KO

So, um, anyone think David Cook threw the finals? I mean, on purpose. Because he sounded good, but for someone who has so consistently had great song choice (and a plethora of amazing performances to choose from for the final song)... with the theme of the night, from a production standpoint, being a boxing match, I really felt like he threw it (with both of his last two performances... don't get me wrong, still really good). Not certain if I *really* mean he did it on purpose... but if I were him, I wouldn't really want to be locked into the Idol contract instead of being able to have my pick of the labels, contracts, and managers.

Anyway, Cook has a viable career ahead of him on Adult Top 40 radio.

Best of luck to Archie with his technical singing, lack of emotional connection to songs, and his pale clone of "A Moment Like This" / "This Is My Now" ;)

I kind of want to tell Randy Jackson that "molten" is never going to happen and he should give it up. 10 Schrute bucks to the first person who gets that.

I think Simon was a bit pissed that David Cook flailed because Archie, aka Presumptive American Idol Winner David Archuleta, is not the modern, relevant recording artist he kept talking about all season. Not that I ever expected Cook to win. Despite the obvious performance artist gap between them, it has been obvious (perhaps too obvious for the show's purposes, hence Simon week after week saying how Cook would win if it were a talent contest) that Archie would win.

ALSO

Is it just me, or did in seasons past as the numbers were whittled down, the performances got longer? Why, in the finale, are we only getting 3 songs at 90 seconds each from each contestant?