American Idol 2011 Finale
Well folks, I wonder how many of us American Idol fans would have selected Lauren Alaina, of Rossville, Ga. & Scotty McCreery,of Garner, N.C. as the finalists for 2011.
I certainly can’t say that I did. In fact, about a month or two ago I asked my husband who he liked and he said Scotty. Without a moments hesitation I replied, “Well he’s not going to win… he’s country.”
Now please don’t misinterpret that. Although Country Music is one of the top genres in America, it has never had top honors when push comes to shove even though I feel that it has gained in popularity over the last decade or so.
Of course I know that Carrie Underwood won the whole shabang, when she was a contestant, but at the time she was not clearly a Country artist. And certainly there have been American Idol contestants who have fared very well and were clearly country artists… Kelly Pickler for example… and how ’bout Bucky Covington?
My husband pointed out that Scotty arguably has the purest country voice of any American Idol contestant since the show began. He never tries to disguise it and has clearly let it show through no matter what genre he was required to sing in.
Lauren is another wonderful contestant who may choose country as her genre… but that may be something that she’ll have to ponder, as did Carrie Underwood and Danny Gokey.
As you may already know, this finale may be the youngest in American Idol history. If I’m not mistaken, Scotty is only 17 and Lauren is either 15 or 16, I’m not sure. I think she may have had a birthday since her American Idol audition. When I watch them I can hardly believe how talented they both are at such young ages.
One of my two daughters has liked Lauren from the start and had me listen to one of her performances on Youtube that she absolutely loved one week when I was unable to watch the show.
I was very impressed with that particular performance, however, I felt she let up the following week when she sang “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers. That is a song that could have pushed her over the top had she took the bull by the horns. But she clearly backed off (in my humble opinion) when the climax of the song presented itself to her.
As you may recall, she also found herself in the bottom two that week wondering whether it was she or Jacob Lusk who would be going home. Thankfully, she survived although Jacob was certainly a formidable contestant and could have easily been in this finale too!
As you can see… this contest is extremely close. Is it me, or is it much better this year?
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