Post by Admin on May 24, 2022 1:04:38 GMT
American Idol: Noah Thompson REACTS to Winning!
11,808 views May 24, 2022 ‘Extra’ spoke to Noah Thompson moments after he won ‘American Idol.’
A star was born in the USA on Sunday, when American Idol Season 20’s Springsteen-themed finale climaxed with Kentucky construction worker Noah Thompson winning the Idol title. This result was slightly surprising, considering that regularly gigging country-rocker HunterGirl had been pushed as this year’s golden girl ever since judge Luke Bryan had hand-delivered her the series’ first-ever coveted platinum ticket. Meanwhile, Noah — who had no vocal training or professional experience — had only tried out for the show because his co-worker Arthur had secretly signed him up. (“He’s not born to be working with us,” Arthur told the judges on the Season 20 premiere, giving a passionate speech that made it seem like he was also auditioning… to be Noah’s manager or publicist.)
Viewers apparently agreed with Arthur, or at least connected to Noah’s classic underdog Idol story. But runner-up HunterGirl and third-place indie troubadour Leah Marlene definitely gave Noah some stiff competition Sunday. Any of the three contestants could have been the Boss of this season, based on their final performances.
The three-hour finale started with the top three performing songs by the ultimate all-American rock ‘n’ roll idol, Bruce Springsteen (an Idol first), and while I would have loved for this season’s crop of country/American/indie singers to take a shot at a Nebraska or Born to Run track, they all interestingly went with Born in the USA tunes. Leah chose the least obvious song, “Cover Me,” and while it was a sexy, self-assured performance that leaned heavily into that ‘80s-stadium-rock thing she did so well with last week’s Journey and Pretenders covers, judge Lionel Richie seemed to think the leftfield choice would hurt her, warning, “I'm telling you, it is important: Song choice is everything now. Familiarity — you want the audience to be singing along with you.” Lionel still assured Leah that even if “Cover Me” was “not that familiar,” she “turned it into her song regardless,” and Katy Perry thought it was “such a groove” and called Leah “the whole package.” But then Katy told Leah, in what seemed like a diplomatic kiss-off, “Just the amount of growth that you've done in such a short amount of time, you've won, period — end of story.”