AI Finale
So, I just found out that this was set to Draft when my cookies expired and I was logged out of my blog. Oops!
Ok, so AI finale sucked. Hard. I'm not going to talk about Jordin Speezy because, well, unless she slaughters puppies on stage in the name of the Dark Lord, everyone knew she was going to win when Melinda was kicked out.
Blake started off with You Give Love A Bad Name which rocked almost as hard as the first time he did it, except that his vocals this time was quite meh. Still, love the energy and the performance in general.
His second was, oddly enough, another Maroon 5 song, the extremely overplayed She Will Be Loved. Although I loved his rendition of This Love (err, no pun intended), SWBL has been played so many damn times that there was nothing he could do to make me like it. Although it's hilarious how he ended up shouting the song: "She wiiiiillll... be LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVED!!" Hurhur.
To be honest, there really was no reason for him to sing SWBL, as it sparked an entire string of cheesy ballads from then on. He should have sung an upbeat song to really differentiate himself from Jordin. Well, at least it seemed like his choice of song was totally random until he turned to Chris Rich, did the latter's hand dance thing and was mouthing "Chris! For us!!!" with quite possibly the largest grin that his little mouth could muster. Ah, so that's why.
The final song which both Jordin and Blake sang was "This Is My Now". Imagine if you will a grassy atoll upon which the sun shines brighter than you've ever seen. Where pink ponies frolic with white unicorns as rainbows fill the sky in breath-taking shades of colour. Where little children hold hands and sing Kumbaya in such an immaculate chorus that angels would weep upon hearing their sweet sweet voices.
Now add a dash of horrendous grammar and that, my friends, is but an infinitesimal fraction of the extreme cheesiness of "This Is My Now". What the fuck is a Now? Apparently, Blake had the same thought as he kinda had a jumping fit in the middle of the song and basically sang "This Is My Whatever". Jordin, on the other hand, shrieked the hell out of it, as she usually does, and, bless her sensitive non-dramatic soul, sincerely cried whilst singing it. If you call contorting your face and managing to squeeze out a single tear crying. And if you call doing the same thing on both dress rehearsal and the final show sincere. Heck, Blake had more sincerity in his look of awe throughout the show than that sad attempt.
Oh, and this awesome little screenie taken during Jordin's final song is fucking hilarious. You can just hear their thoughts..
Chris: Meh, my boy's better.
Phil: (stifling his laughter) Cake. They're so doing it.
Lakisha: ZZZZZZ...
Melinda: I can't believe this bitch took my spot.
Bonehead girl in the top right corner: I'm on TV!!
And the show ended with DAUGHTRY! singing "Home". Kinda weird to end the show with them. It's pretty sad to see a fourth-place finalist from the previous season get the "pimp spot" over both the top two finalists from this season. Gee, the producers really love this season's finalists, don't they?
The finale show was even worse. We had jokers from the auditions round spend more television time than the finalists themselves. Heck, we had guest artists that collectively had more television time than all twelve 12 personalities (aside: woot! AP style, bitches!). So is this a music awards show or..?
What's sad to see is the way the contestants were relegated to being backup singers for all the various guests and Idol alumni. Good job, Brandon and Melinda. Welcome back to backup-hood. At least Melinda had a duet, or rather a truet(? trio? triad?) with a couple people whom she had done back-up duties for. At worst was that freaking Sanjaya also had a duet, with freaking Joe Perry of Aerosmith. Quite a big slap to the collective faces of 1) Lakisha, Chris and Phil who all finished higher than Sanjaya but sang less than 10 lines altogether in the show and 2) the viewers who, after being repeatedly told by the judges the night before that "this is a singing competition" ergo vote for Jordin, only to have Sanjaya get the glory of his own duet.
And then we also have even more unnecessary filler in the form of Clive Davis coming out and giving a bloody long speech. Basically, what he said was "Taylor, you fucking suck. Daughtry's my bitch and he's making me millions of dollars. Hah!"
Highlight of the night has to be Blake's duet with Doug E. Fresh. Tres cool with all kinds of funky beatboxing from the two. Wow, Doug E. Fresh is simply amazing. And after the dreck of a finale song the previous night, it's great to see Blake finally sing something he's comfortable with. If he could have done something like that for his final song, he'd at least make the competition way tighter that it really was. By the way, his high-pitched "Oh my Go- o- o- od!" is damn entertaining. Haha.
So in the end, Miss Jordin "I'm really crying! I am!" Sparks won. Big surprise. In celebration, Blake tried to lift her up but it was like watching a Hobbit trying to lift up a Wookie. Not surprised if he ended up shattering his entire spine on that attempt. And perhaps, in retaliation for the show not even mentioning them in the Golden Idols' "Best Buddies" category, Blake went off stage and started having a rapid fire exchange of I love yous with Chris before the producers finally managed to cut his mike off. Ha! Good job of somewhat stealing Jordin's thunder, Cake. Go get a hotel room already. Oh wait, they already have.
We end with yet another rendition of "This Is My Cheesy Song With A Grammatically Incorrect Title" as the show quickly showers down confetti and splashes credits as if, only, now, realising that the show has run a wee bit too long. And Jordin tried to cry again. God save my bleeding eyes and imploded ears.
And that was AI Season 6, the first (and probably last) AI which I actually watch, enjoy and have favourites to root for. Kinda sucky the way the contestants are shafted in favour of a million guest artists being pimped by the show to sell their latest albums. Nobody knows anything about the contestants unless you're crazed enough to go online to find out more about them. *cough*
In the end, it ain't too bad. There's our winner, the bubbly Jordin "Cry me a river but I'll make do with a trickle now" Sparks. We have Philarious Phil the Nospheratu giving everyone a shock with his pretty good country renditions. There's the greatest singer evar~! in Melinda and the worst singer evar~! in Sanjaya, although the latter also has the best hairstyles evar~! There's Lakisha, who's fascinating to watch because after an incredibly excellent start, kinda dug a grave for herself every time she sang a previous winner's song. And we finally we have my favourite Chris "I'm not nasally!" Richardson and Blake "Yeah! He's not nasally!" Lewis, who might just be gay for each other. And they call this season boring. Ha.