Booo!
No, we aren’t protesting which deserving-in-his-own-way finalist ultimately won. We’re just bummed that American Idol is over for the year.
After two hours of duets, surprise guests, a few ghosts of auditions past and plenty of good cheer—not to mention 16 weeks of sweat, tears and song—a new champion was crowned Wednesday to cap off the eighth season of the most-watched show on TV.
On one side, 27-year-old Adam Lambert, the polished (and we don’t just mean his nails), mascara’d, perfectly poised arena-ready rocker with the infinite range.
And, on the other, 23-year-old Kris Allen, somewhat of a dark-horse contestant, despite his universally appealing cutie-pie looks and radio-friendly warble.
But though history has shown us that both guys are probably due for bigger and less clichéd things, only one ended up in that solo spotlight tonight, clutching the brand-new Idol microphone trophy.
Kevin Winter/American Idol 2009/Getty Images for FOXAnd after a record 100 million votes were cast, it was Kris Allen who was left standing in hand-over-mouth shock ‘n’ awe because he had found out that he was the next American Idol.
“It feels good, man, but Adam deserves this,” the Conway, Ark., native protested. “I don’t know what to feel right now, this is crazy.”
So that’s what utter disbelief sounds like.
“Ah, I don’t even know,” Allen stuttered as Ryan Seacrest handed over the championship trophy. “Thank you—you guys are the reason that all of us are here,” he told the audience.
The still-smiling Lambert, the consummate pro already, stepped up to give his compatriot a congratulatory hug, as Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Kara DioGuardi applauded in…well, in surprise. (By the way, they stood up. Simon Cowell didn’t.)
But before we leave you to hash this out among yourselves, here’s a quick run-down of some of the high points from the eighth-season finale:
• Adam and Kris dueting on Queen‘s “We Are the Champions.” Cuz really, they are, aren’t they?
• Megan Joy and Michael Sarver singing the Steve Martin-penned “Pretty Flowers,” accompanied by Martin and his banjo. ‘Nuf said. When asked by Ryan who he thought was going to win, Martin said, “I know it’s a long shot, but I’m hoping I do.”
Ray Mickshaw/FOX• A subdued David Cook stopping by to perform “Permanent,” off of his upcoming debut album, which the emotional rocker sang “to honor not only my brother, but everybody who has had to deal with something like this.” Cook’s older brother, Adam, lost his battle with brain cancer earlier this month. The video of the performance will be available on iTunes, with all proceeds going to cancer-research charity ABC2 (Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure).
• Danny Gokey being paired with Lionel Richie. Sure, Danny was saddled with “Hello,” which was one of Cook’s shining moments last year. But at least it sounded really good.
• Kris and Keith Urban. That’s about right.
And some of the lows:
• The Top 13 reuniting for Pink‘s “So What” in those all-white outfits the dozen (this year, a baker’s dozen) have to wear each season. This is what the gates of heaven must be like when you’re being informed that you took a wrong turn at the celestial escalator.
Ray Mickshaw/FOX• Just when we thought the mass “na-na-na-na na-na-na” was freaky enough, there were the top seven guys—all clad in Reservoir Dog suits— coming at us, inquiring “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” (The eventual arrival of Rod Stewart helped a bit.)
• Adam (sporting some studded, wire-wing epaulet-thingies) getting matched with KISS for his big duet. Where’s Bowie when you need him?
• The Top 13 reuniting yet again for “Smooth,” which it wasn’t. We tried to focus on Santana‘s guitar playing in the meantime.
Congrats Kris! Great freaking finale….. both Adam and Kris’ duets were amazing…. good show all together. I can’t wait for both the albums to drop. The only thing that didn’t belong in the finale was Rod….. he’s sounding awful.
Adam was robbed. He is still the second top trending topic on twitter after americanidol, people are very, very upset about this result.
I’m never watching “Christian Idol” again. Ever.
At least this season gave us the great Adam Lambert and somehow, Allison Iraheta. The rest of the season was a joke (the Top 13, the save, the winner).
BTW I was never a Kradam fan and I never wanted Kris in the finale (for those who say that now the Adam fans are turning their backs on Kris). I never liked to guy as a singer, and nobody of my friends or family are planning on getting his album. All of them however, will be waiting for Adam’s.
Oh Alx grow up. Christian Idol? I can something that starts with a g idol for Adam but I have the class and dignity not to. Kris had more fans than Adam that is why he won.
