It Was the Homophobes

Over at the Huffington Post they're bemoaning the results of American Idol:

The best singer didn't win a freaking singing contest.

When Kris Allen defeated Adam Lambert as the Season 8 "American Idol," it was, as predicted, a seismic upset. The Chicago Sun-Times said, "David slayed Goliath." Endless bloggers posted reactions like "The biggest robbery since Bush stole the election" and "The end of American Idol's last hope at relevance."

Everyone, from the judges to Google to Yahoo to the Vegas odds makers, predicted a Lambert victory. They were right, and everyone knows it. In the end homophobia won, and everyone knows it.

Yes, homophobia is alive and well, which is why Lambert lost the ultimate title. Go ahead -- give me another reason. Yes, Lambert is over the top and screams a lot and is campier than Liberace at Radio City. Sure, Kris Allen is a cutie, and has pleasant enough vocals, and he's nice. But a better singer, or performer, than Lambert? Please.

First of all, let me say that I never watched a single episode of Idol this year, and have only watched one episode in the show's entire run (that was the night the big black guy nobody remembers beat Clay Aiken). Although I had seen pictures of the finalists I had never heard either one sing.

At 10pm Wednesday night I was sitting in a hotel in Santa Rosa, CA and tuned in the local Fox channel to watch the news. Idol was running long and I found myself watching Queen and the two finalists singing "We Are the Champions". I already knew that Kris Allen was going to win (thanks to East Coast Twitterers), and after hearing just a small part of that song I knew why. He was the better singer.

I found Lambert's brassy voice with the machine gun vibrato annoying and not the least bit pleasant to listen to. Maybe that's just me, but apparently a lot of America felt the same way. There's more to singing than screaming and emoting, and Allen seemed to have the more pleasing voice.

Call it homophobia if you wish, but based on my brief exposure to both singers, I think the right guy won.

UPDATE: According to this report the vote wasn't close. If it was the homophobes that cost Adam the win there must be a lot of them.