American Idol Finale, Finally

For the last fourteen years we've enjoyed fifteen seasons of the hit tv show American Idol. From Bush to Obama, Al Qaeda to ISIS, Nickelback to Bruno Mars. It was a post-9/11 world that needed a lift--a distraction from the burden of life. At least 5 different girls you knew just opened her own cupcake shop. Pinterest didn't exist yet. How did we live? How will we live now that Idol is over? Is music dead?

I wanted to write this retrospective as soon as the final episode aired, but I was unprepared. I had to go through Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of loss. I think I'm still stuck in "Denial" though because as Ryan Seacrest signed off for the very last time he dropped a naughty littler teaser: "goodbye...[pregnant pause]...for now. Seacrest out."

This makes me feel like American Idol will come back, albeit in a new form. It's like the furniture store that is "going out of business" to drum up sales even though they have no plans to go out of business. It makes me feel dirty in my guts. Like they took advantage of my naivety and fomo.

Every season for the past 8 years I say "this show is stupid. It's a drawn out show filled with ads and mediocre talents singing music I don't care about. I'm not going to watch it anymore." And I was finally fully committed to not watch anymore until they announced it would be the final season. So...bookends, and all that--I watched. How many other Americans out there are just like me?

My prediction for the New American Idol 2.0: it'll be web-centric and get stars from youtube/vine or maybe even release their own social media platform that you have to get if you want to audition or vote. The old model was stale. Kidz are into webz and appz.

And so here we are now--wow, a week later--with no Idol to watch. Sure, but there's NBC's hit show The Voice, right? No. That show is terrible. It's basically a bromance between Maroon 5 and Blake "The Turtle" Shelton. Just kiss already, you guyz. And Carson Daly, bless his heart, was never quite the same after MTV's TRL. It's depressing to watch him try to pretend like he's not dead inside. What happened to that show with Jessica Simpson's husband, you know, that 98Degrees guy? And all the contestants had to sing without musical accompaniment.

Irregardless, or without respective, let's get retrospective already.

Many Idol winners and runners' ups went on to do great things. Not cure-cancer-great or land-on-Mars/Matt-Damon-great, but have-songs-on-the-radio-great. Heck, Season2 finalist Clay Aiken was almost a US Congressman. And Season5 contestant Katherine McPhee has been in television shows, including a starring role in NBC's terrible show Smash. And she managed to be and stay hot, which is really important--and probably in poor taste to mention because of her public struggles with an eating disorder.

List of winners (unnumbered, ordered by season):
Kelly Clarkson
Ruben Studdard
Fantasia Barrino
Carrie Underwood
Taylor Hicks
Jordan Sparks
David Cook
Kris Allen
Lee DeWyze
Scotty McCreary
Phillip Phillips
Candace Glover
Caleb Johnson
Nick Fradiani
Trent Harmon

Even if you've never watched American Idol, some of those names probably have you like "oh yeah." For instance, country superstar Carrie Underwood. And if you are a superfan and watched every episode some of those names have you like "huh? who?" For instance Caleb Johnson?

Other notables to come out of Idol who have songs on the radio:
Chris Daughtry
Katharine McPhee
Kellie Pickler
Clay Aiken
Jennifer Hudson
David Archuleta
Adam Lambert

Yeah I dunno. All top 10 contestants from the past 14 years are probably still doing music somehow, but in a way like "This weekend at the county fair, American Idol runner up, Jax, opens for Chicago tribute band." Jax (the girl that printed leopard spots on her face) actually has a new song slated for a 2016 release called "I don't like your shoes." Jax is Ke$ha-Lite af.

Then we also had terrible singers on American Idol that got famous for being so bad. Remember William Hung (She Bangs) or the pants-on-the-ground guy?

Okay and so did you know that "American Idol Controversies" has its own Wikipedia page? It's pretty long, too. twss. In fact, I'll just link it here because summarizing is hard.

Was One Direction on American Idol, or did Simon Cowell create them some other way? I'm getting tired of writing about this. My brain would be okay if it never thought about American Idol again. I can't even remember what happened during the long protracted three night finale at this point. Some guest musicians. Past judges popping in. Songs. Ford commercials. A ton of Ford commercials. Ford is the Hulu of cars. They're going to build a huge factory in Mexico. So much for American jobs. #trump. J.Lo continued to be insufferable. Actual quote (paraphrased): "ooooh i'm sooo sad, i'm getting goosies for the last time. waaah"

The state of television is terrible. They should do a new show that's like American Idol, but instead of sing, the contestants solve crimes and the winner gets their own CSI/NCIS/whatever spinoff show.