Wildest's Idol winners rankdown/analysis

[CarmenSandiego]

5 hours ago, Elliott said:

It’s not that surprising. Adam was very polarizing in S8, and the finale was the only time you could theoretically vote against someone. N*gel confirmed many moons ago on his Twitter that (outside of Clay/Ruben) all of the winners on the seasons he was involved in had very decisive victories over their runner-up.

You’re right about Adam being so polarizing — even before the finale, I was going to vote for anyone but Adam because his tone of voice could drive me up the wall!

[wildestinvegas]

Lee DeWyze - Season 9 

 

Best Performance: Falling Slowly - With Crystal Bowersox

Round: Final 4

Theme: Songs From The Movies

 

 

I'm not a fan of how unidimensional Lee's voice is. It pretty much only has one texture to it which happens to be that nasally growly chest tone that I’m not a fan of. Don't get me wrong, it works well in some particular songs and it can make for some interesting covers of certain tunes but it can also become quite painful to listen to when he struggles with pitch, something that happened in a LOT of his  showings. I watched performances like “Kiss From A Rose” and “Beautiful Day” screaming to my screen “FIND THE NOTE, FIND THE NOTE” so straight out of the gate, Lee is not a favorite of mine in terms of vocals. With that being said, I thought he had a really good taste for songchoices and managed to emote the content of those songs pretty well bringing some needed intensity for his numbers to make up for his lack of vocal quality on most of them. He definitely knew who he wanted to be as an artist and "Treat Her Like a Lady" and "Simple Man" are probably some of the best examples of him getting to showcase that without struggling vocally all the way through a song. I’d say this is a pretty bad win tho. Crystal should've won and it wasn't even close. She was better than Lee in pretty much every departament. In my opinion, he's a mediocre winner that didn't have a very compelling run.

 

Performances ranking:

1. Falling Slowly - With Crystal Bowerson (A)
2. Treat Her Like A Lady (A)
3. Simple Man (A-)
4. Hallelujah (B+)
5. The Boxer (B+)
6. Little Less Conversation (B+)
7. Lips Of An Angel (B+)
8. Fireflies (B)
9. The Boxer - Reprise (B)
10. That's Life (B)
11. Beast Of Burden (B)
12. Everybody Hurts (B-)
13. You're Still The One (C+)
14. Chasing Cars (C)
15. The Letter (C)
16. Hey Jude (C-)
17. Beautiful Day (D+)
18. Kiss From A Rose (D-)

 

Winners ranking:

1. Fantasia Barrino (Season 3)

2. David Cook (Season 7)

3. Kelly Clarkson (Season 1)

4. Kris Allen (Season 8 )

5. Ruben Studdard (Season 2)

6. Jordin Sparks (Season 6)

7. Carrie Underwood (Season 4)

8. Taylor Hicks (Season 5)

9. Lee DeWyze (Season 9)

 

If I'm being completely honest, I prefer Lee over Taylor when it comes to musical taste but I do think Taylor was more consistent than Lee so Lee had to go last.

Edited June 1 by wildestinvegas

[MalwareDie]

Lee last place looking good so far. Not rioting yet, but I might if someone ends up below him.

Edited June 2 by MalwareDie

[StarWalker1]

1 hour ago, MalwareDie said:

Lee last place looking good so far. Not rioting yet, but I might if someone ends up below him.

there's a few that could give him a run for his money ngl ...

[nytsch]

Crystal was robbed! I still love her Me and Bobby McGee performance, there’s no way Lee should’ve won after Beautiful Day either

 

That said I really liked The Boxer, and Treat Her Like a Lady was his breakout moment for sure. I also liked this song from his debut, generic but works well for his voice imo.

 

 

[Crisis]

Crystal is one of my favorite Idol contestants, so needless to say I wasn't pleased with Lee's win at the time. With that said, Lee has grown on me some over the years. Although he had his shortcomings (lack of stage presence, constant pitchiness), he also had a few performances I enjoyed (Treat Her Like A Lady, A Little Less Conversation, the Falling Slowly duet with Crystal). I think what helped propel Lee to the win was him being more relatable to the voters. He always looked nervous on result nights, and he was constantly referred to as a humble paint salesman. It also didn't hurt that Simon championed him throughout the season. In contrast, despite her quality of performances Crystal was seen as more aloof and difficult to embrace based on her body language and banter with the judges.

