American Idol Season 21 Finale

Twenty-four hours after the Sunday night episode finished airing, I am here to give my thoughts on what went down on Idol's Finale. There are a lot of details that I will overlook or forget since I have been watching the last several episodes live without "live-blogging"a recording, but I simply do not have time to watch everything all over again to recap my thoughts.

These Idol finales always feel a bit anti-climactic and long. There were some good moments though in this season's version and I was genuinely surprised by the first elimination, though not disappointed. The eventual winner was easy to predict at that point in time and I have to say deserved, even though there seemed to be some manipulation put towards that outcome.

In the first several seasons, the three judges would select songs for the final three contestants. That no longer happens. Instead, former judge Keith Urban, from back in the Fox days, returned to mentor the kids and they sang his songs. Two out of the three are part of the country genre.

1. Megan Danielle- "God Whispered Your Name"

I do not know this song. All of these contestants would be hoping that Seacrest would be announcing their name at the end of three hours. Megan wore a lot of short sparkly dresses throughout the evening always paired with cowboy boots.

Details of this performance escape mea bit but Megan always sounds good vocally, though it seemed like she might have been a bit nervous. Both she and Iam Tongi have relied heavily on slow-tempo ballads throughout the season, while the third Finalist, Colin Stough, has mixed up ballads and uptempo performances.

2. Iam Tongi- "Making Memories Of Us"

I sort of know this song, probably because it has been done on Idol before.

I am talked about how his parents used to dance together at home to this song which will pull on the heartstrings of many. His narrative this season is that his father passed away while Megan's overall narrative seems to be that her beloved "Paw-Paw" died not long ago. (Colin does not have a death to focus on but has played up his blue collar roots.) While Megan's grandfather definitely passed away at too early of an age, I think Iam losing his father as a teenager probably trumps the "sob story" competition for those who are cynically analyzing it.

Anyways, anytime I am prepared to be sort of underwhelmed by Iam doing the same sort of song and performance, I cannot help but truly be impressed by his voice. This was a strong start of the night for him.

3. Colin Stough- "Stupid Boy"

I definitely do not know this song. This was a fairly boring ballad and while Colin has a nice voice, it did not feel like this was any sort of "star performance." Also, it was either in this performance or the next one, but Colin seemed to be visibly trembling. Either he was very nervous or was coming down from too many energy drinks.

Still, at this point, I was resigned to the likelihood of Colin winning due to voting demographics and "country cougars."

Round 1 Rankings:

3. Colin Stough

2. Megan Danielle

1. Iam Tongi

 

Next, it was time for the hometown visits. None of these three contestants seem to come from money.They truly all needed this opportunity on American Idol. Megan returned to Georgia and Colin to nearby Mississippi. Iam flew to Hawai'i and the High School he would have been graduating from this spring, had his family not been "priced out of paradise" and relocated to Washington. He definitely had the biggest crowds and will probably now have the money to buy a home back on the Island.

4. Megan Danielle- "Faithfully"

This Journey song has now been done a lot on Idol and this is not the the first time a country female has sung it. I guess you cannot go wrong with a classic.

Megan did a great job here. This was clearly her best performance of the night and one of her best ones of the season. The song is about a relationship and not about religious faith but she took it to church and turned it into a "worship song" at the end. This performance could might have appeared to Evangelicals while the dress she was wearing seemed sort of a deliberate rainbow theme. Very interesting duopoly.

 

Megan's real last name cannot possibly be Danielle, can it?  Apparently, her siblings have the last name Phillips. Over a decade ago, a Georgian named Phillips was crowed American Idol.

5. Iam Tongi- "Cool Down"

I take it that this is a song that is best known in Hawai'i. Iam seemed to be having a lot of fun with it and definitely qualifies as his most uptempo number this season.

While this is not the kind of music I might personally be into, it was nice to see this side of Iam. Typically, I would criticize American Idol singers for affecting an accent when doing a song, but the Tongan-Samoan-American Iam sort of does sound like that with what is called in Hawai'i a "pidgin" accent.

