From Justin to Kelly

My experience began on an August morning in Foxboro (nee Foxborough), standing in the rain, waiting to get a bracelet for my spot at American Idol tryouts.

For Katharine McPhee and Taylor Hicks, it ends tonight.

And I suppose that if I were a freelancer working on a story for Rolling Stone, that's how I'd begin my story. But I'm not, so here we go with my recap:

Last night was the competition part of the American Idol finals (with tonight being a two-hour reunion show/exhibition). Each singer -- McPhee and Taylor-- sang two songs they had sung previously and a new song (that was different for each). The new song is slated to become their first single, assuming neither has a cocaine trafficking conviction between now and then.

Anyhow, McPhee chose one terrible song (a mid-tempo song with something to do with bananas), did one really great repeat performance of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", and butchered the last song (the new Idol single) to the point that she was practically crying at the end.

Taylor, in the meantime, came out very strong to Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City", bored me through another rendition of "Levon", and, in American Idol parlance, "made it his own" with his new single (which, if I recall, had something to do with saying sorry. Or maybe not). I should also note that both Idol songs were accompanied by a fullscale gospel choir. The choir added about as much Deadspin adds to employee productivity.

It was a pretty average end, on both McPhee and Taylor's part, to a season that was probably had the most talent top-to-bottom of any other Idol season. In their defense, both songs that they were forced to sing sounded like something you'd hear at a High School talent show where the only rule is "must be original material".

So who do I think takes down the crown? Not me. But we already knew that. I'm not sure that McPhee had enough consistently great performances to push her to the top. I also don't sense that America has really gotten behind McPhee with the truly rock-solid support she needs to win.

Taylor Hicks it is, by a small margin.