It’s IDOL 5 finale night, also known as Taylor’s Fait D’accompli, or The Coronation of King Taylor, or The Anticlimax. Like there was ever any doubt that Taylor was going to win last night. . .

I’m just going to bullet point my way through a bunch of random observations of the night, and you can all add to it in the comments below. Here we go:

* Carrie Underwood is an amazing Idol. One year later, she looks, acts, and sounds like a seasoned professional. Her voice is better than ever, and she’s singing songs that are perfect for her voice. Looks like we got it right last year.

* Where was Bo last night? Sick in the hospital again?

* Heck, where were Rueben and Fantasia?

* I laughed earlier in the week when I saw Kelly Clarkson say she couldn’t make it because she has a concert performance that night. Right, like THAT’S the reason why she doesn’t want to return to IDOL. Yes, I know she doesn’t want to be only associated with IDOL, but she’s looking a little ungrateful for shutting them out so much. She should come back for finale night, at the least.

* Ben Stiller sat next to Heather Locklear in the crowd. I can only imagine what the gossip rags are making of that this morning.

* Oooh, David Hasslehoff’s hair is particularly weird-looking. And blondish.

* The opening video montages of the judges were funny. They needed to work to find enough clips of Simon, but Randy has enough “Randy-isms” to fill a seven minute song montage.

* I’m embarrassed to admit that I had forgotten Melissa McGhee’s name when I first saw her up on the stage. Whoops. Is eleven weeks really that long?

* Boobies! Melissa tried to flash them, but Katharine had her beat. Katharine was just trying to live up to her mother’s examples, though.

* Yes, Mrs. McPhee is a Stage Mom Wannabe of the highest order. I saw her being interviewed on the Red Carpet, and she’s obviously plotting her daughter’s show biz career. She’s likely the next Mrs. Lohan. Poor Kat.

* I thought the “Puck and Pickler” segments were funny, particularly the second one where they had no script and the lobsters came out. I would have had much the same reaction to them.

* I was disappointed when Dave Hoover won the Golden Idol for Best Male Vocalist and Meat Loaf didn’t accept the award on his behalf. They had just finished showing video of him butchering “Bat Out Of Hell,” after all. ::sigh::

* Katharine was awesome with Meat Loaf. She fit the role perfectly. It didn’t dawn on me before, but that might be the type of music she’s perfect for — rock-oriented and theatrical. I’m sure Meat Loaf will stick with Patti Russo on whatever upcoming tour he does, but she’d be a fine second female vocalist to back him up. (His daughter doesn’t tour with him anymore in that position, so the slot’s open.)

* For my previous commentaries on Meat Loaf’s voice these days, read this and then this.

* And legal wranglings may prevent the next release from being named “Bat Out Of Hell 3.” Stay tuned. . .

* You could see the teleprompter scrolling lyrics all night long. With the competition over, I guess they don’t mind helping the contestants out too much. I didn’t see too many of them standing still and reading off them, though. . .

* Mary J. Blige wanted nothing to do with Elliott. She was there to promote herself. I was a little disgusted at how Elliott was shoved to one side of the stage while that glory hog took the spotlight all to herself, only to let Elliott come in as a backup harmonizer for her in the last 30 seconds. I was surprised she let him come that close. Elliott deserved better than that.

* What drugs was Toni Braxton on? Something was screwed up with her microphone, but she still stunk and looked completely out of it. Poor Taylor. I almost felt sorry for him when she forced him to cop a feel on her hip.

* I was surprised at how much singing Katharine did in the All Girls musical review number. Usually, the finalists get limited singing time there, since they carry the show with solos during the concert tour.

* That said, TAYLOR BROUGHT THE HARMONICA! How happy were we all? It meant he didn’t have to memorize a bunch of lyrics for the All Boys musical review, too, which sounded good.

* Chris Daughtry got all the biggest ovations. Hey, people, why don’t you try voting sometime, instead of whining about how messed up the competition was this year because You Didn’t Vote Enough?

* Wow, Chris looks like the evil twin brother of the singer from Live, doesn’t he? Scary. I’m surprised they didn’t do a Johnny Cash cover. heh heh heh

* There can be no doubt after last night — Clay Aiken is gay. Why would he stoop to doing a duet with that little creep, though? Thankfully, they shut off the kid’s mic after awhile. It was getting creepy.

* The Burt Bacharach Medley is almost an Idol standard at this point, isn’t it? He shows up every year. But, hey, he’s got a big enough catalog to pull that off. Kevin Covais and the girls were funny on “What’s New, Pussycat?” It’s about the closest to singing well he’s come in a long time. Lisa blew the roof off the place with the ALFIE theme song. She may have been voted off too soon this year, but she’ll land on Broadway, along with half the other AI contestants still pursuing music. She’s born for it. Poor Dionne couldn’t hit that glory note. She tried so hard, but it wasn’t there. Say what you will for Meat Loaf’s voice, but at least he knows enough to not attempt one of those notes.

* The Brokenote Cowboys actually sounded pretty good. They should form a band and model themselves after the Oak Ridge Boys. I could hear them singing “Elvira” any day now. . .

* Ohmigod, PRINCE! Well, I guess all those rumors from earlier in the season were only half true. It was a show stopper. No, really, it’s like all of the show’s momentum stopped just before the big grand anti-climactic finale, for Prince to perform.

* 63.4 million votes. They were getting 40 million in two hours, but could only get 63 million in four? I think that has a lot to do with people going to sleep at a decent hour. . .

* Katharine and Taylor sounded good on “Time Of My Life.”

* Taylor sounded great on his IDOL song. He knows how to work the stage, being able to thanks everyone in rapid succession before seamlessly working his way back into the melody.

* It’s normal at this point in the year to look back at my predictions for the Top 12 contestants and have a good laugh at how far off I was. I’m not going to do that this year. It’s too embarrassing. I think I got two or three right. It was bad.

* Thanks, everyone, for all your comments and enthusiasm over the past 15 weeks or so. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ll be back here to do it all again next year for AI6. This blog is not drying up and blowing away, though. It’s still being updated daily, even with IDOL isn’t around. Why, I’ll even link to Idol stories throughout the year as events warrant. So please stick around. Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 8:53 am and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.