Talking About The Winner

Yesterday was Saturday and I did rather unproductive stuffs: waking up late, facebooking the morning, going to campus to sign an attendance list, and enjoying Jakartan’s favorite past-time activity that is wandering in a mall. (Grand Indonesia, to be specific). To balance that “negativity”, I decided to revisit this blog I love. And what could be a better topic to ease my homecoming than the timeless American Idol. I’m too lazy to think, anyway.

Yeah yeah, we all got the news last week. Kris Allen virtually stole the American Idol winner title from Adam Lambert’s grasp, engendering mixed, if not all-negative, opinions from critics and the public. Adam, who has been the judges’ golden boy throughout the competition, had consistently dished out outstanding performances and built an unorthodox image on his looks and stage appearance. Apart from his excellent musical talent, his wardrobe and make up each night would shame my mom – she admitted that she could learn a thing or two from him. The world thought that they are ready to just hand him the trophy of American Idol that night.

On the other hand, Kris Allen was someone whom you could expect to be there. The typical cute face, nice demeanor, and totally-not-freaky performances combination is arguably the key to American Idol stardom. Not having photographs in drag costume and questionable poses helps too. He is a great singer, nonetheless. (IMO, his version of Kanye West’s Heartless is simply irresistible; instantly got that on my iPod). Perhaps Ryan Seacrest said it best on the result show, it was “the guy next door (Kris) vs the guyliner (Adam)”.

At the end of the day, Kris Allen won. According to relevant sources, there were several factors that contributed to his victory. An opinion pointed out that Adam’s consistency in giving superb shows from the start to the end did not actually help him in the finals. In contrast, Kris Allen’s slower rise to visibility (I didn’t even notice that there was a Kris Allen until the season was halfway through) built more momentum for his win. People saw Kris improve and they voted for him.

Another possible factor is that Kris inherited third-placed Danny Gokey’s voters, who preferred him to Adam. The notion of “Christian vote” floated around for a while, especially as the public’s curiosity tried to solve the mystery of Adam’s sexuality. Last, it is very possible that Americans are not ready to have Adam Lambert as an American Idol winner and they chose the more conservative Kris.

Then Perez Hilton joined the fray. He alleged that AT&T helped Kris by providing free cell phones to a gathering of Kris’ supporters and teaching them how to “power text”, i.e. sending 10 votes at the touch of a button. Read the whole news gossip here or the Wikipedia article here. Trust him or not, it’s your choice.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have any complaints regarding Kris’ triumph. I did root for Adam Lambert (hello, he’s like fantabulous!), but since the Top 4 –Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Adam Lambert, and Kris Allen- I didn’t care who would win, all of them are fantastic. So what do you think?