I’m here to give some people on this board a reality check. While I’m admittedly disappointed by the result, it’s not as if my inner child has been permanently wounded (or some other hyperbolic crap I’ve heard uttered tonight). For the sake of all of our sanity, we need to remember that “Idol” is JUST A FREAKING TV SHOW! It’s not the end of the world just because our favorite contestant on a televised karaoke competition didn’t win tonight! If tonight is the worst thing that ever happens to Adam Lambert, then he’s lived a pretty fortunate life. Trust me, record companies and Broadway producers will be lining up at Adam’s door to sign him to lucrative contracts once his run on the “Idol” tour ends. He’ll be just fine. Rant over.
Don’t hate me for saying this (remember, Adam was my favorite contestant too), but I actually think that Adam will have a post-”Idol” career path similar to that of Constantine Maroulis. He’ll give a recording career a try, but probably won’t sell too many records in the United States because he doesn’t fit into any particular niche. He’s way too hard-edged a singer for mainstream pop radio, but not rough enough to have any real credibility with the rock crowd (sexuality will also be an issue with macho rock fans, which is kind of ironic, considering that Freddie Mercury and Rob Halford are looked at as rock icons). In the end, I think that Adam will be a pretty considerable pop star in both Europe and Asia, and come back to the States to be a Broadway performer in high demand.
Kris deserved it. to all fans of Adam, MOVE ON!
Thats not the point. Adam deserved to win. I know he’ll be fine, and could come out at the real winner down the line, but its the principle of the point. Even Kris said Adam should have won. Its ridiculous.
So now gay is a bad word and you need class and dignity not to say it?
And it is just my opinion, if you cannot respect it, I am not the one that needs to grow up.
Idol will never be legitimate again until they get rid of the freaking power texting bs.
When one person in ark can log 20,000 votes texting, thats just wrong.
I read that arkansas alone accounted for almost half of all votes – bs.
rk349097: THANK YOU. Adam was my favorite too, but come on. It’s not like Kris wasn’t talented in his own right. Maybe we should all take a clue from Adam himself and be genuinely happy that a nice, talented guy is getting the break he deserves. They obviously support each other, so even though we didn’t get what we wanted, that’s no reason to take anything away from Kris.
http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Conway-reacts-to-Kris-win/sv8BNSsGY0G8GRZWSr0fRw.cspx
“AT&T says about 38 million American Idol votes came from Arkansas last night. Chances are, most of those came from Kris’ home town of Conway.”
About 38 million votes, out of almost 100 million votes. Roughly 38% of Kris Allen’s votes were from one state.
Note to self: If I ever want a ridiculous advantage in a countrywide competition, move to AR before competing.
Did ANYONE receive a CONFIRMATION of their TEXT VOTE for ADAM last night?
On -01? I did not receive a single confirmation all evening.
Tom, some people were recieving confirmation just a few hours before the finale.
I’m probably only earning myself more hate here, but let’s just stop with the “Kris had an unfair advantage” garbage. Just because Kris’ fans were able to power-text their votes in to “Idol” didn’t prevent Adam’s fans from being able to do the exact same thing. I do believe that the show needs to limit the amount of votes that one person can cast (although I’m not sure how they’d ever be able to do it), but it’s not as if one group of fans was given an advantage that the other group didn’t have at their disposal. Kris’ fans, for whatever reason (and we can debate this one for days), just flat-out came through for their guy more fervently than did Adam’s fans. Period. End of story.
Adam and Kris did an amazing job tonight performing on the big stage! They are both winners and will get a lot out of this competition! On the voting discussions…everyone could vote using power texting or whatever you call it whether you live in arkansas, new york, or cali and whether you were voting for Kris or Adam. Adam and Kris fans were dedicated and willing to do anything to vote for their idol! San Diego is twice as big as the entire state of AR so Adam should have had the advantage, but Kris Allen fans stuck together and did all that they could to get him where he is tongiht! Voting was fair either way…America voted! Obviously Kris deserved it b/c America voted him in! You cannot complain about Adam not winning if you didnt do everything in your power to get him there. That is just like not voting for the President and then griping b/c the person you didnt want to win won! It is ridiculous! I honestly think that both contestants were content with whatever happened and they are both winners!
EXACTLY!!!! AGREE 100%
Just gonna point a couple of things out… One, although I am a supreme Adam fantard i can’t help but be disappointed… not in the loss but the way his fans are taking it.. I mean did anyone else see the way he reacted he seemed genuinely happy for Kris and Kris would’ve treated him the same. Why can’t we be happy for Kris who (tonight’s performance of “no boundries” was by and far better than last nights) thoroughly deserved it as did Adam. If anyone is interested in what the Kris camp is doing right now just cruise on over to his fan page, they are not gloating saying that the christian vote came through, they aren’t saying we beat Adam they are offering up congrats to both of the finalists and stating that they loved Adam and that he was just as deserving.
