American Idol’s legion of fans has a new idol to embrace.
David Cook, the scruffy bearded, raspy-voiced 25-year-old from Blue Springs, Missouri, was crowned the latest American Idol Wednesday, in a surprise result at the year-old, 7,000-seat Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.
The result came as a surprise to many observers and onlookers after Idol judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell all but handed the title Tuesday to Cook’s rival and finalist in the competition, 17-year-old David Archuleta.
The fans who vote for Idol saw it differently however, and the vote tally swung in Cook’s favour, possibly because of his maturity and old-soul rocker vibe. Some reviewers also suspected a backlash among voters against the judges’ comments, which seemed to unfairly favour Archuleta.
A record 97 million votes were cast overall, 23 million more than American Idol’s previous high. In the end, Cook won by a relatively wide margin, 56% to 44%, or 12 million votes.
Idol host Ryan Seacrest seemed genuinely startled as he read the results, shortly before the scheduled end of the two-hour live broadcast.
Cook smiled, put his arm around Archuleta and gave him a consoling squeeze. Archuleta was gracious in defeat, and seemed genuinely pleased that Cook won.
Ironically, although Archuleta was the younger competitor, Cook’s song choices reflected a more contemporary sound. Cook’s song choices ranged from ‘90s Our Lady Peace and Collective Soul to Aerosmith and U2, while Archuleta stayed within his comfort zone of ballads, including Phil Collins, Elton John and John Lennon.
Cook made good use of a new wrinkle in American Idol’s rules this year: the allowing of musical instruments. Cook performed many of his songs while playing acoustic and electric guitar. Musical instruments have been a regular fixture for several seasons now on Canadian Idol.
Ironically, Cook never intended to audition for Idol. He accompanied his younger brother Andrew to an audition in Omaha, Neb. and was talked into applying himself. He performed Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”, and was vaulted through to the next round. At the Hollywood auditions, Cook performed Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be.”
He caught the judges’ attention and became a serious contender after he performed Chris Cornell’s arrangement of the Michael Jackson standard Billie Jean, in a performance program in March.
Cook then went on to perform songs by The Who (“Baba O’Riley”), Switchfoot (“Dare You To Move”) and Emily Shackleton (“What I’m Looking For”).
Cook is not entirely new to the music scene. He formed a garage band, Axium, in 1999, and was its for six years. One of the band’s songs was picked up by the AMC Theatres movie chain in the U.S. and played on more than 20,000 screens during trailer previews.
On his official bio on AmericanIdol.com, Cook said his toughest obstacle in life is “being confident enough in myself to chase this whole music thing.”
This “whole music thing” looked pretty good Wednesday.