6. Colin Stough- "Either Way"

Ok, I think this is the one where he looked like he was shaking too much. I also do not know this Chris Stapleton song. I think this was also slow and boring if I recall correctly. He should have saved Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man",which he performed at home for this, or done something more southern rockish.

I will say that unless they are really good at pretending on television, but it does seem like Iam and Colin have become good friends on the show.

Round Two Rankings:

3. Colin Stough

2. Iam Tongi

1. Megan Danielle

Then, it was time for the first elimination. Combining the scores and breaking the tie, on the virtue of her singing Journey, I give the top slot to Megan Danielle over Iam Tongi. Colin Stough should be eliminated at this point.

However, I fully expected Megan Danielle to be the first one to go, hoping I could perhaps be mistaken on this prediction.

Who was eliminated in third place: Colin Stough

Well, how about that? It feels a bit like the 2022 midterms in a way. I was pretty sure the "country vote" would be split enough at this point to eliminate over Colin or Megan but the girl actually beat the guy. This was indeed a surprise for me, but I am glad it happened. I am not sure how else to explain it. Both of them have tattoos.

So, while I would prefer We Ani or Kaeyra was still around, I cannot complain too much about the Final 2 coming down to Megan and Iam. Tradition would favor a white country singer over an Asian-American male, but Iam has been a heavy favorite from the get-go.

I will not get into all the celebrity duets with the other Finalists at this point except to point out that Zachariah Smith actually played guitar on his duet with an unfortunate sounding Kevin Cronin on a great REO Speedwagon song. Had Zachariah actually played guitar, he might have gone to the Finale as a contestant.

At this point, after a lot of filler, the remaining two would take the stage with the original artists of the songs they had just happened to audition with. Had Colin made it, he would have done a different song with judge Luke Bryan. I also noted that they aired his "imitation tribute" from the other contestants just before Colin got cut. The ones for Megan and Iam were clearly going to air later.  That arose suspicion on my part when that happened.

 

I hope Colin finds success in the music business. Surely, Luke Bryan can find a way to help him in that regard.

7. Iam Tongi- "Monsters"

Well, if there was any doubt he was going to win before now...

This is the song that he auditioned with and went viral with. Dueting with James Blunt on this song about sons saying goodbye to their fathers in their final days, this clearly struck an emotional impact on just about everyone in the studio.

Jelly Roll, some crazy Haystacks Calhoun looking country performer whom I was worried would give me nightmares, had found a seat next to Iam's mother and he was in tears.

Iam sounded good on this performance. James Blunt is always a bit too intense for my liking. However, Iam was definitely breaking down and struggling to get through this very emotional moment

8. Megan Danielle- "Thank God I Do"

My research just informed me that Megan was on "The Voice" in 2020 and selected by Kelly Clarkson before being eliminated somewhere between sixth and ninth place. I have no ability to remember much of what happens on that NBC Show.

Anyways, Lauren Daigle began singing one song on her own, and then Megan joined her to duet on this number, which was the second one for Megan tonight with the word "G-d" in the title. (The third song being "Faithfully.)

I thought it was weird during Megan's audition that Ms. Daigle (who was cut on American Idol before even making it to the semi-finals) had interrupted Megan's audition before the judges to surprise her and sing along with her on this song. Nothing like that had never been done before and it seems blatantly unfair to the contestant at some level. Megan had to have been aware.

Anyway, they had surely rehearsed this time and it was good. I do not remember much else. Iam singing "Monsters" while fighting the urge to weep was more memorable. I am sure that went just as intended for the Idol Powers That Be.

This, I give this round to Iam Tongi.

To close out the night, the contestants would perform their "winner singles" which have been recorded and they will be expected to perform on shows like "Kelly and Whomever Her Current Co-Host/Husband is Named" and also will be aired on the radio.

I learned today that these songs were actually written by some recent former Idol non-winners.

