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American Idol 5: Why Taylor Won

by David Bloomberg -- 05/25/2006

FOXES ON IDOL

“Wooooo! Soul Patrol!” Are these just exclamations from American Idol winner Taylor Hicks? Or do they actually help explain how he got his new title? It seemed to be a foregone conclusion, but we’ve seen those end up wrong before. Why did Taylor win?

And so it’s over. We hit the climax after months of auditions and songs and performances, and then about an hour and 59 minutes of finale. Taylor Hicks is the fifth American Idol.

Of course, things are really just beginning for Taylor. First there is the Idols Live Tour, and then the album many fans have been waiting for.

But before we get to that point, we have to do for Taylor what we did for all the people he beat since the semi-finals. Just as we examined the reasons they all lost, we will also use What ‘American Idol 5’ Contestants Need to Know to figure out exactly why Taylor won.

The first rule holds a key piece of information. It says you have to have singing and performing talent. There’s no doubt that Taylor has both in abundance. With that said, there were a couple of better pure singers on the show. However, they did not meet all of the criteria of the first rule. It specifically says, “Pure vocals are not enough, you need to perform the song.”

Taylor performed almost every single song he did. Often he could be seen dancing around the stage (or into the audience), showing personality and pretty much emanating fun. On those songs where he stayed center-stage, he put his whole voice into it and still managed to perform it well without bouncing around. Taylor was undoubtedly the best performer of the season.

Taylor also excelled at picking his songs. He knew what he liked, he knew what the audience liked, and he made the two match (unlike some previous Idols, who focused on what they liked and forgot about the audience). Taylor even managed to find a loophole on the night when people were supposed to perform songs from the current Billboard charts. He found a Beatles song! It really was a great move, because singing current songs is probably one of the most dangerous things an Idol can do – it’s too easy to compare the contestant to the current singer, and the contestant usually loses.

Taylor used his brains when picking songs, and in a way he helped show why we even have columns like this one. If it were all simply about who sang the best, there would be no need to examine why people lost or won. But strategy is a part of American Idol, and Taylor seemed to understand that.

The third rule says to be consistent and have the ability to sing different genres. I would say Taylor was probably the most consistent of the Idols this season. Katharine, as discussed in Why Katharine Lost suffered from nerves occasionally and did not hit it out of the ballpark every time. Taylor was not perfect, but he missed less often than the others.

Taylor also did well in moving from genre to genre. As noted above, he was smart in picking which songs best suited him, and that was the case each week, no matter what type of song he had to perform.

For the fourth rule, Taylor absolutely nailed it. It says to be unique. Mind you, we have to credit genetics for a large part of it, but there was no way anybody would forget the gray-haired guy once he gave his first audition. Add to that the “Wooo!”s and shouts of “Soul Patrol,” and Taylor gave us somebody who could not ever be confused with anyone else. He also had a style and personality all his own, which further set him apart from the others. He stood out, and this gave him the opportunity to earn fans early in the competition – an enviable place to be.

Similarly, Taylor was certainly memorable. In fact, he may well have been the most memorable from the get-go. There were others, of course, from Paris to Kellie to Chris, but Taylor had the ability to stand out. There was no way anybody would ever forget him.

The sixth rule was a non-issue, as Taylor followed it and did not argue with the judges. But few people did this season. Contestants may finally be getting smart!

Seventh is the reminder to contestants that they are a package. Taylor certainly understood this, again showing how strategy and brains can come into play even in a singing competition. In fact, Taylor created such a recognizable package that he was mimicked on Saturday Night Live. Perhaps it should have been at that point that we realized he was destined to be the American Idol (then again, they did a skit on William Hung back in his day, so perhaps it’s not an automatic indicator).

The whole Taylor package helped to create his fan base. People began joining this group as soon as his initial audition aired, and the base only got bigger. Again, Taylor helped to get his fan base galvanized. Do you think all the shout-outs to the Soul Patrol were just Taylor shouting random things? Heck, no. What better way to get people to vote than to make them feel like he was talking directly to them? It was nothing short of brilliant. While Clay never really acknowledged Clay Nation while he was in the competition, Taylor lifted up the Soul Patrol and made them a household name. This, in turn, encouraged more people to join them and vote for Taylor.

Indeed, his fan base is what made it so clear Taylor would win. When it became apparent that there would be enough phone capacity and time (with a four-hour voting window), that pretty much sealed the deal. Without the extra time, there was the chance for a statistical tie, but adding that in meant Katharine’s fans would have be as dedicated as the Soul Patrol, and that simply was not going to happen.

Indeed, before the finale aired, Foxes On Idol Associate Editor Betsy Wasser mentioned to me that she predicted Ryan Seacrest would not talk about how close the vote was, as he often has done. She was dead-on. And why wouldn’t he talk about it? Likely because it wasn’t close and there was no point in highlighting that fact.

In order to gather that fan base, Taylor had to do quite a bit of work. He brought a unique look, style, and personality to Idol, and that attracted people from the very beginning. He continued by showing amazing performance skills and quite a bit of consistency, and he wasn’t afraid to use his brain, not just his vocal cords. Put all these things together, and there is no way Katharine could really compete with him. That is why Taylor won.

USA TODAY

'Idol' worship

Posted 5/24/2006 10:35 PM ET

WHY IS AMERICAN IDOL SO POPULAR ?

Television, it is often said, has never been the same since the arrival of cable, satellite and the Internet. Audiences are more fragmented and shows are more targeted, making it hard for the medium to serve as the electronic public square that it once did.
Apparently, no one has told that to the producers of American Idol. Nearly 32 million households were tuned to the show Tuesday night to watch this year's two finalists, Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee, perform three songs each. Similar numbers likely watched Wednesday night when Hicks was anointed the winner. What's more, Idol's audience is growing from year to year, which is unusual for so-called reality shows that often lose viewers once their novelty wears off.

Idol might be today's equivalent to The Ed Sullivan Show, which from 1948 to '71 was must-watch fare for families around the country. Like the Sullivan show, Idol attracts huge audiences and helps launch careers. And like the Sullivan show, it's something that people of differing races, genders and generations can share.

At the risk of sounding overly effusive toward television, which is consumed in far too abundant quantities, there is a valuable function in a show like this. It has no objectionable content, no snakes or leeches, no contrived spontaneity and no Donald Trump.

Perhaps the show's success is the result of its simple concept. Virtually anyone can try out. It has a host and three judges, who select winners in the early rounds. In the later rounds, the judges merely opine while the winners are selected by millions of people who vote, often more than once, with telephones and wireless gizmos.

Or perhaps Idol's success is in how it encapsulates so much of American culture. It delivers instant celebrity, the ultimate dream in a nation of dreamers. And it almost perfectly mimics, or perhaps spoofs, the U.S. political system — with its drawn-out campaigns, its imperfect elections, its annoying commentators.

American Idol's success proves that the nation can still be brought together by a TV show. At a time of contentious political and cultural division, it's a useful reminder that Americans still share common bonds.