American Idol: Farewell To Sanjaya At Last

He’s finally gone.

The haters will be happy and hordes of 12-13 year girls (and Howard Stern) will be in mourning for a while.

This past Tuesday was country music night and last night’s vote (with the exception of Blake in the bottom three) went pretty much as expected. It was so bloody obvious that Melinda is at the top of the class that Ryan Seacrest singled her out, since it would have been too obvious which group was NOT the bottom half if she was part of it.

I wasn’t suprised to see Lakisha standing next to Sanjaya… her performance was unfortunately pretty weak. I guess it really IS all about song choice, because she has an amazing voice that just didn’t come through this week. I actually correctly had Phil above her based on this week’s performance. But Sanjaya… wow. This week’s performance by the poor guy was so awful that I think viewers went out of their way to cast extra votes for the others to make sure he didn’t squeak through (I know I did).

The sense of satisfaction actually seemed to come off of Simon in palpable waves when he saw Sanjaya in the bottom three: Vindication!

I’ll say it again: I’m not a Sanjaya Malakar hater. I think he’s a really nice kid and it seems like his parents did a great job raising both him and his (ultra-hottie) sister. Speaking of sis, I think maybe the judges flubbed it by choosing him in regards to talent, but he certainly provided the show with ratings this year!

He took it pretty hard but I really think that he’ll find a way to parlay his 15 minutes of fame into something bigger and I say more power to him.

For the group of folks that think he didn’t deserved to win (of which I am a member) and those that despised him (of which I’m not a member), let’s step back and get a little perspective. First, this kid has “American Idol” written ALL over him. He’s got charm and a likeable charisma, he’s a good looking kid, and he CAN sing up to a point and in a certain style that some people seem to like. Are you telling me that there are people out there making millions with a singing career that are really that much better than him? Come on, with some of the people out there now and in the past it’s been all about packaging them and how much an engineer can tweak their performance in the studio.

Second, what would YOU have done in the same situation? Bowed out gracefully because you didn’t deserve to be there? If you say yes, I’ll say give me a break… It was the opportunity of a lifetime and he actually came across far better than he might have.

So I bid a semi-fond farewell to Sanjaya Malakar and I’m sure the producers will miss him since it’s pretty much a done deal that Melinda will win it with Jordin coming in second.