American Idol- Season 24 Finale

Time flies these days. It seems like the latest season of American Idol just began, but it is not already over. In the old days, when the show was a much bigger event, the Finale would always be the week before Memorial Day Weekend. They just start the actual competition later these days and eliminate multiple people at once. The days of the farewell video package and teary sing-off and interview with Seacrest are long gone. 

 

As usual, I enjoyed following this season of American Idol, but find writing about it to be a chore. Mostly because, I have not been able to "live blog" it but have to rely on memory. This past week, I watched the three hour episode as it unfolded and did my rankings and predictions at the time, but certainly did not have time to write down my thoughts online. So, I have waited until Saturday, where I fear there is just not all that much to say. Every week, I likely forget to include points I wanted to make.

 

One thought I did had was how it was interesting that the Finals began with so many more males than females, thus making it seem likely that the winner would be a guy, For the Final Three though, females finally outnumbered the males though. I also think this is probably the first time that at least two members of the Final Three were parents.

 

1. "The Champion"

 

The evening formally began with all three of the contestants singing a song by judge Carrie Underwood. Since they all had brief solos, I had to rank them, though nobody else will bother. I really do not remember much about this. They all sounded just fine and perhaps based on personal preference at this point, I judged it as I would have expected.

 

3. Hannah Harper

2. Keyla Richardson

1. Jordan McCullough

 

Next,  it was time for "global superstar" and former coach on "The Voice" Alicia Keys to mentor the kids and have them sing her songs. Keys hereself would also sing twice on the evening, as there were of course the usual guest performances of duets and group numbers with the previously eliminated Finalists.

 

2. Hannah Harper- "No One"

 

This is one of the two Alicia Keys songs I have always really liked, but for whatever reason get mixed up in my head with the other one, where I cannot place what the other one is. We will have to see if that one gets done this round also.

 

Hannah did a fine job. She dedicated this to her husband, (whom has a different last name) and who I have since read quit his job in order to stay home and take care of the kids, while his wife pursues her long-standing musical dreams that apparently she had set aside when she started having kids. All that is very admirable, but a large sector of the conservative Idol fanbase might have some mixed feelings. Hannah definitely needs those sort of voters to win. I was a bit surprised that the three boys, who are usually sitting in the audience with large headphones on were back home in Missouri and not in the Hollywood studio alongside the overalls wearing grandpa. Hannah's mother was also there along with a woman I assume was her grandmother. So, it would have been cool if four generations of her family were there for the moment. 

 

Anyways, Hannah was good. She can successfully adapt her voice to suit all sorts of songs but never ventures too far from what she specializes in. That is very reminiscent of what past winner Scotty McCreery was able to pull off. 

 

3. Keyla Richardson- "Un-thinkable" (I'm Ready)"

 

This is a song I do not know. Thus, it makes it all harder to remember days later. I know that Keyla did her thing though and more than pulled it off. She took Alice Keys' advice and incorporated some sort of call and response into the performance. 

That's about all I got for this one. Keyla's son Drew was definitely present for the Finale. I expect he believes he will be a contestant himself in a few years when he is old enough, or perhaps will just take over for Seacrest as host.

 

4. Jordan McCullough-"If I Ain't Got You"

 

Yes, this is the other song by Alicia Keys that I like (Face it, "Fallin' is boring), and probably even more than the other one. I have to find a way to remember that "If I Ain't Got You"  and "No One" are different songs.

 

Jordan did what he always does and went all in on the performance and his vocals were superb. I do not think you can say that he had one performance on the Idol stage that would even be considered merely "above average." He is just an incredibly talented singer, that will probably never again be as famous as he has been for the past couple of months. That is sort of a sad thing.

 

So for this round, as I would have expected:

 

3. Hannah Harper

2. Keyla Richardson

1. Jordan McCullough

 

One more round before a "snapshot of the vote" would be released and the person in third place would be eliminated. Now, I do not think it was explained, and I think it is pretty important, if the vote starts fresh after that for only the Top Two or if all the votes from the first two official rounds carry over to the end. That sort of thing definitely might affect the outcome. Politically speaking, is it more of a jungle primary or a runoff?

As is tradition, the Finale participants got a "hometown visit" although it seems the video packages are much shorter than they used to be. 

 

5. Hannah Harper- "Married Into This Town"

 

So, the performance order will remain the same. Jordan will apparently keep having the final performance.

 

This was a song that Hannah had written herself  and I thought it was pretty impressive in that regard. While she has said she grew up in Missouri (when not traveling with her Bluegrass performing family) it seems like she was not a native of Willow Springs, and moved there because of her husband.

 

Playing guitar for this performance, Hannah is always at her strongest at this kind of country music. The genre definitely has a lot of fans, but it is also true that the genre has a ton of young blonde women who sing it.

