Earning The Victory: Five Things Your 'Idol' Winner Did Right

by Linda Holmes

By now, you have probably heard that Kris Allen won this year's American Idol. You may also have participated in one of the many raging battles about whether his final-round opponent, Adam Lambert, was robbed.

If you haven't, feel free to pop down after the jump, where we'll talk about the fact that there are some very good arguments to support the case that the right guy came out on top.

Five things done right to plant the crown where it wound up, after the jump...

I'm going to guess that much of the coverage you will hear about the American Idol result in the 24 hours after its conclusion will focus on why Lambert — media favorite, judges' favorite — didn't win, as opposed to why Kris Allen did.

And you will hear a lot of theories, and some of them will have merit. And all of them will provide, at best, a partial explanation of why Lambert didn't walk away with the title.

What none of that will explain is why Allen, who was completely invisible for almost the entire audition/Hollywood period — and who started off the season with a thoroughly underwhelming performance of Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror," of all things — wound up winning the show.

Seriously, if someone had told you early in the season that the trophy was destined to go somewhere other than into the hands of Lambert, who got the vast majority of the judges' praise and the media attention throughout the season, you still wouldn't have thought "Oh, well, then Kris Allen seems like a good choice."

More people would have bet on a surprise victory for Paula Abdul.

Yes, there were some noteworthy flameouts by other worthy-looking competitors (Lil Rounds, we hardly knew ye). But ... Kris Allen? Little Kris Allen, from Conway, Ark., who auditioned with the newsboy cap?

Really?

Nobody I know picked him to win at the beginning of the season — or even as of the announcement of the Top 13. And that's nobody out of a lot of armchair prognosticators.

So the question isn't just, "How on earth did he best Adam Lambert?" It's "How did he best Danny Gokey, Allison Iraheta, Matt Giraud, Scott McIntyre, and more than a few other people who seemed like likelier winners than he was, and who received infinitely more attention and praise in the early stages, when the show producers have the most power to direct the season's story?"

Here are five things he did right.

1. "Falling Slowly." (Watch it.) One of the things people like to think you have when they vote for you is musical credibility. They don't mind if you like to sing radio pop, but they like to think you know some music other than radio pop.

On movie night, when there were not one but two cheesy Bryan Adams songs in the mix, along with "Endless Love" and other overplayed choices, Kris picked the Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova ballad "Falling Slowly," the luscious Oscar-winner from Once.

Judge Kara DioGuardi talked about what a risk it was to play such an "obscure" song, but Kris received widespread raves that night, not only for doing a good job with that song, but for knowing that song and caring about that song enough to want to do it in the first place. Up until then, he was pretty and pleasant, but when you align yourself with Once, you become momentarily indie, whether in truth or simply in popular perception. And that was precisely what Kris needed to lend him one thing he didn't really have: musical credibility.

2. "She Works Hard For The Money." (Watch it.) Disco Night is an enormously easy trap to fall into, because the judges don't really want you to sing disco. They will make fun of you if you do. They want you to perform a disco song in whatever way allows you to escape the evening with your life.

I didn't actually care for this performance myself, but it was the first time Allen aggressively reworked something in a way that identified the kind of singer — an acoustic, bongo-influenced, laid-back sort of a guy — he intended to be. It's one thing to repeatedly pick that kind of song; it's another thing to take a song that's not like that and deliver it as if it is. That's when you escape the "karaoke" label that can fall on your shoulders if you get too good at picking exclusively songs that sound exactly like the kind of singer you think you are.

3. "To Make You Feel My Love." (Watch it.) Kris Allen is a crafty guy. He likes to change arrangements, he likes to throw stuff into songs, but with this extraordinarily pretty Bob Dylan tune, he sang it very simply (for American Idol, especially).

Here's the thing: This show is horrible — horribly horrible — when it comes to overarranged, oversung, overembellished performances that seem rooted in a philosophy that says, "Dear John Lennon: Thank you for writing 'Imagine.' I will now improve the melody for you, because I'm sure you would have put in all these flourishes, if only you'd thought of it."

This is an exception, a really self-assured performance in which Allen places a lot of faith in the original melody. It reads to some people as "boring," but it reads to others as oozing confidence, both in your voice and in the song. For many people, this was only the third time they'd heard him sing, and he made it count.

4. Avoiding mistakes. There are a few ways to win this show, but there are many, many, many ways to lose it. People don't like it when you try too hard, they don't like it when you talk back to the judges, they don't like it when you talk about how great you are, they don't like it when you choose a song that's much too big for your voice, and they don't like it when you seem to be taking their support for granted.

You do have to be a good singer, but you ultimately have to make people feel like they want to vote for you — American Idol is, partly and in the purest sense, a popularity contest. There are voters who say, "I can't stand this guy, but I voted for him because he's the better singer," but (1) they are extraordinarily rare, and (2) they are often lying. Generally, people have to like you at least a little, or they won't pick up the phone.

Most of the major turn-offs — self-pity, self-aggrandizement, snooty responses to criticism — were landmines Allen avoided all season, despite repeatedly being told by the judges that he barely deserved to be there. He even stood calmly and took it on the last night before his big victory, when the judges gave him a wildly condescending "Buck up, little camper!" speech about how proud he should be of himself and how his inevitable loss was nothing to be ashamed of.

5. "Heartless." (Watch it.) When there were three guys left — Allen, Lambert, and Danny Gokey — they sang one song that had been chosen for them by the judges and then one song they chose for themselves. In the second round, Gokey chose to sing "You Are So Beautiful" with the band. Lambert chose to sing Aerosmith's "Cryin'" with the band.

Canny little Kris — who had in the first round been saddled with OneRepublic's ubiquitous but dull "Apologize," while judges' favorite Adam was assigned U2's iconic "One" — wandered out onto the great big stage alone with his acoustic guitar. And he covered Kanye West's "Heartless" with an a cappella intro.

The only one of the final three to prominently play an instrument, Kris liberally used both guitar and piano performances as the competition narrowed, and it was a wise move. Something in people responds to a guy who's out there by himself with his guitar — he looks brave, whether or not he is. And if you like what you hear, he gets to absorb all the credit. There's no band to acknowledge; there's nobody on stage to thank.

There's no doubt that Lambert was a polarizing contestant for a wide variety of reasons. There's no doubt that a substantial number of people voted against him.

But don't underestimate The Little Idol Who Could, And Should, And Did, because he did plenty of things to put himself where he is right now.