People who care about this sort of thing are expressing surprise and shock that Kris Allen and not Adam Lambert won American Idol. I wish I could have placed a bet on the outcome, I would have put whatever I could scrounge up on Allen.

Last week, when Gokey was eliminated, they announced that out of 65 million votes cast, Allen and Lambert were less than a million votes apart. It seemed pretty clear that whomever managed to attract the Gokey vote would win.

And here’s the thing. Lambert is from California, his background is in touring companies of Broadway shows. While he’s been coy about his sexuality, he projects an androgynous image, especially in terms of the heavy make-up he constantly wears.

Allen is middle America, squeaky clean, married. And he’s done international missionary work for his church. Gokey is a church musical director. Clearly the majority of his supporters were going to fall in behind Allen.

It really doesn’t matter. Over the previous 7 seasons, only two winners seem to have gone on to lasting musical careers. And some of the biggest successes have come from contestants who didn’t win – does the name Jennifer Hudson ring a bell? Chris Daughtry?

So they’re both gonna have a further shot. They’ll both get to do records. How long either of them will stick around, will be remembered 5 years from now, that’s an open question.

Speaking of a star-studded show, if you didn’t watch the finale, the guests included Queen, Rod Stewart, KISS, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Martin, Black Eyed Peas, Jason Mraz, Queen Latifah, Keith Urban, Lionel Richie, Carlos Santana. Of course all of them (except, oddly, Stewart) appeared in duets with contestants. But the show moved along at a pretty zippy pace and had the veritable “something for everyone.”

I suspect that when all is said and done, the American Idol finale will be the highest rated regular series broadcast of the year and, if nothing else, nice that the highest rated show was a music show.

Hongkie Town
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