Kris Allen Takes The Title - 5/20/09

:welcome1: Hi all and welcome to my final re-cap of season 8. Sorry I am late with this but I have had a very busy last two days plus I am also trying to put up my new shed so I can get my stuff out of storage. It appears that America prefers the homespun sweet boy next door as Kris Allen is crowned our new American Idol. Congrats to him on his win and also my sympathy for having to have his first single be the awful "No Boundaries". I know many seem to be in shock that Adam Lambert did not win but frankly I'm not as I figured most people identified with Kris. Needless to say, Adam is forever my "top dawg" of this season as well as Danny Gokey and I will be supporting both of their careers. I do not care for Kris as an artist as you all know but do wish him the best in the future. With that being said I will now group the funny moments and wonderful performances we saw on the show.

Wow, what an amazing amount of votes that were cast after Tuesday's show. 100 million is fantastic and also having 624 million being cast for this season is also amazing. I know I personally cast 460 votes for my Adam so bravo to both Kris and Adam for having such wonderful support. Also nice clips of their hometowns with season 4 Mikalah Gordon in Arkansas and Carly Smithson from season 7 in California.

Ryan welcomes our judges with a montage for each:

Randy - "for me" and "for you" sayings
Kara - "sweetie" and "honey" letdowns
Paula - use of a large vocabulary plus she is the nice judge
Simon - a Brit who listens? "what" and "pardon" (is he going deaf I wonder)

Golden Idol Awards

Outstanding Male - Nominees are Wil Kunick, Michael Gurr, Elijah Scarlett, Dean Anthony Bradford and one of our top 36 Nick Mitchell aka Norman Gentle. The "unprepared" Norman takes it and with his usual fun personality gives us a moment of "And I'm Telling You". I know this was staged but I get a kick out of this guy and hope he reaps some rewards in his future for being on this show.

Best Attitude - Nominees are "bikini girl" Katrina Darrel, "dirty mouth" Alexis Cohen and Tiffany Shedd who lied about having a good attitude about not making it to Hollywood. The winner is Katrina who has made some "enhancements" since her Hollywood venture. Loved how Ryan asked her "what's new but can guess" comment. Also the audience was in awe as she appeared on stage especially Simon and Randy who say "wow". The best part of this moment was when Katrina attempts to sing the song "Vision of Love" and is upstaged by our judge Kara who sounds great singing by the way and then on a bet opens her dress to display her own bikini. Katrina did not appear amused but bravo to Kara for putting this conceited chick in her place.

Outstanding Female - Nominees are Chelsea Marquardt who sounds like a cat falling off a building to use Simon's words, Irene Angulova who should have been sent "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", the screeching Dana Moreno and last but not least our own drama queen Tatiana Del Toro who also made it into the top 36. Ryan needs to go to a break but Tatiana is having none of that as she goes on stage, grabs her trophy and proceeds to give us yet another dose of her song "Saving All My Love for You". This was another funny moment as she tries to sing but keeps getting escorted off-stage.


The Performances:

Great to once again see our top 13 perform the number "So What" by Pink. They were all dressed in white and did a great job on this number.

David Cook gives an emotional performance of his song "Permanent" which I loved. As you know David recently lost his brother to Cancer and all proceeds from this song on ITunes will be donated to Cancer research. Bravo David!

Lil Rounds and Queen Latifah perform the song "Cue The Rain". Both looked good however I honestly did not understand much of the words they sang. I am however a fan of Ms. Latifah.

Anoop Desai and Alexis Grace who should be in the top 10 in my opinion start us off with the song "I'm Yours" before Jason Mraz takes the stage. Our remaining top 13 also take the stage to do this number. This is a good moment however also have to add I am sick of this song because they play it constantly on the radio. Good job anyway.

Before we see Kris Allen perform the song "Kiss A Girl" with Keith Urban we see his journey throughout this season. To be honest I did not watch this performance as I went to get a drink. As you all know I am not a big fan of the country genre of music.

Our female finalists take on the song "Glamorous" before we see the famous Fergie do her big hit "Big Girls Don't Cry" which is another song I do not care for. However it was awesome seeing the Black-Eyed Peas on stage doing their number "Boom Boom Pow". I dig this group and have seen them live. I will say those outfits that the background dancers had on was stange but did give this a wow moment. Good job!

I was not so enamored with the performance of Allison Iraheta and Cyndi Lauper although I am a fan of both. Their take on Cyndi's song "Time After Time" was over the top on some of those notes. I have also seen Cyndi live and she is quite great in person. Wonder why she opted to use the zither?

Next up is Adam's journey before he appears in a strange get-up but did suit the performance as he first sings "Beth" and then joins Kiss on stage to sing "Detroit Rock City" and the famed "Rock N' Roll All Night". I saw Kiss live several years ago and although they have aged they still bring the excitement in my book. Fantastic job Adam and Kiss!

You are prabably getting sick of me saying this but I also have seen Carlos Santana in concert and he does great as he plays his classic "Black Magic Woman" with Matt Giraud on vocals. Nicely done and also appreciated the moments seeing Adam, Kris, Danny and Jorge Nunez on the song "Smooth".