Second, if we are gonna be crying about Adam getting ripped off lets get a little perspective on what we have here. For one thing L.A and S.D have collectively enough population to where if everyone voted for Adam even once he would’ve crushed Kris’s home state of Arkansas’ votes of 38,000,000 just think about how small the state of Arkansas is compared to some of the cities in the U.S and Kris still won if you try to take away the win we are all just fooling ourselves Adam is gonna be huge not in a David Cook or Carrie Underwood kinda way but in a musical theatre kinda way I mean look at Zach Effron he came outa nowhere and made it huge in the industry because of musical theatre let these kids enjoy the ride and stop crying about Kris’s victory in the competition this is a tv show and both guys will be around for a long long time with the stylings that we’ve gotten to hear Adam will be this generations Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler and Kris will be the new James Taylor or Paul McCartney.
IT’s OK ALX:
You can say gay….it’s time to come out of the dark ages now…
How many people live in Ark and um….why?
If AK put in half the votes then let them buy half the albums, and go to half the Kris concerts because no one else will.
We will be at the Adam Lambert show.
What ever happened with that cheating rumor? Kris fans were supposed to cheat with some software program. I didn’t believe it a first but is there any truth to it now? I don’t think 38 mil people live in conway ark. Do you?
This was rigged. It is not about christian, gay or anything else. It is about $$$$$. Idol wanted to have two winners. If Adam won they would only have one, this way they have two. Remember “WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS” the two champions. This song was selected months ago (previous Idol articles talked about the finale planning).
I think the votes were close, and they picked who they wanted. All the judges comments from the finale performaces were set up comments. OPEN YOUR EYES.
If confirmations were rcvd a “few hours before the finale”, then does that mean that the votes weren’t counted LAST NIGHT?
Congrats to Kris, but not receiving ANY confirmations at all for Adam make me highly suspicious of the supposed “blowout”.
Wow, I thought the link to 38 million votes coming from Arkansas alone was a joke… till i checked. WTF!! WTF!! Was this voting all legal and above board or a dialler scam type of thing? It absolutely makes a mockery of the current voting system and, fundamentally, of the ENTIRE AI concept, if 1 state can get “their” man into the winning slot like that. I hope Adam gets to hear about that -I think it will put everything into perspective on the voting for him.
Ops, my mistake folks! I see that now. Just a little misunderstanding! I didn’t read properly, thats all! When I watched the programme called AI, and read all the blogs, I thought it meant American Idol, but, silly me, of course, if I’d looked properly at the title I’d see that it said Arkansas Idol. Gosh, I am dumb!
Just want you guys to read this, posted by BorntobeAdam on MJs blog -
It’s a Mad World.
Adam, you’ve got a Whole Lotta Love and you can clearly see the Tracks of our Tears. We Can’t Get No Satisfaction! If We Can’t Have You, We Don’t Want Nobody, Baby. We’re not Feelin’ Good right this minute, we’re Cryin’. But things are never Black and White and we’re already deep in this Ring of Fire for you. You were Born to be Wild and believe One thing, A Change is Gonna Come.
Starting to feel better after dancing around my lounge room to Adam and Kiss for a while tonight – I just grin like a loon everytime I rewatch that. False eyelashes and sparkly tears and rhinestone shoulder wings and standing on the judges desk in his big old zodiac burning man boots while OWNING the whole damn Nokia – just the look on his face while he was singing Beth makes me all warm and gooey deep down inside.
He is my American Idol and I don’t care what the zombie voting tween masses of Arkansas say. To paraphrase Fried Green Tomatoes “I am bigger and I have more money” – so I think I know who will win this thing in the end!
But here’s one thing that really bugs me – I really would have loved Adam to get that stupid statue Idol trophy – would have made a great door stop for his bathroom!
Yep, Bridgeymah, a door stop… or a hood ornament at least! LOL
Hey Adam fans -cheer up! check out
http://www.windpowersports.com/music/top-songs.php
Adam has 10 songs (inlcuding duet with Alison) in the TOP 10 I-tunes chart. Oh and Kris has 6. Spotted a Gokey too -holytamoly!
Good for them both.
Kris might be Arkansas (whoops typo!) American Idol but Adam will be PLANET IDOL in the long run.
The title of the article was right BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! For the Idol finale and for Kris Allen. Way to go American Idol voters! What a boring way to end an otherwise great season. Adam will be a star. We will forget about Kris in a couple of years.
Check out Kris Allen saying Adam is gonna be a megastar, probably bigger than Kris himself
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1611899/20090521/index.jhtml
IMHO no “probably” about it!