9. Megan Danielle- "Dream Girl"

This song was co-written by country singer Lacy Kaye Booth and it did not really seem like a "hit." Megan has a great voice and for her this was the most uptempo song for her thus far. She needed to do something like that earlier. This particular song almost felt like it had a disco back-beat. It did not play to Megan's strengths.

10. Iam Tongi- "I'll Be Seeing You"

This song definitely played up to Iam's strengths. I can envision it on the radio and to complete a theme, the lyrics relate to his feelings towards his deceased father.

It was co-written by Francisco Martin, whom I thought was someone with a lot of promise when he went fairly far in the ill-fated Idol "Sing From Home" Covid season. Francisco apparently also wrote the song that Colin would have performed called "I Still Talk To Jesus." I do not really know what that would have sounded like, but it is a nice story that Francisco, an Asian-American musician, got to play a part in the victory of fellow Asian-American singer Iam.

Needless to say, Iam sang it well. There seemed to be a clear agenda though in regards to whom was expected to win at this point

I gave this round to Iam Tongi over Megan Danielle

 

Going into the week, I would have expected to prefer Megan over Iam, and in Round 2 I did, but all production manipulations aside, once they got to the Final Two, I had to call it as I heard it.

 

Iam Tongi over Megan Danielle

 

Predicted Idol Winner: Iam Tongi

The 21st Idol Winner:  Iam Tongi

Seacrest wasted no time in announcing the winner. Nobody in the building seemed remotely surprised. Interestingly enough, Iam then sang a different song (which he had done earlier in the season) instead of the Coronation Song, which he had literally performed about seven minutes earlier. Still,that was something that never happened before after Idol crowned a champion. In his generous spirit, Iam put the microphone in the faces of his fellow Finalists so they could sing too. For some reason, he has always been trying to get people to say something into his microphone, even though they are already mic'ed up.

With this win, Iam becomes the the first Asian-American Idol winner (which should have been Jessica Sanchez) and the first non-white male winner since Ruben Studdard twenty years prior.  Of course, one has to put aside the trivial anecdotes that Scotty McCreery was a quarter Puerto Rican and Laine Hardy has an Asian mom. They were basically viewed as "white."

Also, I have just learned that Iam is a member of the LDS faith. The first winner in Idol history, even though that should have been David Archuleta, who might no longer be active in that particular church, and once again just finished second place on a Fox singing show. Of course, Mitt Romney should have won something too.

 

Ruben was very large back in those days (though not quite the size of Iam) and is now significantly lighter. (Clay Aiken is not as skinny as he once was.) They both sang Don Quixote or something like that on the show. Iam and Megan also appeared with microphones towards the end of that number but I do not think they actually sang anything. In all seriousness, I hope Iam has people on his team and in his life that will look out for his health, both physical and mental. He will already quickly be off on a publicity tour that would be taxing on just about anyone.  I hope he returns to the Idol stage next year having started to lose weight. Clearly, this is not a matter of him just eating too much, but something genetic.

Megan and Iam both should be saluted for very good runs on American Idol. I think Megan definitely has the potential to make it big in country with her distinctive voice and story-telling ability.

Iam is also a very talented story-teller and someone with a great tone. Still, his victory is owed mostly to personal affection that people have for him, which includes a lot of sympathy for what he has been through as well as the novelty of his size coupled with his kind spirit and gentle nature. Time will tell how he might fare on the charts now that his Idol season is ending.

I had expected that Colin might wind up beating Iam and there would be surprise and backlash I think that would have happened for whomever would have beaten Iam. I was a bit surprised to read some hot takes online today from people who think the show was "rigged" for Iam  (maybe to a point but not "stolen') and that Megan or Colin should have been the rightful winner.

The bottom line is that people gravitated towards Iam and liked watching him from the moment he first appeared on television. While he happens to  be a very good singer as well, that personal bond is what "American Idol" has basically always been about.

Mahalo, Iam.