Journey to the American Idol Finale: David Cook

David Cook has had an interesting journey this season on American Idol.  He came out of relative obscurity and emerged as a star.  Looking over these past weeks, it is amazing to see how far he, and opponent David Archuleta, have come (due to heavy traffic, some of the videos are not loading right away but should be working soon).  

• Audition – For his audition, David sang “Living on a Prayer” which I think is always a risky song to pick but he actually turned in a good performance and made it to the next round!
• Hollywood Week – He sang “Everything I Do (I Do it For You)” and it was decent.  Not earth-shattering but good!
• Top 24 – I had not really liked David much through the audition process but I did like his performance of “Happy Together.”  It’s one of my favorite songs from that era and, while it started a bit rough, it ended quite well!
• Top 20 – David sang “All Right Now” and it was… all right.  It was a solid performance but nothing to scream about.
• Top 16 - This was the week when David Cook came out and made the world take notice of him.  He chose to cover Lionel Richie’s classic “Hello” and I was positively stunned.  It was gutsy and amazing!
• Top 12 – He sang “Eleanor Rigby” which led to controversy when Doxology accused David of covering their cover of the Beatles tune.  *sigh*  All the same, it was a wonderful performance – not my favorite but still wonderful.
• Top 11 – David cranked out another solid performance with “Day Tripper.”
• Top 10 – David performed “Billie Jean” and, well, it was insanely good!  At first, the only thing I recognized were the lyrics and when I realized what it was, I was flabbergasted.  It was great!
• Top 9 – He sang “Little Sparrow” by Dolly Parton and it really surprised me!  I  thought he did an excellent job “Cookifying” this old country tune!
• Top 8 – Even though I love Our Lady Peace, David’s rendition of their song
  “Innocent” was not the best.  It was terrible, it just wasn’t great…
• Top 7 – David gave a haunting performance of “Always Be My Baby.”  I had no idea that song could sound like that.  He was amazing and I had tears streaming down my face since his brother, who is battling cancer, was able to be in the audience!
• Top 6 – David sang “Music of the Night” for Andrew Lloyd Webber week and, while it started a little shaky, it ended up sounding pretty great!
• Top 5 – He sang “I’m Alive” along with “All I really Need is You” which was the better of the two performances.  It sounded like a song he could have written himself!
• Top 4 – David chose “Hungry Like a Wolf” for his first song and, while I love Duran Duran, I was not thrilled by this song choice.  For his second performance, he picked “Baba O’Riley” (a.k.a. – “Teenage Wasteland”) and redeemed himself, in my opinion.
• Top 3 – He sang “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Dare You To Move” and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”  His performance of “Face” was so touching and surprising given his status as Idol’s resident rocker this season!
• Top 2 – David sang “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Dream Big” and “The World I Know.”  He was good but not as great as I expected for a set of finale performances.  We’ll see tonight if it was enough!

©2008 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Frank Micelotta/FOX