Katie’s Beer

I found the perfect recap to last night’s American Idol Finale. It is written by Shelley, a popular Soul Patroller and frequent commenter at my favorite Taylor Hicks site, GrayCharles. Shelley helps me to envision the show from her perspective.

Last night I was at my daughter’s dance recital until 9:30 pm, so I got a late start on voting and watching. I still haven’t seen the whole show, just bits. I was on the GrayCharles chat from 10pm to 12am last night, voting by Dial Idol and by hand. I tried to use Skype, but it would not get any calls through at all.

I am very frustrated that the only way to get votes through is to have had a Cingular phone and text my votes. I won’t participate in such blatant merchandising for pure profit, so I only got in about 50 votes the whole night. All other voting nights I managed to cast about 500+ votes.

Despite my low number of votes, I believe that Taylor will be crowned the winner. It is what he wanted and I truly believe he has a master plan for working the American Idol system to his advantage in getting out palatable and creative music to the masses - for those willing to move beyond the current pop craptacular music scene.

Here’s Shelley’s great take on the show:

Shelley Says:
May 24th, 2006 at 9:41 am

Edited post from Perma Chat Play-by-Play:

double d: Hey True….Are we ready in B’ham?

double d: Mobile is ready

double d: ALabama ready

Shelley: Jackson is ready

double d: whooooo

TrueNorth: Ready like Freddy

mari3jacks: Tampa Ready

Shelley: Mississippi is ready

Quossum: Houston is ready!

MaryS-NJ: New Jersey is ready

double d:AWWW RIGHT!

Jena: Atlanta Ready

KD: New York ready.

TheBigPineapple: Honolulu is ready

expressway: Ohio ready

Ani: Tampa ready again!

Ted:pennsylvania is ready

Quossum: shoot blow holster!

Shelley: cool…i’m getting chills

James Hudnall: Vegas ready

BluSkiedanClear: sweden ready, even though i have to picture everything in my head

double d: That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout

gabber565: west virginia ready

ardnian: Jakarta is ready… hehe

Shelley: shoot blow holster…READY

banda: santa Fe is ready!!!

tayluv: Oregon is ready!!!!!!!!!

Shelley: SA-WEET

Quossum: We’re READY!

RedFox: Netherlands ready

bischka: New Mexico ready

c4tay: ohio ready

madruga111: miami ready

mari3jacks: GO TAYLOR!!!!

Shelley: this is awesome. y’all rawk

Quossum: Go, Monkey, go!!!!

————————–

Was it me or was last night’s show the fastest hour of our lives…or at least of the last five months of our lives?

When Ryan gave the intros and the house lights came up in the Kodak Theatre, with its 3,000-strong audience, I couldn’t help but think…Imperial Senate. Simon definitely makes a perfect Chancellor Palpatine.

The show kicked off with a nice look back on Taylor and Kat…the younger years. I especially loved the shot of Taylor with a refreshing beverage in hand, standing by his dad. And the topper was being treated to “Don’t Stop Believing,” our second Journey song of the season (At the urging, I’m sure, of Randy Jackson).

But as much as I loved the heavy pimping of Taylor “I-Want-My-Voice-Heard-Now-Let-Me-Make-Simon-Eat-Crow” Hicks, I couldn’t help but notice through the entire show that Kat looked genuinely sad…I mean, on the verge of tears sad. If I was a nicer person, I would have felt sorry for her. But since I made note of her sadness, I feel I’m maturing…though I still wanted some skull bashing. Change takes time, I guess.

Before I get to the gooey center of the critique, let me mention some other points of interest I found during the show. Daughtry givin’ love to Taylor from the audience with smiles and applause at every pan of the camera. E Double in the house, giving “Soul Patrol” shout outs and…possibly the most fantastic event of the night…a commercial for a new Garfield movie…Huh? Wha?

And the stars were really out last night…distant stars maybe, but stars nonetheless. I spotted Mandy Moore, Taye Diggs, Ben Stiller, Tori Spelling, Christina Applegate, and, of course, Daniel Powter, who treated everyone to the most dreaded song played on Idol…“Had a Bad Day.”

A pre-show coin toss gave Taylor the upper hand at the start. He chose to go second…a wise choice by our Silver Fox.

Kat opted to stand for her second performance of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.” Her count-in was bizarre but the song was fine, though not memorable. We were treated to more box drum playing, and Kat tried some new moves with funky rubber band legs…all I could think was that she looked like a Taylor wannabe. And after the “ooo hooos” were sung, she faced the judges and got a meh review. It was nice that her fans sent her 1,000 roses…I think she really needed that pick me up.

