“This will be a night that will go down in pop culture history”, says a breathless Ryan Seacrest. Actually, no. After 19 blog posts and an unnecessarily long and dull three-hour Finale, this night went down exactly as we all knew it would right from the very first audition: with a White Guy With Guitar winning American Idol.
Perhaps a more historical event was happening at the same time on a competing network as ex-Idolist Gabby Barrett won two Billboard Music Awards.
I have to admit that this Idol Finale didn’t have a lot of juice for me. It felt empty without Casey. It felt dull compared to the spectacle and drama that is the Eurovision Song Contest which I elatedly gave over 4 hours of my life to the day before. And there was the aura of inevitability both from Idol’s history of winners and the data that may have foretold the winner. A check-in on the Idolists’ Spotify streams just before the show showed a big advantage for Chayce (262k streams) over Casey (73k), Grace (57k), and Willie (36k).
As to the Finale itself, why was it three hours? Why were we subjected to an interminable number of pairings of Idolists with people who used to be famous? A TV show is supposed to be entertaining and not an endurance test. And since all the real entertainment with currently famous people was happening over on another channel’s Billboard Music Awards, I’m demanding reparations for three lost hours of my life. The only memorable moments for me in the Finale were these:
- The three times Willie sang.
- The duet with Sheryl Crow and Arthur Gunn which never happened because Arthur mysteriously didn’t show up. He was replaced at the last minute by somebody named Graham who was allegedly was on this season, and he and Sheryl sounded like it was a last-minute thing.
- A fun, high-energy duet between Luke and Casey on Livin’ On a Prayer. Da*n that little girl can sing.
So now I anxiously await to see who BMG signs to a recording deal. I think Chayce is a lock given his reasonable streaming numbers and position on the Apple Music charts[1]: #8 on Top Songs and #1 on Country.[2] Obviously, I’m hoping for something for Casey and Willie. And I’ll patiently be waiting to see if someone in this season of talented Idolists becomes the next Gabby Barrett in a few years.
Stay tuned to these Musings. I’ll keep you posted on what develops.
And then there’s the return of The Bachelorette coming soon . . .
[1] The Apple charts will matter in positioning him in country music. Spotify would matter more to Idolists in other genres.
[2] It was timely that he got to duet with Luke Combs who’s at #2.
Ray's Musings 
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