Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Anyone who read my blogs from Tuesday night’s final performance show of American Idol knows I think Crystal Bowersox deserves to be named the show’s winner tonight. (Song-by-song grades here and recap here.)

As we await tonight’s finale, here’s some random Idol news ….

* Over at EW.com, Michael Slezak posts a morning-after recap following each Idol performance show. Today’s headline: “Crystal, clearly. Here’s the link.

* The Idol Tracker at the Los Angeles Times also reviewed last night’s performances, saying Crystal indisputedly reigned during Tuesday’s show.

* Vote for the Worst adopted Lee DeWyze as its poster child after last night’s show. The logic, in part: “If he wins Idol, America will be forced to hear his horrible rendition of “Beautiful Day” all over the radio and wouldn’t that be hilarious?” The site has also been counting down to the worst Idol finalist of all-time and announced Sanjaya Malakar as the winner in a blog posted today.

* Despite all that, some experts are predicting Lee will take the Idol crown, according to MTV. Quite frankly, I agree. Blame the teen texing fiends.

* Billboard.com reports that the performance show finale attracted 19.6 million viewers, down about 15 percent from a year ago. Yikes. It was still the best-watched show of the night.

* Billboard.com has also posted an interesting blog on 10 things you didn’t see on the show, including the fact that Lee seemed quite nervous even before Idol went on air.

* This morning, the folks at Idol were taping tribute pieces to Simon that will be aired tonight. Ryan Seacrest tweeted this link of he and Randy Jackson preparing to tape their segment.

* Here’s my own Simon tribute, a compilation of some of his meanest comments from the last three years, plus a video of comments he made during his early days on the show.

* Lots of past Idol contestants — usually finalists — turn out for the season finale. Guess who else will be there? That’s right: Bikini Girl just tweeted that she plans to attend. Here’s guessing we won’t have a repeat of last year’s Kara DioGuardi bikini flash.

* I’d already posted that Carrie Underwood will be performing on tonight’s show. Now it appears at least two other winners will be as well. Kelly Clarkson has posted a notice on her Facebook page that she and Fantasia will sing “Together We Are One” as a farewell tribute to Simon.

* Bo Bice also intends to be on hand tonight. No word on whether he’ll perform. If you missed it, he released his latest album, “3,” this week. In a MySpace blog, he says he thinks it’s important for Idol finalists to stick together “because they’re part of an exclusive club now.”

* I understand the video cut out for many York area viewers watching Idol last night so that they could only hear Crystal Bowersox’s performance of “Up to the Mountain.” If so, you missed a magical moment. If so, here’s the video clip of that performance.

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