And then there were two

I know I haven't posted about American Idol in awhile, but now that we are down to the finals, I figured I should say something.

I was surprised, but not shocked, by Melinda's ouster last night. Sure, Melinda was the best singer and most consistent performer in the competition, and she actually seemed to understand the lyrics of her songs, which is a rarity on AI. But she also sang a lot of very old songs, and on Tuesday had the misfortune of being saddled with two unfortunate songs: Randy Jackson's choice of Whitney Houston's "I Believe in You and Me" (which is just not a very good Whitney song) and some Ike and Tina Turner song I have never heard of (and I have to imagine much of the audience hadn't heard of).

But at this point, does it even matter? Clearly Taylor Hicks has not hit the big time. By the time one is in the final three, I think their chances of success are going to depend on their talent, marketability and songwriting team. But I think the chances they have are all about equal. So it will be interesting to see how Melinda's album is received.

As for the two who are left, I think I'm rooting for Blake. He's not the best singer to grace the Idol stage, but I really loved his rendition of "You Give Love a Bad Name," and I am impressed that he was the only one of the final three to choose a song he hadn't sung before as his third song of the night on Tuesday (having said that, it's hard to quibble with Jordin singing "I Who Have Nothing" twice because it was really, really good). And yeah, he'll probably sound just like Blink 182 or Maroon 5 for the rest of his career, but maybe he'll do something more interesting. I'm not sure if that means I should root for him to lose--will he have more creative freedom if he doesn't win? How do the contracts for the losers work? Does Simon Fuller get a first crack at everyone?--but I'll jump on the Blake bandwagon regardless.