Three dudes sit atop the final triad of space stools on American Idol 8.  The women have been conquered, eliminated with little thought or care.  This season was always touted as full of male talent.  Had Allison Iraheta not appeared out of nowhere, a teenage phenom of galactic proportions, perhaps the most ready of all the singers to take the fourth-place Daughtry mantle of post-show success, we may have had an all male Top 6.  Allison's Death By Gokey Scream has been well-covered on BuddyTV, and I will stop complaining.  For now.  A travesty is a travesty, the past the past, and although trading a helmet of red Troll Doll hair for a pair of designer glasses and a metro five o'clock shadow is depressing in every way reality TV can be depressing, there is nothing that can be done.  Time to focus on the Three-Headed Man Monster that remains alive and kicking on American Idol.  How did we get here and what does it say about our country, its voters and the current constitution of our musical tastes?

To call Danny Gokey, Adam Lambert and Kris Allen a diverse group of singers is a vast understatement.  They couldn't be more different (well, aside from the "they're all white guys" thing).  Danny Gokey is safe, family friendly, a guy who reminds you of your cousin.  He lacks originality, isn't "current," and has crab-walked to success on the strength of his natural voice.  Kris Allen looks like a star, mostly because he's really, really good-looking.  He has maximized his potential.  Not blessed with a great or powerful voice, Kris is a musician, an instrumentalist, the only finalist who can create good, original music without the help of anybody else.  Adam Lambert is the outlier, an extreme personality, an alien competing among mere mortals.  He effortlessly tames an H-bomb of a voice, shrieking and crooning like the bastard love child of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant.  His ambiguously non-ambiguous sexuality is and will be a talking point, but is more or less moot in the vacuum of American Idol.  Gay or secretly gay, Adam is a downright freak of nature who has captured the attention of co-workers, peers, Bill O'Reilly, Joel McHale and my mother.  

Given the oceans of difference between the three singers, there's no clear favorite as we enter the final two weeks of American Idol 8.  Adam is the best singer.  Kris is the best musician.  Danny is the safest for the masses.  I will not regurgitate the common Danny Gokey refrain, that he's the most commercially viable of the final three contestants, because not only is it untrue, it's also impossible to forecast (I realize I just contradicted myself, but bear with me).  Danny might cast the widest net - his music could potentially appeal to a greater swath of the American public than Adam's or Kris's.  Maybe.  But, in actuality, I don't buy this for a second.  The best-selling artist in the country right now is Lady Gaga, who is from a different planet than Danny Gokey.  If a former stripper who wears bubble suits and routinely plays a glass piano can achieve massive worldwide success, all bets are off.  Before record sales are counted, why even bother discussing commercial potential?

The best part of this final three is that there should be little crossover among fans.  Yes, it's not impossible to like more than one of the singers or enjoy the merits of all three, but most viewers are going to side with one far more than the others.  I have no idea who will come out the winner.  I have no idea who will be eliminated this week.  It's a damn crap shoot.  Danny and Adam have sat atop the Dial Idol results all season, yet Kris has gained momentum throughout the season and he's the most similar to last year's winner, David Cook, than the other two.  Personally, I'd like to see Mr. Lambert emerge victorious, if only because he'd be the most different, the most alternative of all the American Idol winners.  I'll say this, too: if Danny Gokey ends up as the American Idol 8 champion, it won't reflect well on the voting public.  Nothing against Danny, but he's more of a throw back than anything, and he has little to offer in terms of originality.  A Danny victory would signify a severe lack of analytical thought from America and show that when confronted with new and different options, options that might frighten or baffle some, we side with the tried and true, even if it's an inferior product.

(Hey, would you like to win tickets to the American Idol Concert Tour?  Check out details here.) 

-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer

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