I have to disagree on Kat. I really liked her in the beginning, but she started to fade in the middle and through to the end. She had a couple of great and shining moments, however...there are way too many of her songs that I remember the notes being WAY flat or WAY sharp and actually cringing at the sound of them. I can honestly say, I never felt that way once towards Taylor.

Mere, good luck with the Cochlear implants. ;-)

McPhee singing circles around Hicks my lilly white a**. She is an average to above average singer with great breasts. Not that such a combination cannot take her a long way, since it has taken about half of the female artists out there where they are, after all.

She butchered her own debut single! It was not just that the song was poor (it was), but she couldn't sing it!

Her creepy fixed smile no matter what she is singing about gets on the nerves. Once she learns to wipe that thing off her face when the song calls for it, she will do just fine on Broadway, which is where she belongs.

Don't delude YOURSELF. If she doesn't get the votes, McPhee will no more be the American Idol than my Aunt Fanny (and, yes, I actually had an aunt named Fanny, though she died many years ago).

Time will tell how well Hicks translates to the popular audience, but at least a Joe Cocker/Michael McDonald sound is something which has sold millions of albumns through the years. Broadway singers (and that is what McPhee is) do just fine among the wine and cheese crowd but not so well otherwise.

Your piece has an obvious "whistling past the graveyard" quality to it, as if you already suspect that McPhee has lost it.

My wife and I have voted 100% for Taylor this year. We are looking forward to buying his album and making him very, very wealthy at the same time

The Dude rocks

Wow, I'm so gonna love when Taylor Hicks proves you and all the other people who "just don't get him" wrong!

I agree with Mere. Kat's singing was often, as Randy would put it, "pitchy." Perhaps Paul needs the hearing aids. (And if that's the best retort you can come up with, Paul, then that is pretty weak.)

Taylor, on the other hand, doesn't have much of a range, but then again, neither do a lot of popular artists out there. Give him some good material to work with, and he'll do OK.

I'm not really that enamored of either finalist this time around, and I have serious doubts that either of them will be able to create and sustain any sort of long-term recording career, let alone win multiple Grammies. I just don't think either one of them has what it takes.

Taylor is a hit because he's ordinary. People can relate to him and like him because he's so darn lucky to have made it this far, although he's clearly not such a remarkable talent. Sure he's likable. But only as far as people still talk about AI season 5. Beyond that, he'll do good on small acts. I would vote for him even if he's not pretty if katharine didn't happen to be the opposite of ordinary talent. I mean cmon', the girl is pure talent. Haters hate her because she's someone most of us can never be. How enviable is that? It sure can cause so much angst over the viewing public (sigh!).And that's why Taylor MIGHT win it all

Taylor is the man. I've just listened to his "Georgia" rendition and it's awesome, the guy can actually play the guitar.

>Taylor is the man. I've just listened to his "Georgia" rendition and it's awesome

Heh- I stood 150 feet from Ray Charles as he sang that live.

Taylor couldn't even sing backup.

OK I'll once again give my AI conspiracy and you tell me if it's right. AI could NOT have a rocker win so they ousted the best singer in the competition early on. You may remember Chris never sang his farewell song that night because earlier on, Taylor sang an extra song. AI needed a white male to win because no white males have won thus far, so they "somewhat rigged", or "tweeked" the finale to ensure Taylor's success. Here's some proof in the last 48 hours.
1: Simon was asked on Monday who the winner might be. Usually his response would've been "it's up to America.", but he didn't. He said "Taylor Hicks will win."
2: The one song Katharine sang best (Somewhere over the rainbow) was the best vocal this season, if not the most memorable in any AI season. But they somehow FORGOT to send the pitch feed through her ear peice on such a critical show?
3: Katharine's final song was a clear loser of a song. Taylor's song however was (pardon the pun) Taylor made. Katharine's song wasn't even in her pitch. She has a Hell of a range, but that song didn't highlight any of it.
4: That dress on the final song. That was a clear miscalculation on AI's part. They made her look like a fish flopping around on the stage, but Taylor's final performance had him custom fitted in a nice suit. You tell me .... Hmmmmm

Kat is a priveleged little twit who's Daddy could buy her way in the music industry. She is also a mediocre singer that has a souless heart. She is like a machine that just outputs what she has put in with out any feeling for the song. Taylor is good but Chris or Elloit should have been in the finals. But between the two Kat and Taylor taylor beats her hands down.

De-nile, not just a river in egypt buddy.

Wow. I thought for sure that after last night, all of America (and the world) would finally see that Taylor is the CLEAR winner of the American Idol title.

I like Kat but saying she can sing circles around Taylor is like saying I could sing circles around Taylor or Kat--simply not true.

Peace

Thing is, what Kat is perfect, she so blows Taylor off the stage it's not even funny. Taylor never even came close to having a moment like that first performance of "Rainbow."

Problem is, they don't want her to win and have been screwing with her since day one.,..style choices, bad sound, equipment failures, etc.

"Thing is, what Kat is perfect, "

Make that "when." That's not even a typo for frig's sake! :)

My two cents:

Chris: one trick pony. If you like his style you'll buy his stuff. Hard rockers, however, are a small minority and it is not a surprise his numbers weren't there when it mattered.

Elliot: nicest guy on idol. He suffered from a sever lack of self confidence. When Simon said he needs to believe in himself and Ryan followed up with "do you believe in yourself?" Elliot paused before answering "yeah?". That pause spoke volumes and the pain we felt for Elliot translated into insufficient votes.

Kat: Very talented but her talent suffers from the paradox that she is both the best singing talent of the final two and tends to make more mistakes in singing. There were a few moments of fingernail on chalkboard last night, with pitch and screech problems at times. In the end she doesn't with Idol but her career has legs.

Taylor: Wins AI. Quite talented, yet his appeal comes more from the underdog-triumphs vibe than from sheer-talent vibe. I don't believe his style translates into a superstar career. I think the spaz dancing and Joe Cockeresque ticks are not a sign of uniqueness but an immitation poorly executed. After the first few years flush of fan driven sales, yes Taylor fades into obscurity.

I find nothing special about Kat. Yes she is a good singer but how many of these kinds of female singers can you have? At least Hicks is something different even if it looks more like a seizure than actual dance moves.

In the end she doesn't with Idol but her career has legs.

I kind of doubt it. I think bcb is exactly right. I don't see how Katharine really stands apart from all the other attractive, talented (and sometimes not so talented), female pop singers out there. Even looking at the past contestants of American Idol, only one attractive female contestant (among a great many) has had an appreciable career in the pop genre, and that's Kelly Clarkson. And she only benefitted from the fact that she was on the first season. It's doubtful she would have made the top ten, let alone won, in any subsequent seasons.

It's hard to see what really makes Katharine that much different from all the other talented, attractive female singers who have been cranked through the American Idol machine over the years. I think Katharine's condemned to a career of performing in musicals. That is, unless she's willing to put on the lingerie and start dry-humping her back-up dancers to the tune of a crappy, forgettable, yet oddly catchy pop song in front of a bunch of teenage fans, which seems to be a requirement for female pop stars. But I just don't see her doing that. Her best bet is to start singing country, unless she has a long-term dream of moving to England and naming her child "Lourdes" or something.

Of course, this says nothing about Katharine, just the saturation of the pop music market. But Britney Spear's career appears to be over (at least as a performer, perhaps not as a curiosity), so there might be room for a replacement.

Taylor at least has the advantage that he has a sound that is not quite unique, but certainly unique for someone his age, and it's a sound that can appeal across all age ranges.