Kansas Citian David Cook Wins American Idol
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Kitchen Sink, Media, Missouri, Music
I don’t watch really like the show so I never care who wins, but this is a hometown boy we’re talking about here so some props are in order for the guy who won the second most popular election in 2008.
Seriously, check out these numbers…
A record 97 million votes were cast overall, 23 million more than American Idol’s previous high. In the end, Cook won by a relatively wide margin, 56% to 44%, or 12 million votes.
In contrast, 122,267,553 votes were cast in the 2004 presidential contest. So to call this the second most popular election in 2008 is probably an accurate prediction.
And to think it almost didn’t happen…
Ironically, Cook never intended to audition for Idol. He accompanied his younger brother Andrew to an audition in Omaha, Neb. and was talked into applying himself. He performed Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”, and was vaulted through to the next round. At the Hollywood auditions, Cook performed Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be.”He caught the judges’ attention and became a serious contender after he performed Chris Cornell’s arrangement of the Michael Jackson standard Billie Jean, in a performance program in March. Cook then went on to perform songs by The Who (”Baba O’Riley”), Switchfoot (”Dare You To Move”) and Emily Shackleton (”What I’m Looking For”).
Cook is not entirely new to the music scene. He formed a garage band, Axium, in 1999, and was its [singer] for six years. One of the band’s songs was picked up by the AMC Theatres movie chain in the U.S. and played on more than 20,000 screens during trailer previews.
Again, congrats David!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Kitchen Sink, Media, Missouri, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 am
I wish people would stop comparing AI to Presidential elections! Remember, people can (and do) vote multiple times for the AI. You are comparing number of votes cast with number of people casting votes… apples & oranges in this case.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Haha, okay Amy. I’ll stop doing that right after this post. :-)
June 21st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
With the number of votes, it just shows how popular David is and how deserving he is to be the american idol