 

Lee isn't my favorite winner by any means and he's still in the lower half, but there are a few winners I would rank below him.

[Elliott]

Well I knew I’d disagree with most of that write-up, so it is what it is. Lee’s my favourite Idol contestant and that won’t change.

 

Pretty much every week with a limited theme, he ended picking my favourite song from the artist in question, and the other weeks he was picking some of my all-time favourite songs.

 

I understand some of the issues people had with his run (and his tone, in general, is pretty polarizing), but lowkey I’ve always felt some of the hate is overblown. Outside of Crystal, it’s not like S9 had any all-time greats (and I say as someone who actually loves S9 ).

 

His post-Idol music is more of his style. It’s been a joy following his career for 14 years and everything that has transpired from it.

[Elliott]

3 hours ago, Crisis said:

I think what helped propel Lee to the win was him being more relatable to the voters. He always looked nervous on result nights, and he was constantly referred to as a humble paint salesman. It also didn't hurt that Simon championed him throughout the season. In contrast, despite her quality of performances Crystal was seen as more aloof and difficult to embrace based on her body language and banter with the judges.

There was also a fair amount of viewers that were adamantly anti-Crystal after the whole Top 20 performance episode switch. People felt the show was catering to her when they wouldn’t for other contestants. (Which we all know isn’t true since all of the contestants had to agree to it, and they did. ) That was the first season Idol started to use social media (albeit minuscule) and I was surprised by how anti-Crystal certain areas of the internet were.

[Crisis]

3 hours ago, Elliott said:

There was also a fair amount of viewers that were adamantly anti-Crystal after the whole Top 20 performance episode switch. People felt the show was catering to her when they wouldn’t for other contestants. (Which we all know isn’t true since all of the contestants had to agree to it, and they did. ) That was the first season Idol started to use social media (albeit minuscule) and I was surprised by how anti-Crystal certain areas of the internet were.

 

While Crystal had her faults, this is one of the weakest reasons to dislike her. She was ill to the point of being hospitalized. What else were they supposed to do? Although if it were to happen in the ABC seasons, they probably would've had her perform from her room a la Fritz and Noah from their hotel rooms when they had COVID.

[CarmenSandiego]

4 minutes ago, Crisis said:

 

While Crystal had her faults, this is one of the weakest reasons to dislike her. She was ill to the point of being hospitalized. What else were they supposed to do? Although if it were to happen in the ABC seasons, they probably would've had her perform from her room a la Fritz and Noah from their hotel rooms when they had COVID.

Agreed, but haters need to have a reason to hate someone, and they probably grabbed onto the performance switch as their reason, however weak the reason actually was since Crystal was very ill at the time.

[Elliott]

16 minutes ago, Crisis said:

While Crystal had her faults, this is one of the weakest reasons to dislike her. She was ill to the point of being hospitalized. What else were they supposed to do?

The show’s initial plan (as confirmed by both Ken Warwick and Crystal herself) was to pull her from the season and essentially have her rejoin at S10’s Top 24 until they let the cast decide if they wanted to change the performance night. I think that’s what the people that took issue with it had against her.

 

FWIW, I also thought it was a stupid reason to dislike her but people are gonna be crazy regardless.

Edited June 3 by Elliott

[wildestinvegas]

I could see how the whole situation of the show moving up the girls performances to the next day to give her time to recover and get to sing might have affected her w voters that didn’t think it was fair to the guys but IMO I think the judges kinda set crystal up to failure from very early on and that probably played a bigger factor than that. I still remember simon asking her on like week 2 of lives or sumn if she thought she had the competition in the bag and implying she was so superior to everyone else (which was true but still LOL), it was a really odd thing to ask a contestant and it kinda felt like he was putting words on her mouth LOL they pegged her as the frontrunner from the get go and started using that narrative against her once the show was entering its last few weeks by really driving home how lee was the one to grow and gain momentum. the idol audience was always nicer to the underdogs and crystal also wasn’t really willing to play up her personality to tv so that prob rubbed those same viewers in the wrong way because not only she was the one to be labeled the frontrunner from the very start but she also didn’t have the typical personality they came to expect from female idol contestants (girl next door, etc). 

