The Chosen One

At last, a true rocker has won American Idol. I didn't vote, but I'm very glad that David Cook won. I have downloaded some of the songs he recorded for the show this year, and he's the only one of the performers who strikes me as having the talent right now to be a star. He has an amazing range of styles that he has mastered, but I like him best when he sings pure rock and roll. The rest, including runner-up David Archuleta, all strike me as needing more maturity. I'd rather turn on my radio and hear Cook's raspy voice than what passes for "smooth" from the other contestants.

Watching parts of the show tonight, I was reminded of the way that Johnny Carson introduced the Academy Awards one year: two hours of sparkling entertainment spread out over four hours. American Idol is like half an hour of entertainment spread out over two hours. I don't mind the guest stars, particularly previous winners. In fact, I think that might be the way to make the show more entertaining next year: have all of the previous winners come back and sing in the order of their winning (or in reverse order, doesn't matter to me). Instead, what we get too much of are these "group numbers" that I assume will be a feature of the upcoming tour. Whenever they do a group number, I always feel like Capt. Stubing's voice is about to come over the intercom announcing bingo on the Lido Deck.

I did, however, like seeing all of this year's finalists dressed in black for the tribute to George Michael, who sadly was not in very good voice tonight. They all looked pretty stylish (as did, somewhat surprisingly, "your host" Ryan Seacrest), and the songs were a good match for their vocal abilities. But my personal favorite moment tonight was watching Cook sing "Sharp Dressed Man" with ZZ Top. Yeah, I know, but those were my college years. Maybe Cook will include that on his first CD.

Now that this madness has ended with America picking the right person for the job, let's hope we can duplicate that approach in November when it counts a little bit more. Just a tiny little bit.