Steve Martin is still a force to be reckoned with as he plays banjo while Megan Joy and Michael Sarver sing his song "Pretty Flowers". All sounded pretty good I think and loved how Steve thinks he should win the title.

Our eight guys are singing "Do You Think I'm Sexy" which sounds good before the legendary Rod Stewart takes the stage to sing "Maggie May". This was kind of sad as Rod seemed to be stumbling alot and also appeared quite frail. I understand that he recently went into surgery for throat Cancer which may account for not such good vocals although he did try. Many are saying he was drunk but frankly I do not care as this guy is indeed a true icon in the music business. Valiant effort Rod!

Our last performance of the night was great as Adam and Kris with the amazing band Queen perform the song "We Are the Champions. This brought a thought to my mind. Would not Adam be awesome as the new front man for Queen. He certainly has the range to do real justice to the fantastic Freddy Mercury. Loved this performance!

:cryhard: Our season is now over and again congrats to Kris. The show ends with Kris sounding better this time singing the "No Boundaries" song. Congrats from all of the other finalitsts with confetti flying also is present.

I thank you one and all for reading my re-caps and hope to do it again next year. Hope your summer is awesome and take care all.

One last note before I sign off. Sorry for all the mis-spelled words. For some reason my computer jumps around alot when I am typing. Boy, is this frustrating. Guess I will have to see about getting a new tower for my computer as this thing has not worked right since I was infected with those viruses. Okay, bye for now!

in spite of what you or others may think Kris Allen deserve to win and he didn't it with the pimping of the judges or producers, with the false hype build-up, with a well known singers bluntantly showing her support for him. He won base on talent.

FIrst thing.. MAE BE NICE>...

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and their own favorite..

CC.. Thanks for always giving a very great review and I'll miss them through the summer.. I always looked forward to reading them, you are always spot on with almost everything..

Last night's Finale was one for the books for sure. I Loved it.. Not so sure it was as good as Season 5 but very good just the same

I liked all the numbers that everyone did and to see Queen and Kiss there was something I never expected.. I really like Queen Lafith, so it's always great to see her. I'm not a country fan either so having Kris do a number with Keith U was not my cup of tea but I thought it was very good..

I can't say I'm dissapointed that Kris won, but I know how you feel CC, I know you were/are a fan of Adam and Although I didn't vote for him I did like him and chances are if Kris had not been there I would have like you been a Danny/Adam voter as well.

Adam said in an interview that Kris was talented and a hell of a muscian and a super great guy and he didn't mind coming in 2nd to him. That made things a lot easier to take especially for a lot of this fans, I have NO doubt that Adam will be huge and I heard in a round about way that Slash and Queen have both asked him to be lead singer.. HOW true that is , is anyones guess. But I also heard he's already signed a contract with AI for recording. Again not sure of the source but that's what I heard.

Kris is a sweet down home kind of guy that in my opinion also has a hell of a great voice and I believe he'll do great as well. He's very talented and I am so thrilled that he won and so for me my AI score card is 3 out of 4.. Well kind of, I love Taylor season 5 and in the end Jordin got my votes season 6, season 7 I voted for David all three of them and now this season Kris so I'm really 4 out of 4 YEAH FOR ME. ha ha..

Thanks again CC.. Love reading your posts..

Not to worry about the mistakes... I do it all the time and I know it isn't my computer ha ha..

With the exception of season five this was the best finale I've seen. CC, your recaps were right on as usual. I'll miss my weekly Idol chat with you, Sandy and everyone during the summer months.

I was happy to see Kris win the title. (was sad it wasn't Danny but that's OK) He will make a great Cd and I, for one, will buy it. Believe it or not....even though I didn't connect with Adam musically, I'd buy his Cd too. I've been watching alot of interviews with Adam. He is taking everything in stride and being supportive of his good friend. He is so adorable. Kris and Adam will definately be ones to watch in the future.
Kris' song "No Bounderies" sounded so much better during the finale than it did on Tuesday. Maybe, just maybe he can work out the bugs and make it worthy of being a hit. Maybe!
I'm such a big fan of Steve Martin. It was awesome to see him on the stage performing with our Idols. What an adorable and funny man.
Never was much of a Cyndy Lauper fan so wasn't too thrilled with the song she and Allison sang.
Adam singing with Kiss was FANTASTIC!! This is where Adam's talent really shines. I hung on every note.
I love, love, love Queen Latifah. Couldn't hear most of the lyrics but love her anyway.
Rod Stewart?? What can I say? Even though age has caught up to him...he's a music icon I will always love and admire.
It was good to see ALL the Idol contestants on stage again. They looked great and am hoping I can see the Idol tour when it comes to Arizona in July.
I loved David Cook's dedication to his brother. Talk about a tear-jerker. OMG! Nice job David.
Again....congradulations to Kris for the win.
NOTE: I thought it was great to see Kara upstage "bikini girl" Katrina Darrel. For me, it was the biggest laugh of the night. Way to go Kara.