really suprised that was all the "final four" had to offer last night.
at this point, why are they picking their own songs...vs letting the producers make the shows and performances way better.
The contestants usually pick their own songs - part of showing what kind of "artist" they want to be - up until the final. That allows the judges to tell them "Bad song choice, Dawg.." or "you had so many songs to choose from, why did you pick THAT one??" and so on... It also allowed Adam Lambert
to shine as he was very savvy about what songs to sing, and had researched possibilities and arrangements before going into the competition. The song "Mad World" is an example of an arrangement he'd known about and performed so well. Actually, this was somewhat true for David Archuleta and his dad, as well.
There have been various scenarios for the finale, with the judges picking their last songs, the producer picking the song, Clive Davis picking the songs... In the early days, they both had to sing the same "new song written just for the show." It gave Kelly Clarkson a huge victory, as her plastic faced competitor - Justin Guarino - sounded horrible on the same song. (Mind you, Kelly was and is an amazing singer, and Justin was not, but until then, he had quite a fan base and it wasn't clear who would win - unless you ask my DH) Then there were separate songs written for the final contestants. Unfortunately, that led to the person winning who had the best song, or best voice for the range of the song.
Re: last night. I actually loved Crystal's song, and the duet with Lee was also good, but there have been better duets in the past. Allison and Adam rocked together. Big Mike and Casey as a duet was just weird. Their voices are so different, and it felt like many of the songs that they put together for the "group sings" on results night. Lee sounded like he was losing his voice through his solo.