Round 1, Blake.
Round 2, Jordin.
Round 3, . . .
And. . .we have a winner.
Ok, well, so we really don`t have a winner until Mr. Seacreast bends over and talks out of his ass for 2 hours. But after tonight? Yeeeah, I`m gonna go ahead and say we have a winner.
And it is not Blake.
And I am sad.
Question for you: (I will explain later): Was the crying legit? Or a ploy for votes? You decide.
But for anyone with, well, ears, it is pretty obvious who will be dubbed the next `Superstah!` tomorrow night, and it is Miss Jordin Sparks. This is rather har for me to say, since to me she`s nothing more than a Whitney/Mariah Houston/Carey in training (minus the weird, high dog whistle singing). I`ve been rooting for Mr. Beatboxer for a while now. . .well, since Melinda Dolittle turned into Bette Midler in a Gladys Knight costume.
And I truly thought he would take it. Sure, it`s a singing competition blah-la-la-la-la. But I`ve always thought it was about being, well, a pop star. The X Factor, people! An all-around good performer like, to give modern-day examples, Beyonce or Justin Timberlake ::holds back vomit:: And that`s Blake, what with the stage presence and the beatboxing and daring renditions and the whole Adam Levine/Rob Thomas vibe.
But aside from his knockout revamp of You Give Love A Bad Name (from Jon Bon Jovi-pretends-to-be-a-musician-and-teach-the-kids week), he lost. He just. . .lost. ::sigh:: I knew this finale would be The Performer (Blake) vs. The Singer (Jordin). And the singer is gonna win.
In watching AI since the year if Miss Clarkson, when it comes to the finale it becomes obvious who the fan favorite is. And it is more about just having a good voice. It becomes emotional this last week. America`s heart rules their head, and it goes from being about the X-Factor to being about the `Awww!` Factor.
Hmmm. . .perky girl with the killer smile? Guess who.
Yeah.
The first round did go to Blake, as I said. And I was excited. He knocked out the Bon Jovi hit while Jordin attempted Christina Aguilera's `Fighter` and failed. The entire song, it looked like something was jammed up her butt. Her facial expression never changed, the bumblebee-looking outfit was horrible and I just didn`t believe her singing that song. (And really, girls, don`t do a Christina song unless you`re prepared to writhe around the stage soaking wet wearing nothing but leftover scraps from the fabric store and enough eye makeup for the every member of The Cure.)
So after all that, needless to say I was thrilled. Even Simon agreed. We`re like ::this::, me and Simon. Yeah.
Second round? ::sigh:: Jordin with her `favorite` from the season, in this case Martina McBride`s Sad Woman Power Ballad `Broken Wing`. Whatever. Yeah, it definitely beat out Blake who attempted another Maroon 5 song, this time with less success. `She Will Be Loved` is a sweet pure song, and all Blake proved is that it would take quite a bit of `mixing` I think they call it, to make that work for him. That and he could`ve still sold it and he didn`t. So Jordin took that round with her broken wing. I think I`m just bitter because when I was 19 I lost a country music singing competition (don`t laugh) to some blonde whore in a red spandex dress who beat out my `Unchained Melody` with her friggin` `Broken Wing`.
So. . .a tie. Awesome. It`s everything I expected, a real competition folks. Then each contestant had to do their rendition of this year`s origiinal AI song (remember A Moment Like This?) This year`s song was the result of a song-writing competition and after hearing it I am kicking my own ass (no seriously I am) for not entering.
No, it`s not bad. It`s called This Is My Now and it talks about living in this moment and not letting being trapped from one`s dreams be an excuse from not following those dreams now. The lyrics are rather good and, don`t think I`m completely cheesy for saying it, actually spoke to me. But the melody and chorus, even the bridge, were bland bland bland.
BLAH.
Blake went first and proved once again that he is a performer. . . not a singer. Sure he was in tune (mostly) and knew the words but you could tell he was uncomfortable with this generic sample of the kind of pop music expected of him as the winner of this competition. He (over) compensated by doing this weird, bouncy dance thing while he sang and then. . it was over.
At that point I pretty much knew that unless Jordin walked out and took a crap on the stage, it was over for Blake.
I`m sure seeing Blake`s performance gave Jordin a little boost. Okay maybe not, but whatever it was, something kicked into gear with her charisma and she then proceeded to nail Blake to the wall with her emotional rendition. She sang that song like it was written just for her (though I will say the song is suited more for a female voice which pisses me off a bit and I wish there has been a song for each of them). But I guess this way one could really compare apples to apples, no?
But HERE`S the kicker.
Jordin hits the big belt note and takes the song down for a nice, quiet landing. Nothing new. That`s when it`s obvious she not gonna quite make it. She looks up into the faces of thousand of fans. . . the next to last `This is my now`, and her voice cracks. And I realize she`s trying to not cry. The final `This is my now` is lost when the tear cholk fails completely and the screaming of fans obliterates anything she would have sung after that. Jordin merely stands there, bows her head with tears streaming down her face as Randy tries to get a word in.
Real?
Fake?
Doesn`t matter. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.
