The world is one big high school: American Idol

What a disgrace to humanity. I can't really believe it - Paris Bennett did not win American Idol (allegedly), It feels like it didn't really happen. To add to this, and now Taylor fans please skip this sentence, others who are much better than the winner – Taylor Hicks, didn't win either. I always say that "America can't get it wrong" – because it's a song contest that the audience decides who will win, thus the winner is the true winner, but it's just plain odd. My take - written for those who know the contestants.

My beloved Paris
She is in a different class than the others. No doubt that she can be extremely successful, and in my opinion she will be the most successful of all the contestants. She can be big, she will be big. In my opinion, Paris has one of the best voices I have ever heard. It is truly beyond me how the contestants in general, and a few specifically had outlasted her. I'm sorry, but you just can't compare the others to her, and when it comes down to it, they way the others may look or perform are secondary to the voice. I see that she is going to work on her album and tour and that is all that matters, for if she wouldn't, I would have to stop listening to music, and just listen to her audition, singing "Take Five" over and over again in a loop. First Brokeback Mountain, and now Paris Bennett, I think I might give up award shows also - just skip the results from now on.

The others
There is a certain fan base which supports male singers more than female - the women, mainly younger women and girls are a huge fan base for the male contestants. It's simple, most men – don't care. The female contestants were far better for me this year, with singers like Katharine, Mandisa, Kellie, Lisa and of course my one and only Paris. In my opinion, Kellie has potentially, the second best voice of the top 12, and I wish she would have sung "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from Grease. This however, doesn't explain Chris being voted off. I liked him from the beginning, and once Paris had left, he was the only contestant left to have not sung badly through out the competition.

A call for change
Although this would be a financial loss of course, you should be able to only vote once. I felt like throwing something at the television when Ryan said that there were more votes cast than to any American president ever – besides the fact that the amount of votes were for two people, I'm sure that if you could vote more than once for an American President, they would get just as many, if not more votes than American Idol contestants, for heaven's sake... This voting system gives an unfair advantage to a lot of the contestants, and I predict that Carrie Underwood is the last person to win the contest deservedly. As my cousin, who stopped watching the show told me – "it's become a popularity contest".

Also, although the ratings are a big issue here, I wish they would reconsider having a set amount of men and a set amount of women per round after "Hollywood week". This system causes better singers than some of the top 12 not to get in to the top 12 just because of their gender. Take a female singer for example, who maybe rated 7th of 12 women singers, but 10th of all 24 male and female singers. Although she would be rated in the top 12, she would not get into it because she is a woman.

Summary
All in all though, as I've said, that there is no "getting t wrong" - it's a vote, and albeit not a democratic vote, it is the same for everyone, sort of. I do think that America needs someone like Taylor right now, it's just a pity that the best singers didn't win, one in particular.

Links
A written interview with Paris. It amuses me when a question is longer than an answer...

Sound clip of Ryan's interview with Paris after being "voted off" (I'm in denial)