Edited June 3 by wildestinvegas

[MalwareDie]

14 hours ago, wildestinvegas said:

I could see how the whole situation of the show moving up the girls performances to the next day to give her time to recover and get to sing might have affected her w voters that didn’t think it was fair to the guys but IMO I think the judges kinda set crystal up to failure from very early on and that probably played a bigger factor than that. I still remember simon asking her on like week 2 of lives or sumn if she thought she had the competition in the bag and implying she was so superior to everyone else (which was true but still LOL), it was a really odd thing to ask a contestant and it kinda felt like he was putting words on her mouth LOL they pegged her as the frontrunner from the get go and started using that narrative against her once the show was entering its last few weeks by really driving home how lee was the one to grow and gain momentum. the idol audience was always nicer to the underdogs and crystal also wasn’t really willing to play up her personality to tv so that prob rubbed those same viewers in the wrong way because not only she was the one to be labeled the frontrunner from the very start but she also didn’t have the typical personality they came to expect from female idol contestants (girl next door, etc). 

 

Simon asking Crystal if she thought she had it in the bag was VERY intentional from Devil Cowell. He was intent on killing American Idol as competition to his beloved The X-Factor that was on its way. Heathen Simon should never been allowed to judge Season 9 since it was a clear conflict of interest. As for Lee, he should have been cut in Hollywood after his terrible You Found Me.

 

The X-Factor US is also going to be revived, and I hope it flops miserably for Simon's sins must be held accountable. May American Idol, The Voice, and Masked Singer crush his show into oblivion, losing him millions in the process.

Edited June 3 by MalwareDie

[wildestinvegas]

Scott McCreery - Season 10 

 

Best Performance: You've Got A Friend

Round: Final 6 

Theme: Carole King

 

 

Scott is a weird one. Putting aside the fact that the women this season deserved better and Hayley should’ve won, he isn’t a bad winner. The problem? He isn’t a great one either. He got outperformed by a couple members of his cast. But I don’t dislike his run enough to feel unhappy or rubbed on the wrong way by his win so it’s hard to talk about him. His deep voice is honestly pretty compelling and infuses a classic feeling to his singing but just like with Lee it’s also very limited and one tone and makes it pretty hard to separate his performances from one another. Especially when he never took any risks. Ultimately there were instances where I thought the sound of his tone worked for certain songs more than others such as “You’ve Got A Friend”, “Gone” and “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not?”… Vocally, Scotty was consistent (it’s not like his songs were challenging) althought he would struggle with his lower register every now and then, getting drowned out by the band during some of his performances. I must say that "Love You This Big" and "Young Blood" were offensively corny in a disturbing way and that the way he holds his microphone like a flute was very distracting. Overall I’d say he’s a average/decent winner with a cool tone that did a solid job in giving his fans what they wanted from him but my main takeaway from watching him during Season 10 was that I feel very indifferent about him.

 

Performances ranking:

1. You've Got A Friend (A)
2. Gone (A)
3. Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not? (A-)
4. That's Alright (A-)
5. Gone - Reprise (A-)
6. She Believes In Me (B+)
7. Letters From Home (B+)
8. Up On The Roof - With Lauren Alaina (B+)
9. Always On My Mind (B)
10. I Cross My Heart (B)
11. Where Were You (B)
12. Amazed (B)
13. Can I Trust You With My Heart? (B-)
14. For Once In My Life (B-)
15. Country Comfort (B-)
16. Check Yes Or No (B-)
17. River (B-)
18. Swingin' (C-)
19. Young Blood (C-)
20. Love You This Big (D+)

 

Winners ranking:

1. Fantasia Barrino (Season 3)

2. David Cook (Season 7)

3. Kelly Clarkson (Season 1)

4. Kris Allen (Season 8 )

5. Ruben Studdard (Season 2)

6. Jordin Sparks (Season 6)

7. Carrie Underwood (Season 4)

8. Scott McCreery (Season 10)

9. Taylor Hicks (Season 5)

10. Lee DeWyze (Season 9)

Edited June 4 by wildestinvegas

[KelseyW]

Scotty's post Idol career is enough to prove why a then 17 year old country singer won over the likes of the great Haley Reinhart.

