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Idol Scoreboard - Final 2
I can't believe Idol is almost over for another season. I remember this time last year, I was going into premature mourning and trying to prepare myself for the many months of Idol-less existence. This year? Yeah, not so much. Still, I have watched it religiously, week by week, and spent countless hours on various message boards and downloading clips. And, I'm happy to say that the Anthony/Casey showdown was more enjoyable than the Guy/Shannon showdown. Am I deluding myself? Oh well, I like my happy place. In fact, I'm feeling so generous, that here's a blow-by-blow of the final two competition night.

ANTHONY
Listen with your heart: Smooth, competent, nice glory notes, typical Diane Warren mush. She normally writes better for females, but Anthony sang it really well. What does that say about him? Hmmmmm... he is a good emoter of power ballads. There you go.

Walking away: Yay for Craig David. The stool made him look taller. Then he stood up. Woops. Bad move. He was almost dwarfed by the microphone stand. But I digress... I like this song, and was happily grooving along to the funkified R&B (did you hear the bass line? Niiiice...) In fact, I was disappointed when it finished. Seems Anthony is in my good books tonight.

Glory of love: I cringed when I first read on the message boards that he was doing this song and I cringed again when they announced it in the show. Let's just say it's not my most favouritest song in the world. Still... I didn't mind it tonight. I made the comment to my bro as we watched it that it looked like he was singing his guts out. Good on 'im.

CASEY
Take me as I am: The song started well, and kept getting better and better. If I was Mark Holden on a normal week, I think I would have given her a touchdown. Noone does defiant teen like... a defiant teen. For probably the first time, I didn't mind her belting. I was thinking at this stage, "Yeah! The competition's on! Alright!" Song of the night.

Hello: I'm not really on the Evanesence bandwagon, and after 10 secs, was bored. After 2 mins? Still bored. I knew the judges would have absolutely drooled over it and gushed about how she connects with the lyrics, yada yada yada. I just wanted to be able to hear the lyrics instead of indiscernable mumbles. Happy factor taken down a notch at this point.

Listen with your heart: After the forgotten lyrics on the 2nd line, it just went downhill from there. I really felt sorry for her. It seemed she lost all confidence, so her pitch was shaky and she didn't project any energy or emotion.

VERDICT
Well, my bro voted 20 times for Anthony on my phone. What does that tell you? Okay, it tells you that my bro really wants Anthony to win and I have a $500 talk cap on my phone. But in all seriousness, I'm concerned that Casey is going into the Opera House as the underdog and as such will have lots of sympathy voters and fans wearing their fingers down to make sure she wins. There's a chance Anthony will suffer from the "he did well, everyone else will vote for him so I don't have to" syndrome. From my perspective, Anthony is more Idol material than Casey, in that Idols aren't expected to have musical credibility anyway. Is that harsh? Hmmm...

I think Anthony needs to grow as a musician and Casey needs to grow as a technical singer (including remembering her words). Still, I'm predicting an Anthony win. You heard it here first. If I'm wrong... oh well, life goes on and in my perfect little world, Chanel is already a platinum selling singer/songwriter.