I am still trying to comprehend, on a purely statistical basis, how a state of 2.8 million accounts for almost half of all votes cast.
What surprises me most is not that less than 1% of the nation cast 38 million votes, but that more than 99% cast so few.
It makes no sense. When things make no sense, its because they don’t make sense – something is amiss.
Take this in light of the fact that Adam had 10 times the blog posts on American Idol’s website that Kris did, 5 times as many Google hits as kris and was ahead in every single online poll taken and it starts to seems even more improbable.
If you study statitics at all, you know that these types of population layouts just DO NOT occur.
On FoxNews this morning, Adam did NOT deny rumors that Queen has offered him the lead singer gig when asked by Brian Kilmead, he only pleaded the 5th.
Street Cred wise, if Adam’s goal is to be a rockstar, NOT winning Idol is an advantage. Face it, winning Idol is great but it does have a tinge of “overnight wonder, geeky” to it.
Part of being a rockstar is struggling your way up from the bottom. In real life Adam has done that and now the “Idol” title won’t tarnish that.
If I had to read Adam’s body language on FoxNews, I would have to say that he is not upset IN THE LEAST he did not win. That there is one content man. It may, in fact be, that he was concenred about the Idol Title hurting his rock cred.
There is no question that Kris Allen is an all around class guy, so I don’t ever want to direct any of my rancor at him personally. I’m happy for him and for his sweet parents. But Adam is just on another level entirely. Kris himself said “Adam is the most talented guy I ever met”.
Last night was The Adam Show. He showed what a star he is. He looked and sounded glorious. I can’t wait for the tour!
And I have to give a big thumbs up for that incredible show last night. And the best of the best? Adam & KISS (surprisingly) & QUEEN & the Kris/Adam duet. Just fabulous!
A thumbs down though for the 35 million votes from Arkansas. That just proves that chosing a winner is not based on talent. It’s regional, it’s religious affiliation, it’s sexual orientation….all stuff that should be immaterial. Too bad.
don’t know if anyone was watching Fox And Friends this morning but Adam was on there and they asked him if Queen asked him if he would be the new lead singer ( Paul Rogers is no longer with them) and Adam said “I don’t know- There was some interest there” and so they asked if they really did ask him and he said he pleads the 5th.
Now about Arkansas- wow. Great they pulled it out for him but it pretty much shows that his support is limited to his state.
If this is the case, doesn’t that make him the Arkansas Idol instead. Sadley it could be true. I don’t believe the numbers are quite that high or that it was only Arkansa, but I do believe that a large amount of votes came from a mobilized group of fans. If anyone checked out the Kris allenation sight they would of seen that they had put together a step by step “plan of attack” to get the win. The only way Idol is ever going to make an Idol win legitimate is to make it so that power texting and dialing are not possible. Gizmo and things like it just muddy the results. They need to find a way to only count a certain amount of votes per phone line.
(Doesn’t America’s got talent limit it to ten online votes) Texting shouldn’t even be aloud. I think that Idol likes to be able to announce a “record number of votes” each year. Seriously how can that record hold up when it was the lowest watched finale ever? It is pretty disturbing to watch how these fans behave towards the end of the competition towards each other too. It becomes less about the singer winning and more about one fanbase beating the other fanbase. Limiting the fans votes could take care of this “We won’t let you win mentality’ and put the focus back on the singer.
of all 97 million votes, almost half of it came from Arkansas???? I don’t think that represents TALENTS!
But that would be stupid. He should have his own career, not become part of an existing group and just become a part of it. Way better on his own and create his own legend. He also said that on the extra vid.
OMG you guys are so petty! Who cares who won?!?! Adam and Kris are both great in their own ways! They will both go on to do amazing things. Why do you guys feel it necessary to call Kris a cheater and bash his accomplishments? He has been nothing but gracious and humble. Adam and Kris are friends and they support each other, you should follow Adam’s example if you are all such fans!
I know. It’s so pathetic. If Adam won, i don’t think Kris would’ve reacted the way the Adam fans are right now. They just seem so petty.
I won’t be missing Adam Lambert. He was the most pimped Idol in the history of American Idol. A lot of people just got downright sick of the pimping. What happened on this season of American Idol was so unfair to the other contestants. It did do one thing for me. It gave me just a little hope that maybe the show was legit. When after all the pimping the judges did, the annointed one was not chosen, there was a little glimmer of hope. I’m not a voter. Don’t care. But fair is fair and this season was not at all fair to the other contestants.
It doesn’t have to be a couple of year. I already forgot about his every performances in a couple of minutes.