 

It doesn't bother me anymore. lol

[Hsamid]

I've been wanting to ask this for ages, but why does Scotty Mcreery of all people have his own subforum on here?

 

Anyways.. yeah he has a cool tone but I can barely remember any of his performances. His post idol success isn't surprising in the least though. Good for him.

Edited June 4 by Hsamid

[QueenKalie]

5 minutes ago, Hsamid said:

I've been wanting to ask this for ages, but why does Scotty Mcreery of all people have his own subforum on here?

A lot constants used to have one but over time they became dead and people stopped posting in them. Scotty's fans haven't given up on spamming his forum though so that one stayed.

[nytsch]

Scotty's just not for me, I obviously preferred Haley but I also would've preferred Lauren (I think she was just overhyped/heavily pimped and a lot of people didn't like that)

 

Gone was good, You've Got a Friend too I guess but that song choice feels like such a cop out at this point honestly. I think I liked For Once In My Life, would have to rewatch

[ptebwwong]

1 hour ago, Hsamid said:

I've been wanting to ask this for ages, but why does Scotty Mcreery of all people have his own subforum on here?

 

Anyways.. yeah he has a cool tone but I can barely remember any of his performances. His post idol success isn't surprising in the least though. Good for him.

There did use to be sub-forums for a lot of Idol contestants.

 

I can probably answer this as a Scotty fan. His sub-forum is extremely active & always has been. I'm talking about daily radio updates, every social media post, concert posts, etc. When Idolforums went down there was a secondary site, but most of his fans liked & were used to this site.

 

Also, when there were issues with Idol forums or spammers, there are a few Scotty fans that seemed to contact Idolforums admins & generally they got their problems fixed quickly. I assume because of the constant contact with an admin over the years this also helped keep the sub-forum.

[Elliott]

I didn’t really mind Scotty for the first few weeks of S10, but from Swingin’ onward, my feelings on him soured more. I also couldn’t stand Lauren or Hailey, so as much as I hated him winning at the time, I also didn’t care given the rest of the top three.

 

But he’s grown on me a lot with his post-Idol music to where he’s now one of my favourites. I think he was just too young on Idol.

[NGL2008]

On 6/2/2024 at 6:51 PM, Elliott said:

Outside of Crystal, it’s not like S9 had any all-time greats (and I say as someone who actually loves S9 ).

Um, Siobhan?

 

In all seriousness, I did find Lee to have a certain cool factor that led me to be happy enough with his win. Just the idea of this random paint salesman casually climbing his way to the top...

 

Scotty rubs people one way or the other, it seems. At the time I didn't mind either of the Final 2 winning (I was so young, in fact, that I deluded myself into thinking they were a couple But nope, the Final 2 couple would have to wait until S16.)

 

Though I heard he was pretty condescending in Hollywood Week, I do think his stage presence is an example of needing more than a good voice to win. It can be hard to pull off a smooth, different range type of voice like that well, but as we've seen with CLH and Triston Harper it appears Scotty was sort of the pioneer of this successful enough style on the show.

[ptebwwong]

2 hours ago, NGL2008 said:

Though I heard he was pretty condescending in Hollywood Week.

I don't think Scotty was condescending. During Hollywood week group round, no one wanted him in his group. There was another contestant who was a semifinalist who "auditioned" Scotty for his group. He rejected Scotty for his group. Scotty in the video said he understood the rejection. Also, there was another video made by one of the other semifinalists (Tim?) where Scotty was talking about how he thought he should & would have been cut in Hollywood because of his flubbed lyrics ("nuts of wonder") on "I Hope You Dance." That doesn't sound like someone who thinks he's better than others. I feel like Scotty was someone who knew others were more talented than he was. 