 

6. Keyla Richardson- "I Love The Lord"

 

Returning to Pensacola, Florida or as it is now being called "Pensakeyla" (as a young child, I always though it was "Pepsicola"), Keyla was shown meeting with some of her former students, at what looked like a private school, and of course,  spending a lot of time with her son back home. You can definitely say that all three of the Finalists are from very Republican parts of America, although Keyla is probably the last likely to vote that way.

 

Taking on a gospel song is a definite tactic to play for the religious Christian vote . The first night of the Finals featured a whole lot of these songs, but then the competition did feel less secular in the weeks that followed.  

 

As would be expected, Keyla sang it very well. It was probably technically perfect as far as those things go. It seems like she would be sticking solely with ballads though for the Finale. I wonder if she would have gotten more votes if she did something by Beyonce for instance.

 

7. Jordan McCullough-"Dear God"

 
Another religious ballad here as Jordan is trying to appeal to the same voters as Keyla, even though many of them are probably sticking solidly with Hannah anyway. We know that Jordan is a worship leader, so this sort of music must feel like second nature to him. I did notice though from the video package that the church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee that the biracial Jordan works out seems to be a racially mixed but perhaps mostly white megachurch type place. I wonder if some African-American churchgoing fans of his might have taken notice and were perhaps disappointed.

 

To continue a theme, Jordan sang this just as expected. He was great. There is no way he could actually not win the title, right?

 

Round Two Rankings, same as before:

 

3. Hannah Harper

2. Keyla Richardson

1. Jordan McCullough

 

Next, and I do not really even remember this that well from Monday, the Final Three sang "Lovin' U" alongside its artist Alicia Keys. They all did just fine. We have an extremely talented Final Three. Nobody else will have ranked them, but of course I did, and had it:

 

3. Hannah Harper

2. Keyla Richardson

1. Jordan McCullough

 

Who should have finished in third place: Hannah Harper

Who I predicted would finish in third place: Keyla Richardson

Who finished in third place: Keyla Richardson

 

All of this is course what I expected to happen a week prior, if not before.Keyla and Jordan were splitting the votes of black Idol fans. There had never been a Final Two composed of two African-Americans. Also, it has been a very long time since the Final Two were both women, and those rare occasions only seemed to happen on seasons where the all the guys were considered complete afterthoughts. So, in many ways, this result was completely expected and as good as Keyla was on the night and has been all season, there is nothing she could have done about it. She had all sorts of buzz coming out of the Hawai'i episodes and many people were probably surprised that Jordan would go on to be as great in the competition as he was, and overtake her. Somehow though, I think a lot of casual Idol viewers were likely surprised here.

 

The next hour of the show was devoted to celebrity appearance and other filler. Did we really need to have Luke Bryan sing one of his horrible bro country tunes again so soon?  I did like seeing Carrie Underwood with Motley Crue doing "Home Sweet Home" and "Kickstart My Heart", (a pretty cool goal song choice for the barely still alive Buffalo Sabres.) Vince Neil is nowhere remotely close to the vocalist he once was but at least he made an effort to sing every word he was assigned.

 

Some of the other performances, including eliminated contestants, were pretty bad,and let's just leave it at that.  Since Keyla was gone, there is no reason to comment upon her duet with Jason Mraz, but she did just fine.

 

As for Hannah and Jordan, what remained was their celebrity collaboration and then a reprisal of a performance from earlier in the season. That means, I think perhaps for the first time ever, no round of "Winners Song" or what their first single is. I have no idea if these contestants even have such an entry out there in the post-Idol musical world at this point now.

 

8. Hannah Harper- "I Hope You Dance"

 

Just about everyone watching Idol knows this song, for better or worse, and Hannah dueted with its singer Lee Ann Womack (not to be confused with Jo Dee Messina who "surprised" Hannah at her hometown visit.)

 

This was made for television goodness. Hannah did her thing and meshed nicely with the more seasoned country star. The Idol Finalist may not be blowing anyone away with her vocal range, but she was certainly having a strong and steady night.

 

9. Jordan McCullough- "Control" and "Confetti"

 

This pairing made a little less sense. Tori Kelly is a big star (though I do not think I would be able to name one song) but part of that lore is that she as a teenager was cut on Idol in Hollywood Week and never even made the Top 24. On another note, I learned that the Canadian dude who did backflips on stage and got cut fairly early a couple years ago is now some sort of star and performed a cringy duet on Monday with Brooks. 

 

Jordan sounded just fine of course on what apparently a medley of two Tori Kelly songs. He was also joined though by the talented Daniel Stallworth, who was cut a few weeks ago, and who made it a musical trio. Everything involved here worked just fine, but it did not really leave much of a chance for Jordan to shine.

