First, I want to congratulate David Cook on winning. The 25 year-old rocker from Blue Springs, MO was my personal favorite this season. There was a record of over 97 million votes (which was 23 million more than the previous high) and it is reported that Cook received somewhere between 54-56% of those votes defeating his opponent by an impressive 12 million votes.

Now back to the 80s angle...
It started the night before where Cook performed the U2 classic from 1987, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," at the request of Clive Davis. Here is a link to the video of that performance. Then there was discussion that he might have made a mistake when he chose to perform the 1995 Collective Soul song "The World I Know" for the first time instead repeating one of his more popular performances from this season. Those performances were both covers of 80s tunes including Michael Jackson's 1983 hit "Billie Jean" [link to video of Cook's performance] and Lionel Richie's 1984 ballad "Hello" [link to video of Cook's performance].

That is just a small taste of what would happen on the finale. During the finale there was an obvious 80s influence. David Cook would perform with ZZ Top their 1983 hit "Sharp Dressed Man." The Top 6 girls would begin a medley of Donna Summer songs with the 1983 hit "She Works Hard For The Money." Then the Top 6 guys would perform a medley of hits from the 1984 Bryan Adams album Reckless including "Summer of ‘69," "Heaven" and "Somebody." Here is a link to the video of that performance from the show. To top it all off, the entire Top 12 performed a medley of George Michael hits including "Faith" and "Father Figure" which were both from the 1987 album Faith. Here is a link to the video of that performance as well. This medley was followed by a solo performance by the former member of Wham! himself.

I don't know about you, but that is quite a bit of 80s nostalgia if you ask me. If you know me, you know that I was loving those connections back to my favorite decade. They even had commercials that harkened back to the 80s. There were two new commercials for the video game Guitar Hero which starred the American Idol finalists. These commercials were based on the iconic scene from the 1983 movie Risky Business where Tom Cruise's character is dancing around his living room in his underwear. Like in the movie, the commercial is set to the Bob Seger classic "Old Time Rock and Roll." Here is a link to watch both of the commercials and also a link to a short article that discussed the commercials.

I am not sure what any of this means in the big scheme of things, but I was pleased to see the 80s represent in one of the biggest pop culture phenomenoms happening today. One other note on the finale, I felt the sketch which starred Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. auditioning to be the original Pips was very funny. Here is a link to the video where those guys were morphed into old Gladys Knight footage from a 1972 performance of her hit "Midnight Train to Georgia." On the other hand, the Mike Myers appearance as a blatant promo for his new movie was forced and not very funny at all.

Here is a link to the article I posted earlier this year which discussed the influence of American Idol on the musical charts. Interesting enough, as of today (May 24, 2008) six songs performed at the finale are currently appearing in the iTunes Top 100 songs. David Cook's "The Time of My Life" currently ranks #1 on this chart. "Apologize" by OneRepublic ranks #20 today which is not all that surprising. The George Michael song which he performed, "Praying For Time," was originally released in 1990 but ranks #56 today. The ZZ Top version of "Sharp Dressed Man" comes in at #68 and the Bryan Adams version of "Summer of ‘69" comes in at #80 both 25 years after originally being released. The Jeff Buckley version of "Hallelujah" showed back up at #99 after Jason Castro performed it again at the finale. These songs could have been even higher closer to when the finale aired and it just goes to show the impact this show can have on the music charts.

I am looking forward to when David Cook releases his first album. I was a fan of Blake Lewis last season and I really enjoy his first album Audio Day Dream even though it did not sell all that well. Here is an interesting link to let you know what many of the more popular contestants from past seasons are up to now. Not all have had the level of success that Carrie Underwood or Chris Daughtry have recently, but many have found respectable levels of their own. Like they say, cream tends to rise to the top and that is what American Idol in most cases allows to happen.

That will wrap up this issue of Kickin' it Old School. Thanks so much for taking the time to read it, especially if you are a regular reader. If you are looking for my other 80s related articles, click on this link here. If you have missed any past issues at all, please click on the Archive buttons in the upper left hand column. Peace and much love.

Check this out: You may have heard about this already, but I thought it was pretty interesting. There is a website at www.exboyfriendjewelry.com that has the slogan "You don't want it. He can't have it back." This site allows you buy, sell or trade old jewelry from those relationships that have gone bad. One of the coolest aspects to this site is that you can opt to have the proceeds from your sale donated directly to the Susan G. Komen Foundation which supports breast cancer research. You can go to the website to find further details and the full story behind how this site began. Great idea!

Quote of the day: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." -Albert Einstein

Download this: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2 - You can also download the David Cook version on iTunes right now which I feel was pretty solid itself