I totally agree. The song is crappy, the production values on the CD's are crappy, and both the winner and runner up were forced to release the same song. That's a recipe for disaster. It's especially terrible for new artists who, above all, need to establish their credibility to fans and industry insiders alike.
Just got done listening to both singles again and just have to shake my head at the horrid, horrid production values, especially on Carrie Underwood's album. The RCA version with Bo is marginally better, but neither deserve much airplay either on pop stations or (in the case of Underwood) country stations.
The far too loud Hawaiian guitar is really annoying to listen to, and if they took three takes for these songs, I'd be shocked. I would hate to be either singer and listen to these songs just before release - the blood has to drain from the body imagining how badly they'll crash.
Both will have to work REALLY hard to overcome it. Luckily, both have enough personality that they'll at least be able to hit the talk circuit to promote whatever the next production is, but it had best be of a reasonable quality or they won't make a third round.
Ugh. Terribly disappointed. There are some music producers who really need their rumps kicked.
What's funny is that if they were going to use a song and not have it linked to a single new artist, they could have gone with Angels Brought Me Here, and done better with it. Putting Indepenence Day and Vehicle on the B sides hurt, too, because people were tired of it (and many thought other AI performances were stronger).