Season 7. However, with over two hours of votes still to be tabulated, David Cook, who many chose to win (
While Archuleta closed out the show in the with his Star Search winning song, “Imagine,” David Cook decided to go with a new song for him, “The World I Know,” which I felt like was a poor choice for him to leave as the last memory of him on stage. We’ve come to know David Cook for semi-hard rocking performances like “Billie Jean,” “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and “Eleanor Rigby,” and this song was really missing those David Cook big note moments.
Loading ...
Hold up a second, Arch Angels, the odds appear to be on David Cook to win this week’s American Idol finale compared to all-season favorite David Archuleta.