In the battle between mothers and sales clerks, the single mom outshone the paint-store employee in the final “American Idol
” performance show of the season.
Crystal Bowersox excelled for the same reason she always does — she has a combination of talent and self-awareness that’s unusual for this competition. She knows what works for her and has the confidence of someone who has been performing forever and feels she’s good enough to deserve the “Idol” crown.
Apart from an early snafu when she dropped her microphone on her way to the stage, Bowersox performed with poise and panache. Who else could steal the spotlight from Simon Cowell right before the final critique of his “Idol” career by grabbing the microphone, thanking him for his years of service and wishing him well in his future endeavors? Not to go all Chris Farley on everyone, but that was awesome.
Meanwhile, Lee Dewyze slid back into the “Wow! I’m really here!” mode that he’d seemed to leap past over the final couple of weeks. It wasn’t that he was bad, but he didn’t come through with his best stuff on the night he needed to be a star.
The main difference between the two was their song choices. Both finalists sang three songs: one they had sung previously this season, one chosen by “Idol” executive producer Simon Fuller and one that would be their first single released if they won.
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- For starters, Dewyze chose to reprise “The Boxer,” while Bowersox did “Me and Bobby McGee.” The former sounded a lot better than it looked. It was a great way to amplify the strengths of Dewyze’s voice, but the performance itself was low energy. The song sounded fine, but felt like a lullaby. Bowersox’s number was more energetic, and the judges all liked it better.
Next came the Fuller choices. I liked his selection of “Everybody Hurts” for Dewyze, but it was definitely a challenge. REM and Michael Stipe is a high bar to reach, but had Dewyze nailed it, the song might have given him some momentum. Unfortunately for his fans, it wasn’t anything that would get people to race to iTunes and download it.
Meanwhile, Fuller assigned Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet” to Bowersox, which was excellent. That was no shock to me, but did surprise Simon. Evidently, he’s seen a few too many people butcher that during auditions. That left her two-for-two among the judges.
If this had been like previous years, the final song would have been a coin flip. This has traditionally been the big letdown, since the original song rarely suits the winner’s particular vocal skills. So the “Idol” folks huddled up and came up with a solution: Do away with that entirely and have the winner release a cover song as the first single.
On the one hand, that makes very little, sense particularly for someone like Bowersox who has originals she would surely like to release. Critics who consider this a glorified karaoke competition will revel in the fact that the first release will be a karaoke version of a song someone else originally wrote and performed.