Have-A-Good-Time-Funky-Taylor was next, singing “Living for the City.” Starting in the audience and wearing the most finest of fine crushed velvet fuchsia jacket, Taylor kicked it into high gear. It was pretty brave of him to take on another audience performance, but it worked. As he walked down the aisle, he actually sneered into the camera…and sitting alone in a house in Jackson, MS, a girl named Shelley went WILD. The absolute best part of the song was when he took the main stage, wearing those funky snakeskin shoes and climbed the stairs while doing the Heisman…take that Simon. He did get pretty off pitch during the mid-section of the song, but he shook that rump like a pro and all was forgiven. At the end, it was a giant lovefest. The crowd went crazy, as did the judges.

Round 1 to Taylor

Kat came back seated on the floor and singing strong with “Over the Rainbow.” However, because it was so fresh in our minds from last week…it didn’t have any real punch. She sung well and looked great…exactly like she did last week. And the judges loved it…exactly like they did last week.

Taylor had chosen “Levon,” his “favorite song of the season” for Round 2. I was really excited to hear this again, especially since it is the song on which Simon had to first eat his words about Taylor’s talent. However, Taylor was too timid with it. The delivery came across tentative, especially where he inserted the now-famous knee jerk. I got the impression that he was trying to imitate that move from his first performance of the song…but imitation does not suit Taylor. He is about improv and invention with EACH performance. To try to choreograph his moves made him appear unsure. He should have just sung it however it came out…knee jerk or not. But beyond his tentativeness, I thought he sounded great. The judges didn’t like it. Randy said it was pitchy…which was NOT THE CASE and then Paula, trying to help in her own endearingly drunk way, said to Randy, “What may be pitchy to you is really the essence of what Taylor is.” Scratch head. I think what she was trying to say was that Taylor may have been too liberal with his vocal runs…but was not pitchy…but who really knows what she meant? Who really cares?

Round 2 to Kat

Now for the original songs that will be each Idol’s first single.

Kat walked out on stage, looking like a star, to begin “My Destiny.” And it was a lovely moment…for about two bars of music…then she actually opened her mouth to sing. The melody of this craptacular song was totally M.I.A. It was like the writers swept up the floor of their studio then emptied their dustpan of stray notes onto a score sheet and called it a song. Kat struggled to find a foothold in the song and lost all good intonation on the low parts. The chorus was even worse than the melody…at least what I thought the chorus was…it, too, was truly hard to find. By the bridge/key change, Kat seemed to have lost the will to live. She seriously gave up. I think I even spotted an actual shoulder shrug. Not even choirzilla could save her. When she finished, she looked positively ill. The judges tried to be kind, giving the kiss of death “you look amazing” critique, but everyone knew the score. Kat had bombed.

Then our boy took his turn with his original song, “Do I Make You Proud?”. The music started and the crowd applauded politely. But when the stage doors opened and Taylor walked out…they went nuts. He began with the same voice he used to begin “You are So Beautiful,” which of course dropped me to my knees. Then he hit a rough patch with some bum notes, but, fortunately, he was wearing that blue shirt…so I barely noticed. But the switch was flipped by the time choirzilla came on stage. Taylor gave a little smile and a little growl then started to Taylorize that damn schlocky song. It was moving and brilliant. It made me want to run out and buy the album. And when the song built and Taylor made the key change then shook his head behind the mic to play with the dynamics, I came unglued. It was totally amazing. I honestly loved it. I never in a million years thought I would…but I did. He owned it. He worked it. He knocked it out of the park. The judges went crazy. The crowd went crazy. Perma Chat went crazy. I went crazy.

And then Simon so beautifully… so eloquently…had to eat more crow, “Taylor, assuming that I was right that the show was tied then you have just won American Idol.”

Round 3 to Taylor

Taylor wins the title

Shoot Blow Holster…The Title

Thanks, Shelley! You’ve made my morning. I can’t say you’ve made my day, because that will come when Taylor wins this thing tonight. Read more reviews in the thread, It’s Wednesday For the Last Time, (a reference to the fun we have reviewing the show each Wednesday).

Update:
Shelley is a Taylor Maven!!! Thanks for these links

MSN Recap

USA Today Idol Chatter

CNN: “My vision as an artist is to inject as much soul as I can into popular music,” Hicks told the AP later.

Entertainment Weekly

MTV

MTV 2

James Hudnall

Glen Piper

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