Here We Go Again

OK. I have been sucked in to the American Idol No-Sense-Of-Reality warped-judgement phase of the year once again. We watched tonight with a friend and had a great time. I've picked the winner:

Kara DioGuardi.

She is the best thing to happen to this show since...well, since they had me in the audience.

I love her. She says very smart things and uses like complete sentences with subjects and verbs and even some conjunctions and adverbs and stuff. It's quite a welcome thing. She is going to be refreshing to hear week after week.

I'm not going to drudge through all of the characters, er, contestants tonight. I will start doing that later. But I will give you my favorites. First of all let me say that it's the year of the guy singer (again). Some of the guys are flat out GREAT singers. 3 or 4 great ones just tonight. The girls are lacking a little. And by 'little,' I mean A LOT. Where are the Kellys? the Carries? The Mandisas, for crying out loud? No, literally, for crying out loud?

About tonight:

Great voice+humble spirit+amazing back story=American Idol winner. Congratulations, Danny Gokey. It's yours to lose. Danny rocked it.

Another favorite of mine is Anoop. This dude had me from his first audition. I love that kind of soulful voice. I wasn't totally crazy about his song choice tonight. But still, dude can sing. He's the kind of singer where you aren't nervous for him...you just know he is going to be good.

Favorite girl tonight: Alexis Grace. Not completely thrilled with her trying to sing Aretha. But she has some chops.

I also gotta give props to Ricky Braddy, who has a GREAT voice, and just so happens to be from my alma mater, Belmont University. I hope he can make it through, although it will be hard for him the way they are doing the groups this year. BOO on this way of doing groups, where only 3 make it through. They have stacked this first group with too many people deserving of getting through. BOOOOOOOOO.

I feel sad for Stephen Fowler (Rock With You) and Ann Marie Boskovich (Natural Woman), who are both better singers than their songs allowed them to show. I guess the same could be said for Michael Sarver and Brent Keith, too.

Note to A.I. contestants: Stay away from Michael, Aretha, Celine, Mariah (except for you, Danny), Whitney, Sting. It's a mine field you don't want to try to make it through. Just trust me on this one.

One funny story: Lily Kate was convinced that one of the contestants looked like "the blue fish on Nemo." And she wasn't being critical. She was speaking as if it were fact. And possibly even as if it were a compliment. Funny.

So who was your favorite?