 

He's also still friends now with the guy who was kicked out of his group, Jacee by his other group member. Jacee has even came to post-Idol events of Scotty. There's other contestants that season who have came to post-Idol events of Scotty such as Naima, Casey, Pia, Paul, etc. over the years. Despite S10 being 10+ years ago, that season seems to be close & keep in touch more than a lot of seasons.

Edited June 6 by ptebwwong

[ptebwwong]

4 minutes ago, ptebwwong said:

 

Deleted

Edited June 6 by ptebwwong

[nytsch]

Yeah I was surprised they kept putting Scotty through in Hollywood week (his 2 group performances also kinda merited getting cut iirc)

 

Though I remember James also wasn't that great earlier and he made the top 4 so I guess it paid off.

[wildestinvegas]

Phillip Phillips - Season 11

 

Best performance: Volcano

Round: Final 4

Theme: Songs You Wish You Wrote

 

 

Okay first things first, he’s the hottest man to ever step foot on that stage so he has that going on for him! But I actually don’t dislike Phillip. Although his voice is pretty much a one tricky pony and only has that growly chest tone to it that I complained about Lee, I do think that Phillip’s tone is less grating on the ears than his so he didn’t get on my nerves nearly as much. He’s also probably the best guitar player of the Fox era of Idol so his constant use of the instrument didn’t feel so redudant as it did with some other contestants from his niché during past seasons. I also liked the intensity he brought to his interpretation of songs, it was groovy and passionate and the instances where he didn’t overdo that but still was able to bring that feeling to the songs such as “Volcano” and “We’ve Got Tonight” ended up becoming his most memorable moments on the show. But unfortunately Phillip was…. incredibly inconsistent. I’d say he was the worst performer of the night at least 3 or 4 times (which is truly baffling for a winner) and once we got to the Top 7, all of the other 6 competitors outperformed him at some point. Phillip didn’t really respect the original melodies of his songchoices when rearranging them and that made for some jarring listening experiences at times. He also would straight up scream at your face instead of reaching notes when going "big" on his songs so there's that. But yeah overall, I have mixed feelings about Phillip. When he was on, he was usuallly my top favorite of the night but when he was off, he was disastrous. My biggest issue with his win is that he lacked the consistency that I like to see in the winners of the show but I do find him much more interesting than a lot of the WGWG's we had prior to him.

 

Performances ranking:

1. Volcano (A+)
2. We've Got Tonight (A)
3. U Got It Bad (A)
4. Home (A)
5. Still Rainin' (A-)
6. Beggin' (A-)
7. Movin' Out (A-)
8. Movin' Out - Reprise (A-)
9. Hard To Handle (B+)
10. This Love - With Joshua Ledet (B+)
11. Fat Bottomed Girls (B+)
12. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - With Elise Testone (B+)
13. Superstition (B+)
14. In The Air Tonight (B)
15. Somebody That I Used To Know - With Elise Testone (B)
16. The Stone (B)
17. Have You Ever Seen The Rain (B)
18. Give A Little More (B-)
19. Stand By Me (C+)
20. Disease (C+)
21. In The Midnight Hour (C+)
22. The Letter (C-)
23. That's All (D)
24. You've Lost That Loving Feeling - With Joshua Ledet (D)
25. Time Of The Season (D-)

 

Winners ranking:

1. Fantasia Barrino (Season 3)

2. David Cook (Season 7)

3. Kelly Clarkson (Season 1)

4. Kris Allen (Season 8 )

5. Ruben Studdard (Season 2)

6. Jordin Sparks (Season 6)

7. Carrie Underwood (Season 4)

8. Scott McCreery (Season 10)

9. Phillip Phillips (Season 11)

10. Taylor Hicks (Season 5)

11. Lee DeWyze (Season 9)

 

Based on personal taste, I'd rank him much higher but I can't put my blinders on and ignore his trainwrecks. 

Edited June 6 by wildestinvegas