He Had Me At Hello

America just crowned their new idol and it's David. No, not David Archuleta as I thought would happen twelve weeks ago, but David Cook, a 25 year old bartender from Missouri.

He may not have started out as the hot favourite but his ability to interpret songs from just about any genre into an emo-rock performance began to garner him votes week after week like a slow burner. Soon many of Archie's fans jumped ship (including yours truly) and hopped onto Cookie's bandwagon even as one by one, the lesser idols fell by the wayside.

By the time the two David locked horns in the finale, it was already a forgone conclusion that the man who could rock out Billie Jean AND Always Be My Baby would join the elite few whom they call an American Idol.

He had so many standout performances throughout the competition, from the aforementioned Billie Jean to Roberta Flack's The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face to Phantom Of The Opera's Music Of The Night. For me, I will always remember the first time he caught my attention (and not let go since). It was way back during the round of 16 when he transformed Lionel Richie's Hello into an unrecogniseable but utterly fantastic rock ballad.



I guess you could say that David Cook had me at Hello.