A tip: It doesn’t take me long to figure that crap out.

The dead horse. It is beaten. Now, either get back on track, or I’m going to close comments in this thread.

Astolat,
I didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t take the 1 million vote comment to mean there was 1 million between each of them.. he said it as if there was 1 million voting separating all three together.

That’s how I took it.

I was watching idol tonight before the results show, and i think 99% of the people who were interviewed (famous people) said they thought Archie had it in the bag.

That has more to do with Simon’s declaration of a “knockout” than people believing he deserved it. Public perception is easily swayed. What MJ said about how Cook’s lead going into the finale having to be huge is true.

This is why they announced the vote totals– so that people would know that Cook’s victory was not an upset at all.

2 more points:

1- Archie is an incredibly gifted singer and seems like a great (albeit goofy) kid.

2- They were both pimped. In fact, Cookie was the only one given a standing O by Randy. It was Cook that was proclaimed as “(I feel like I’m looking at) the American Idol right there,” “the person who could win the whole thing,” and if the show remains a talent competition, versus a popularity contest- the winner.”

I’m sorry for the Archie fans that his show was canceled. Hopefully, it’ll be rescheduled.

Now I think I’ll slowly back out of this thread, lol.

The original point is, even though DC won, DA deserves just as much spotlight as he does… I don’t CARE about the vote count, and all this nonsense talk, in the end. It’s not really the point I was initially trying to make. I just had a hard time swallowing that a cookie would actually have a problem that DA was getting so much attention in their joint appearances.. or have a problem with the appearances together in the first place, b/c as your fellow cookies have said… it’s not that unusual. What is unusual and very deserved is the quality of attention he is getting. Nobody is treating him like the runner up, they are treating him like he could have very well won (and acknoweldging left & right that the public thought he was going to win), and it’s great b/c Archie deserves it. I was watching idol tonight before the results show, and i think 99% of the people who were interviewed (famous people) said they thought Archie had it in the bag. I am not saying that 99% of them were his fan or supporter, but they admitted he really blew the audience away and he sure seemed to have it in the bag. So, after he didn’t win, all the attention that was given to him in the joint appearances was b/c he was a winner in a lot of people’s eyes. Honestly, this isn’t up for argument b/c it’s just the way it came down to it in the end, and how I saw it on tv with my very own eyes. And, my point is, he deserves it.

Rock is the popular genre at the moment so of course David Cook is the more popular and probably his album will sell gajillions.

David Archuleta fans, do not get discouraged. DA has great potential. It is better to be under-rated. I think he is going to surprise a lot of people.

I wish David Cook all the best.

David A, I can’t wait for your album.

I started out exclusively a fan of David A but Cook got me at “Hello” and wouldn’t let go. Towards the end, I couldn’t decide who I wanted to win and was able to come up with reasonable arguments why it would be better for Archie or Cook to win and for the other to finish second. Ultimately, I think it worked out for the best for all involved – Cook, Archie, and both fandoms, though some Archie fans may not be ready to come to that conclusion for a while yet.

I respect how graciously Cook seems to be in sharing the limelight with David A, I just donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t know how genuine it is to be honest. My perception of him getting closer to David A, even on the elimination nights, has been very shady. Cook knows and knew very well, how to be noticed and how to play in front of the cameras. I think he did a great job! He loves the media and he is a great performer, in every sense of the word. But David IS the better singer, he was dealt very bad and vicious cards throughout the show, and Cook seized the day (Carpe Diem), perfect timing, and he had talent that got better during the show.

pattyb, how is it that you can read David Cook’s thoughts? I don’t think you’re respecting his graciousness of sharing the stage with Archie at all if you feel his befriending David A on stage is “shady”. As for performing in front of cameras and the media, Archie has far greater experience than Cook. Who won Star Search at the age of 12 in front of a national tv audience? Archie was already performing on Jenny Jones and The Early Show 5 years before Cook got the same sort of exposure. I loved Archie’s performances during this season but he most certainly was not “dealt very bad and vicious cards throughout the show”. When he messed up, the judges either ignored the mistakes or gave toned down criticism. Perhaps you can point out the “very bad and vicious cards” he was dealt.

TylerWV, fan wars have always bugged me. Yeah, I realize everyone is entitled to their opinions, but it is possible to cheer for one’s favourite without denigrating someone else, usually the fan-perceived rival. Because I’m often a fan of more than one, I find it difficult at times to slog through fan forum postings that bash the other guy(s). It was like this with AI5 between the fans of Taylor, Elliott and Chris, with Rock Star INXS between the fans of JD and Marty and now between Cook and Archie fans.

