SCOTTY MCCREERY BECOMES THE AMERICAN IDOL
What started out as a year of uncertainty ended up as one of the most entertaining American Idol seasons. The new judges, in particular Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler, revived what was starting to look like a tired franchise. Even Ryan Seacrest began poking fun at Randy Jackson’s infamous tag line proclaiming contestants were “In it to win it!” The Season 10 finale kicked off informing the viewers that a record 122 million votes had been cast between the final two contestants, followed by a serious night of competitive entertainment.
And wow, was it terrific! Last night’s two hour finale was jam-packed with stars and great performances:
* The entire top 13 sang Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”.
* The ladies did a terrific Beyonce medley and then Beyonce joined in. Not to be undone, the men performed a Tom Jones medley and Tom joined them to sing one of his many hits, “It’s Not Unusual”.
* Scotty teamed up with Tim McGraw for a terrific performance of “Live Like You Were Dying”.
* Lauren and Carrie Underwood performed the Underwood hit single, “Before He Cheats”.
* In what I thought were two of the most entertaining performances of the evening, Casey and Jack Black did a cool performance of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”, and Haley and Tony Bennett did a terrific version of “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”.
We also got solo performances from Lady Gaga– featuring Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band on sax, Beyonce and Marc Anthony. JLo backed up her husband’s performance with a “hot” dance routine. Fellow judge Steven Tyler also played an abbreviated version of Aerosmith’s “Dream On”. In an attempt to boost the sagging fortunes of their Broadway play, Spiderman Turn of the Dark, Bono and the Edge joined Reeve Carney, to sing a song from their oft delayed musical.
As I was enjoying the show, it was almost like the crowning of the new American Idol winner was an afterthought. Finally, Ryan Seacrest announced the winner which to no surprise was fan favorite Scotty McCreery. Scotty seemed genuinely humbled by the announcement and embraced the audience while he sang his soon-to-be-single “I Love You This Big”. For me, the the song had too high of a cheese factor, but I think that Scotty has a real future as a country singer. He has an old fashioned country voice and that voice combined with his youthful look should win him a lot of fans.
This season’s top 10 was very talented and I believe that we will be hearing more from the likes of Lauren Alaina, Pia Toscano, Haley Reinhart, James Durbin and Casey Abrams in the near future.
