Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Unexpected Idol

By SHARON FINK
Published May 25, 2006

From past seasons: Some successes, some fadeouts

When the American Idol format was conceived, you can bet that the ideal-winner profiles did not include "gray-haired, 29-year-old blue-eyed soul singer.''

What do the profilers know?

Taylor Hicks, a gray-haired, 29-year-old blue-eyed soul singer from Birmingham, Ala., was named the fifth winner of American Idol on Wednesday over Katharine McPhee, a big-voiced, 21-year-old classic beauty from Los Angeles.

Hicks received the majority of what host Ryan Seacrest said were 63.4-million viewer votes cast after the finalists performed on Tuesday's show.

"I'm living the American dream," Hicks shouted while singing the song that will be his first single, Do I Make You Proud, after being announced the winner.

In the most closely contested, popular and unpredictable Idol season yet - they got Prince to perform on Wednesday's finale - fan buzz had Hicks and McPhee running neck and neck going into their final performances. But after each sang three songs Tuesday -- two of their favorites from previous shows and what will be their first single -- Hicks emerged as a heavy favorite.

He was better than McPhee on two of the three songs, and after his final performance, judge Simon Cowell said he would be the winner.

Hicks is the second man to win Idol and the first to win in Idol's three male-female finals. He's also the second winner from Birmingham; the other is the other male winner, Ruben Studdard.

Hicks' win is possibly the most impressive because this has been Idol's highest-rated season, which translates to its biggest voting pool.

Each of Idol's two weekly shows has grown to average about 30-million viewers apiece. The Tuesday episode, on which the contestants perform, is TV's No. 1 show, and Wednesday's, on which the voting results are announced, is No. 2. That growth is almost unheard of for any kind of TV show in its fifth season.

Fueling Idol's rise has been its ability to appeal to all generations, from great-grandparents to 5-year-olds. It has become a show that whole families watch together -- or apart, and then call each other as soon as it's over, or when they're done voting, to snark, or gush, about what happened.

Idol has become such a phenomenon that it's on the short list of subjects that can be brought up in awkward social situations sorely needing a universal discussion topic. But it ignites such passion that it also could be grouped with politics and religion as potentially controversial subjects to avoid.

Idol will be back in January for a sixth season, and it couldn't get a better setup than this one for even bigger interest.

Did we mention that Prince -- famous for bucking the music industry system -- performed live Wednesday?

This season had the most raw talent in the final 12 contestants, which included Melissa McGhee of Tampa (voted off first, and brought back for two group sings Wednesday), and the best personalities, which created the tightest competition.

This season also was the most unpredictable.

Mandisa, another big-voiced singer considered to be among the favorites, was shockingly voted off in the fourth week, and Chris Daughtry, a strong favorite to win, was sent home after making the final four.

This also was the first season to not have a major voting controversy.

Past seasons have generated at least one week when the results prompted fans to propose that the show manipulates vote totals because it wants certain people to do well (which the show always denies) and-or complain about the system of voting by only telephone and text messaging.

In a first, Idol brought on stage at the end of the finale a representative of the company that it says monitors the voting, Internet service company Telescope Inc. of Los Angeles, to say that he had counted and validated the voting results.

[Last modified May 25, 2006, 06:32:20]