Runner up is always held back because TPTB need the winner to be the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“winnerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  in all respects. Song material is never as good for runner up although their press seems to be the same.

I have to address this comment of yours. This might be the case if both winner and runner-up were signed to the same label and were the same style of singer, but neither scenario is ever the case.

In season 1, AI had no clue what they were doing and fumbled the ball for both Kelly and Justin. Kelly’s career recovered; Justin’s never did. In season 2, there certainly was no “holding back” of Clay in favour of Ruben. In fact, AI seemed eager to promote them both out of the gate. In season 4, I think Carrie was fortunate that Clive Davis admitted to being clueless about country music and let real country music producers handle her debut CD. Regrettably, he didn’t take such a hands-off approach with Bo, who ended up with a watered down pop-rock concoction bought mostly by just Bo’s AI fans but shunned by non-AI-watching rock fans. Instead of learning his lesson, in season 5, Clive again exerted his influence over the winner’s CD, resulting in Taylor’s rather bland post-Idol album that pales in comparison to his earlier work. I guess he was too busy messing up Taylor’s CD to involve himself much in Daughtry’s, for which Chris will probably be eternally grateful.

The ~44 million votes he got would have won in any other season (right?)

I do believe I read somewhere that both Cook and Archuleta are the first and second highest vote getters respectively in “Idol” history. Yes, DA would’ve won easily with 44 million votes if this was any other season.

The 12 million vote difference may SEEM huge but not if taken to account the total number of votes: 97.5 million. Even David Cook himself said that the number is misleading. I read a post by a guy who said he texted 4,000 times in all 4 hours. If 3,000 people did the same, that would total 12 million votes.

Archie has serious limitations. He has one constant when singing. Every song sounds the same due to his vocal cord problems. Sad but true. Too many notes he canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t hit.

I disagree. I’ve listened to a lot of studio versions of his songs. The kid has quite a range. He uses an absolute killer falsetto in the “Love Me Tender” studio version. He’s just not confident with it and seldom uses it. With more experience, he’ll learn.

Archie also lacks confidence when performing

The tour will take care of that.

http://10.130.200.1:3128/ProgressMessages/KZZP_DAVID_ARCHULETA_5-28-08.mp3?proxy=10.130.200.1&action=complete&index=416&id=179200519&filename=KZZP_DAVID_ARCHULETA_5-28-08.mp3

or here http://idolforums.com/index.php?showtopic=562327

DC won. His vocal range and ability to color outside his box handed him the win. Not to mention his charisma – it’s huge !

Archie has serious limitations. He has one constant when singing. Every song sounds the same due to his vocal cord problems. Sad but true. Too many notes he can’t hit.

Archie also lacks confidence when performing (he ups it 10% during interviews but that doesn’t when count when it comes to sales).

astolat — zabasearch is merely a wannabee.

The Top 3 night, Ryan said nothing about relative results. DI shows Cook as totally dominant by a huge margin — 10 DI score points over Archie. This is a night where Cook did well and Archie got criticized, so Archie’s fanbase would not have been complacent.

Top 2 night, Cook took an early lead on DI (he was leading by 5-6 points out of the gate), which widened to 12 points over the course of the night. This is confirmed by the final vote results and what we know from Nigel. So even if hardcore Archie fans had gotten complacent and gone to bed (unlikely; these were the people going *door to door* the days before the finale), he was already losing before they ever left.

DA just flat out lost. The Archies both casual and passionate were just significantly outnumbered by the respective groups of Cookies, and the iTunes results bear that out.

That doesn’t mean DA doesn’t have a bright future. The ~44 million votes he got would have won in any other season (right?) and he and Cook are so different that 19E would be dumb not to market them both enthusiastically to their respective markets. It DOES mean that Cook is significantly *more* popular, and his victory wasn’t actually a surprise at all to anyone following the statistics.

(And FWIW, I would bet a lot that Zabasearch is just plain bogus. Their process is obscured and as best I can tell just relies on internet search statistics — ie, how often people are searching for a contestant and/or how many hits they have online, which does not necessarily have any direct relationship to voting for that contestant. They are not actually measuring text messaging (I am pretty sure there is no way anyone COULD do so without AT&T’s cooperation, since the text voting goes entirely within the AT&T network) or phone voting. Dial Idol is the only site that has a transparent and statistically sound process. Even though it only predicts phone votes, there’s no actual evidence to think text votes break in a significantly different way and a lot of evidence that DI gets it right once the # of contestants dwindles.)

19 must have had a slew of interns sitting on iTunes downloading Cookie’s tracks and ramping up votes on DialIdol to make his victory look legit. Its a conspiracy!!111