 

I have to be consistent and rank this "round" though, even though nobody else would. I also have to keep it real. To my surprise, I had it Hannah over Jordan.

 

At this point, knowing they only had one song left, I was really hoping I could give a clear win to Jordan because I had wanted him to win. I was also very curious if Hannah's votes from the beginning of the night, when she was perhaps a good deal ahead of a split Jordan/Keyla vote was carrying over. I had been counting on Keyla voters, perhaps upset at the outrage of her losing to Hannah, would then switch over en masse to Jordan, but perhaps that was not in play as much as I first assumed.

 

10. Hannah Harper- "String Cheese"

 

I do occasionally enjoy some string cheese, although I think I was at least a teenager the first time I ever had any. I like the Colby Jack types you can bite off a bit at a time without the strings even more.

 

This was the second original song Hannah performed. Perhaps voters were giving her credit for leaning into her songwriting talents and originality. Hannah had auditioned in Nashville with this song and it went "viral" as apparently all sorts of young mothers had an emotional reaction. (Carrie Underwood also cried and gushed about how "relatable" it was.) Frankly, I got that sentiment more hearing the song in full than I did previously. Hannah sang about feeling insecure in her life, as someone in her 20s, about the overwhelming responsibility of being a mother, but how she knew she was fulfilling her destiny and purpose by being a parent by something so mundane as helping her son open his string cheese. (Yes, those packages can be a bitch!)

 

Hannah sang it really well and I get how women with young children can have an emotional reaction. In Idol history, that sort of thing for a female contestant appealing to women in such a way, may be unheard of, and thus extremely smart. As mentioned, I also totally relate in how it feels, even at my age, to need help sometimes in getting the plastic of those freakin' cheese things. Sometimes, I have to get a scissors.

 

11. Jordan McCullough- "Goodness Of God"

 

Throughout the entire season, as great as he has been, Jordan has done mostly ballads and has leaned into the spiritually aspect. He clearly sees himself doing religious music for his career. This was another trip to the well for the Finale in order to try to appeal to the Evangelical group. It was even the second song to have the word G-d in the title.

 

Jordan sounded great when he sang this on the Idol stage weeks ago and he sang it great again on Monday. I would have rather have heard him do something new or perhaps another repeat performance but you cannot in anyway diminish his talent as a vocalist. If you take degree of difficulty into account, this was definitely harder to sing than "String Cheese."

 

Final Round: Jordan over Hannah

 

Who should have won American Idol: Jordan McCullough

Who I was predicting would win American Idol: Jordan McCullough

 

I will say though being the political savant I was, the doubts of my prediction were definitely creeping in. This was not going to be any sort of slam dunk.

 

Who won American Idol: Hannah Harper

 

There you have it. It is not exactly easy to analyze but I think women this season related to Hannah, who is quite pretty, but mostly due to her maternal identity more than Jordan, whom they might have liked personally, but were perhaps not overly attracted to.

This season, Idol held all its auditions and "Hollywood Week" in the State of Tennessee, but Jordan fell short of being the first ever Idol winner to represent that musical mecca. Hannah would join David Cook to become the second Idol winner from Missouri (although he had been living elsewhere by the time he auditioned.) 

Last year, I was pleasantly surprised when the more talented African-American singer prevailed over the white country dude. This year, the racial roles at least were reversed. I will note though that both Jamal Roberts and Hannah Harper are parents of young children (three to be exact in both cases) and that might have contributed to the voting habits of some. It seemed subtly obvious last year that Jamal was not married while Hannah, who got married quite young, had her husband present each week. She definitely appeared to the more traditional minded viewers while Jordan had some distinct differences from what might be considered an ideal black male gospel singer for those who wanted to back such a contender. Whether it was intentional or not, you have to admit that Hannah had a good strategy as a female to win a show where females used to really struggle to win.

 

It is hard to tell if Jordan was surprised or not by the final result.He was very gracious, but then was seen in a long huge with Daniel Stallworth in the wings while Hannah attempted to sing "At The Cross (Love Ran Wed)" in her winning women, as if Jordan was maybe crying. Soon enough though, other contestants, judges, and family members surrounded Hannah on stage. I did not see Keyla out there though. Maybe I missed her, but I did try to look, and that seemed notable. The emotional impact of the Idol "winning moment" is not as intense as it used to be. Perhaps, because the seasons are truncated.

 

Jordan will likely have a decent career in music if he wants one in Gospel, and hopefully Keyla will taste success post-Idol as well. 

Time will tell if the latest winner, Hannah,will go on to mainstream country success, or if he will be on the Bluegrass circuit before too long. Hopefully, she will get that tour bus she has been dreaming of, in order to keep her family together on the road, similar to how she and her siblings grew up. She also ought to try to get an endorsement from a string cheese company.